Unfailing Love

Do you know what is exhausting? Living your life trying to please man, trying to be loved by man. Because we are sinners and can't love one another perfectly. No, not even that perfect relationship you crave will give you that perfect love you desire. But do you know what is amazing? We have a God who can offer this to us.

Let's start in the Old Testament. God has always been pursuing his people, since the beginning of time. Failure after failure, trial after trial God still relentlessly pursues the Israelites even after they forsake him time and time again.

In Exodus 19:4 God says, "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself." Even when the Israelites denied an intimate fellowship with God, he still pursued them relentlessly.

Besides the people of Israel there are other various individuals whom God also pursued.

Job is one example. After having everything taken away, God did not leave him. Job cries "He has redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and my life shall look upon the light." (Job 33:28) The story of Job, in the words of Elisabeth Elliot, shows how "God's story never ends in ashes." He is with us to the end.

The story of Jacob is one of God's relentless pursuing as well. In Genesis 32:26, Jacob says, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The chapter is about him wrestling with God, and it wasn't until that night that he realized God's great and un-ending love for him--and he surrendered.

Jacob, Job, and the Israelites were not the only people who benefited from God's unfailing love. There was Noah, Samuel, Enoch, and David. The list could go on and on. There is a pattern in the Bible of God's consistent and evident love,  and a relentless pursuit of his people. It is mind boggling. How can such a powerful God have so much love for us?

David in the Psalms proclaims: " When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (8:3)

It is simply un-fathomable. The God who owns the stars wants MY heart. Wow.

My purpose in going back into the early history of the Bible is to show that our God is the same as He always has been. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

In your life you will experience difficulties, failures, triumphs, joys, and sorrows. It’s inevitable in a world full of sin. But what a comforting thing to know that God's love is endless. When people fail you, when a relationship doesn't work out, or a friend lets you down, you can still know the HE loves you with an endless love. He has bought you. He has died for you.

For a while, I had a mindset that resorted to one of two things. Extreme vanity or self-loathing. I spent an un-healthy amount of time trying to be a people pleaser, sought affirmation and social status. It was a tiresome battle.  Then I realized I can never be loved perfectly by the people I'm surrounded by. But when I realized the depth of true love, perfect love, only offered by my savior, I was more than ok with that.

Tim Keller says it best. "To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us."

We are fully known and loved by the God of the universe. If that isn't comforting then I don't know what is. He has shown his faithfulness throughout the ages. The creator of the universe wants you--and there is not anything you can give him but yourself.