July 14: Of the Permanence of God’s Love

1 Chronicles 16:37-18:17

Romans 2:1-24

Psalm 10:16-18

Proverbs 19:8-9

1 Chr 16:8 "…Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men on earth"

1 Chr 16:11-14 "I will raise up your offspring to succeed you…I will establish his kingdom…I will establish his throne forever…I will be his Father, and he will be My son.  I will never take My love away from him…I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever…"

If you are anything like me and my wife, you want some measure of security for yourself, and you want abundance for your children.   Then you read today's reading and then you wish God would make you the same promises He made David, but then you think David deserved them because - well, look at all he'd done!  And if you stop there, especially if you are like me, you conclude the sinner you are does not deserve the kind of promises God gave David.  

I'm going to say the same thing God put in my head this morning when I was reading this reading (a day late, admittedly - apologies!).  STOP.   God doesn't make us promises, God doesn't bless us because we are perfect.  Remember - when God was making these long term promises, David had yet to (1) commit adultery with Bathsheba and, in the process (2) murder Uriah; he had yet to (3) condone his sons' bad behavior.  But God already knew the plans He had for David, and for David's children.

When we sin, we kick start a vicious cycle.  We separate ourselves from God; the separation makes us susceptible to the lies of the evil one, who reminds us how unworthy we are of God's love, and so we stay away, making us susceptible to even more lies, and so on.  The truth is, we aren't worthy.  We are never worthy, by our own strength.  And, like David, we will turn away.  

But what is equally true is this: as He did with David, God loves us despite the sins He knows we are going to commit.  Like David, we can trust  that He will be our Father, and we will be His children, and He will never take His love away from us.  

Father, when we sin, as inevitably we will, remind us of the persistence of Your love, and help us to draw back to You as David did.