Unconditional Love, Loving-Kindness | Kristi's Morning Devotional

January 18, 2024January 18, 2024

Because of Love

These past weeks we have been looking at the God’s love and the way He expresses it towards us. Now let’s look at how we express our love to the Father.

“We love because God loved us first. ²⁰But if we say we love God and don’t love each other, we are liars. We cannot see God. So how can we love God, if we don’t love the people we can see?” I John 4:18-20 CEV

A big part of our loving God is how we love others. His love for us is unconditional; Paul tells us that God’s love thinks the best of others and doesn’t store up wrongdoings. In other words, love forgives and forgets. It doesn’t keep score; real love wipes the slate clean.

I’d like to share two different portions of Scripture I was reading this morning. They really spoke to me and gave me a mandate of how I’m to live, reflecting the love of God. Maybe they will do the same for you.

“Love should always make us tell the truth. Then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ, the head ¹⁶ of the body. Christ holds it together and makes all of its parts work perfectly, as it grows and becomes strong because of love.” Ephesians 4:15-16 CEV

Paul, who wrote these verses and the ones we will read next, had a divine insight to love. When he had his conversion experience, he was leading a murderous campaign against Christians. He carried arrest warrants on his person, looking for those who professed Christ and were claiming that Christ was the Messiah. He was on the road to Damascus to arrest many more when Christ appeared to him. He went from hating and persecuting the believers to loving them and teaching them how to be more Christ-like.

“Let love be your only debt! If you love others, you have done all that the Law demands. ⁹ In the Law there are many commands, such as, ‘Be faithful in marriage. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not want what belongs to others.’ But all of these are summed up in the command that says, ‘Love others as much as you love yourself.’ ¹⁰No one who loves others will harm them. So love is all that the Law demands.” Romans 13:8-10 CEV

Jesus was the one who taught that the greatest commandment of the Scriptures was to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength and then that we should love others as we love ourselves.

To love the way God wants us to love we first have to receive the love He has for us, experience it for ourselves and then we can be a conduit of love that will flow to others.

“But I am giving you a new command. You must love each other, just as I have loved you. ³⁵If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.” John 13:34-35 CEV

Each of us will have opportunities to be loving today. Remember, we are up for the task because of His love for us!

November 3, 2023November 3, 2023

Love to be Kind

Do you have a friend who loves to be kind? They are there to help before you ask. The type of person who looks for opportunities to be encourage and support, one who gives with all their heart?

That’s loving-kindness. That’s what we have been talking about for the last two days. That’s our heavenly Father.

“Then the trees of the woods will sing for joy before the Lord. For He is coming to judge the earth. ³⁴O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His loving-kindness lasts forever. ³⁵Then say, ‘Set us free, O God Who saves us. Gather and save us from among the nations, to give thanks to Your holy name, and have joy in Your praise.” I Chronicles 16:33-35 NLV

His loving-kindness lasts forever! As of yet, we have not reached forever so the loving-kindness of our God continues to reach out to us.

When we walk, mindful of the Lord in all we do, we are an example of His loving-kindness. Our families will see it, our co-workers and neighbors will take notice. We become receptacles of His love.

The loving-kindness of the Lord flows into our lives through a conduit of His grace and we in turn become a cup that runs over with His goodness.

“You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. ⁶Surely your goodness and unfailing love (loving-kindness) will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:5b-6 NLT

I would like to share one final excerpt from the Love in the Long Term.

“Hesed is a bone-weary father who drives through the night to bail his drug-addict son out of jail. Hesed is a mom who spends day after thankless day spoon-feeding and wiping up after her disabled child. Hesed is an unsung pastor’s wife whose long-suffering, tearful prayers keep her exhausted husband from falling apart at the seams. Hesed is love that can be counted on, decade after decade. It’s not about the thrill of romance, but the security of faithfulness.”

Loving-kindness is the act of loving to be kind. Kindness is always at the forefront resulting in loving actions. Time and again the Bible tells us that Jesus was moved with compassion. He saw with His heart and then acted in a way that made a difference. Loving-kindness.

“Loving-favor and loving–kindness and peace are ours as we live in truth and love. These come from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Son of the Father.” I John 2:3 NLV

Be grateful today that our Father loves to be kind!

November 2, 2023November 2, 2023

More Love

That really is an oxymoron. If you love or are loved how can there be more?

With our heavenly Father there is just love for He is love. His whole character, His nature, His very being is love!

We can come to comprehend His love in greater depth but there is never a point where He withholds His love and then releases more of it. He can’t stop being who He is, He is love.

Yesterday while I was looking further into “hesed”, loving-kindness, I found these words.

