Today I am participating in Five Minute Friday, where a group of writers get together and free write about a one word prompt for 5 minutes. Today's word is "refrain."
I looked up the word refrain because the image accompanying the prompt for Five Minute Friday was a set of piano keys. The first definition I found was a musical definition and had to do with repetition of a verse instead of a ceasing. I had always thought of refrain as to stop doing something. I like the musical definition better.
When I read the musical definition, I tried to think where you could see that in the Bible. And then I remembered a repetition in the Psalms, “his love endures forever.” So, I looked that up too. But what I found was interesting.
That phrase is not just in the Psalms.
When I looked it up, I found this, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his love endures forever.” It is not only found in the Psalms, but it is found throughout the Old Testament.
That phrase is also found in 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Jeremiah, and throughout many of the Psalms, and those are just the places I managed to locate it. It is repeated throughout the Old Testament.
When we think of the Old Testament, we often think of a harsh and angry God. But maybe that’s just because it is what we have been told, so maybe that is the way we are reading it.
But in 1 John 4, we are told that “God is love.” It is not something he does, but who he is. So, it is part of, and wholly encompasses his material makeup.
If he is love, then love naturally flows from him. And it endures forever.
It is a different picture than a lot of us have been taught or heard, and sometimes takes us a while for us to wrap our brains around. Maybe that is why the refrain of “his love endures forever” is there, to remind us.
Because we forget, and we need to have a constant reminder of who he is, what he is made of, and what he does.
We are loved.
And they sang responsively with praise and thanksgiving to the LORD: "For He is good; for His loving devotion upon Israel endures forever." -Ezra 3:11
Several people have incorporated "His love endures forever" in their posts. Good reminder that's being reinforced as I keep seeing it.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful reminder and lovely post. Thanks for sharing. This lead me to go over and read 1st Corinthians 13:1-8 and think about how the bible teaches us about love in general.
ReplyDeleteThanks! His love endures forever indeed. Grateful! FMF#27
ReplyDeleteGod is love and He's forever,
ReplyDeleteand that's a lovly list,
but it does not mean that He never
gets really, really pissed
when He looks down upon the land
and sees His Son ignored
by folks who will not understand
that they are slouching toward
a Jerusalem of the mind
perched on a midden-hill,
and shortly in chagrin shall find
that ignoring Holy Will
is not clever, is not cute,
but a skydive with no parachute.
And, it I may, here's a song by the Bellamy Brothers that really says it all...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNIlYAVznYU