by Collective on Youversion
The Everlasting Love Of God
Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness”
The children of Israel repeatedly sinned against God. Even after many warnings, they failed to repent. But our God is a gracious God. Despite their stubbornness, He still initiated restoration.
In Jeremiah 31, we read how God reached out to His people with kindness birthed out of a deep sense of everlasting love for them. This love is anchored in eternity past and it extends to eternity future.
God is the source of this love. He is not motivated by what He sees or what has happened. It is simply who He is, His nature. There is nothing we can do to earn His love nor remove His love for us.
And with His unfailing kindness, He patiently and lovingly draws us to Him. This is the extent of the magnanimity of His love, that God would wait for us to respond to Him.
Come to think of it, who are we that God would do such a thing for us? I believe this only shows us who He really is.
With the assurance of His love for us, it is important that we are secure. We are to love Him and serve others out of a place of safety.
Let’s not get caught up in the acts of “doing” to gain God’s love, but rather allow ourselves to work from a place that we are already at. A place of love.
Then we are not doing all these works to gain more of His love, but rather out of our love, in response to His.
We do not live our lives as orphans, constantly striving for acceptance, but as children of God, we live in peace in the courtyard of our Father in Heaven.
Reflection:
Now that you know you are loved forevermore, how will it affect the way you live, love and serve?
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jeremiah 31:33-34
Are you Andrew hale f4om Newark Delaware?
No, ma’am. No Andrews in our family.