An Everlasting Love

“The Lord appeared to him [Israel, His people] from far away, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued My faithfulness to you. Again I shall build you and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.’ “ –Jeremiah 31:3-4

During the entire month of February, these daily devotionals have dealt with some aspect of love. February is traditionally the month of love, with Valentine’s Day and all it implies. I’ve typed them with red ink to emphasize the thread of God’s love that reaches from Creation to the Cross and from the Cross to the victor’s Crown. Every month and every day is a “God is love” and “God loves me” time. For this last day of February, let us consider that God loves us unconditionally with a love that is everlasting.

My dear early pastor, Rev. Claud Boynton, a marvelous Bible teacher and minister, taught us that we should examine carefully the context of a scripture to learn more of the situation and its implications for our understanding of a passage. Jeremiah began prophesying about 626 B. C. in the thirteenth year of the reign of good King Josiah. This king, who led religious reforms in Judah, died in 609 B. C. He was Judah’s last great king. Jeremiah’s prophesying ended shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of Solomon’s Temple which occured in 587 B. C. under Babylonian attack.

Jeremiah warned the people of impending destruction. But he called people to hope as he gave a prophecy concerning the restoration of Israel after exile. Chapters 31 – 33 give the promises of this restoration of Israel. Within that context, the above quoted verses appear. Jeremiah, the spokesman for God, gives God’s Word to the people: “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

What a remarkable, incomprehensible concept: “God loves me with an everlasting love.” He loves all humanity with an everlasting love. What hopeless, helpless people God loves! Think of Abraham, Father of many nations, who feared Egypt’s monarch and passed his wife Sarah off as his sister. There’s Moses who in anger broke the tablets of the Ten Commandments. And Aaron, Moses’ brother and spokesman, who was dancing around the altar of the golden calf with the rest of the Israelites when Moses returned from the mountain where he’d received the Ten Commandments. But don’t think the buck stops with these patriarchs of old whom God loved despite their rebellion. Have we, ourselves, not been like Judah when Jeremiah preached his heart out to them for change and repentance? We have gone our own way, disregarding God’s covenant and God’s call. Yet God declares through the ages, even to this present day, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” He wants to restore us. Like Jeremiah’s message of restoration in chapters 31-33, God calls us to a wedding party. Bring out the tambourines. Start the dance. We’re going to have a celebration! God loves us with an everlasting love.

Go to Revelation and we see that love call continued. Like the Son of Man, the Lord Himself, walking among the golden candlesticks (the churches), wrote to the church at Laodicea, in Revelation 3:19-22: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with Me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (ESV)

“I have loved you with an everlasting love.” God’s drawing power is unbelievable. His agape love is incredible, always present, from age to age the same. He just will not let us go. Not now. Not in eternity. Praise be to God!

c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Sunday, February 28, 2010