OUR GREAT HOPE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:19-23

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

If we took the Book of Lamentations up to this point of our study, it wouldn’t be something we would suggest someone read if they were looking for encouragement. For through the first two chapters and eighteen verses into the third, we see what God’s judgment looks like through the lens of those who were going through it. Those people were the Israelites, God’s people.

We know that the consequences of God only came after the Israelites refused to turn away from their sinful worship practices after they turned their devotion and adoration to false pagan gods and idols in direct disobedience of God’s command not to do so. Even when God sent warnings to His people through prophets, the people still rejected those warnings and continued to sin, essentially daring Him to bring judgment on them.

Bad move on their part.

We know this because God’s punishment came by way of powerful Babylonian forces who ran roughshod over Judah and Jerusalem, leaving both in ruins before hauling away all the people into captivity for seventy years. It’s this experience that underscores the sadness and despair we read in this book of the Bible, never leaving us to wonder why it was named Lamentations.

But hold on just a minute, for as we get a third of the way into Chapter 3, we find the tone of Lamentations change slightly and finally receive some positive words from the Israelites, words that we can hold onto today as well for encouragement. In the first of several devotions based on this shift toward the positive side of things, we are going to see that even in the midst of hardship, we have a great hope that no one can ever take from us. Look again at these verses:

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.  Lamentations 3:19-23

The Israelites are in the midst of terrible difficulty. They have watched their nation, their cities, and their homes looted and demolished. Anything that they had of value was stolen from them. Nothing in the place they called home was left inhabitable so where did the people stay? Well, they ended up being taken away to a foreign land called Babylon where they would be forced to fend for themselves in the midst of deep oppression and enslavement. Even getting the bare essentials such as food was a struggle, a far cry from the life of comfort and provision they had before God’s punishment came. It was a new life built on the foundation of suffering and affliction, a bitter life that led to downcast spirits and souls.

Yet, in the midst of all this darkness, the voice in today’s passage has not lost sight of a glimmer of light, a light that continued to keep the flame of hope burning within their heart and mind.

What was that great hope?

Here’s the words they shared, words that have been an encouragement to myself and so many other through the ages since this scripture was penned:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

Let’s break this down into smaller pieces and savor the different sacred components that comprise this promise that brings hope:

1. The Lord has a great love for His people.

“Because of the Lord’s great love”

The voice speaking out to us from Lamentations goes onto say that it’s because of the Lord’s great love that we are not consumed but you could plug in any number of other words after the base statement like:

Because of the Lord’s great love, we know how to love others.

or

Because of the Lord’s great love, we never need to feel alone or unloved.

or

Because of the Lord’s great love, He sent His Son Jesus to die for us and bring us salvation.

You get the point. Think about anything that we gain from the Lord and we can make a direct correlation to the fact that He grants us His blessings out of His deep love for us. And frankly, even when He disciplines us, it’s out of His great love for He desires we turn from sin to become the people He wants us to be, people free from the grips of Satan who choose righteousness over wickedness.

2. The Lord’s compassions never fail.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.”

Only a Lord of mercy, grace, and compassion would choose not to completely obliterate every sinner off of creation and that would mean wipe out every person living. Scripture affirms that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and yet He still chooses to allow us to live and love and learn through this thing called life. His compassions never fail and, for that promise we have every reason to rejoice and give thanks as we experience His mercies anew every morning.

3. The Lord shows us great faithfulness.

“Great is Your faithfulness.”

Think about it. We so often are unfaithful to God, rejecting His word, will, and way to chase after our desires or the desires of someone else. God never is the first to turn away from us; rather, we are the ones who initiate a turning away from Him.

This was what the Israelites did. They snubbed God and gave their attention to other gods instead. In turn, God could have just let them go down the road of sure destruction but He didn’t. So great was His faithfulness that He would not allow His people to continue to sin without correction. He faithfully worked to get them back on the right track and then even through in a bonus for them. For after they had paid the seventy year penalty He was imposing on them, He would allow them to return to the land He had given to their ancestors many generations before. Once back, the Israelites would be able to rebuild their nation, their cities and towns, their homes, and their relationship with God.

Why would God do this?

Because He is always faithful to His promises.

Yes, in the Lord we have a great hope that shines brightly in good or bad times, a hope that is born out of the great love and compassion of a God who always shows great faithfulness to His people.

Won’t you rejoice and be glad in this truth today just as much as the person who speaks in our scripture from Lamentations was more than 2,000 years ago?

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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