Hesed love is a determination to do someone good, no matter what, to be faithful to a covenant regardless of its impact on you. It wills to love when every fiber in your body screams run. This determination to love is at the heart of Jesus's relationship with his Father, and at the heart of ours as well. Not surprisingly, Jesus says: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34).
Paul the apostle says that this death of self united him with Jesus's death: "For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you" (2 Cor. 4:11-12). That is the essence of Calvary love.
--Paul Miller, A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships, chapter 3
The Puritan identity. On a journey to a better country (Hebrews 11:16), going further up and further in to the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God (Romans 11:33) by laboring to delight in the law of the LORD and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2) while the war and conflict relentlessly rage on until Christ comes (Romans 7:22-25) or calls me home.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Hesed Love
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