“I will sing of the Lord’s unfailing love forever! Young and old will hear of Your faithfulness.”
One character trait that is consistently used to describe God is His unfailing love and faithfulness. As I read through Scripture, God’s unfailing love and faithfulness is something that I have probably seen a thousand times. Wonderful yes, but what does it really mean? Why are these two character traits so consistent and why are they almost always used together in the same sentence? Why not God’s love is unfailing and maybe somewhere else in another chapter, He is a faithful God? Why are unfailing love and faithfulness consistent together? These were questions on my heart for a long time, until I read Psalms 89, and the Holy Spirit, the greatest teacher, the One who leads me into all truth did just that.
God’s love is unfailing because that’s just who He is. He is Love and only God who defines this word love can truly be what/who love is. So, God is unfailing—God is not moved by anything that we do that doesn’t respond to His love. Think about it: when a friend or a loved one whom you love deeply hurts you, it hurts deeply because you love them and the moment you dwell on that hurt, you don’t feel love. You feel anger, betrayal, resentment or sorrow but because you love them deeply all of these feelings likely last for a slight moment before you remember that you love them. Worst case, these feelings last until the person apologises.
Now ask yourself, is God like that? The answer is no. Sometimes we hurt God, whether we mean to or not, but He doesn’t dwell on the hurt or the thing we did before then remembering that He loves us and sent His Son to die for us, so He’ll let it slide. He doesn’t talk like this lol; He also doesn’t dwell on what we did until we apologise or repent either. His love is unfailing - that is just who He is.
Why does this also make Him faithful? In verses 3-8 of Psalm 89, the psalmist references God’s covenant with David which He obviously fulfilled through Jesus, but even before that, God started making covenants with Abraham. We know God didn’t make the covenant with other families and then change His mind to finally settle on Abraham. No, He made a covenant with Abraham from the beginning of time and fulfilled it right to the very end. All through Scripture we see God make covenants and never once is it recorded that He did not fulfil it. Think about Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael, Job, Joseph, Judah, Moses, Mary, all of Israel, even you and me. Verse six says “For who in all of heaven can compare with the Lord? What mightiest angel is anything like God?”. Not even the angels are as faithful as God. I imagine the angels in heaven looking at God and worshipping Him because what a wonder He is. Who really is as faithful as God? God is faithful because He is love.
God’s love is unfailing because His faithfulness is dependent on the fact that His love is unfailing. God is faithful to His promises and to us because He loves us. He loves us unfailingly. Nothing we do, nothing in heaven or on earth changes this about Him. Nothing, and we can rest in this. What security He has provided us with.