Your Love Never Fails

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

Change is all around us. Almost everything we know changes. In fact, few things ever stop changing. The seasons change — fall, winter, spring, and summer, again and again. Technology changes, always creating new ways to make and share every kind of media. Our nation changes — new leaders, new crises, new priorities, and new laws. The people in our lives change. They get older, discover new hobbies, change jobs, and move, sometimes far away. Change will happen today, and it will be part of the everyday reality of every person on earth.

So when it comes to Jesus, we have to create new categories in our minds. We’re not used to someone who never changes. That might even sound boring to you. But it is one of the most breathtaking, life-changing truths about our Savior, and it’s the promise of Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Jesus is today, and has always been, and will always be, the same — fully, precisely, magnificently the same.

The Jesus through whom God created everything (Hebrews 1:2) is the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1) is the Jesus who healed the sick and preached the gospel (Mark 1:39) is the Jesus that was crushed for our iniquities on the cross (Isaiah 53:5) is the Jesus who rose from the dead and ascended into heaven (Luke 24:6, 51) is the Jesus that reigns today over all (Hebrews 1:3) is the Jesus who will return and make everything right again (Revelation 1:12–16). Same Jesus, never changing, from before the foundation of the world through every second of eternity.

Same Jesus, Same Good News

If Jesus Christ never changes, then his good news to us never changes. He is alive and unchanging in glory, and he stands over his every word to see it through to the end. The God-man came with a message, a specific, trustworthy, and enduring word for the world. God sent his Son here so that if we would believe in him, we would never die (John 3:16). So people like you and me are saved by believing. And we believe by hearing the words of God in Scripture (Romans 10:14). After dying and rising for our sins, Jesus now sits at the Father’s right hand upholding the whole universe (Hebrews 1:3), and guiding it toward the fulfillment of all he said and did. Every word the same, every word good news for us.

He promised comfort to those in pain and loss, satisfaction to the spiritually starving, treasure in heaven for the persecuted, and God himself for the pure heart (Matthew 5:2–11). He announced provision for the poor, liberty to the captives, eyesight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18). He gives his rest to the weary (Matthew 11:28), his peace to the anxious and troubled (Philippians 4:7), and his joy to all who know and love him (John 15:11). He promises good in absolutely everything to every single one of his own (Romans 8:28).

Just as Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, his word never changes. It never fails. It is and will always be as good as it sounds.

And behind every good word he ever said is his deep, abiding, and constant love for his people — the men and women written into the wounds on his head, his hands, and his feet. As sure as Jesus is, so sure is his love — the love that compelled him to come, the love he displayed at the cross, and the love by which he carries us day by day until he brings us home. We only know what love is because God loved us in Jesus (1 John 4:9–10).

God himself never fails. His word never fails. And his love for us most certainly, most powerfully will never ever change or fail.