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Octavius Winslow, 1856 (edited for
today's reader by Larry E. Wilson, 2010)
Bible Verse
"Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you" (Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV).
Devotional
The law of love is the law of God's moral government of his people. By this, and by this alone, he rules them. All that is disciplinary in his conduct boils down to love. It is by kindness, "loving-kindness," yes, marvelous loving-kindness, that he wins back their straying hearts, and binds them closer to himself. "I am the LORD who practices steadfast love" (Jer. 9:24).
Oh, to imitate him in this particular!—to be like God in his kindness to the children of men. Then there would be less judgmentalism, less readiness to cast the first stone, less harshness and censoriousness in our attitudes and conduct towards others. Instead, there would be more of that self-judging, self-condemning, and self-abasing before the holy, heart-searching, all-seeing Lord God, apart from which you may be appallingly deceiving yourself.
Awake, my soul, in joyful lays,
and sing thy great Redeemer's praise:
he justly claims a song from me,
his lovingkindness is so free.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
his lovingkindness is so free.
He saw me ruined in the fall,
yet loved me notwithstanding all,
and saved me from my lost estate,
his lovingkindness is so great.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
his lovingkindness is so great.
Through mighty hosts of cruel foes,
where earth and hell my way oppose,
he safely leads my soul along,
his lovingkindness is so strong.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
his lovingkindness is so strong.
So when I pass death's gloomy vale,
and life and mortal pow'rs shall fail,
O may my last expiring breath
his lovingkindness sing in death.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
his lovingkindness sing in death.
Then shall I mount, and soar away
to the bright world of endless day;
there shall I sing, with sweet surprise,
his lovingkindness in the skies.
Lovingkindness, lovingkindness,
his lovingkindness in the skies.
(Samuel Medley, 1782)
Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.
Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.
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