Stones: Making God's Faithfulness Your BedrockSample

Your Forgiveness Comes from God’s Steadfast Love

I spent the majority of a road trip from Dallas to Branson, Missouri looking up every time stone or rock is used in the Bible. Less than twenty-four hours later, I was marveling at the pink sunset melting over the lake as we ate dinner at the Top of the Rock. I pictured Moses climbing up Mount Sinai with two stone tablets and imagined how difficult his climb must have been compared to our joyride up to the Top of the Rock.

We are first introduced to Moses in the book of Exodus when God’s people are enslaved by the Egyptians. The Israelites cry out to God for help, and he sends Moses to lead them out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and into the Promised Land of freedom. After the miraculous intervention of God, Moses and the Israelites successfully leave Egypt and end up at Mount Sinai on their way to the Promised Land. There, at Mount Sinai, God initiates a legal agreement between himself and his people, pledging to remain faithful. He asks them to follow several laws, all of which were designed to help everyone flourish, and He ratifies the agreement by etching the laws onto two stone tablets.

This isn’t the first time—or the last—that Moses’ story includes stones. Just after the Exodus, Moses fears that the Israelites will stone him to death and God provides a solution by instructing Moses to strike a rock for water. The specifications for the Tabernacle that God gives to Moses in Exodus 28 include onyx stones. In Exodus 33, Moses intercedes for God’s people in the cleft of a rock.

Just as the Israelites would break the Ten Commandments, Moses would fail to hold up his end of the deal with God. Ironically, Moses’ disobedience also included stone imagery as Moses struck a rock rather than speaking to it as God instructed. God let Moses experience the consequences of his mistakes—Moses was not allowed to enter into the Promised Land. Even still, just as we experience in our own lives, the endurance of consequences pales in comparison to the exponential impact of God’s steadfast love. His faithfulness carries on to the thousandth generation. God’s loyal love outlasts the consequences of our sin. He forgives generously and is unfailingly compassionate.

While Moses and the Israelites only had the stone tablets to reference God’s directions, you and I have access to the Holy Spirit. We don’t need stone tablets anymore. God writes truth on our hearts through his Holy Spirit. And at the core of that truth written on our hearts is this certainty: God is faithful to love us no matter what.

Prayer: God, Your faithful love is so much greater than I can possibly imagine. Help me to turn to you when I fail, trusting your compassion and forgiveness to bring about restoration. In Jesus’ name, Amen.