The finest things that we can say are sometimes framed as negatives. Here’s one: “Love never gives up, never loses faith” (1 Cor 13:8).

That’s why we celebrate what the Bible so often calls God’s “steadfast love”—His unchanging, unyielding, untiring affection for every human being.

He doesn’t warm to us when we are nice on sunny Tuesdays—or grow remote and cold when we stay home from church. He doesn’t offer, like some parents, affection earned by good behavior. He doesn’t icily withdraw into the vastness of His universe when we play gossip, doubter, thief, or prodigal.  

He pledges His good will toward us with an unshakeable tenacity we can’t begin to grasp, never mind reciprocate. In Him, “there is never the slightest variation or shadow of inconsistency” (James 1:17).

“As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

Grace is the face God turns toward us when in our shame we cannot bear to look at Him. And still He urges, “Look to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa 45.22).

Look now, and be amazed. You’ll never be the same.

Then stay in grace. -Bill Knott