The Lovingkindness of the Lord

Psalms 63:1-4

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; 2To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. 3Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. 4Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. 

The Lovingkindness of the Lord

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.  His mercies never come to an end.  They are new every morning. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:22-26).  In both of these passages there is both an acknowledgement of the lovingkindness and the faithfulness of the Lord, but there is also travail of soul.  While we wait upon the Lord our underlying desire and longing is to see the power and the glory of God revealed.  While we saw remarkable manifestations of God’s power and miracles through the ages it wasn’t until the coming of Jesus that we saw the full manifestation of the lovingkindness of the Father.  In Christ Jesus we saw the power and the glory revealed in acts of lovingkindness and compassion.  He could have as easily have come to destroy and devastate the armies of Rome and of His natural fleshly enemies.  He could have set up His kingdom in the earth as many expected Him to do, but the foe that He conquered was the prince of darkness when He led captivity captive, conquered death and the grave and gave gifts unto men.  He laid the foundation and the groundwork for a holy nation to rise up in Him, His church, His body and His bride.  We who have a foretaste of our inheritance and of the lovingkindness of our Lord are in much the same place as these Old Testament writers.  We have seen the faithfulness of our God.  We have seen His mighty acts upon the earth and toward His people.  We have seen His face in the life of Jesus Christ and we have received the divine promises as 2 Peter 1:3-4 declares, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 4Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”  

We, like the saints of old, behold the magnificence of our God and the greatness of His love for us.  We flourish in that love and in that love and the promises of His Word we live in hope and expectancy to see the fullness of our salvation revealed when Christ is come to fully manifest Himself in us.  

Romans 8:15-25 teaches us, “For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father! 16The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God. 17And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory. 18[But what of that?] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and  for us and conferred on us! 19For [even the whole] creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known [waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship]. 20For the creation (nature) was subjected to frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it–[yet] with the hope 21That nature (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22We know that the whole creation [of irrational creatures] has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now.23And not only the creation, but we ourselves too, who have and enjoy the firstfruits of the [Holy] Spirit [a foretaste of the blissful things to come] groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies [from sensuality and the grave, which will reveal] our adoption (our manifestation as God’s sons). 24For in [this] hope we were saved. But hope [the object of] which is seen is not hope. For how can one hope for what he already sees? 25But if we hope for what is still unseen by us, we wait for it with patience and composure.”

 The cry of the hearts of God’s people today is for Sonship.  It is to see the glory of Christ revealed in us so that all of creation might be set free.  We have so longed experienced the dry and thirsty land of religion, where there is no water.  We have gone through all of the rituals and followed the traditions of men, but the reality isn’t in those things, it is in the lovingkindness of God when He is revealed in us through Christ Jesus.  2 Thessalonians 1:7-12 speaks of this coming glory and power, “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; 10When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. 11Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: 12That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is what we long for, hope for and rest in the lovingkindness of our God to bring to pass. This is what we live for and press into that His kingdom come and His will be done on earth, as it is heaven.

Blessings,

#kent

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