The Steadfast Love of the Lord Never Ceases - Lamentations 3:22-23
13th May 2026
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
These verses, from what is otherwise a little studied Book of Lamentations in the OT, have of course been made famous by the well-known hymn, “Great is Thy faithfulness!” or in the more recent chorus, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.”
The Book of Lamentations is just that - a lament, and the traditional author Jeremiah had much to lament about, as he experienced and lived through the capture and destruction of his beloved city of Jerusalem - something he had prophesied would happen for many years. The Book of Lamentations is a full record of grief at what had happened. Chapter 3 is written as an acrostic poem, it’s an A to Z of grief at God’s judgement on Israel. There’s a certain totality of grief expressed here.
Yet, counterintuitively, amidst this grief emerges an assurance of the steadfast love of God in these two verses tucked away in the very centre of the five gloomy chapters of Lamentations. This was how the author kept things in perspective for himself. The national plight was desperate but not hopeless, because Jeremiah knew his God. He knew that God’s fundamental character is one of steadfast love, not hopeless crushing judgment. These verses were Jeremiah’s hope. And we, 2,600 years later, can benefit from them. And I hope we will this morning as we look at them briefly:
1. The steadfast love of the Lord, chesed: You will hear me repeatedly and unashamedly tell you that grace is what makes Christianity unique. As we see here it is present in OT too. It is God’s unmerited favour towards his people who trust in him, which gives us the forgiveness of all our sins, past, present and future through faith in Christ, along with the promise of eternal life. This will give us confidence on our deathbeds - and I tell you that you and I will have no other confidence, as we stand before the judgement seat of Christ at the end of time. I don’t think a Christian is mature in Christ until he or she has grasped the greatness of God’s grace and our absolute need of it. If we don’t grasp it, our Christian life will be a religion of self-righteousness and a pile of good works, which become a crushing burden to maintain.
2. God’s steadfast love never ceases, it is permanent. It is eternal. And it is eternal because God is eternal. It is part of God’s eternal character. God keeps his promises. That God’s mercies are eternal doesn’t mean everything in our lives is going to work out perfectly for us - but in the things that matter, which are eternal things, it will work out. This our Christian hope is an eternal hope.
3. God’s mercies are new: The blessings of God’s mercies are from an ever flowing spring, not from yesterday’s jug of stale water. We cannot live on past blessings and past glories. Keep drawing from that spring of grace every morning. God is always doing something new. We cannot freeze the past, and expect it to be repeated. He does new things. God is so big and the truth of the gospel so great and the love of God in Christ is so broad, so deep and so high that there is always something new every morning from that fountain of God’s refreshing grace, if you would only care to draw from it. So keep drawing from it … every morning in the scriptures, in prayer and waiting and listening to God.
4. Mornings ends the night: For most people the night time is when we sometimes lie awake and worry; and have negative thoughts. The morning breaks in on that. Never take major decisions at night. If you do, reconsider and pray about it again in daylight in that steadfast love of God which is new every morning.
5. Morning begins a new day: Another opportunity for service towards God in the name of Jesus. Redeem the time for the days are evil [Eph 5:16]. See a new morning as a fresh opportunity to serve God in some way; a new opportunity to worship him; a new opportunity to confess to God and deal with sin in our lives.
To, sum up what is God’s faithfulness on a day-to-day basis? It is primarily the reassurance that God keeps his promises in his word in Jesus Christ in spite of ourselves. Jeremiah was looking for a future hope. Today we have the privilege to know what that hope was - it is Jesus Christ who has given us all we need - not necessarily all we want, but all we need. So in the darker days, which will come, remember what God has done for you. Your losses are small compared to your gains from God. Your illnesses are small when compared to a life of general good health. Your struggles are minor compared to God’s continued blessings and provision to you throughout your life. So you can truly say, and sing, “Great is your faithfulness.”