Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. – Isaiah 49:16
A brain besotted with love might do anything! Hopefully, the silliest thing you have done for love is merely amusing, such as developing a taste for meatloaf! God’s love is very different, it is not human infatuation. His affection is NOT to be equated with the unpredictable emotion people on Earth call “love!”
Unconditional is a word often used to describe God’s feelings for you. It is hard to wrap your skeptical, doubt-filled mind around something called unfailing, unchanging, unceasing, and infinite. However, God’s sentiment toward you is not an emotional response to the specialness of who you are nor a sideways glance at your sin. Rather His kind of love is a factual statement regarding His own limitless grace!
In the Old Testament, priests wore a special vest with the names of the tribes of Israel engraved upon stones and fastened to the front. These served as a reminder that God personally knows His people. Today, as Christ is busy preparing you an eternal home, His body bears the physical scars of the sacrifice He made for you. He gave Himself over completely in bodily death, so you could know how much He cares. Once you begin to grasp that kind of love, your deepest fears of rejection and abandonment abate. You can release your insecure need to perform and rest confidently in God’s real love. The kind that would write your name in scar tissue upon the palm of His hand.
Pray for those in the United States who need to understand and walk confidently in God’s redemptive love. Ask that many will receive it today.
Today’s Verse: Isaiah 49:16
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: Psalm 107:1-9, 43
1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble
3 and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south.
4 Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to a city to dwell in;
5 hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them.
6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
7 He led them by a straight way
till they reached a city to dwell in.
8 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
9 For he satisfies the longing soul,
and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
43 Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things;
let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
