Feb 19, 2023
HESED: The Grip & The Heart of God
Psalm 136
THE GRIP OF GOD
A. PRAISE WORTHY
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. - Psalm 63:3
B. CONTRACONDITIONAL
“Having entered a covenant relationship with His people, God binds Himself to act toward them with hesed, and He is utterly faithful to His own self-commitment. To put it another way, our hope that God will love us to the uttermost, and forever, is not founded on our ability to keep His commands but rather it’s founded on God’s ability to keep being God.” - Barry Cooper
2 Timothy 2:13: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”
“Sometimes hesed is translated “steadfast love.” It combines commitment with sacrifice. Hesed is one-way love. Love without an exit strategy. When you love with hesed love, you bind yourself to the object of your love, no matter what the response is. So if the object of your love snaps at you, you still love that person. If you’ve had an argument with your spouse in which you were slighted or not heard, you refuse to retaliate through silence or withholding your affection. Your response to the other person is entirely independent of how that person has treated you. Hesed is a stubborn love.” - Paul Miller, A Loving Life
Ruth 1:15-18
Hosea 3:1-2
2. THE HEART BEHIND THE HAND
“When feelings are the standard, we are left adrift on a turbulent sea. Every good feeling becomes a new path, so we become good at starting to love, but bad at finishing.” Paul Miller, A Loving Life
John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
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QUESTIONS:
How has your praise life been praised these days?
Does the stubborn love of Hesed describe any of the relationships you are currently in? If so, how so? If not, where could you start?
David experienced God’s steadfast love in such a way that he declared, “…your steadfast love is better than life.” Is that something you can say? If not, what would it take for you to join him in that declaration?
Which word in our “Words To Live By Series” has been the most impactful thus far for you? How so?