![]() We know that isn’t right, we fight against our doubting hearts and try to reassure ourselves with truth. “ He brought us out of Egypt for this?” Some of us don’t need to imagine this anger, this pain, this sense that maybe God has forgotten or betrayed you. Imagine the seeds of distrust that were blooming into outright trees of anger and pain. If God so loved and forgave us, especially in Christ on the cross, we should be like him and love and forgive others.God’s children spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness. The source of God’s willingness to show us so much grace, even when we have run after other Gods, is simply his love and kindness, which is unfailing. “Therefore I am now going to allure her I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” In Hosea 2:14, after telling Hosea to go and take back his wife who had left him to become a prostitute, God says he will do the same thing with adulterous Israel. #3 “I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Everything he does to bring us to repentance, no matter how painful, is the work of a good Father whose love is everlasting. He can discipline us for a while, but he never stops loving us, even when he seems distant. Why couldn’t God just be done with his chosen people when they were so clearly unwilling to keep his commandments? Because his love is an everlasting love. #2 “saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love ” The former is preferable, but either way, the important part is that God could be aloof and distant but chooses to come to us to bring us back to him by grace. That the Lord had appeared to them is certain, but the Hebrew for “in the past” has been translated by some as “from afar.” Jeremiah is either saying that the message of hope God was giving them was consistent with the one he is giving now (Jer 30) or he is saying that God is far away in the sense that they have gone far from God in their sin and rebellion, but God calls and can still be heard from that distance. #1 “The Lord appeared to us in the past,” Breaking Down the Key Parts of Jeremiah 31:3 Rather than running from him, we must run to him. He will draw us, but we must turn to him and leave behind our old ways. Ultimately, God’s unfailing kindness resulted in sending his Son, Jesus, to take on our sins and the wrath of God for our rebellion so that we could live and not die (Jn 3:16-18). But he also loves us so much that he will discipline us in order to bring us back. ![]() ![]() He will forgive us just as he has taught us to forgive, seven times seventy (Mt 18:22). No matter what we are going through in this life, we can always repent and turn back to him. In this chapter, God promises to faithfully restore them again as he did in the past. In the previous chapter, it says, “Because of your great guilt and many sins I have done these things to you” (Jer 30:15). The Israelites have been suffering the discipline of God for failure to keep their side the covenant they have made with him. “The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.’” Explanation and Commentary of Jeremiah 31:3 ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |