As I'm writing today I'm feeling this is important for someone in particular who will be reading this, though God's truth will always touch many hearts. So take this as from the Lord if you sense He's speaking directly to you even if that's never happened to you before. Whoever you are, He knows you, He knows your heart-pains, and He loves you. Whenever it is that you read this, He's speaking to you! Maybe this actually applies to a number of you. But I felt I was to say this.
Moving on, let's talk about what the love of God is really like from His perspective as the Hebrew reveals it. I've crammed a whole lot of info into each paragraph so after reading it, you may want to go back and ponder each statement to absorb its wonderful truth about Him. Or read it slowly to take it all in. Especially if some of this is new to you.
AHAVA (pronounced Ah-ha-VAH) has to do with being chosen by God. It is indisputable that Israel is God's chose people. Therefore, anyone who also has been drawn to Him has also been chosen by God. It's how anyone comes to the Lord, He draws us to Himself. This is true for all who come to know God through Yeshua, Israel's Messiah. That's who He was in the beginning when up to a million Jewish people followed Him, and who He still is. The world may have made Him look like a Gentile since then and not a Jew but part of the restoration mentioned above is that His Jewishness is being restored and Israel is recognizing Him for Who He is. Most of my family and I are part of that amazing historic event now taking place along with thousands of others. It's part of the sign of the times indicating His return is near. His love for His people Israel never changed. It's still there. But I digress......
God's choosing is never about us deserving it. He chose Israel not out of any merit of her own, but because she was the least of all people. Look what He has done with a nation of powerless slaves! A nobody family from one childless nomadic man, who just believed God. God needs no qualifications for Him to choose anyone. In fact, what we may think would commend us to Him, really gets in our way. "Instead God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1:27). Doesn't that just eliminate any sense of trying to earn or keep His love or acceptance? It's all about His sovereign love for us, period. All we really have to do is accept it and enjoy it. Who doesn't want to be loved unconditionally, and especially by someone as entirely awesome as God?
Who we are in our own eyes is not a factor in God's choosing of us. Whether we may think we're somehow qualified or consider ourselves entirely unworthy of Him doesn't matter. He alone knows all there is to know about us, through and through, and yet He still chose us. He is never surprised or unaware of anything in our lives and He loves us unconditionally despite them. What a relief! We never have to worry about God changing His mind after saying to Himself, "Oh, I didn't know about THAT!"
He also knows how He can make us fully and completely His and someone to and in whom His goodness can be manifested to us and even through us.
The Scriptures tell us correctly that "we love Him because He first loved us." We respond to His choosing-love!! There is no back door to the Kingdom of God that we could come in without His knowledge. Yeshua is the only door and the only way in, and if You come to Him, it's because Abba chose you to give you to His Son as a love-gift.
The best part is that whom God chooses, He never unchooses! And who finds Him, He never looses. Israel is certainly a picture of those truths in a myriad of examples.
CHESED (KHEH-sed) may be translated into English as something like lovingkindness. That to me just makes it sound like God is nice. HE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN NICE! This has to do with covenant keeping love. Whom He chooses, He keeps! These two aspects of His love are intertwined. Whom God chooses, He enters into covenant with, whether a person or a nation such as He has with Israel. He's in it forever. He's there, He's for us, He's protecting, providing, leading and guiding, He's right beside us, we're never without Him. God is a forever keeping God.
Yeshua initiated the New (really renewed) covenant with God so that when we turn our lives over to Him and accept His forgiveness for having lived independently from God, we find ourselves in an emotional rest such as we have not likely known before. It's all rather supernatural but in a very natural kind of way. Like peace. He loves whom He has chosen and assumes responsibility for them. Even regarding the day-to-day matters of life, He will help us with them if we invite Him into them. God often reveals to us His supernatural love by at times making the most ordinary things examples of His thoughtfulness toward us. There are with Him many causes for delight!
Does that mean coming to Yeshua means being free of troubles. I wish it did. You may actually find you now have difficulties in your life you never had before, in particular when you find people in your life are not as happy about you becoming a Believer in Yeshua as you are. Sometimes it's hard. I can tell you from experience, but I can also say that He will be with you as "a very present help in trouble" and having His presence with you is worth anything it might cost you. Ask just about any true believer in Yeshua that you know and
They'll all tell you that same thing.
If you know Him that way, you know what I mean, and if you don't yet, ask Him to show you the practical ways He's been there for you, helping you when you didn't even realize it was Him, or know that He was there. Many of us who have come to the Lord can look back on our lives and realize that He's been there all along, helping you get through what life has challenged you with. God doesn't make the hard or bad things happen. He helps us overcome them and keep going. You'll find yourself becoming aware of those things if you look for them. All that is in His covenant commitment to you.
RAKHAMIM (rakh-ah-MEEM) means mercy but so much more than that one word. Mercy does not mean pity. Pity looks down on one in an unenviable position but does nothing to help. Mercy on the other hand is all about helping. God's mercy always reaches out to lift the needing person out of what they are in so as to help change their situation for the better. It may take a series of merciful acts and some time but be assured, if we're His, where there is trouble, God's merciful love is at work to rescue.
If you read through the New Testament, though it's everywhere in the Tenakh (O.T.) as well, you will see how Yeshua lived out a Rakhamim-filled life as His primary motivation. Mercy is always linked with compassion and compassion, unlike pity, always moves to help change the person's situation and not leave them in need. I like to think of His mercy as the outworking of the Almighty in tenderness. it doesn't get any better than that.
I have tried to end this article a few times without saying this, but I keep feeling I need to let someone, perhaps more than one the person, know God really is speaking to you. I don't know who you are, but He does. Judging from the emphasis, perhaps you are Jewish. This is an introduction to the Lord, not to just know these things about Him, but to enter into a relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through His Messiah and Son, Yeshua. He wants to make His love for Israel real to you. He knows your pains and He knows your losses, though you've done a good job of looking fine on the outside. He wants to make you whole. He stands with open arms to you as your Comforter King, and one who still has plans for your life in ways you've never imagined. Talk to Him. Let Him talk to you. It's a good day to start a relationship with the Almighty.
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