Jeremiah 31:3, 4


The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again, and you…will be rebuilt ~ Jeremiah 31:3, 4

This is a beautiful love song, sung from God to His children, as he declares his everlasting love. This love is love from of old, which means, his love has not changed from its inception. What kind of love is this? We fall in and out of love, we even fall in and out of like! God, in his great mercy, never changes, never falls out of love with us, even in our times of failure! He draws us with loving kindness, the author says. The Lord lengthens out his mercy toward us, giving us more time to come to Him, to love Him back in the way he loves us! How gently and tenderly he calls us back into the fold of his care. Yet this tenderness may be shrouded in the early stages. He does not usually begin by giving us light and peace, and comfort. No, he plagues us with darkness that can be felt. He makes sweet sin become bitter, and pours gall into our lives so that we become weary and wounded. The Lord must kill what is inside us before he can make us alive. There, God reveals himself, in our anguish, and there when our own self has died, God comes with his boundless love when we lie at death’s door, and reveals himself. Take care, my friend, that when he should show himself that you do not lose him again; hold fast to Him. And this then will be the result: you will be rebuilt! Joy in opposition to the grief you suffered is set in place. You will dance with holy joy, you will be adorned and have spiritual joy such as you have not had before, and you will rejoice in freedom from the oppression from which you came! And you will be His own!
Devotion by Pastor Julia

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