Irrevocable

Whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it.

✙ Ecclesiastes 3:14

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Jesus taught us to speak to God as a heavenly Parent and to think of God as a heavenly Parent. And as a Parent, God would naturally display all the best attributes that we could imagine a mother or father possessing: guidance, discipline, forgiveness, wisdom, and above all, love. Jesus taught us this, first and foremost, because it's true. But he also wanted to give us something solid to hang our hat on, so to speak. If we can imagine that a good earthly parent is forgiving and loving, then how much more true must this be of our heavenly Parent? It is the poor parent indeed who closes their heart to their child, or who withholds love when the child goes astray. 

Yet it is often the case that the goodness we expect of a mother or father is greater than the goodness we assign to God. While we can envision an earthly parent full of unconditional love, we assign vengefulness to God. Indeed, we often use God's imagined meanness for our own intransigence. 

On the subject of God's constancy, nobody put it better than Charles Spurgeon did in a sermon in May 1889:

The blessings of salvation are freely given us of God, therefore they are not a loan, handed to us for a time and to be one day recalled. Our heavenly heritage is not held on lease, upon terms of annual payment—it is an unencumbered freehold to all who have by faith put their foot upon it. To give a thing and then take it back is for little children in their play. And even among them it is the subject of ridicule. But the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable [Rom. 11:29]. When he has given it, the deed is done outright and can never be reversed. O Believer, if your sin is blotted out, it can never be written in again! God has declared that he has forgiven our transgressions. And then he adds, 'Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.' 

Let's remember that God's love is not dependent on our feelings. If I feel bad about myself, it's not because God has withdrawn divine love from my life. God's grace once given will not be taken back.✙

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Prayer after thinking about today's devotion:

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Help me to trust in your love for me, O Father, especially when I do not love myself.

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After your own thanksgivings & petitions, close with the Lord's Prayer.

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