A Word for Backsliders

“Thus saith Jehovah: I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me” (Jeremiah 2:2).

At present, do you have the sorrowful feeling that your love for the Lord is not what it once was? Are the communion and fellowship with Him just memories? Has self-indulgent sin, or some other object crept in and caused you to forsake and forget your frst love? If so, you are a backslider.

Do not conclude that there can be nothing for you but the bitterness of an ever sadder and more hopeless estrangement. No, no! He remembers the kindness of your youth! He remembers those early vows, that early pledged love, which is now so strangely diminished. He says: 

“Return, backsliding children; I will heal your backslidings” (Jer. 3:22).

How tenderly and lovingly does God deal with His backsliding children! He has no delight in remembering their sin; rather, He loves to exhume from a forgotten past anything He sees in them worthy of commendation. For example, He speaks of Lot as that “righteous Lot” (2 Pet 2:7) and when He confronts Peter by the Sea of Tiberias (John. 21:1), He does not bring up His previous faithlessness but rather issues to him a call for renewed love and service.

So it is with us. He is willing in our case, too, to forget any long-intervening season of coldness, distance, and alienation following our promise of obedience. Yes, take courage! Let your thoughts go back to those gracious seasons “when His lamp shone over [your] head, and by His light [you] walked through the darkness” (Job 29:3).

God says, as it were, Though you may have banished Me from your thoughts, I have not banished you from Mine — I remember… the kindness of your youth.

J.R.M.