Our English translation of, for instance, "lovingkindness" has about the depth of saying "God is nice." That is just not enough to wrap itself around your heart and make you feel all lovey and secure in God, is it? Beginning with the first meeting, just learning of what Ahava means in Hebrew, and specifically God's Ahavah, turned out to be (no kidding) nothing short of life changing for some.
I was amazed at its impact as it proved to be more effective than just interesting but changed a few people's relationships with the Lord. It brought to my mind Paul's words that when the Jewish people come to the Lord it would be "life from the dead" (Romans 11:15). I believe it largely has to do with the resurrection of the Hebrew language so that we can more fully understand the Scriptures, and therefore know God more clearly, as a part of that "life." I saw it happen in my living room while teaching these few words.
If we're talking about love in a Hebrew context, of course, we're first and foremost talking about God's love, the way God loves, and the way "God IS love" (1 John 4:8). His love can be seen in the beauty of creation, even in the affection of animals. No one is too high or too lofty to be without the need to love or be loved. Maybe God made giraffes to remind us. The way God loves is wholly demonstrated in His love for Israel. That may not have been the prevailing thought throughout history, including church history, but Israel's survival as the Jewish people alone, is evidence of His watchful eye upon them to keep His promises to them.
And may I add, for His name's sake, to prove His Ahava, that we may know Him as He truly is "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). God's love has been greatly misunderstood due to misunderstanding His enduring love for Israel and the Jewish people. As this is being corrected so also, as we are seeing, is a more correct understanding of His love in its many aspects.
Let's take a look at the meaning of the first word (the others will follow in subsequent blogs) and maybe there might be some life changes among some of you reading this - or those you might share these meanings with. It's all free for the taking. Pass it along.
Ahavah is God’s choosing love, His election love. He chose Israel to be His own people. We are all aware that the Jewish people are known as "the chosen people." And anyone who comes to Israel's God is likewise chosen. He chooses everyone who comes to know Him personally. No one sneaks in the back door of the Kingdom without Him knowing it. There are no mistaken entrances to being His.
Whether you came to Him easily or with great internal struggle, He has been at work in your life all along to bring you to the security of opening your heart to Him. The reason you have survived some of what life has wrought from you is because He's been there all along on your behalf, despite some of the choices we've made in the license of our free will. He knows that we've all been victimized by sin - that's where His rachamim, His mercy comes in.
But God's Ahavah, His loving choice of you has been actually eternal "for He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world...." (Ephesians 1:4). God does dwell outside of time so that can make sense. Now if He is all knowing (omniscient), could there possibly be anything about you He didn't know about that might disqualify you from His love or acceptance? Is there any chance He would look down on you and say to Himself, "Oh dear, I wasn't aware of that!"
There are people who have been His for years, all their lives even, and yet have not come into the security of His love, because there always seemed to be something that they should be doing or not doing, or should not have done, to be really okay with God. But we are His because of His doing, not because of ours. All we can really do is respond to His reaching out to us in our lives, whether as a child or as a sinner later on.
“No one comes to the Lord unless the Father draws them.” (Deut 10:15; 23:5; Jeremiah 31:3). It's His doing. But even so, His love always allows for our free will. He never violates our freedom.
You can choose NOT to be chosen, or you can deliberately choose to walk away from Him also. There is no compulsion in God. Love always freely loves and allows the loved one to freely love them back or choose not to love them. That also means God takes the risk of having us not love Him in return. We see that with Israel over and over as they strayed from Him. But He keeps on loving them with determination to be their Lover.
There is also an exclusiveness to being the recipient of God’s love. Israel is clearly the chosen people of God. They were set apart from among all the people of the earth for God’s specific attention to them. To anyone who has also come to Israel’s God, they receive the same attention from God. Followers of Yeshua are not like the world, are we? This is all God’s doing; He works within us to bring us to the freedom in Him that He wanted for all humankind when He created the first persons. That does not mean being without challenges in this life, but it does mean that whatever we go through, God is there with us, and He can bring us His kind of peace in the midst of any trial.
What better sense of security than having the Almighty as your bff (best friend forever - literally). We who live our lives in relationship with the one true God are becoming more and more loving, wiser, freer, less affected by the ways the world goes and more influenced by the Spirit of God who is holy.
