In this golden text we hear the very pulse beat of God's love for sinners. Sin-depraved man goes his own ways, follows his own carnal thoughts, and seeks only his temporal welfare and happiness. Left to these self-chosen ways of his, man would perish in his sins and be forever lost to the higher and blessed destiny God has prepared for him in His great love and mercy.

So the merciful God comes to man in His regenerating Word and exhorts him to turn from his sinful ways and to seek Him, his Maker and his Savior, while there is still life and he can still find his all-gracious Lord. But when the blind sinner's eyes are opened, when he sees how sinful and wicked his ways are in the sight of the holy God, he cannot conclude otherwise than that God hates him and must punish him on account of his sins. In his terror he now wants to flee from God.

God, however, assures him in the most loving and endearing terms: "No, poor, trembling sinner; your thoughts concerning Me again are altogether wrong. Do not run away, but come to My arms. I have far different thoughts toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil. No matter how wicked or unrighteous you are, return to Me, and I will abundantly pardon all your sins. Not one shall remain to condemn you. From eternity My heart has loved you in My dear Son, your Savior; and if you accept My pardon in Him, you shall joyfully see that My thoughts and ways - though you may not be able to comprehend them because they are higher than the heavens - will finally lead you to heaven." Oh, what a gracious and merciful God we have in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Let us ever seek and find Him while He is so near also for us in His saving Word.

[devotion text by Rev. F. W. Herzberger (1920) -
from the Family Altar - CPH (1957 edition)]
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