“Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love, which you have shown from long ages past. Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord.”
Psalm 25:6-7 NLT
Twice in these two verses, David mentioned the Lord’s “unfailing love”. Love is just one of God’s attributes, along with His justice, holiness, righteousness, and even His anger. But we pilgrims know all about these but only in an imperfect way. In Genesis 1 we read, “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. …”. So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26a-27). If we are made in God’s image then we will have His attributes as well, although sin has corrupted them greatly.
So what is God’s love? Paul gave us a good definition of human love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance”. God’s love is all of this but taken to the nth degree, and the Bible is the story of God’s love for mankind, with a crescendo coinciding with the first coming of Jesus. We all know the Scripture, “for God so loved the world ..”, and there was no greater demonstration of God’s love than that. To think that the Creator of the Universe would stoop so low as to visit this planet at all would have demonstrated His love for us, but then to die for us so that we could receive forgiveness for our sins in the Divine Exchange was, and still is, beyond human understanding. David wrote, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6). It’s this pursuing thing that we humans greatly underestimate. God’s love is something that is active and vibrant, and the very thought must drive us to our knees in grateful worship.
Paul wrote about the pinnacle of God’s “unfailing love” in Romans 5:6, 8, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. … But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners”. There were other examples of God’s love for His people in the Bible, and perhaps the most poignant and telling is the story of Hosea, who God asked to prophetically marry a prostitute, demonstrating His love for the adulterous nation of Israel. Time and time again, God’s “unfailing love” leaps from the pages of Scripture, a love that never died or failed.
God made covenants with His people, covenants of love and commitment such as with Moses that we can read in Exodus 34:6-7a, “The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. …”. The thing about God is that, once a covenant is made between Him and His people, He never breaks it. The human party to the covenant, as the Israelites demonstrated time and again, would often break their side of the covenant, but God never did. In Exodus 34:10a we read, “The Lord replied, “Listen, I am making a covenant with you in the presence of all your people. …”. That Mosaic covenant, sealed with the blood of animals for forgiveness of sins, was superseded by Jesus, as we read about Jesus, God’s Son, in Hebrews 9:15, “That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant”. God’s “unfailing love” was such that He sent His Son as the ultimate blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Now that’s “unfailing love”, the ultimate demonstration of God’s love for all eternity.
Dear Father God. Your love for us knows no bounds. We can never thank You enough. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 