Word Nerd Wednesday – Reckless love

Happy Wednesday, friends, and welcome to another geeking-out-over-Scripture post! Looking at our identity as the Bride of Christ has had me thinking and meditating on the love of God. His love for us is deeper and more thorough than we can ever imagine, and I love to think about it so much! Let’s look at a couple of different Bible passages that talk about the reckless love of God together. Enjoy!

This post is part of February’s devotional series, called Wings: Exploring Four Aspects of our Identity in Christ. You can read the other posts in this series here:

• Wings Intro
• Bride of Christ

The Scripture

As I was thinking about what verses to study in-depth this week, the following two passages came to mind:

“For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, But My favor will not be removed from you, Nor will My covenant of peace be shaken,” Says the LORD who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:10 NASB

The LORD appeared to him (Israel) long ago, [saying,] “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you out with kindness.

Jeremiah 31:3 NASB

To me, especially reading these two passages in context, Isaiah 54 speaks to the Lord’s faithful love that will not move or change. Jeremiah 31, meanwhile, speaks of the Lord drawing us out or inviting us to follow Him into deeper relationship and love. I really love how these two passages work together!!

The Verse-mapping process

For this week’s verse mapping, I wrote out each verse on a solid rectangle-shape in the middle of the page. I tried to use the lighter blush pink tones for the Isaiah verse and deeper pinks and reds for the Jeremiah verse, mostly just because I wanted to. For some reason, the lighter pinks felt more to me like receiving God’s love, while the deeper tones felt more like being drawn into His love. I defined a couple of the key words in the original Hebrew:

• Mot, the Hebrew word translated as “be removed” in Isaiah 54, means “to totter, shake, slip; to be shaken, be moved, be overthrown; to dislodge, let fall, drop; to waver”. I especially love the idea of wavering or letting fall, as in, God’s love will never waver and He won’t allow us to fall.
• Masach, the Hebrew word translated as “drawn” in Jeremiah 31, means “to draw and lift out, drag along, lead along; to proceed, march, to draw out, prolong, continue; to cheer, draw, attract, gratify; to be drawn out”. I especially love the idea of God gently taking us by the hand and leading us into deeper relationship with Him.

I finished the process by looking at my ESV Study Bible and a couple of my favorite commentaries. The ESV notes had this to say on Isaiah 54:10:

The future of God’s people as promised in this passage is not rejection or relational distance, but the joy and passion of a marriage forever young.

ESV Study notes

On Jeremiah 31:3, commentator David Guzik had this to say:

God’s love is always based on grace, and even rejection by the majority of Israel can’t cause His relational, covenantal love to cease.

David Guzik

My take-aways

Here are my takeaways from this week’s Word Nerd Wednesday study on the Reckless love of God:

• God’s will never fail, change, or move
• He will never let me fall or be overthrown by inside or outside forces
• He draws me and all believers to Himself with gentleness and compassion

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s Word Nerd Wednesday post. What do you think of these passages? What are you taking away from the study?

Happy studying!