If tasked to state what God is full of, what would our response be? Consider Today’s Holy Nougat
Psalms 33:5 NIV
[5] The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.
Full of God’s Unfailing Love
It is not strange to hear folks arguing and one tells the other all they are full of. Never have I heard Love mentioned in such contexts. And rightly so, since the ‘full of’ comment is scarcely ever complimentary. It is noteworthy that in the Divine Council meeting in Job 1, Satan basically accused YHWH of being so full of love that YHWH blessed Job (see verse 9). Now Satan didn’t actually accuse YHWH of being full of love, but it can be inferred from the line of argument.
In the psalm, mala not only implies fullness, it also could refer to ‘accomplish’, ‘fence in’ (that was Satan’s actual accusation that YHWH fenced Job in), ‘replenish’ or even ‘consecrate’. None of those can be considered as accusatory; yet we don’t often speak of God’s love fencing us in, being accomplished in us, replenishing us, or consecrating us – could it be that we’ve taken God’s love for granted?
Self-Check
In what ways have we taken God’s love for granted?
Digging Deeper
When we speak of God’s unfailing love, this is not the love bandied about in romance novels or good love songs. Some interpreters translate this as ‘lovingkindness’, and Strong’s refers to it as mercy or good deed-liness. I’ve never heard God’s hesed described that way before. Yet it suits.
Because God’s unfailing love, mercy, favor, or lovingkindness is replete with good deeds. Jeremiah comments on this in Lamentions, stating ‘_Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for God’s compassion never fail. They are new every morning… This tells us God’s mercy daily self-replenishes. If we superimpose Jeremiah’s confession of God’s unfailing love over Satan’s accusation regarding God’s hedge around Job, what we get is a picture of God as renewing, extending love and tender mercy. Psalm 103:10-14 states unequivocally, God does not treat us as our sins deserve.
So, if our praise-song is about the business of reciprocating God’s love language, and God’s love language includes mercy… then Siblings, our task is before us. For God’s love is meted out to us even before we accept God’s love. Y’shua says that as God’s blessings flow to all, we ought to love our enemies and pray for those who seek to persecute us (an excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7; this excerpt is Matthew 5:4345).
Could it be siblings that when Y’shua gave us that new commandment in John 13:34, He was offering us a musical score for our praise song? If so, are we prepared to sing loudly?
Points to Ponder
Is there someone known or unknown who needs to experience God’s hesed through us? How shall we respond?
Would anyone be able to accuse us of being full of God’s unfailing love: relentless, merciful, renewed and renewing, lovingkindness that fences in, fills and fulfils them?
May that accusation stick in all situations that matter to God.
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May all we seek be found in Christ
