August 17
God’s Steadfast Love
Meditate a little on this steadfast love of the Lord. It is tender love. With gentle, loving touch, He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He is as gracious in the manner of His steadfast love as in the matter of it. It is great steadfast love. There is nothing little in God; His steadfast love is like Himself-it is infinite. You cannot measure it. His mercy is so great that it forgives great sins to great sinners after great lengths of time and then gives great favors and great privileges and raises us up to great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God.
It is undeserved steadfast love, as indeed all true mercy must be, for deserved mercy is only a misnomer for justice. There was no right on the sinner's part to the kind consideration of the Most High; had the rebel been doomed at once to eternal fire he would have richly merited the doom, and if delivered from wrath, sovereign love alone has found a cause, for there was none in the sinner himself. It is rich steadfast love. Some things are great but have little efficacy in them, but this steadfast love is a tonic to your drooping spirits, a golden ointment to your bleeding wounds, a heavenly bandage to your broken bones, a royal chariot for your weary feet, a bosom of love for your trembling heart.
It is manifold steadfast love. As Bunyan says, "All the flowers in God's garden are double." There is no single steadfast love. You may think you have only one steadfast love, but you will find it to be a whole cluster of mercies. It is abounding steadfast love. Millions have received it, but far from its being exhausted, it is as fresh, as full, and as free as ever. It is unfailing steadfast love. It will never leave you. If mercy is your friend, mercy will be with you in temptation to keep you from yielding, with you in trouble to prevent you from sinking, with you in living to be the light and life of your countenance, and with you in dying to be the joy of your soul when earthly comfort is ebbing fast.
Family Bible reading plan
verse 1 1 Samuel 9
verse 2 Romans 7
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From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
