HIS LOVE, HIS MERCIES, HIS FAITHFULNESS - PART 2

THURSDAY 11 APRIL 2024

HIS LOVE, HIS MERCIES, HIS FAITHFULNESS - PART 2

We may never be actually fulfilled in ourselves, if we do not glory in God's love, His mercies and His faithfulness demonstrated in Christ Jesus, who died and rose for us, and indwell us now, and in whom we remain.

Reference: Lamentations 3:22-23 English Standard Version (ESV)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

The first segment to be expounded by my humble self is:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

The steadfast love of God is the only source of strength that never fails. It is everlasting and unshakeable, and it carries tremendous force of unspeakable comfort beyond anything we can fully comprehend or imagine.

Personally, I strongly believe that the devil has really deceived those souls whom he persuades to ignore the steadfast love of God, unco accompanied by overwhelming benefits. Surely, when you begin to grasp the wonder of His redeeming love, you'll pour out your soul before God and desire to know more of this love by pressing forward to reach the dimensions of its perfection.

To that effect, according to His epistolary expression, Paul prayed for the saints in Ephesus saying, "Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God" (Ephesians 3:17-19 NLT).

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and Paul having prayed for the Ephesians to experience this love of Christ (or love of God), also acknowledged that it is too great to be fully comprehended because of the manifold dimensions which are infinitely long, wide, high and deep. This is the love that came to establish peace where division and hostility strongly ruled without being challenged. This same Jerusalem that Prophet Jeremiah lamented upon, is the city that embraced the tradition of separating the Jews from the Gentiles.

In fact, in the Jerusalem temple, heightened pillars and wall made of stones separated the Jewish worshippers from the Gentiles. However, the steadfast love of God, which is the non-discriminatory or unbiased radiance of God's love, prevailed through Christ, thereby dismantling the wall and ended the segregation because God wanted two people to become one, which has been a glorious plan in His eternal purpose or before the foundation of the world.

Christ is the One that gave a great honour or expression to the love of God, and we see the result of this steadfast love explained by apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:11-16 where He shed light on how the Jews and Gentiles were reconciled through Christ. The context of the passage reads:

"Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called "uncircumcision" by that which is called "circumcision" (in the flesh, made by hands), that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man of the two, making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility through it" (Ephesians 2:11-16 WEB).

I believe that the above versified passage is self-explanatory. On the basis of this truth communicated in the passage, I can rightly inform that the glorious atmosphere often exuded by steadfast love of the Lord - is totally absent anywhere a wall of hostility continues to exist, which are pitched or put up to strategically separate people by race, tradition, religion, class, culture and gender.

Therefore, as a born again Christian, you should desire to know God's love more and more, by aiming to be and function like Christ as you build yourself with the Word, so that your roots will deeply grow into His unconditional love and keep you strong from embracing the concept of observing walls that the enemies of the glorious gospel have pitched, thereby contradicting the reassuring solidity and efficacy of God's steadfast love.

Stay tuned for more on God's love in part 3. Shalom! 

Scripture Reading - Psalm 13:5; Psalm 26:3; Psalm 77:8; Psalm 136:1; Isaiah 63:7; Micah 7:18.

Guided Prayer:

Gracious Father in heaven, you are the author of steadfast love which exerts glorious disposition existing in my life. You rule my heart with the unfailing love of your spiritual presence, and by blessing me with the knowledge of your perfect will, the Holy Spirit produces in me, such a justifying joy and peaceful favour, hence empowering me to function markedly, in your grace and mercy, in Jesus' Name, Amen!