The Streams of Mercy are Still Flowing
“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
Have you ever felt like you’ve messed up one too many times? You wonder if God has lost His patience with you — that you’ve just gone too far this time? I have good news for you: you aren’t the first Christian to feel that way. And you surely won’t be the last.
There is an old hymn that we sing often at church called, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” I heard a story about that song that gives me a lot of encouragement when I wonder if God is really willing and able to forgive me when I sin against him.
Robert Robinson became a Christian in the mid 1700s after living a really wild life. He came to faith in Jesus through the preaching of George Whitfield and was radically changed. He became a pastor and also wrote some hymns. But as he got older, be began to wreck his life… again. And he felt that he had made such a mess of his life that he could never return back to God. That he had just fallen too far.
One day Robinson found himself riding in a stage coach with a woman who was a complete stranger, and she was reading a hymn book. The page was flipped to, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” She was clearly so moved my the words — perhaps even emotional as she read them in the stage coach. By lyrics like “Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to thee” and “Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.”
Robinson looked at the woman and with tears in his eyes said, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.” The woman replied to him, “Sir, the streams of mercy are still flowing!”
What encouraging words! To know that God’s streams of mercy flowed for Robinson and are still flowing for people like you and me — because of the surpassing mercy of Jesus Christ!
Maybe you wonder if God could forgive you… again. God’s word tells us that He not only can, but He loves to do so! This is why Jesus came into the world: to forgive sinners like us. The streams of mercy are ever flowing for you. “His love never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning! Great is your faithfulness!”