great is thy faithfulness

The Word for today:
Lamentations 3

mark this: Lamentations 3:22-24 --
It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

Jeremiah comes to realize that the destruction of Jerusalem is God’s faithfulness to His own word:
The LORD has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his word, which he decreed long ago. (2:17)

Four hundred years earlier, in Deuteronomy, God had promised that if His people would love Him and follow Him, He would open the windows of heaven and pour out blessing. If, however, His people forsook Him and ignored the prophets that He sent to them, destruction would fall:
But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. (Deuteronomy 28:15)

God was patient, and gave the people opportunity to repent. But ultimately, God was faithful to His word. And, odd as it may sound, Jeremiah learned that God is faithful by the thoroughness of judgment!

***

God is utterly faithful to His promises. Many people want to believe that God is so loving, so tenderhearted, so indulgent that he won’t really do what he says he is going to do; that he won’t really judge sin.

But even when his own son bore sin, God unflinchingly kept his word:
He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all...
Now consider the last half of that verse:
… how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (1)

The Good News is that one side of this promise is as true as the other side. As surely as he judged Jesus, so surely will he forgive and bless us.

Great is thy faithfulness!

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(1) Romans 8:32