I imagine Abraham, sitting and looking at the sky and wondering "Who made me?"

God, clearly said, I am so glad you asked that question and what followed was a wonderful conversation that we are still privy to today. God continues to reveal His love and commitment to Abraham and those who follow him in faith and questions. God's catechism to us about Himself is far more abundant and searching and clear. I made you, He shouts, I love you, He bellows in every loud thunder. I am trying to tell you about myself. Let me show you Me, He cries, but first you must see you. You are unfaithful, inconsiderate, untrue. I am making a vow that I will love you, Abraham and I will spend the rest of time showing you myself and fleshing out the reality of our love. One member of the Trinity reveals Himself to Abraham in holiness and power. He gets a glimpse of the triunity of God, at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, if you were the only sinner on the earth and I was going to love you I would have to have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah to reach to you. That is how sinful you are. All of those people could not pay for your sins. Only a perfect substitute, only the two immutable things by which God could and would and does not lie. Where is it? Abraham must have wondered. We are trying to live right as we can. God thunders and cajoles His holiness in Sodom. Come to me, please. He implores. Do we come? Every question is answered in the truth of God's holiness. What is wrong with us? God is holy. We are not. How do we get there? He provides the means and the way in and through the Lord Jesus. He has paid it all and answered every question of why we are not with God. We are not holy. Abraham was not holy. Sodom and Gomorrah were not holy. The heathen nations were not holy. Let us reason from the greater to the lesser. Why should a holy God care about us? He promised to care. He started this conversation for His own glory. He gave us His commitment to be drawn by His love and we will be drawn. When God starts catechising and showing off the love He has for us, it is breathtaking. Look at the stars, Abraham, He says, I will keep showing you the love I have, in that your children will be numberless like the stars. I am not an impotent God, He displays, but I am showing the lengths to which my love is reaching to make a way for helpless sinners to be mine, my very own, my purchased posession. What can separate us from the love of God? He is committed, when I am not committed; he will draw me with His love. I come in confession and awareness of my unworthiness.

The goodness of God leads to repentance.

The picture of Ephraim in Hosea was as close to a gentile as the people of God could perceive in that day. ie. Inbred duplicity in the ranks. Heathen for years and years, born of Israel, but a heart that is half of Egypt and half of Israel. Can they be saved? No, says the religious heart. God saw something good in me and that is why I am here, we imagine, if we are self righteous. He couldn't have a plan for Ephraim or the heathen nations. God called Hosea to lay out the reality of God's love, even for the heathen nations to Israel. Could God love them? Could God really pay the price of sin for heathen people? The religious heart thinks itself somewhat worthy of the love of God. That is the greatest deception of all. God didn't choose Abraham to make self righteous deceived people. He paid for Abraham and all who come to God in faith in Christ. He loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives and that plan is to make us holy. To clean us up, like a mangy puppy and help us learn to be clean. My heart walks like an Egyptian and is black, can He cleanse it? He is Holy! Make us know our true estate and humble ourselves to know You more.