One of the sad things that I feel people experience is that they are exiled from their knowledge of a loving God. They know a painful rejection and they know a cold distance because something or some evil blockage prevents them from remembering that God DOES love them beyond a measure. GOD IS LOVE. Punishment for a prescribed 70 years, yet preservation forever, by God’s hands, may come for exiled Babylon-residing Israelites for a couple generations, as a poem in lamentations reveals sadness yet reaching out, BUT EMOTIONAL DISTANCE comes now way too often for way too many people in our day and age who should experience and KNOW the LOVE of GOD – but either reject or revel in their distance. (We should not revel in distance, He is here.) Or they simply don’t know how to find God in the confusion of the world-cluttered views. We pray an opening of hearts, repentance, and acknowledgement – then praise – receiving recognition that we can see Him Holding us close.

If we tear up to know the Lamentations of loss, may we weep in JOY as we remember this RESCUE from the Rejection. May we measure the Love of our Lord immensely immeasurably. You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.

Well, He DOES love us beyond measure and He’s not angry with us beyond measure, because He Rose a Forgiveness branch of Mercy, a Vine Divine in JESUS. His anger only a moment and mercy forever…

Psalm 30 sings it out – by David years before this time – “Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favour lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning”

So may we always remember this loving and merciful.God and get through the things we’ve got to get through but don’t turn away and don’t let people or circumstances prevent us from seeing the mercy after the mud, the rainbow after the storm, the homecoming after exile. 

May we tell others too that God is love.

We are reminded by these poems of lamentations that people longed for the Lord, and we finally got to see Him come. JESUS LOVE – vine the divine…

Amen 

—

1 John 4:1-19

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

God’s Love and Ours

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us.

—

Lamentations 5 NIV

Remember, Lord, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. We have become fatherless, our mothers are widows. We must buy the water we drink; our wood can be had only at a price. Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are weary and find no rest. We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread. Our ancestors sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment. Slaves rule over us, and there is no one to free us from their hands. We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the desert. Our skin is hot as an oven feverish from hunger. Women have been violated in Zion, and virgins in the towns of Judah. Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders are shown no respect. Young men toil at the millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood. The elders are gone from the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.

Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! Because of this our hearts are faint, because of these things our eyes grow dim for Mount Zion, which lies desolate, with jackals prowling over it.

You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.