What does holy mean? Holiness is largely about love. Holiness, absolute purity, is harmless to those who love, but dangerous to those who defy love in favor of Self. It takes a great deal of sinning to set off God's wrath. A read through the Old Testament history will show you that. But when it does occur, it is always because of accumulated violation of love in extreme, against other people, or against God. No one who hates is blessed, to put it simply. The Good News, thought, is that tsYeshua came to set us free from what is unloving, in what we have done and what has been done to us. Our sins, our unloving acts and attitudes, can be fully forgiven when we accept His atoning love for us personally. It's part of the mystery of God, but it's as real as life itself.
If you recall, in the beginning, “God created humankind in His own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27 CJB). When their sin interrupted the perfection in which they were created, it didn’t change God’s intention or His love. I once had a mini-vision in which I saw God’s sheer delight in Adam and how much God loved him. Then I saw as God was sending him out of the garden (Eve was not in the vision) after Adam had sinned. But God's love for Adam was in no way diminished. Even when God disciplines us it is out of His love for us, to make us better people, even more conformed to His loving likeness.
He continues with us what He began - He is RE-CONFORMING US TO HIS LIKENESS. An image is like what we see in a mirror but in this case, it’s spiritual, not physical. He is sovereignly reforming those who are His to be, to live, to think, and to love as He does. He is doing it through His chosen ones as we live out our lives with Him and HIs goodness. What a privilege.
Chosenness, that is to say, election, is not the same as exclusivity or elitism so that you look down on anyone who isn’t like you. That is about Self, not about God’s unSELFish love. (Wasn't the cross of Yeshua that single most unselfish act of any person ever? ) God’s love always seeks for the good of others, and to include others. Israel was always to receive, to welcome strangers, sojourners, or aliens and to care for others as they cared for themselves. As you are reading through the OT, be aware of how often God tells Israel to be just and fair to those who are different, or have less than themselves. There is always room in God’s heart, and so was it to be so in God’s people’s hearts, for even the lowest – the orphans and the widows, who in ancient Israel would have been the destitute, or at least the marginalized.
Just as one of the many places where we are somewhat familiar with this word for love, we see in Zephaniah 3:17 the word Ahava, the love for those He chooses, those whom He saves. “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy, he will rest in His Ahavah. He will rejoice over thee with singing. “ Now there's a picture of God don't usually have, but He gave that to Zephaniah as a revelation of Himself. He wants to be known by His people, and He wants us to know how much He delights in us in His love. So what do we see in Ahavah. We see the full intention of God to raise up those whom He brings to Himself to the highest expression of love and humanity as He intended us to be – LIKE HIM!! Free to love and be loved. SELF not only keeps us in self-protectiveness, it isolates us and puts up a barrier between us and others. Love, God’s kind of love, takes the barriers down to be able to enjoy others as He enjoys us all.
Yeshua took down the middle wall of partition that Self would exalt and separate. In Yeshua there is no more separation or alienation based on: color, race, nationality, ethnicity, finances, intelligence, education, social status, physical abilities or perfection. Diseases nor deformities do not keep one outside of God’s ahava. Once Yeshua had paid the price to break down the separation between God and mankind, the barriers between humans were now obsolete because now we all could relate to one another through God’s love which is all inclusive. There are no “others” in the Kingdom of God. All are loved equally. That includes each of us. You too.
There is no greater privilege in all of creation than to be among those whom God has chosen. And though we may be one of millions, God is not limited by time or space or numbers. He is exquisitely intimately involved with each one of us in His love for each of us. He is committed to bringing us to the fullness of the Freedom of His Being. All of our human desire to be loved, that we are emotional and social beings who need as much to love as to be loved, is all a part of being created in God’s image. He is like that. We are all that people innately are, because we are like God. We desire to be known and loved because God is letting us know that He desires to be known and loved. Not out of any kind of neediness on God's part, but in the sense of entire wholeness. We like to be thanked or appreciated, so does God. Want to have a good time today? Tell God all you are thankful for and thank Him for it. You'll find it unlocks a good bit of joy in your heart. That's His way of loving you back.
