God's Immeasurable Love and Forgiveness

     I found the ninth chapter of Nehemiah to be an interesting read. It told how disobedient the people of Israel were in the past and how God forgave them over and over again after they repented. He loved them like a loving Father and he punished them for the bad things that they had done and then he forgave them after they asked for his forgiveness. The ninth chapter of Nehemiah told about God's love, patience and long-suffering for the nation of Israel. It showed me just how immeasurable God's love and forgiveness really is.

     Nehemiah 9:9 "And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea," Nehemiah goes on to tells us the story of the exodus in verses 10-15 that God parted the Red Sea and cast their pursuers into the depths. Then God led them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God gave them the ten commandments by Moses. He gave them bread from heaven to eat and water for them to drink. But after all what God did for them, they still disobey him and made themselves a golden calf to worship. 

    God punished them for their rebellion by sending them out into the wilderness for forty years but he also kept an eye on them and helped them to survive. Nehemiah 9:17-19,21 "....But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them ¹⁸Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, 'This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,' and had committed great blasphemies, ¹⁹you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness...." ²¹Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell."

     After they were in the wilderness for forty years, God let them enter the promised land. Nehemiah 9:23,25 "You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess." 25"....So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness." But their obedience to God did not last. Nehemiah 9:26,27 "Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. ²⁷Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies." 

     Nehemiah goes on and tells us that these people again went back to sinning and then God punished them and they again repented and God forgave them. This cycle of disobedience, punishment, repentance and then God's forgiveness was repeated over and over again showing God's unlimited patience, love and forgiveness for his people.

     God's love for us is the same today as it was for his people long ago. Psalm 103:17 "But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children," Psalm 100:5 "For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations." Why does God have this kind of love for us? Because God is love (1 John 4:8). Who is always shining down his love and forgiveness upon us, because he cannot be any less than a loving God. He can see pass our imperfections. And in his infinite mercy gives us the opportunity to repent and have everlasting life through his son Jesus Christ. God's love and forgiveness for us is truly immeasurable.                                                                                               (ESV)