The One Who Lavishes His Love
“The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
Jeremiah 31:3
Tears streamed down my face as I thought back to the tiredness present within my heart. I felt a heaviness within my soul that I knew I could no longer push to the side or try to bury.
I was overwhelmed with questions and old wounds which attempted to take hold of my heart.
I was living in the past rather than walking in the freedom I was called to in Christ.
It was evident that I needed to be reminded that my Heavenly Father still loved me. That my identity was found in Him alone. That I could rest in the knowledge, His embrace was all I needed, that I could fall into His arms and take refuge in His embrace. I needed to know that His presence was made perfect in my weakness. I needed to know that He still cared.
As I began to let myself feel, the tears continued to come. Yet, I felt within my soul a comfort from my Heavenly Father and knowledge in which the truth within my head made its way once again to my heart. My God loved me, and I was met with an embrace amid my sorrow. I opened my heart to Him, and the Lord met me there.
There was a single verse in my heart that persisted in calling me back to the truth, despite my ever-wavering feelings:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).
Behind the Verse
This portion of Scripture reminded me of the God to whom I serve. Just when my heart needed to cling and be established in the truth, His word pointed me toward the love and grace of my heavenly Father.
This passage extends from the period in which God’s people, Judah’s nation (referred to as the remnant), were in rebellion against God. They had rejected the ways of God and had indulged in practices that were quite horrid, serving idols in utter defiance against the Lord. As a result, their protection was lifted, and God allowed the people to be taken into captivity by the Babylonian empire.
Addressed as exiles in a foreign land, undoubtedly, they were left in agonizing pain as they treaded forcibly into the unknown. They were left with questions and in desperate need of their identity reaffirmed in the face of adversity. They must have wondered, has God left us completely? What is our identity? They, too, needed to recall the character of the God they served.
So how did God address them? He gave them hope.
Chapter 31 of Jeremiah discloses a grander narrative that encapsulates the rise to turn their gaze to the Lord. Though there were consequences, the people were claimed by God, His chosen possession. He uttered these words through Jeremiah,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” (Jer. 31:3).
The prophet reminded the people that though their current circumstances looked dim, God’s love had remained unchanged.
The Lord is pointing them to a time when He will make a new convent or promise to His people. He still cared for them and loved them with an everlasting love.
He was calling them onward.
Though these words given by the Lord were spoken to a specific group of people during perhaps their greatest challenge yet, it underlies several truths that call us to the character of the living God.
The Depth of His Care
From this passage, we are reminded of two imperative truths underlying who God is. God is unchanging, the same today as He was in that time. He speaks to us through the written Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Through learning about how God itneracted with people who had rebelled against Hi, His heart is revealed. We obtain a glimpse of the graciousness of our God, who offered His people security for those who did not have a home. His faithfulness was their shield and rampart (Psalm 91:4). Just earlier, He had filled His people with a promise that He still had plans for their well-being amidst their unnerving set of circumstances (Jer. 29:11). The Lord did preserve His people and protected them during their time in exile. He provided a way for them to return, as we see in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra later. And later, His people would bring forth the Saviour, Jesus Christ.
The living God cared deeply for His people. And He cares for us now despite our wanderings or shortcomings, whether we have drifted off the path or are struggling to hang on. Whether we are struggling to believe in His promises or believe that He has not left us to our own devices amid our pain, perhaps you need to be reminded. The Lord deeply cares for us. His love does not waver.
He demonstrated on the cross the depth of that care and is continually at work in the lives of His children through the presence of the Holy Spirit. He has not forsaken you.
God’s Love is Eternal
The second truth that extends from this passage is this: God’s love is eternal. It is not dependent on anything but is completely self-sufficient. It is not reactionary to us, for we love only because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Not tied to our performance, our ability to love God, or even the desire within our hearts. This proves as a profound comfort to the weary soul.
Christian Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard makes this concept abundantly clear in his famous work, Works of Love. He states:
“Consequently, only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally secure. This security of the eternal casts out all anxiety and makes the love perfect, perfectly secure” (Works of Love, 47).
Eternal love is the independent freedom to love, negating the reactionary response received by the object of love. Or in other words, not conditional on the performance of the other person.
Accordingly, there is a distinct restfulness that follows this statement: God’s love is everlasting. From this place, we can find rest in the knowledge that God loves us despite how we may be feeling right now. His love has not waivered, for He is love itself, and it is steadfast. This truth ought not to produce complacency but should cause the true believer to turn their heads upwards to the God who is unchanging. This encompasses surrender to the living God, a necessity to seek and pursue the God who first saved us, and a promise given to the exiles earlier in the book of Jeremiah (Jer. 29:13).
It should inspire a form of desire to not strive towards acceptance of God but to get close to love itself.
It is noteworthy to mention that this does not entail a license to indulge in sin. The Lord’s everlasting love should not be taken for granted by conducting ourselves in things that grieve the heart of God. As followers of Christ, our focus and proper response to God’s everlasting love is not an indulgence to selfish ambition but rather a wholehearted surrender to the one who first sought us. He is love, but He is also holy. As such, we must walk in a matter worthy of the calling we have received (Ephesians 4:1). This does not mean that we will walk in perfection, but it does change where our focus is, and shapes the attitude of our hearts.
What His love means is that you can come back to God and find rest once again. You have room to grow and develop in your knowledge of who God is, for He is faithful. As the Lord loved His people freely, so we are dearly loved.
Scripture states:
“if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. (2 Tim. 22:13)
This is the God we serve. He is not altered by us but is all-powerful, all-loving, and worthy of our praise and adoration. And it is from this place that we can extend that love to one another.
Draw near to your Heavenly Father today.
Blessings,
