Unfailing love

“How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!” – Psalm 36.7

From Dave Atkinson:

I’m really enjoying our current sermon series “God’s Dictionary” in which we’ve seen how the biblical meaning of words contrasts so widely with how our culture uses and understands them. If you’ve missed any of them, I’d encourage you to catch up by either watching the recording on YouTube or downloading the podcast from our website.

When we looked at the Bible’s view of love, I was struck afresh by the wonderful security that is found in God’s love. We were reminded that because God loved us while we were still sinners, and, that he loved us so much that Jesus died for us, then, we can be sure that he won’t stop loving us.

In the Bible, that security which we have in God’s love is often described as unfailing, or steadfast, love – and it is one of my favourite recurring themes of the Bible narrative.

In choosing a verse about God’s unfailing love, I could have gone to one of about 25 of the Psalms in which the writers, in good times and bad, when experiencing injustice, fear or suffering, find security in the unfailing love of God to sustain them. Or, how about Exodus 15, where, in the song of Moses and Miriam, they celebrate how God’s unfailing love for those he has saved, means that he will always lead and protect his people. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hosea all praise God for his unfailing love – promised and seen through even the worst of circumstances.

But I went for this verse in Psalm 36 because here, David, the writer, exclaims how priceless, how precious, is God’s unfailing love. David recognises that God’s love is of immeasurable value – because it beats everything! God’s unfailing love is reliable, unchanging, inexhaustible, relentless, true, everlasting.

The great news is that although God’s unfailing love for his people is priceless, it is a free gift to those who put their trust in the saving work of Jesus on the cross.

If you have submitted your life to Jesus and put your faith in him alone, you have the security of God’s unfailing love. However you are feeling today, if you know Jesus you are encompassed by God’s unfailing love – and you cannot be separated from it (as Paul tells us in Romans 8.39).

Can I invite you today to reflect on God’s unfailing love? As you do, my prayer is that you will be filled with joy so that you too will exclaim in praise: How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!”