“Hesed is to love as God loves. When God’s presence passed by Moses on Mt. Sinai and revealed his very essence, God proclaimed his great hesed. (Exodus 34:6) In his book The Bible Among the Myths, biblical scholar John Oswalt describes it this way:

The word hesed…[is] the descriptor par excellence of God in the Old Testament. The word speaks of a completely undeserved kindness and generosity done by a person who is in a position of power. This was the Israelites’ experience of God. He revealed himself to them when they were not looking for him, and he kept his covenant with them long after their persistent breaking of it had destroyed any reason for his continued keeping of it. …Unlike humans, this deity was not fickle, undependable, self-serving, and grasping. Instead he was faithful, true, upright, and generous—always.

Like other Hebrew verbs, hesed is not just a feeling but an action. It intervenes on behalf of loved ones and comes to their rescue.” excerpt from Hesed: Love in the Long Term.
by Lois Tverberg

Contrary to what some teach, our heavenly Father is not the one causing evil and disruption in our lives. He is the One bringing peace in the midst of our storm.

“For this is like the days of Noah to Me. As I promised that the waters of Noah should not flood the earth again, so I have promised that I will not be angry with you or speak sharp words to you. ¹⁰The mountains may be taken away and the hills may shake, but My loving-kindness will not be taken from you. And My agreement of peace will not be shaken,” says the Lord who has loving-pity on you.” Isaiah 54:9-10 NLV

and we have this promise in Ephesians

“At one time all of us lived to please our old selves. We gave in to what our bodies and minds wanted. We were sinful from birth like all other people and would suffer from the anger of God.

⁴But God had so much loving-kindness. He loved us with such a great love. ⁵Even when we were dead because of our sins, He made us alive by what Christ did for us. You have been saved from the punishment of sin by His loving-favor. ⁶God raised us up from death when He raised up Christ Jesus. He has given us a place with Christ in the heavens.” Ephesians 2:3-6 NLV

A heart of gratitude is established on love. Day 2 in the month of giving thanks. Thank the Father for His unconditional love and then look for an opportunity to share “hesed” with someone.

November 1, 2023November 1, 2023

Loving-Kindness

Today starts our month of heart preparation. Preparation for gratitude.

There is a Hebrew word used throughout the Old Testament, the word is Hesed, Chesed or Chesedh. Most often it is translated loving-kindness or mercy but it’s much deeper than we imagine.

“I will show you and teach you in the way you should go. I will tell you what to do with My eye upon you. ⁹Do not be like the horse or the donkey which have no understanding. They must be made to work by using bits and leather ropes or they will not come to you. ¹⁰Many are the sorrows of the sinful. But loving-kindness will be all around the man who trusts in the Lord. ¹¹Be glad in the Lord and be full of joy, you who are right with God! Sing for joy all you who are pure in heart!” Psalm 32:8-10 NLV

Hesed is a deep and abiding love – the unconditional love of God. It is His covenant, His unbreakable promise to us as His children. It is a blood bond, a blood covenant. Not something we are familiar with in Western culture but something that was very prevalent in the African and European histories. The closest we come to it here in the America’s is the “blood brothers” of Native American tribes.

A stronger, more affluent, tribe would cut the skin, mingle their blood with a weaker and more defenseless tribe. The stronger vowing to protect and defend the weaker; the weaker promising to provide food or water for the more powerful. Each one vowing to give all they had to provide for the other. That is hesed.

That is loving-kindness.

Here in Arizona the Apache and Pima tribes had just such a covenant. The Apache were fierce warriors, and the Pima were excellent farmers. They entered a blood covenant, an hesed, where the Apache would protect the Pimas, who were not warriors at all and in turn the Pima would grow enough corn and other crops to feed their Apache blood brothers.

“But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the promise He made to your fathers. So the Lord brought you out by a strong hand. He set you free from the land where you were servants, and from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹Know then that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God. He keeps His promise and shows His loving-kindness to those who love Him and keep His Laws, even to a thousand family groups in the future.” Deuteronomy 7:8-9 NLV

With grateful hearts, we thank the Father for His loving-kindness that extends to a thousand generations and beyond. By His power, He delivered the Israelites from Egypt and by His promise of love, hesed, He keeps that promise of loving-kindness to us, thousands of generations later.

“Let us go with complete trust to the throne of God. We will receive His loving-kindness and have His loving-favor to help us whenever we need it.” Hebrews 4:16 NLV

For the next couple of days we will look at more Scriptures that speak of the loving-kindness of God.

I can’t think of a better way to prepare our hearts for a day of thanksgiving than by focusing on the One who shows us unconditional love and favor! Afterall, He’s written us a love letter.