The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness, (3:22-23).
Lovingkindness and Compassion is not exactly the image that rose to the forefront of my thoughts in the first twenty verses of this chapter. For as the writer continues his lament, he details anything but a positive place of love, kindness, and compassion. Instead he describes a harsh reality relentlessly inflicted by the very hand of God.
Surely against me He has turned His hand
Repeatedly all the day, (3:3).
Consider the brutish and pitiless existence explicitly illustrated in the writer’s description of this current catastrophe he now calls his life: affliction, wrath, darkness, flesh and skin waste away, bitterness, hardship, like those who have long been dead, walled in, made my chain heavy, shuts out my prayer, blocked my ways, made my paths crooked, like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in secret places, torn me to pieces, made me desolate, set me as a target, a laughingstock, bitterness, drunk with wormwood, broken my teeth with gravel, cower in the dust, soul rejected from peace, forgotten happiness, strength and hope have perished. Sounds like the complete antithesis of Lovingkindness and Compassion.
But in this book that “consists solely of laments,” hope rises from out of the ash heap of sorrow. And although there is justifiable cause to lament what once was and now is, there is still a conviction that God has not changed. And while all feels hopeless, the truth is, our hope is in Who He is, and He is Unchanging.
God is not a man who lies,
or a son of man who changes His mind.
Does He speak and not act,
or promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19 HCSB).
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, (Hebrews 13:8).
And His Word repeatedly proclaims that because His Love is Unchanging, Unceasing, and Unfailing, we have all we need to live with unchanging, unceasing, unfailing hope as we wait for His deliverance.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
26 It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord, (3:24-25).
We all know that when life changes, the temptation comes to think He has changed too. And while Jeremiah’s people find themselves in this place because they worked hard to get to there, worked hard in their own effort, worked hard to refuse to listen and trust Him, the truth is, sometimes life touches the most faithful of God’s children.
So, today, I invite you to join me on a journey through His Word to consider Him in the midst of changing times, changing circumstances, changing society, changing people. For whether change has been brought on by our own stubborn stiff-necked rebellion or through no fault of our own, when everything around us changes, He does not. His Love in Unchanging, Unceasing and Unfailing.
Consider His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love
Today let’s take time to prayerfully consider the twelve passages below; six from the Old Testament and six from the New Testament; each one highlighting His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love. Unchanging as revealed throughout every page of His Unchanging Word; Unceasing even when we cease to walk in unwavering faith; Unfailing even in all our failures.
The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness, (3:22-23).
Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments, (Deuteronomy 7:9).
But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth, (Psalm 86:15).
Give thanks to the God of heaven,
For His lovingkindness is everlasting, (Psalm 136:26).
The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness,” (Jeremiah 31:3).
For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake,
But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you,
And My covenant of peace will not be shaken,”
Says the Lord who has compassion on you, (Isaiah 54:10).
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life, (John 3:16).
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends,” (John 15:13).
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, (Romans 5:8).
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, (Romans 8:38-39).
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), (Ephesians 2:4-5).
See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are… (1 John 3:1).
How do we respond to His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love?
When life turns on a dime, when afflictions abound and trouble arrives by the truckload, when the changes of life tempt us to believe He has changed, we must purposely recall His promises and the Truth of His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love.
Perhaps we need to memorize one of the verses above so when depression, despondency and despair darken our way with doubt, His Word hidden in our heart will shine the light on His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love to dispel the darkness and encourage our hearts in unchanging, unceasing, unfailing hope as we wait for His deliverance.
Today, and every day, let us follow the lead of the Weeping Prophet, that even in the worst of times we would have hope as we recall His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love.
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
22 The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness, (3:21-23).
And throughout our life, let us seek to follow the lead of the One Who Loved us first with His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love.
We love, because He first loved us, (1 John 4:19).
Oh, that we would love as He Loves us, that all those who know us would know we follow Him, and perhaps they too would be drawn to know His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another,” (John 13:34-35).
Rather than living a life of lamenting our faithlessness and failures, let us pray that we would live to demonstrate our love for Him as we walk in obedience and in His Unchanging, Unceasing, Unfailing Love.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments,” (John 14:15).