As we see the end of this year and the new year approaching it is a great spiritual comfort in life for us as New Covenant Bible believers to know from God’s Word that we live by faith and not by sight, and that through the comfort of the scriptures we have hope for the future (2 Corinthians 5:7) (Romans 15:4).
As we seek to serve our Triune God in this age, and in the age to come when we shall co-reign with our Messiah the Lord Jesus in His Messianic Millennial Kingdom on earth, it will be in anticipation of the final and eternal state to come when all things will be made new (Revelation 2:26-27; 5:10; 20:4) (2 Timothy 2:12) (Revelation 21:1-7).
As this year comes to a close, and as we look back, we have experienced times of happiness and fulfilment in doing God’s will, we also remember the afflictions, the trials, the tests the disappointments of prayers as yet unanswered, strained relationships, and that heaviness of spirit through manifold temptations. We are also aware of our daily wrestling matches with the lures of the world, the lusts of the flesh and with the devil, and with those wicked principalities dwelling in the unseen spiritual realm in the atmosphere above the earth’s surface (Ephesians 6:12) (Job 1:7;2:2). Yet we are not without hope as we see the end of this present age in many ways rapidly approaching.
Jeremiah was God’s prophet in a time when the Southern kingdom of Judah was going to be completely decimated by the Babylonians because of rebellion and sin by God’s people. Undoubtedly Jeremiah himself also felt the weight of his own sinful tendencies as all true prophets of God experience as we see reflected in the call of Isaiah the greatest evangelist in the Old Testament (Isaiah 6:5).
Before God calls any man to be His voice to others He must first strip that man of all self-confidence and keep before his eyes the constant need for the enabling grace and mercy of God, and that in the flesh of His chosen servant dwells nothing good (Romans 7:18). All of the prophets and the apostles understood this as is evident in their written prophecies and letters.
Even though these messengers of God had some very hard things to declare to God’s people they also declared His mercies. They always gave men and women the law of God first before they gave them the grace of God. This was also the pattern of all the Spirit-anointed preachers that God has used down through the history of the Christian Church.
And so as we look at this portion of God’s Word we see that Jeremiah did not put himself above the people He was sent to in order to declare to them the whole counsel of God while keeping in mind that it was only by the grace of God that he, even as God’s spokesman, did not fall into the sinful ways of his fellow Israelites. Let’s briefly look at our text…
(Lamentations 3:19-26) Exposition
(Vs. 19-20) “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.”
No man or woman who serves our Triune God will lose sight of their own tendency to stray from God’s commandments and of their need for a total reliance upon the grace and mercy of God given through the Messiah our Lord Jesus and infused into the life by the blessed Holy Spirit. We see this reflected in the life of Rabbi the apostle Paul (Romans 7:14-8:1-14). While Jeremiah prophesied he always kept in remembrance his own sinful tendencies and spiritual poverty, his own bitterness, the venom and the poisonous tendencies of his own fallen nature.
As he remembered his own failings and sinful tendencies his soul sank down into depression of mind. No man of woman of God in service for God will escape times of depression and discouragement as they wrestle everyday with the desires of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and with the pride of life.
At such times, as Jeremiah undoubtedly experienced, he also knew his total dependence upon the grace, the mercy and the power of God to sustain and uphold him moment by moment as he declared the whole counsel of God with nothing held back even despite very severe opposition. Even at this time of despair at what was coming upon Jerusalem and his fellow Israelites Jeremiah also knew the grace and mercy of God. And then we read…
(Vs.21-23) “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”
Even in His wrath God remembers mercy (Habakkuk 3:2). He would rather have mercy on sinners than judgement. This is why He demands repentance that He might exercise mercy towards the one who is repenting and because He is not willing that anyone should perish but that all should come to the place of repentance (2 Peter 3:9). It is God’s richness of His kindness and forbearance and patience that is meant to lead us to repentance and spare us from His judgement (Romans 2:4).
Even though he was passing through that dark valley of depression as he battled with his own spiritual struggles and the opposition from the leaders and people of Judah, Jeremiah called to remembrance the hope he had in our Triune God. What was it he recalled in his thinking? How did he, like King David, comfort Himself in God at a very low time in his life?
Firstly; we read “Because of the LORD ‘s great love we are not consumed” Jeremiah recognised that God was great in His love, His goodness and in His kindness in not completely destroying His people because of His covenant with them as He always remembers His covenants (Deuteronomy 4:31). Yes He punishes sin and rebellion among His people yet never gives up on them. He always leaves room for repentance until the very last.
Secondly; we read that “His compassions never fail” the word “compassions” is a covenant word. God remembers His covenants to Israel and to Israel’s spiritual offspring being all who obey God’s commandments and hold fast to the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 12:17).
God’s compassion revealed in the New Testament in and through the Messiah our Lord Jesus actually describes an inner emotional response to a tragic situation, much like one’s experience in a movement of the bowels. God’s compassions never fail. God was saying through Jeremiah that if His people repented then God would forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14) (1 Chronicles 16:15).
Thirdly; His compassions are “new every morning.” There will be times when we will come to the end of the day reflecting on some sin we have committed and that has caused us to lose our sense of God’s abiding presence and as the night comes the memory of that sinful action remains as a heavy weight upon our souls. At such times we need to not only reflect on what we have done but be quick to confess it knowing that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and by the Messiah’s atoning blood to cleanse us from all of them (1 John 1:9).
We also know that if any one sins we have an advocate with the God the Father being God the Son our legal representative in God’s heavenly court room who constantly intercedes with Him on our behalf, and one who is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to Him through faith because He has a permanent priesthood (1 John 2:1-2) (Hebrews 7:24-25).
As we meet with the LORD very morning we need to reflect and to confess His merciful promises given to us in His Word and then, by faith, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead for us in the Messiah Jesus, throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us, and by faith run with endurance the race set out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector (finisher) of our faith (Philippians 3:13-14) (Hebrews 12:1-2 (Philippians 1:6).
This is the faith that pleases God and which He richly rewards (Hebrews 11:6). As we continue to walk by faith and not according to our feelings which are changeable even at the best of times, with a repentant heart, then we will experience that His mercies are indeed new and fresh and spiritually invigorating every morning!!! Finally Jeremiah says…
(Vs.24-26) “I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”
As the New Year comes let our Triune God be our portion. Let God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be our constant companions. Let the Word of God guide us in all of the changing circumstances of life and lead us into that good, acceptable and perfect will of God for 2026 as we yield moment by moment to His control (Romans 12:1-2). God still has everything under control!
Let us continue to say to ourselves and to God that He is our portion as we wait by faith on Him to do in us, for us and through us immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the Body of Messiah and in the Messiah Jesus Himself throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Let us have hope in 2026, not I hope so, but the inner assurance and conviction of unseen realities in the spiritual realm built on the foundation of the Word of God, a living and eternal hope that He is good to those who have this hope in Him and who seek Him by faith as they wait quietly for His deliverance in whatever situation they will face in the new year.
In 2026 as we continue to walk by faith and not by sight indeed we will find that His compassions will never fail us and that they are new every morning and in light of these we will declare “Great is Your Faithfulness” Selah.
