Morning By Morning #347

His ways are eternal.

Habakkuk 3:6

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

How God worked in the past is how He will work in the future. Man’s ways change, but God’s ways are everlasting. There are many reasons for this great comforting truth, including these: the Lord’s ways are the result of His unwavering wisdom, and He directs all things according to the counsel of His own will. Human actions are often the result of a fleeting compulsion or fear and are followed by regrets and changes. But nothing takes the Almighty by surprise or happens other than what He has planned. God’s ways are the outgrowth of His immutable character and in His ways we clearly see His determined, unchangeable attributes. The eternal Himself cannot undergo change. Therefore His ways, which are simply God in action, must remain eternally the same.

Is the Lord eternally just, gracious, faithful, wise, and loving? Then His ways also must forever be described by the same unchangeable attributes. All beings act according to their nature. Thus, when their nature changes, their conduct also will change. But since God cannot “change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17), His ways will abide everlastingly the same. In addition, there is no outside force that could reverse His divine ways since they are the embodiment of His irresistible might and power. Habakkuk said of the Lord:

You split the earth with rivers; the mountains saw you and writhed…The deep roared and lifted its waves on high. Sun and moon stood still…In wrath you strode through the earth…You came out to deliver your people.

Habakkuk 3:9 – 13

No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

Daniel 4:35

Yet it is not God’s power alone that gives stability to His ways, for they are the revelation of His eternal principles of right and justice as well, and therefore they can never pass away. Wrong breeds decay and leads to ruin, but justice, truth, and goodness have a vitality that the ages can never diminish.

May we go to our heavenly Father with confidence this morning, remembering: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8), and in Jesus Christ, the Lord is eternally gracious to His people.

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

We can never separate knowing God from knowing His ways, which is why knowing the Scriptures is vitally important. Studying the Word is the best way—much more trustworthy than examining our own experiences—to learn of God’s character and His ways. This leads us to unshakable faith, such as Habakkuk displayed even when disaster was on the doorstep of Israel. Although enemies were threatening and everything seemed to be going against him, he wrote:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength.

Habakkuk 3:17 – 19

God, I thank You that You have said, “I the LORD do not change” (Mal. 3:6).