Have you recently resolved, “New year, new you?” New year’s resolutions can certainly be healthy and positive, but I urge to you lift your ambitions even higher. I have five words that are even better, because they point you to His new mercies.
“It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed,
Lamentations 3:22-23 AMP
Because His [tender] compassions never fail. They are new every morning;
Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.”
I love this so much. Again and again, He invites me to feast on this beautiful word of scripture.
Lamentations. It is a book of lament, obviously, which can be defined as: “passionate expressions of grief or sorrow.”
But, it also a book about hope. “This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope,” (Lamentations 3:21).
Hope, because God isn’t finished, and He’s not giving up.
No matter how I have blown it, He’s not finished with me. He faithfully, tenderly, compassionately perseveres in His love for me.
The Hebrew word for “compassions” (often also correctly translated as “mercies”) means to be deeply stirred, even from the womb or the bowels. This is gut-level compassion. This is someone who really, really cares for me.
From the womb.
I understand this kind of love. Whether a child is born from the womb or born from the heart through adoption, I believe a mother knows this kind of never failing, never giving up love. Yet, my love for my children pales in comparison to God’s love for us.
When I consider my failings apart from the redemption of Christ, I grieve like Jeremiah in verse 18, “My future is lost, as well as my hope from the Lord.”
But I never have to consider me apart from Jesus ever again.
There is another truth of scripture I can point to as well:
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20
No longer I, but Christ.
Those five words change everything. Everything.
Whatever mistakes I have made, no matter how many times I’ve fallen, doubted, given up, forgotten grace or failed to give grace…even before I finish writing this sentence…my track record doesn’t have to define what happens. No matter how hard life presses me or circumstances squeeze me, I am not limited to my own resources and ability to get it right. It is no longer I, but Christ.
Pause here for a moment. If you are already a saved-by-grace new creation, rest in that truth. Breathe it in: “No longer I, but Christ.”
And if you have not yet accepted His free gift of salvation, new morning mercies, and eternal life, ask Him! Invite Him into your weary heart and let His forgiveness and redemption wash over you.
Life is a moment by moment choice to trust in His power to rest on me, for His strength to be made visible through my weaknesses. I can boast in my weaknesses, because it is no longer I, but Christ.
Christ, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
As a mother I sometimes wrestle to give myself up. So often I really do want to put myself first. My “compassions” can feel stretched thin. But, not the Lord! His compassion is never stretched thin; His love stretches over us, without fail. In truth, giving myself up is so vastly different from losing myself. I can’t lose myself by pouring into the ones God has given me to nurture, shepherd, disciple, and teach. It is the very act of pouring out that invites Christ to fill me up. Giving up my own way, I lean into His way. Yes, Lord! Let it be so! No longer I, but Christ!
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”
Mark 8:35
Even if I just blew it, I have the next moment in front of me to cling again to the hope before me. No longer I — nor any of my past mistakes, my brokenness, my weaknesses, my shortcomings, my circumstances — it is no longer I, but Christ in me.
We are not consumed, because His compassions never fail. And when it feels like too much, we can cry out to God, and lay it all at His feet once again. Rest, renewal, sleep. He will meet us with His mercies again in the morning (and moment by moment)!
He has resolved to keep you, to love you, to carry you. Call this to mind, and hope!
Pray with me:
Thank You, compassionate Christ for Your moment-by-moment mercies. Thank You that I am a recipient of Your lavish grace. Help me to be a conduit of that grace to others, remembering my old ways have been put to death. It is no longer I, but Christ in me! Help me to live now by faith in You, the one who loved me and gave Himself up for me! Thanks be to God!
