By Psalms 119:76 “Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant.”
If you missed part 1 of this small series, read it HERE. God’s steadfast love is intended to comfort us according to a promise. I began by wondering what exactly this promise was and have since found out that the promise is multi-faceted and multi-dimensional. I will try to sum up this promise in the least number of categories as I can.
The first promise seems to be an adoptive promise in the form of a covenant. God chose to set his love upon a certain people called Israel. ”I will be your God, and you shall be my people,” summarizes many verses in the Bible (Ex 29:45, 46; Gen. 17:8; Lev. 22:33; Deut. 29:13; Rev. 21:7). This promise expanded and has the potential to reach all people groups in all of the world (Acts 2:9; James 1:22, 2:5). This is where you and I come in.
Before moving on, let’s linger here a moment though. We are not God. The God who created the heavens and the earth speaks. He is a communicating and personal God. He chose to create a race of people to bear his image and to inhabit his creation. This race of people sinned against their Creator in such a way that he had to excommunicate them from the sanctuary of his presence. Out of love, he chooses to promise them that he will again be their God and they will be his people. In order for this promise to come to fruition, God needs to make a way for these people to be cleansed and forgiven of their sin. This is where the second category of the promise comes in, and we will look at that the next post. Until then, longer long over the truth that God’s promise to you roots in his desire to be your God and you to be his very own people. Such a sweet truth to ponder.
Leading Family Devotions 