Proverbs 3:1–6 (ESV) — 1 My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, 2 for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. 3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

I so love coming back to this passage in my regular reading. I love being reminded to “keep” this commandment – to not let “steadfast love and faithfulness” be forsaken.

The idea here may be, to be sure to be a loving and faithful person. That may be. But I am more inclined to think of it in terms of resting in the love and faithfulness of our God. The one who rests content here, who lavishes in knowing these graces are poured out upon them, will live a life far different than those languishing in the hopelessness that captures so many. It is a pre-echo of “keep yourselves in the love of God.”

It is a call to never let the wonder, the mystery, and glory, the reality of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness toward you ever escape your consciousness.

When we imagine His love to be vacillating or indistinct – or when we doubt the absolute certainty of His commitment to see all of His promises to come to pass – faith suffers its most devastating blows.

We MUST see our God as constitutionally incapable of any of the defects of human love. In the darkest of hours, He cannot love you any more, nor can He love you any less. See Him as ontologically unable to fail to keep His word, or to break His promises. He does not merely carry out His promises faithfully, He IS faithful. This is the One with whom we have to do. This is our God. Loving and faithful beyond anything the human mind can imagine. This is the One in whom we place our trust.

Know for yourself Believer, and remind yourself often, of the steadfast love of the Lord, and of His faithfulness. That He cannot fail. And in that, you will become one of steadfast love and faithfulness yourself.

This belongs to all who are in Christ. And it is a treasure we begin to enjoy even here and now – part of the “downpayment” of the Holy Spirit that is ours.