Our Hope: His Mercy Endures Forever!

‘Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever.’ Psalm 136:1 (NKJV)

If you already know the LORD, then you know He is indeed good!  And, I am sure, you have been known to give Him thanks, and praise, and worship.  Because you know who He is.

The Psalms are true treasures of the Bible.  They speak to God’s goodness, and to all His attributes. This Book is one of the best places to just kind of hang out and get to know God.  Even though we are seeing and hearing about Him through the eyes of others, His very essence is conveyed in the words of those who knew Him and loved Him.

‘…His mercy endures forever.’  How true.  If you have ever been in a hard place in your life, then you have no doubt seen His mercy.  And chances are you have seen it again and again and yet again.  He never tires of giving it.  He never withholds it for any reason.  He always brings it with grace and great love.  And He renews it every single morning…

‘Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.’  Lamentations 3:22-23 (NKJV)

Psalm 136 continues to bring praise to God, and every verse ends with the same words, ‘…for His mercy endures forever.’  It speaks to His great deeds, His miracles, His Creation.  It tells of His rescue of His people from slavery in Egypt, how He divided the Red Sea in two.  It teaches about how He has struck down great kings, how He slew them.

There are a total of 26 verses in this Psalm.  While we do not know who actually composed this particular Psalm, we do know it was sung in Solomon’s Temple (2 Chronicles 7:3, 6).  It is a Psalm that has a cadence to it, simply because of the way it is written, and almost becomes a chant, because of that second part of each verse.  The part that is pure praise and worship.

Verse 23 talks about God remembering us in our lowly state.  And He does, yet at the same time, because of His enduring mercies, His never-ending faithfulness, and His grace that abounds towards us time and again in total freedom, He Himself elevates us to beings worthy of all of Him.  We are not, of course, we can never be.  But all He is to us, and all He does for us, shows a love like no other.  Oh, that we could love like our LORD!

He is Our Hope.  He brought us through and will continue to bring us through, until the day we cross over the Jordan River, to dwell in His presence forever.  When we sing the words, ‘…for His mercy endures forever.’, hope itself must well up inside of us, because His passion for His people is proved over and over again, every single morning.

Please read Psalm 136 in its entirety, and tell me how it makes you feel, how it spurs you on to attain your own endurance, to trust Him no matter what you face, what trial you are currently living in.  How can you apply the message of this Psalm to your own life?

Blessings!