ENDLESS MERCY

Lam.3:22,23 – The LORD’S acts of mercy indeed do not end,
For His compassions do not fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

Today’s verses are loaded with God’s promises for His people. You may have to dig a little to catch the full impact of this passage but it will be well worth the effort. I learned a lot about digging into God’s word from Dick Mills who was one of our church’s favorite guest speakers for many years. He taught us about searching for the original meaning behind Bible words. Today we will take a short look at three of those words. The first one is critical, it is mercy or checed in the Hebrew language. Here is the meaning of this beautiful word from Vine’s Word Book.

‘Mercy -checed – In general, one may identify three basic meanings of the word, which always interact: “strength,” “steadfastness,” and “love.”’

God’s mercy is described here as His consistent and infinite strength and power directed toward us. The next phrase is ‘never ends’ or tamam in Hebrew. This describes the endless or supernatural nature of His mercy, His mercy simply never ends. Here is the definition from Vine’s book.

“His mercy never ends – tamam – to be complete, finished, perfect, spent, sound, used up, have integrity.” Found in both ancient and modern Hebrew, this word also exists in ancient Ugaritic. Tamam is found approximately 60 times in the Hebrew Old Testament in its verbal forms. The basic meaning of this word is that of “being complete” or “finished,” with nothing else expected or intended.”

Finally we come to the word – chadash – This beautiful word has two beautiful shades of meaning. First it means something that is new or fresh, something new in your life. Next comes the shocker, this word describes the creation of things that have never happened before. The Lord promises to do brand new things. Here is Vine’s again on the word chadash.

“New every morning – Chadash means “new” both in the sense of recent or fresh (as the opposite of old) and in the sense of something not previously existing.”

So now let’s bring these promises down to your world here and now. The Lord says that His steadfast strength and love are directed straight at you in whatever you face. It also says that these mercies are endless, He will never stop helping and taking care of you throughout all of your life. Finally, He promises to do new things in your life; things you have never seen, heard of or even imagined. We are definitely entering God’s brand new day.