Our Green and Pleasant Land
One of the blessings of lockdown to my marriage has been the opportunity for my wife and I to walk through the English countryside near our home. In the early months this coincided with spring. Over the weeks we watched remarkable tractored ploughs preparing the ground for sowing. Soon afterwards a green haze appeared across the field, which then turned into plants before our very eyes.
Now the farmer waits in hope for a bountiful harvest. And since we live in a green and pleasant land they expect a harvest. But it's not yet a done deal, as many farmers around the world will testify.
Blessings and Curses
Under the Old Covenant, at least on the surface of things, obedience brought blessing and disobedience delivered a curse. If God's people, as a nation, disobeyed God then they were punished with famine and war. If they obeyed they were blessed with abundant harvests and peace.
Nature, responding, as it always does, to God's command, brought forth blessings and curses.
Under the New Covenant, at least on the surface of things, God's love for his people never changes. He is always good to them, no matter their sin. Through the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus, God is faithful even when we are faithless. No-one and nothing can separate us from the Love of God. Truly immeasurable is God's love for his people through Christ Jesus.
The saying is true, "There is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less!" There is a wonderful divine unconditionality about God's love for his people! Praise God!
The Restoring God
I say, "on the surface" not to cause any reader to doubt the steadfast and eternal love of the Lord, but to point out that in the New Testament there are warnings about backsliding which indicate that to bring us back the Lord may chastise us with trials and difficulties.
He may bring "locusts" and "famine." Not now as a curse, but as the loving chastisement at the hand of a kind Father.
It is in that vein we can employ the restoration promises of the Old Testament to ourselves. The same God that restored Old Testament saints now restores New Testament ones.
Here's our promise for the day:
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you." (Joel 2:25)
The Lord had sent a famine because of the people's idolatry and wickedness. Now the Lord is promising to restore them and most remarkably to reverse the years the locusts had eaten. The word "restore" has the idea of making compensation or repaying a debt!
God not only promises to make the clouds bring forth rain today, he promises to make up for all the lost famine years! Even the ones caused by Israel's own disobedience!
Absolutely remarkable is the restoring grace of the Lord God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Summing it All Up
George Gracey was a keen young Christian. So one day early in the 20th century he offered himself for full-time missionary work and packed his bags for Bible College. In those days principals were army-corporal types so when he had finished his training, though eager to sail to a foreign land, they asked him to stay behind for a few years to paint their premises!
So discouraged was he that he walked out on mission work and then walked out on God. He married an unbelieving wife who sealed their worldly lifestyle for many decades to come.
But the "hound of heaven" was not finished with George Gracey! And one day when he was an older man - if memory serves me correctly, when he was in his 70s - he returned to the Lord.
I met George Gracey in the late winter of his life, and what struck me more than anything else was his boundless zeal for the Lord and his gracious character: few saints I have ever known were as gracious as Mr Gracey!
The Lord had restored the years the locusts had eaten and transformed George into a beautiful saint.
And that is what the always-restoring Lord will do for all his people who call out to him.
A SONG FOR THE DAY
Let us remind ourselves of the faithful love of the Lord in this short song. Perhaps you can sing it off by heart, helped HERE.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never have come to an end;
They are new every morning,
New every morning:
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord,
Great is Thy faithfulness!
His mercies never have come to an end;
They are new every morning,
New every morning:
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord,
Great is Thy faithfulness!
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never have come to an end;
They are new every morning,
New every morning:
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord,
Great is Thy faithfulness!
They are new every morning,
New every morning:
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord,
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Edith McNeill
A PRAYER FOR THE DAY
Our ever-loving Father in heaven,
We thank you today for your abundant material provisions. We lack for nothing, we have more than we need, for it is in your character to give generously.
We thank you that we have been blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We have been reminded today that you are a restoring God, and even more, a God who repays in the latter years what was lost in the former.
Keep us from wandering from you, and restore our fortunes should we drift away.
Do all of this for the sake of your honour and glory, for we ask these things in the name of your precious Son.
Amen
Photo by Raphael Rychetsky on Unsplash
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