"And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen." (Matthew 28:20)

A favorite old song of many senior citizens (of this writer, at least) is the sentimental "I’ll be loving you--always" ballad written long ago by Irving Berlin. The sincerity of some who sing it may be questioned, but the many "always" promises of the Bible really mean it. Consider a few of these precious promises, for example.

The apostle Paul urges believers to be "always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58). And to the same Corinthian church he later wrote: "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:14).

Then there is that other tremendous promise in the same epistle: "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8).

The greatest such promise is that in our text, when the Lord Jesus Christ Himself promised that "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20).

These are also a number of very important exhortations in the Scriptures involving an "always" type of commitment. For example, Jesus said: "that men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1). That is, never give up praying just because the answer seems a long time coming. Furthermore, Paul says that we should be "giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:20).

Then, we are to "rejoice in the Lord always" (Philippians 4:4). Finally, there is the command to "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15). HMM