EVERLASTING LOVE OF GOD

_“... I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” (Jeremiah 31: 3)_

God’s Word states clearly that if we sin against God we will reap its consequence.  A recompense will come to us for the evil we have indulged in flesh.  Whether it is blatant, open, sensual evil or whether it is inward - spiritual pride, bitterness or hatred.  It makes no difference. Evil brings its own results.  God tells us that there will be pain and heartache and trouble because of the evil of our past.  We know how the Lord dealt with the Israelites in the past for their sins.  This is the Scriptural principle.  Paul says in Galatians 6: 7, “Don’t fool yourself. God is not cheated.  Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”  But behind the darkness and the distress is the everlasting love of God.  As a father’s love, the Lord’s love is tender toward His people.  In Jeremiah 31: 3  the Lord says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”  The word “everlasting” is one of those words which baffle us.  It is hard to define it even in the original language.  It means more than “duration”, more than merely “eternal”.  Let your mind run back to the past over all the years of history and you come to a place when finally you cannot just think any further. Now let your mind run to the future, and you come to the same kind of haziness, a place where you no longer can comprehend what the ages mean  where times and durations are meaningless.  This is the mystery of the Word, everlasting.  It is a word which means, “beyond dimension”, “greater than we think “.  Such is God’s love.  This is what Paul expresses in Ephesians 3: 17-19, “You being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.”

Dear friends, God promises to be with us in our pain and distress. He will not allow the hurt to damage us, but He will produce in us the character that He desires.  So let us not try to escape the consequences but go through them with God and come out of them gloriously.

*PRAYER* :  Lord, I have disobeyed You and followed the desires of my evil heart. I am now facing the consequences.  But You, out of Your great love for me will preserve my life.  You will not destroy me but You will enable me to come out as a transformed person glorifying Your name.  Amen.