PSALM 32:10 – Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.”
THEME OF THE DAY: SURROUNDED BY THE LORD’S STEADFAST LOVE. Today’s scripture has a New Testament partner. It isn’t an exact quotation. The partnership is in the principle taught – the steadfast love of the Lord for His people is an impenetrable force of His protection and refuge for them. The passage is the familiar closure of Romans chapter eight – Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).
The following story from Charles Haddon Spurgeon illustrates this wonderful truth. C.H. Spurgeon was talking to a farmer who had on his barn a weathervane on the arrow of which was inscribed, “God is love.” He said to that farmer: “What do you mean by that? Do you think God’s love is changeable – that it veers about as the arrow turns in the wind?” The farmer answered, “Oh no! I mean that whichever way the wind blows, God is still love.”
This truth of being surrounded by the Lord’s steadfast love has at least two applications for us in the Christian life. First, it produces bold Christian living in a world that is hostile against Christianity. How so? The power of love. When God’s people are living under the control of His Son’s love, they are bold to share Him, not out of arrogance, but compassion. We will engage the hostile world with the only message to break down their hostility toward God and His people; the love of Christ – For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:14-20).
Another application in the Christian life as we live with the awareness we are surrounded by the Lord’s steadfast love is the assurance or security it provides us. If we know nothing can separate us from such love, then we also know and may lean on the truth of Romans 8:28 when life feels like it is getting quite hard – And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Surrounded by God’s love, only what is good will come into our lives. We may not always feel like things are good, but they are and God will help us see they are as we live under the surrounding wings of His love.
PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for the truth that nothing may separate me from You love, now and forever.”
QUOTE: “Surrounded by His love makes us humble, yet bold to share such indescribable love.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim