I Have Loved You with an Everlasting Love
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I Have Loved You with an Everlasting Love
God’s children, the Israelites, were being punished with captivity in Babylon. It was a time of deprivation, humiliation and great distress. They were paying dearly for their years of sin and rebellion against the LORD. Hind sight is always better than foresight. Before, they had arrogantly imagined they could live as they pleased because it was their life, and no one supposedly had a right to boss them around — not even God. They had refused to listen to God’s prophets, who had warned them repeatedly to stop their idol worship, their following of the heathen traditions around them, their loose morals, and their constant dishonesty, lies, and cheatings.
After years of refusing to turn back to God, the Lord finally kept His promise to punish them for all their waywardness. It is easier for our sinful natures to feel some remorse for our sins when we’re in the middle of being punished for them. It did take some time in captivity for the Israelites to more seriously want to turn back to the LORD, because His ways really were good and righteous.
When Jeremiah prophesied about the changes that would take place in their hearts, he told them about the proclamation of love that God had declared. In Jeremiah 31:3, God says,
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
That is the same love God has for us — “an everlasting love“. It is because of God’s “everlasting love“ for us that He keeps on drawing us with His lovingkindness. And that is exactly why we should never, ever despise God’s patience and lovingkindness towards us. We aren’t getting away with anything when God is simply being patient with us. Just because we experience God’s “lovingkindness“ in our lives does not mean we have full rein to live as we please, in all sorts of wantoness and heathenistic ways.
To the contrary. When we experience God’s lovingkindness in all the blessings we have, that is our Creator and Lord wanting to draw our hearts to Him in praise and sincere fellowship. After all, God is the Creator of all things — and we are only a very small speck in all His creation. We are not in authority over all things — the LORD God Almighty is.
And so, we really should listen to His declaration of love for us — and ask for His mercy in keeping us on the right track of faith, hope, and love, according to the love and salvation He has given us in Jesus Christ. After all — “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19 )
Knowing we are loved “with an everlasting love“, we step forward as God’s children should, and live for the One who suffered and died to pay for all our sins — so that we might have eternal life. Standing strong in truth and faith, we say, “Hallelujah! My Lord, Your everlasting love in Jesus Christ is our only salvation. Let us always live in Your love.”
Love,
Margaret
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A Christian devotional to glorify the LORD of lords and God of gods
This is the day which the LORD has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24
The word of the LORD is tried;
He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.
Psalm 18:30
Sing for joy in the LORD, O you righteous ones;
Praise is becoming to the upright.
Psalm 33:1
How blessed are those who dwell in Thy house!
They are ever praising Thee.
Psalm 84:4
Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.
Psalm 103:13
Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Psalm 107:1
Glory in His holy name;
Let the heart of those who seek the LORD be glad.
Psalm 105:3
Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that
I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12
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