„I have loved you with an everlasting love”

(Jeremiah 31,3)

 
The love of God is not a passing feeling.

Its intensity is seen in giving up His Son to be our Savior and Redeemer.

It is manifested in His eternal saving purpose whereby He engages all His divine power to bring us to glory, so that we may enjoy His love forever.

His love is immutable, it will never change. „How shall I give thee up?” (Hos 11,8). „Having loved his own… he loved them to the end” (John 13,1).

His everlasting love is victorious, it knows no defeat. It is the final source of my God-ward desires. I am loved by Him;  so I can love Him.

I go the Him because He draws me with His infallible love.

It is an all-conquering love. As Isaac Watts put it, “Love so amazing, so divine / Demands my soul, my life, my all”.

Lord,

my salvation rest on your love. And I am saved to love you forever.

Thank you. Amen.

„…God guaranteed his covenant with me,
   Spelled it out plainly
      and kept every promised word—
   My entire salvation,
      my every desire.”

(2Samuel 23, 5 / The Message Bible)

These are the last words of King David. He was a prolific writer, whose poetry is still with us. Our hymn books and sermons are graced with his thoughts; a man „after God’s heart”. I would not say that these are the last words he uttered before dying, but I believe, he worked on these lines carefully, and left them behind as his last testament.

Read it again, meditate on these phrases!

    God’s guarantee.

         Covenant with me.

              Plain words, and promises kept.

                   Entire salvation.

                        My world of desires.

I woke early this morning. After meditating on the king’s testimony in 2Samuel 23, I need to ready myself for a day of activities: meeting with people, working, writing, talking with my kids and Gyöngyöm about our lives, listening to others about theirs, etc.

 
My God! How could I retell to all of them this message about the guarantees of God? How careful I need to be, to stay within the confines of the Covenant! Do I understand the Word, and will I recognize Him keeping His promises throughout the day? Can I hope that this “entire salvation” will encompass everything, even my prayers for that young man persecuted by the Devil thousands of miles away? Am I willing to roll down my desires to the very end? And even then – will they be OK-d by Him?

„Great salvation he brings…”

(2Samuel 22,51)

 
Hannah’s jubilant song of thanksgiving and David’s song of praise form a poetic frame for the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. A duo of earthlings, a mother and a king, whose entrance to the theatre of human events was just as incidental as yours and mine, now speak of the greatest experience we may have: they see the approaching great salvation of God. Hannah’s gratitude for Samuel and David’s reflection on personal and national victories are the starting points, but what they see on the horizon, God’s future mercies closing on them, the “great salvation he brings” is the main point of their testimony.

 It is not easy to be thankful. A “Thank-you” forwarded to God in thought or song falls short of His purposes if it deals only with the past. Guidance given, problems solved, prayers answered are acts of a God, who is much bigger than what you and I have seen Him to be. He is even mightier than the sum total of our common experiences. That is why faith’s appreciation is really thankfulness projected into the future. These songs end on the note of gratitude of greater expectations. True thankfulness starts from the past, but takes us to the future.

 How thankful are you? What is the tense dominating in your prayer of thanksgiving? The past tense does not do justice to a God waiting on us in the future.

 Lord, help me to turn from my personal victories toward the approaching salvation, when the whole World will be filled with your glory! Amen.

Three things are too much for even the earth to bear,
yes, four things shake its foundations—
when the janitor becomes the boss,
when a fool gets rich,
when a whore is voted "woman of the year,"
when a "girlfriend" replaces a faithful wife.

(Proverbs 30,21-23)

As a young man I despised them, but lately I am learning to appreciate the usefulness of lists. The shopping list comes handy in the store, just as the post-it stickers all around the house remind me commitments yet to be fulfilled, things to grab, and important tasks to attend. Once superfluous, nowadays I consider them practical necessities. Putting things in order, readying myself for those uncomfortable lapses in memory, guarding against interfering thoughts and tasks while trying to accomplish something – lists are my new friends.

In the Sixth Chapter of Proverbs we find a list of hateful things as observed by Solomon, and in Chapter 30 there are five other lists, created by Agur, the son of Jakeh. I put these lists on my list; Lord’s willing I plan to preach on them next Spring. They call on us to pay more attention to life. They remind us, that life seeks to follow a created pattern, and violations to that pattern just simply don’t fit. People who insist on living by their own pattern, are fools – teaches this book of wisdom. So, keep these lists close to your heart, use them to weigh your actions, because the artful Weaver of Life’s Patterns wants to keep you on track!

Agur’s lists are not intended to be exhaustive. I am sure, you will agree, this third out of the five, as quoted form the Message Bible is a list of circumstances that offend common sense. Just think about them for a moment, have a mental picture of them, and go on living the life God intended for you!

Each of these situations pictures a person in the wrong place. A boss (in other translations, “the king”) should learn to serve, but do not give the reign to the servant. The great “invention of the French Revolution”, copied by the Leninists was, to turn the whole world upside down. Rulers made in the instant turned out to be even more unfit than the ones they have replaced. The well-fed bonehead will miss the lessons to be learned in situations that would otherwise awaken him to his foolishness. When society worships whoredom, the sense of beauty is lost. Throwing away faithfulness will not manage the pains that come with mid-life crises. Friends, make a note of this, your wife is better in every way than that nice babe whose boyfriend, a weathered piece of furniture like you and me cannot be. If you like the rhyme, post it!

Pastor Novak