Ed Lawrence via Facebook The Revelation ! To speak of God’s unconditional love is to utter a wonderful fact about God’s nature. He loves because He chooses to love and for no other reason. His love is not dependent upon finding something in us that merits His love. His love is without conditions — it is unconditional. This kind of love is expressed in the Lord’s words to Israel: 7 “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but becausethe LORD loves you . . .” (Deut. 7:7- 8). In other words, God loves because He chooses to love, not because of a reason found outside of Himself. God’s unconditional love is revealed throughout the Old and New Testaments, but in no other place in the Bible do we see the unconditional nature of His love as in the book of Hosea. We see God’s unconditional love coming to the least likely object of love —an object that does not merit or deserve love by any human standard. As we look into the book of Hosea, may the Lord by His Spirit give us a fresh revelation of God’s unconditional love! Consider how the revelation of God’s unconditional love affects us. First, it affects our relationship to the Lord. Knowing His love, even understanding what God’s unconditional love is, will have a tremendous effect on how we relate to the Lord day by day. Second, God’s unconditional love also affects how I relate to myself. It affects how I feel about myself and how I understand myself in light of my relationship with God. Third, understanding and enjoying this realm of God’s unconditional love greatly affects our relationships with one another in the Body of Christ. Fourth, it affects our relationship to humanity — to fallen man, to those who are lost. And fifth, God’s unconditional love affects our relationship to His eternal purpose. God’s love toward us always has a goal in view, and that goal is absolutely related to His purpose being worked out in this universe. So we see that God’s unconditional love affects all these areas — my relationship with God, with myself, with the saints, with every human being, and with God’s eternal purpose.