New Every Morning

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.”

—Lamentations 3:22-23

Several years ago, there was a movie entitled Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. The movie featured a man who had to repeat the same day over and over again until he learned what it meant to love someone more than himself. No matter what he did on Groundhog Day, the next day he was back where he was before, starting all over again.

In our passage for today, we have God speaking to the Israelites while they were in exile, reminding them that His love never ceases and His mercies were new every morning. As with Bill Murray’s character, it doesn’t matter what we have done; the next day we get to start all over. Not that we have to repeat our days, but we get to begin anew, starting all over again because of God’s grace and mercy.

Our God is not a God who only shows mercy once, but does so over and over again. When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, He continually provided bread from heaven, called manna, each day. He didn’t provide the manna for months, weeks or days in advance—He provided food for them daily. He gives us mercy each and every day. We know how often we fail to live according to God’s glory. We all struggle and wrestle with sin. We are a people in constant need of mercy, grace and forgiveness.

God knows our need, and He gives us what we don’t deserve and withholds what we do deserve. It doesn’t matter what we do, or what we have done; God’s love does not change. His mercies never come to an end, and because of Christ, each day can start with a clean slate. May your day be lived in the knowledge that God will forgive all of those who come to Him by faith and in godly sorrow, asking for forgiveness and mercy, knowing that He will take their sins away and let them walk with a clean slate because of what His Son, our Lord Jesus, did on our behalf. Amen.