“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Did you know that the prophet Jeremiah was writing at a time of great national hardship (it seems like this is endemic to people since the Fall). It was also a time of great despair because Jerusalem had fallen to the invading Babylonians. God had judged His people and sent them into exile in Babylon. Yet even in midst of their divine discipline, there was still reason for hope, because God was not finished with them yet. But in our day, there is so much real and perceived hardship that we don’t see the hope in God’s Word toward His people. Or, if we see it we don’t trust it to be so. We find that we are not and cannot be content with the fact that we have been given salvation and that be enough…so we fret and stew and doubt which leads us …even us who have been redeemed… to despair and struggle.
However, it is still true, just like then, that God disciplines His children out of His great steadfast love. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases…” What kind of father would let his children do anything they please without providing discipline and course correction along the way? God never for a moment stopped loving and caring for His people, even when He was disciplining them. This is His great love. Hebrew 12:5-8- “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.’ This is the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases so that we will experience the hope that He has given us in times of hardship and struggle. Our God is always with us…never letting us go, no matter what.
Next the text says, “…His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…” The biblical understanding of the word “mercy” is God withholding just punishment. Where grace is God giving us what we do not deserve, mercy is God withholding what we do deserve. Make no mistake, God takes pity on all of His children. And His pity, which is perfect in every way, seeks the highest good of His children, even when that good is delivered through painful severe providences. We like grace…the problem is that we don’t think enough about God’s mercy and how that was dealt with by Christ on the Cross on our behalf. We also, all too often, put these together as the same thing. God has shown mercy and grace to us to be sure but we should understand the difference so that we can understand how great our salvation actually is.
Just as the sun rises each morning to bring new light into the day, God’s mercies rise each morning to bring new hope into our day. Paul tells us that Christ is rich in mercy…his mercy never can be exhausted. So, we practically wake up to mercy each day, because God is on the throne of our lives and is working everything together for our good and His glory. Every morning is a new beginning, an opportunity for us to start afresh, secure in the knowledge that He who began this good work in us will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6).
Nothing will stand in the way of our God and His ultimate goal for our lives, which is conforming us to the image and likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 8:28-30- “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” Please re-read that and bow your head and ask God’s forgiveness for not living like you believe this. Great is His faithfulness to do this and bring us home at the right time.
So . . . did you wake up to mercy this morning? Did you sip from the cup of His steadfast love? We all have those mornings when we get up on the “wrong side of the bed.” But even in the midst of those bad days, we must remember that God got us up that morning to give Him glory, and He will give us everything we need to do that very thing. We can count on His mercies being new every morning because He says so and he delights in us as His children. Even when we have blown it badly, we wake up to mercy because Jesus is our loving, merciful Savior, not giving us what we deserve because of His grace…and He is always faithful to His own even when we aren’t!
Do we know this? Then let us strive to act accordingly because “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Hold on to this familiar passage today and live victorious in Christ who lives in us to day and always.
God Bless y’all today.
In His Grip,
Pastor Mike
