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But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”¹

Victory just celebrated its 40^th year as a church; started in 1984, at the Tandem Cinema basement, U-Belt, Manila (against all sound human counsel), in obedience to a call to reach the campus for Jesus Christ. Now we find Victory churches all over the Philippines—one church in different locations; and has sent out missionaries to 40 different nations. Because of the obedience to its call—to honor God and make disciples. The phenomenal growth is a testament of God’s steadfast love for his church.

King David wrote in his Psalm, Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!² He starts with this exultation and caps it with the same. As though implying that God is steadfast, unwavering, constant from beginning to end. After all he is the Alpha and the Omega! “Behold, . . . I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”³

Then within the text, he calls to mind that we should declare, “His steadfast love endures forever.”⁴ Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear the LORD, meaning his chosen people of the promise, his appointed priests, and his disciples, respectively.

The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, . . . . But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. . . . Behold, the Lord God helps me, . . .⁵

Let us be like the Levites whose portion is the LORD.⁶ Above all else, let us first seek the kingdom of God, trusting that all shall be added.⁷ Let us emulate what Moses declared, after God revealed another facet of himself—The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”⁸ 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.⁹