There is no more convincing witness of God’s love for you than His faithfulness to Israel.
There is no greater love than the one God extends to you today. Across Scripture, God reveals His heart through covenant promises, costly sacrifice, and unwavering devotion to His people. In this four-day devotional, you’ll discover how Israel is not merely an ancient story, but a living testimony to the faithful, enduring love God has for you—a love that restores, redeems, and never lets go.
DAY 1: Israel is a Witness of God’s Love
Have you ever questioned the durability of God’s love? How about His desire for you especially when you’ve blown it? Is His a “three strikes and you’re out” sort of love?
Being loved is an essential need we all have. It’s the critical, super-nutrient for every healthy heart and mind. Love provides security and acceptance and fuels a full life.
We were made for love, and yet our love for one another is plagued with imperfection. The love we need, not just in theory but experientially, is God’s unconditional embrace.
Painful life experiences can cause a distortion in our understanding of God’s nature. Is there a faithful witness we can look to, and hear from, who will show us God’s character?
Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen Me, has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9), and the writer of Hebrews tells us Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature (Heb. 1:3). For a crystal-clear picture of the Father, we look to Jesus.
When we want to see how that supreme love interacts with broken humanity, the Bible calls us to look at an additional witness—Israel.
No Greater Love Than That of a Father
Through the prophet Isaiah, God repeatedly assigned Israel as His servant, His witness, and a light to the nations—for the purpose of revealing God’s character, His salvation, and His ways with humanity.
Israel has been an imperfect messenger. Although loved and chosen by God, Israel has been willful, and because of sin experienced centuries of banishment from the land God promised to them. They’ve been at odds with God and suffered at the hands of the nations, but God has never abandoned His people.
We, too, are imperfect in our obedience, and we know what it is to have our faith tested and found wanting. Our sin has brought division and suffering. We can relate to Israel.
What is the message to us through Israel’s witness? Will God’s love endure?
It will, as we will see, His love is everlasting!
Today’s Verses
- Isaiah 43:10, 21
- Acts 13:47
- Psalm 103:17
Day 2: A Relationship Established in Covenant
In ancient cultures, when two parties entered into a binding agreement, they did so by means of a covenant.
Covenants were never casual, but deliberate and deeply personal. Vows and personal items were exchanged; a celebratory meal was enjoyed. Unique to covenant was the shedding of blood with the oath, illustrating the cost and depth of the agreement.
A covenantal relationship was prioritized and meant for life. As covenant partners, your battles and victories became mine; your family was cherished as much as my own. If you had a covenant friendship, you would never walk alone.
All these ingredients of covenant are important to us because they reveal the nature of God’s love.
When the Lord chose to form a family for Himself, He made a covenant with Abraham, who became the father of the Jewish people (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:18; 17:1-8). The Abrahamic covenant is unconditional and everlasting—its provisions are alive today. God has never changed His mind or broken His word. The Jewish people have never walked alone, despite what it may appear, for they have a faithful covenant partner.
No Greater Love Than That In a Covenant
God’s preservation of the Jewish people through the millennia of antisemitism and the 1948 miraculous return to their ancient homeland, a land promised to them in the Abrahamic covenant, are a witness to the world of God’s fidelity to covenant and power to fulfill His promises.
In the same covenant, God promised Abraham spiritual sons and daughters from every nation (Gen. 17:5).
The only door into the family of faith, into salvation, is through the New covenant (Jer. 31:31-34), established through Jesus’s shed blood for us. Jesus said, “I am the door” (Jn 10:9).
The Abrahamic covenant promised an everlasting family and the New covenant provides the door through whom every person must enter to inherit the covenant promises of sins forgiven, fellowship with God, and eternal life.
If God has kept His covenant oaths to Israel, He will keep His covenant oaths to us. God will fulfill every promise to you as a covenant partner, and you, friend, will never walk alone.
Today’s Verses
- Hebrews 6:13
- Jeremiah 31:31, 33-34
- 1 Corinthians 11:25
- Galatians 3:8-9, 29
Day 3: Love’s Strength is Revealed in Love’s Sacrifice
The apostle John wrote more about love than any other New Testament writer, and he consistently coupled it with the theme of sacrifice.
John’s message: love’s strength is revealed in love’s sacrifice.
We see the fusion of these two themes displayed in Israel’s story.
In Genesis 22, God tested Abraham’s love by calling him to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, on Mt. Moriah. Seeing Abraham’s profound obedience and trust, God stopped him at the last second and said, “Now I know that you truly fear (revere) God.”
King David purchased the threshing floor of Ornan as the place where he would build an altar and sacrifice to the Lord. Ornan offered to give David everything, but David refused, saying, “I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the Lord, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.” (1 Chron. 21:24)
In 2 Chronicles 3:1 we learn David’s purchase was Mt. Moriah, the same mountain of Abraham’s testing, and the place where Solomon later built the temple, where every sacrifice for sin was offered.
No Greater Love Than When One Lays Down His Life
Moriah means chosen. On this chosen mountain in Jerusalem, love and sacrifice met supremely when Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice for us—the greatest expression of love.
John didn’t write about love from a theoretical position, no, he saw and heard the brutal batterings. It was his friend who was beaten beyond recognition. John stood at the cross, and when Jesus entrusted Mary into his care, surely he wrapped his arms around a grieving mother as she watched her son die.
John stood as a witness for us.
And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. (Jn. 19:35)
In essence, John said, “I’ve seen the gore and suffering; I’ve seen the price of our sin—my sin—upon Him. There has never been a greater sacrifice of love than this. He is the Son of God, our Messiah. I believe—will you?”
Five times in John’s gospel he referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” It was John’s personal revelation. When John witnessed Jesus’s sacrifice, he felt the depth of Jesus’s love, and it transformed his self-perception.
Jesus’s love shaped John’s identity. It can shape ours. It must.
Today’s Verses
- John 15:13
- Romans 5:8
- 1 John 4:10-11
Day 4: A Revolutionary Love
The word revolution means to bring something back around to the starting point. Similar to return and restore.
God’s love is revolutionary. It brings us back from the far reaches of sin and the mire of our brokenness and restores us to the Father—in whose image we were created, and whose love we were designed for.
We see how the Lord, in His supreme love, deals with broken humanity, through Israel’s historical and prophetic witness. For the same prophets who foretold of Israel’s chastisement for sin, their exile into the four corners of the earth for many years, prophesied Israel’s full revolution back to God in the last days.
Their restoration will not happen because of Israel’s inherent goodness, but because of God’s love for His people and faithfulness to His word.
As sons and daughters of Abraham by faith, brought into relationship with God through the New covenant in Jesus’s blood, we have this same promise of restoration over our lives, and like Israel, it’s not because of our merit, but God’s revolutionary love.
No Greater Love
One day, when we see Jesus face-to-face, we’ll experience a complete restoration, but—today—the Holy Spirit is healing, reshaping, aligning, and rescuing us from the debris of past and current struggles. He’s transforming us into His image—thank God!
We were made for love, and although human love is important, only God’s love will fully satisfy what our hearts so desperately need. Expressed through covenant, God’s love for us is unconditional and eternal. He paid the ultimate price that we could experience abundant life today, and eternal life with Him.
So, we must say to ourselves, “Have hope!” and to Israel, “Have hope!” for God is not done with us. He has neither forgotten nor cast us off. Though He may tarry, wait for Him, for He will surely fulfill His promises.
Truly, there is no greater love.
Today’s Verses
- Jeremiah 32:37-42
- 2 Corinthians 5:17
- Romans 5:3-5
- Acts 3:20-21