“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:22-23
There’s something incredibly heart-stirring when dawn breaks the night sky. The colors shift from pale orange to peachy pink with crimson streaks. They mix with a midnight shade of blue and ease into the brilliant blue of a spring morning. The colors unfold across the sky as day overcomes darkness. When worries spool round and round in the dark of night, the morning brings us reminders of God’s amazing mercy.
What Does Lamentations Mean by “Mercies Are New Every Morning”?
The book of Lamentations has five poetic laments about the destruction of Jerusalem, the destroyed temple, and the wretched condition of Judah’s people. The author calls on people to turn to God, repent, and appeal for mercy. Lamentations 3:23 is within the only section of the book that offers a glimmer of hope in the midst of despair. This passage reminds us that his faithful love is constant in the face of trials and bitter thoughts. When we want to brood in anguish and sorrow, we’re told that we can put our hope in the Lord because his mercies never end.
Psalm 4:8 tells us that we can lie down and sleep with peace, even when worries spool round and round. Another Psalmist writes that sorrow might last for a night, but morning comes in the morning. Morning is a theme that runs through the Scriptures. Jesus got up in the morning to pray. Zephaniah 3:5 tells us that the Lord doesn’t fail every new day. New days are new opportunities for us to walk by faith in the truth of God’s mercies.
Mercy means faithful, loyal, steadfast, and true. By the end of the day, we’ve run our race, fought the good fight, and stood firm in the face of spiritual attack. We’ve grown tired and weary. God gives us the reprieve of sleep even though sometimes we wrap worry round and round like rolling yarn into a ball. But morning always comes. And with it, comes hope. Hope that today will be better. Hope that we’ll see God working.
Every morning presents itself to us with fresh opportunities for an outpouring of God’s love, compassion, faithfulness, and steadfast loyalty. Even when we wake up to storm clouds roiling on the horizon, the sun still rises hidden behind them. We might miss the brilliance of the sunrise, but we know it’s there. God’s mercy is always available to us. Morning, noon, and night. And God gives us opportunities to trust him to move in our lives and pour his mercy on us.
What Does the Bible Say about God’s Mercy?
Throughout the Old and New Testament, we can see that God’s mercy flows from his forgiving nature. He reveals his mercy in how he provided the manna for the Israelites’ desert journey. We see it in his protection and deliverance of his people time after time. He shows mercy when he is slow to anger and abounding in love. Mercy is not a benefit based on our merit but is a gift from God.
In the New Testament, Jesus made mercy an essential part of his ministry. He dined with tax collectors, healed the sick, relieved hunger, calmed storms, restored sight, and raised the dead. He is the full expression of God’s mercy to us. Mercy takes action. It is God’s response to us and our expected response to others. From God’s love flows his mercy which is his ability to bring sinful humanity back to himself. Salvation is God’s merciful act of withholding eternal punishment and it is his grace that grants forgiveness and eternal life. The Bible is God’s revelation of his merciful heart towards us.
How Do We Receive God’s Mercies Every Day?
We receive God’s mercy by faith. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1. Faith is our response to God’s revelation of himself through his word and actions. God is merciful towards us because of his deep abiding love.
We pray. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer,” Romans 12:12. God’s mercy undergirds our ability to be able to be hopeful when joy seems long gone. We rely on mercy to help us through our affliction. And we pray.
We draw near. “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water,” Hebrews 10:22. We take a baby step towards God and he covers the distance to catch us when we fall.
We are still. “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth,” Psalm 46:10. Enough of our wrestling. Enough of our doubting. Let’s be still and let God’s mercy wash over us.
We wait. “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning,” Psalm 130:6. Long nights of waiting for dawn draw us into deep despair. But even in the waiting, we trust God that his mercies will be new in the morning.
We declare. “To proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night,” Psalm 92:2. Our lives hold both sorrow and joy and trials and successes. But through it all, we declare that God is love and he is faithful.
We fix our eyes on God. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God,” Hebrews 12:2. Our faith has its beginnings in his mercy. And in his mercy, he fulfills it. He gives us strength to complete what he has for us to do.
We remember. “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night,” Psalm 63:6. Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to forget God’s mercy when our lives shatter like a broken plate? But there, in the darkness of soul, we can think of God as we wait for morning. The morning reminds us of God’s everlasting mercy.
Why Is it Important to Receive God’s Mercies?
Mercy makes a way for the demands of truth and righteousness to be fulfilled through Jesus Christ. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). As sinners saved by grace, we bear the struggle between the mindset of the sinful nature and that of the Spirit. It’s important for us to receive God’s mercies daily in order to live according to God’s Spirit who resides within us.
The sinful nature leads to hostility, insubordination, and unacceptability before God. The life of the Spirit leads to life and peace. Paul writes that we are to be living sacrifices. This tells us that while on earth, God sanctifies us as we surrender and submit to him. Mercy leads the way. It guides us into transformation that gives God glory. He gets all the credit because it’s from his mercy that he makes us whole.
Receiving God’s mercies each day allows us fresh strength to face whatever comes our way. Waking up to his mercies each morning allows us to extend mercy to others. Not only do we receive God’s mercy because of his great love for us, but we also get to be merciful. It is his mercy that makes us alive in Christ. Life holds trouble and sorrow. God’s new mercies every morning doesn’t mean there’s an absence of trouble. It means that he is with us to help us show mercy, love kindness, and walk humbly before the Lord (Micah 6:8).
Receiving and Giving Mercy
God has great love and compassion for people. He desires that we would know him, love him, and live for him. His mercy is waiting for us to receive it. Isaiah writes in chapter 33, verse 22 a prayer that we can pray each morning. “O, Lord, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress.”
As we begin each day, let us remember God’s loyalty and devotion to us. The Hebrew word for mercies is “Hesed” and it denotes the limitless nature of divine mercies. I love the idea of limitless because I can’t quite grasp the full understanding of it. My patience runs dry and so does any mercy I have. But God’s doesn’t. It extends to us over and over again because God keeps his covenant promises.
God extends his mercy to us so that we can extend mercy to others. Mercy is an essential ingredient of the life and manner of a believer in Christ. We begin this life as vessels of wrath, but through God’s amazing mercy, we become vessels of mercy. Mercy extends from the richer to poorer, larger to smaller, and stronger to weaker. It extends the other way too as Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek, to give up our cloak, to walk the extra mile, and to bless and not curse. As we receive God’s mercies fresh every morning, we can bless others with mercy too.
