“I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for my anger has turned away from him” Hosea 14:4

Though Peter has denied Jesus three times, just as Jesus had predicted, these denials were not the end of the story.

After the resurrection, Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me more than these” And Peter replied, “Yes, Lord. You know that I love you". And Jesus said, “Tend my lambs.” Then, Jesus again asked Peter, “Do you love me?” And Peter replied, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you”. And Jesus said, “Shepherd my sheep” Then, yet again, a third time Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And Peter replied, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you”. And Jesus said, “Tend my sheep”. Just as Peter had denied Jesus three times, Jesus, by way of the crucial question “Do you love me?” restored Peter three times.

However different our circumstances may be from Peter’s, in many ways, the principle is the same. That is, the question that Jesus had asked Peter is really the ultimate question that God poses to each of us in our time and place: “Do you love me?” Everything depends on our answer to that question.

God not only asked us, “Do you love me?” but loves each person, and does so freely. Indeed, He freely loves you and me, and every other person more than we could possibly imagine. And we know this love by the way He acted in the history of His people.

Not long after God’s amazing deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel had rebelled against God and worshipped a golden calf. When Moses came down from the mountain, he saw what they had done, and he threw down the tablets containing the ten commandments and shattered them. Though the people had forfeited any right to the covenant privileges and blessings that God had freely bestowed on them, God freely chose to continue with them in covenant relationship anyway despite their unworthiness for the covenant blessings.

The words of Exodus 33:19, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion”, are often misunderstood to mean that God arbitrarily chooses to be compassionate and gracious to some, but not others. Our creator can grant grace and compassion freely to even the most undeserving of people.