“As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.” Isaiah 59: 21, NKJV.
Dear God, thank You so much for being a God upon which we can rest our lives, our hopes, and our all. As we study Your Word today, please make this very plain to us. We pray in the blessed name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Yesterday, we looked at some of the situations through which God had kept His covenant with His people. They had not been faithful, but He had been. How many times God could have cast off these “chosen ones” and taken to Himself another people who, perhaps, would have been more appreciative of His love and goodness. But, as our Scripture reads: “As for Me,” says the LORD, this is My covenant with them: . . .”
There is so much that we can learn from these introductory words of God’s promise to His people! “As far as it depends on Me,” God seems to be saying, “I will be faithful in doing what I have promised to do. My faithfulness does not depend on Your faithfulness.” Moreover, His faithfulness would extend to future generations (“your descendants . . . your descendants’ descendants”).
This Scripture speaks very eloquently of the way the Lord deals with His creatures. From the very beginning of time to the present, God’s faithfulness has always outdone the faithfulness of His creatures. When our first parents sinned, instead of discarding them and creating a new pair of human beings, which, from our limited point of view, might have been the less painful, less complicated, and fastest, way, to put an end to the sin problem – God put into effect, an elaborate, complex, and extensive, plan of salvation, based on a love that challenges our most lofty thoughts (John 3: 16; Romans 5: 8)!
What is even more impressive, is that this plan, was not an after-thought; it was something that God had ordained, “before the foundation of the world,” (see 1 Peter 1: 18-20), to ensure the salvation of His creatures. Because God is self-sustaining, He does not need us, we need Him – Yet it is He who is constantly seeking, forgiving, and restoring His relationship with His creatures.
He is a God who loves unconditionally, relentlessly, and faithfully (I use my limited vocabulary to try to describe His indescribable love). Nothing we do can deserve it, and nothing we do can destroy it. Everything about Him exists on an eternal plane: He is from eternity to eternity. He loves us with an everlasting love, and He keeps His covenant with those who are willing to remain in the relationship, ” ‘ “from this time and forevermore.” ‘ ”
The next time you feel like giving up, just remember that the promises that God has made to His followers are for eternity. He will uphold and sustain you with His everlasting arms, and He will be “with you [and me], always, even to the end of the age.” ‘ Amen” (Matthew 28: 20c). Emphasis supplied.