READ:

Jeremiah 31:3b

^3b Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

EXHORTATION:

The LORD has been revealing, through His prophet, the future restoration of Israel, which faced destruction and dispersion for provoking God with their wickedness. Israel, as a nation, wandered away from their God and set up altars to the heathen gods. That nation lived like an unashamed adulterous wife, provoking the LORD to punish them.

Notwithstanding their unfaithfulness, the LORD declares His unchanging love for the nation of Israel, His chosen people. His love for His people is from everlasting to everlasting, not confined to time or nullified by eternity. Here the LORD once again reiterated His everlasting love, which He has freely bestowed on His people, Israel.

God had made a covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:7-21), which He subsequently renewed with his descendants, the nation of Israel (Exodus 19:3-8; Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28:1-30:10). He vowed to stay faithful to His covenantal commitments to her. So, Israel can look forward to experiencing God’s blessings of redemption and restoration.

Like the nation of Israel, we are also objects of His love. Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we also have received God’s wonderful and abounding love. Oh, what surpassing love the LORD shows to His people! He loved us even before we knew Him! Let us now look back and remember how His love spared us when we once delighted in sin. The Lord did not cut us off in our unbelief. Oh, what tender love He displays towards us! We also notice that His loving kindness is the drawing force that moves His people to return to Him from their backsliding and seek Him: “therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” It is His love that chastises us for wandering away from Him defiantly. His stern dealing with us is the restraining power of His love. Because the Lord draws us constantly, we are also held back from plunging into the deepest abyss of sin.

Irrespective of our wandering from Him, He declares to us, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love”. Oh, what a glorious assurance from the LORD to undeserving sinners like us! He loved us before the foundation of the world. He will love us even after the sun and moon stop giving their light, and will continue to do so after the present heaven and earth shall pass away – His love shall abide with us for ever and ever!