Tonight’s family service looked at the theme of ‘God’s Loyal Love.’ Lamentations 3:22-24 reminds us that ‘God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness!I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.‘ As J-P reminded us, the book of Lamentations in other languages is known as ‘complaining songs’, and much of the tone of them is negative, for they were written at a time of great sorrow and distress after Israel were taken into captivity and it seemed that God had abandoned His people. Jeremiah, traditionally held to be the author of the book, reminds us that despite the distress and sorrow experienced, God was actually still present with them, just as the ‘Footprints’ poem reminds us that at the difficult times of life, when we can only see one set of footprints, it was there that God carried us. His loyal love never leaves us.
Another example of God’s fervent, passionate, constant love for His people is found in the book of Hosea, a book which amply demonstrates the truth of the words that love is ‘more than a feeling’ (as the song goes!) So often, people give the reason for the breakdown of a relationship as being because ‘I don’t love X anymore; the feelings just aren’t there anymore.’ In this book, God asks His servant Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman, to marry someone who will hurt him and deceive him, as a parable for the way Israel has treated God. Hosea was to act out the constancy and faithfulness of God’s love in real life. God’s love is not fickle. He wants us to love people with the same love He has (see Hos 3:1), a love that is reliable, dependable, unchainging, consistent, steadfast and determined. People are notoriously fickle, but God wants us to be dogged and determined, sticking to love with a tenacity which reflects His character. 1 Cor 13:4-8 gives us the perfect picture of God’s love which never fails, but our challenge is to love in the same way God loves. God’s loyal love provides us with the model and the motivation for love; He also supplies the power and persistence we need. Ps 89:2 in the Message version says, ‘Your love has always been our lives’ foundation, your fidelity has been the roof over our world.‘ God’s love shows us what loyal love looks like; now we have to ‘go and do likewise.’
