For His lovingkindness is great toward us,
And the truth of the LORD is everlasting.
Praise the LORD!
— Psalm 117:2
The Object of God’s Lovingkindness
The psalmist introduces us here to the lovingkindness of God — and makes a striking declaration about its direction. He says this lovingkindness is great toward us. We are the object of God’s love. We are the object of His kindness and mercy.
This is a remarkable thing to sit with. The God of the universe has directed His affection, His mercy, and His love toward a people who are lowly, fallen, and who have wandered far from Him. This is what makes it so extraordinary.
Paul captures the highest expression of this love in Romans 5:
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
— Romans 5:8
This is the demonstration of God’s lovingkindness — not shown toward people who had cleaned themselves up or made themselves worthy, but toward people who were still in their sin. In Jesus Christ we see what this lovingkindness actually looks like in action.
We live in a world where love has been cheapened — made transactional, conditional, and ultimately meaningless. But here is the God of the universe displaying His love by sending His own Son to die in our place, to take away our sins, and to set us free from the captivity of the devil.
John puts it plainly:
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
— 1 John 4:10
And this love is not meant to end with us. When we consider the depth of what God has shown us, it compels us to turn and love others in the same way:
We love, because He first loved us.
— 1 John 4:19
The Everlasting Truth of God
The psalmist then turns to a second declaration — that the truth of the Lord is everlasting. And this could not be more relevant to the world we live in today.
We inhabit a postmodern world that has largely abandoned the idea of absolute truth. Truth has become relative — personal, subjective, and culturally determined. In such a world, a lie is simply someone else’s truth that you happen to disagree with. The result is a deeply destabilising situation where anything can be called true and nothing can ever be declared definitively false.
We have also become a people more afraid of causing offence than of standing for what is right. And yet Paul writes to the Ephesians that we are to speak truth in love — not that we should avoid truth, but that we should deliver it with the right heart and attitude. Truth and love are not opposites. They belong together.
And what makes the truth of God so remarkable is precisely its everlasting nature. In a world where everything shifts and changes, the truth of God does not move. It was true three thousand years ago when this psalm was written. It was true when Jesus walked the earth. It remained true through His death on the cross, His resurrection for our justification, and His ascension to the right hand of the Father where He now mediates and intercedes for us. And it is just as true today as it has ever been.
This means we can stake our lives on it. We can build on it. It will not give way beneath us — because as Jesus Himself declared, the truth is what sets us free.
Loved and Grounded in Truth
May we be a people who truly understands that we are the objects of God’s love, affection, and mercy — and who grounds their lives in the everlasting truth of God, knowing that it alone is what can bring us into a real, saving, and life-giving relationship with our Creator.
Praise the LORD!
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