THANKFUL

Chatting with Jesus
Monday, April 29, 2024

Lord, with your abundant blessings, how can we not have a grateful heart. Your love is endless, steadfast to the end.

In good times and in lean times, you have proven faithful to all—the just and the unjust. Your steadfast love never ceases to humble those who put their trust in you. You see our flaws. You see when we stumble and fall. You see us stray in thoughts and actions. By human standards, we’re quick to misjudge others and just write them off as a lost cause, someone who can’t be reformed, let alone redeemed. Oh, Lord, I’ve been counted in that group of judgers and “judgees” more times than I want to remember.

Nonetheless, with each new day, Lord, you give us a fresh do-over to get this Christ-follower life right. Yesterday is gone and we can never get it back. Those sins and failures of yesterday remain in the tomb. When you rose from the dead, you imprisoned those sins, forever erased from our sin account.

The prophet Jeremiah, even while exiled in the hostile land of Babylon, rejoiced in your goodness. His enthusiastic faith encourages us today.

“The faithful [steadfast] love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT).

Lord, man’s conditional love is pathetically fickle, isn’t it. People grow weary of performance love. Too much pressure. But your love endures even when we stray, it endures when we’re mired in rebellious times. You offer a love that’s faithful even when we are unlovable. That is your steadfast love. Lord, that we might mirror your steadfast love.

“Praise the LORD, for he has shown me the wonders of his unfailing love” (Psalm 31:21).

Amen, Jesus.