'O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.'

Here are astonishing and unexpected words. A dying Saviour in extreme agony looks upon a vast crowd, screaming out insults, hatred and abuse, and prays, 'Father, forgive them!' Here is Christ's mighty love, the definition of forgiveness, and how the prayer is answered.

The moral law was intended to show our need of forgiveness. Believers are not under its power to condemn, but salvation has inscribed its positive virtues in our hearts to be our 'voluntary' aim and longing - the highest mark of grace.

'The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book.'

Justification by faith! What does it mean? It is the simplest yet the most profound teaching in the world. It is the most important thing anyone can know; the most surprising, the kindest, the most powerful, and the most costly (for God). It gives eternal life.

Our aim is the building up of the church by Gospel and teaching. Paul provides this great summary of all Bible teaching, the servicing of the three pillars that support love: a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfeigned. Here is how.

'Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders which were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon.'

The great challenging question of the inspired Bible-writers of old - why? What are the motives that drive us away from God and His eternal plan for all who trust in Him? Here is why we recoil from Him, and all that we miss as a result.

Why does Paul here use terms that refer to conversion to also describe what God imparts to converted people? The same benefits advance holiness, happiness, instrumentality and assurance, and here is how they may be hindered or helped as they flow to us.

'In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus saith the LORD to me; Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck.'