Forever Love

DEVOTION

PSALMS

FOREVER LOVE

Ps 118:1-9

118:1

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. 2 Let Israel say: "His love endures forever." 3 Let the house of Aaron say: "His love endures forever." 4 Let those who fear the LORD say: "His love endures forever."

5 In my anguish I cried to the LORD, and he answered by setting me free. 6 The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? 7 The LORD is with me; he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies.

8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. 9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.

NIV

Here is a psalm we will have to take in bites just as we will with the next psalm, the longest one of all. This one has twenty-nine verses, but psalm 119 has one hundred and seventy-six. So let us take a look at this first couple of stanzas. How can we ever think that his love does not endure forever? Just because we live in a linear existence, limited by space and time, it should not mean we cannot understand the eternal existence. That which has no beginning and no end, it has been and will be forever is eternal. We could say that his love endures for all the days of our life, but then that would not be forever, although we too will live forever, so then his love will endure for all the days of our eternal life. The only difference is that we had a beginning, but we will not have an end. Sometimes that is difficult to comprehend when we are living In a decaying body, which experiences the effects of ageing. We have wrinkles we never had, we have less muscle, more fat, less hair or grey and we certainly have more aches and pains. But his love endures forever, and in this fact we can rejoice and know that we will never be without his love. He will never stop loving us, no matter our age, or how we have changed in our form, as long as we are still loving the Lord with all our heart, our mind, our spirit and whatever strength we have. Whenever we have experienced some difficult time in our life, we looked to the Lord and he always answered us. That first time we cried out to him, he answered and he saved us. Every time since then he has always been there to free us from anguish. When we get anxious, he is there to set us free. When we get worried, he is there to set us free. When we are tempted, he is there to set us free. The Lord is always with us so why then should we be afraid of anything or anyone? Man might be able to cause us some bodily harm, but want can he really do to who we are? The Lord is with us, even then can man really do anything to who we truly are? We will be triumphant over all things because we look to the Lord, our help. The problem is we could be looking to ourselves instead of him and then we would not win, we would loss the battle, we would have those anxious moments, those times of worry, those moments of falling short, and yielding to those temptations. It is far better to be in the Lord, to trust in his ability to keep us, to provide for us, to save us, to help us in time of trouble, to free us from sin, then to trust in man, which in this case would be ourselves. Plus, it is far better to trust in the Lord, to put all our eggs in one basket, so to speak than to trust in princes, which is the way of the world, the social, economic, and political structure of the world. The Lord’s love endures forever, and we will endure in his love forever. Who else can we put that kind of trust in? Not ourselves or anything or anyone in this world. His love endures forever.