We often underestimate the love of our Creator. We live within boundaries and with a limited mindset when it comes to loving one another. Moreover, there’s an attempt to downgrade the inclusion of certain people in the family of God.
Born with a void in our hearts, we wanted to be loved and feel the warmth and care of others. Our hunger for loyal love that we once received in aplenty when we’re in the presence of the Lord sometimes backfired. It led us to perform certain acts we did not want to do.
At times, we try to run away from God, disobeyed him but to see and experience the loyal love of God once again should we turn to him at the right time. It is because the love of God is boundless giving us chances upon chances to rectify our relationship with him.
Hesed is the single most important term describing the character of God. It is tough to translate as well as illustrate. Many English translations use words like mercy, goodness, loving, kindness, and so on. So, we get to know what the word and character are all bout in a whole and definitive way.
Dr. Allen’s, a teaching faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary, favorite translation of “loyal love” strikes a chord in my mind throughout one of the courses I’d attended.
Further, the best illustration for hesed must be the binding love that most parents have for their children.
Now, we’re not born to hate yet we did have bitter feelings towards a group of people or any person whom we deemed not fit or deserving our love. The circumstances behind it can be defended with our earthly wisdom. And with the rule of law- sovereignty and integrity of nation or group of person we tend to justify our actions.
The loyal love for our enemies:
This is something impossible in the realm of the earth. Enmity will exist as long as the human race survived on this planet. The first enmity pronounced as a curse to the serpent after the fall of man signifies the future course of the creations. Genesis 3:15
However, the loyal love of God is present in the everyday life of the people. Jonah’s accounts of his reconciliation and the revival in Nineveh is one wonderful story that depicted the loyal love of God for someone who tries to run away from him. Moreover, the loyal love of God towards the notorious Assyrians whom the Lord God had even considered burning their city.
The Revival in Nineveh:
The revival in Nineveh is most unexpected. Even the messenger of the living God, Jonah did not expect it to happen, he’d rather wanted to see them burn with heavenly fire for the misdeeds and the suffering the Assyrians had brought upon the region.
In other words, the judgment passed by a man looking into the acts of the Assyrians, their enemies, is to completely destroy them. Yet it is very interesting to know that the loyal love of God is inclusive despite them being outside the chosen people. Interestingly, the love of God is for all mankind irrespective of their races and deeds.
Thus the unexpected revival brought upon by the love of God who spared them from burning the Assyrian city of Nineveh displayed the loyal love of God which is never changing in its character.
The loyalty of Ruth:
What is it for a woman, who is considered to be outside of the loyal love of God, to possess such a loyal love towards her widowed in-law? It is hard to explain in human terms. As we have already seen in various ways she depicted the loyal love of God in her act of loyalty.
Ruth is a wonderful story about God’s grace in the lives of everyday people. Israel was in moral decay, a famine indicates judgment for sin.
Naomi and Ruth:
However, there’s something very interesting in Ruth’s life story. Naomi’s life began with a story full of the family but circumstances even led her to that point where she wanted to change her name to Marah, which means bitter. By bitter, she wanted to reveal her state of mind and what is happening around her.
Yet Ruth the Edomite becomes her loyal family to stay afloat through these hard times.
“Your people will be my people and you God will be my God, she declared. It was uncertain as to why she accepted the Lord ash her God. But she was repaid in the end. Ruth 1:16
In hindsight of it, it would be very hard to understand if one of our family members denounced her faith or embrace other God in today’s world. Although there are tons of people who did it. And it predestined their afterlife.
The loyal love of God:
The loyalty of Ruth makes her acceptable in the realm of the worshipper of the living God. She became the exceptional case for persons who shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. Deuteronomy 23:1-8
It hugely signifies the loyal love of God is inclusive, does not have boundaries or limits in his search for the lost. Luke 19:10 His grace is sufficient to depict his love yet strong in maintaining his power.
Carrying out his loyal love:
No man is worth carrying out his loyal love. So a display of God’s loyal love till death on Calvary’s Mount. through the son of God. God sent His own Son to die for us. His loyal love towards his fallen creature is displayed for everyone to see. His death brought us atonement from our original sin.
Even if it ends there, it is beyond what we can ask for. Yet His Resurrection from the dead is the victory over death that we shall be once again raised to be with him in the kingdom of God.
The sacrificial love and/or act of Jesus Christ on the cross has lifted and broken the veil that separates us from him. One who believes in Him becomes his new children.
Now the gospel of Jesus Christ is for all. Sons of the world have and will try to contain it, yet it will keep on spreading till the end of the earth. We have the privilege to be part of it!
Following Jesus isn’t just a religion, it’s a personal experience of knowing his loyal love.
In his loyal love:
We are born empty but with the original sin attached to us. Yet there’s an escape route in Jesus Christ. He is the only way to the Father.
Our story might begin with emptiness, loneliness, fear, as in the case of Naomi and Ruth, Assyrians – the people of Nineveh, and Jonah. Some of us lose ways or are attack in our journey of life unprecedented. Yet by trusting in the loyal love of God, we will end our life story full in every way!
