Steadfast Love
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Point: If we are steadfast in our love for Christ we will find favor with God and good sense as a gift from Him. Steadfast love is loyalty to Christ and His Word, not merely hearing His Word, but doing it.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever; the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever;
the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and brought Israel out from among them, for his steadfast love endures forever; with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever; and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever;
but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who struck down great kings, for his steadfast love endures forever; and killed mighty kings, for his steadfast love endures forever;
Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his steadfast love endures forever; and Og, king of Bashan, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and gave their land as a heritage, for his steadfast love endures forever; a heritage to Israel his servant, for his steadfast love endures forever.
It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures forever; and rescued us from our foes, for his steadfast love endures forever;
he who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.
What is steadfast love?
Steadfast love is a trust and faithfulness that people pledge to and expect from each other in a relationship. It is what two people proclaim when they make vows before God when they wed. Steadfast love is the relationship that Jesus proclaimed would be the mark of Him and His followers. Steadfast love is the very character of God himself. Steadfast love is the symbol of the cross upon which our Savior died so that we, the lost, might have life everlasting. Steadfast love is the foundation for God’s actions and His character underlying His goodness. God’s steadfast love is the reason it all happened, is happening, and will continue to happen.
Steadfast is the hebrew word חֶסֶד ḥeseḏ [2617]
The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament 2617. חֶסֶד ḥeseḏ
2617. חֶסֶד ḥeseḏ: A masculine noun indicating kindness, lovingkindness, mercy, goodness, faithfulness, love, acts of kindness.
God’s steadfast love is His loyalty. Because of God’s loyalty, He meets the needs of His creation by delievering us from our enemies and despair (Gen 19:19; Ex 15:13).
“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
Help me, O Lord my God! Save me according to your steadfast love!
the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
God’s steadfast love is the loyalty to which God pledges to those who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations (Deut 7:9).
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
God’s steadfast love is loyalty of which He calls each follower of His to, blessing each as they are loyal and faithful to Him (Deut 7:13; 14-16).
He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.
You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Steadfast love, loyalty, is the call that Jesus places upon each one who would be His disciple, to love as He has loved (John 13:34-35).
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Loyalty is the call of a friend, not a mere servant. It is the calling card, the identification of one one with the LORD Jesus. It is to lay down one’s own life, one’s own desires, one’s own priorities, for the loyalty to another. It is what Jesus calls a person who desires to follow Him to. It is the mark of a true disciple of His.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
What is the LORD Jesus doing? What is our LORD Jesus, our King up to? Redeeming and reconciling, healing and caring, serving and setting free those who are lost, hurting, and in need of saving. He has come to save the world, is saving the world, and will continue to save the world through His steadfast loving kindness implanted in you and me. The question is: will we be steadfast? will we be loyal? Are we steadfast? are we loyal?
As Ruth the Moabite was loyal to Naomi, her mother-in-law, and Boaz was loyal to his calling to be the Kinsman Redeemer, are we loyal to Jesus to love as He loved, to be faithful as He was faithful? Just as trust, reliability, and perfection are expected of a disciple of Jesus Christ, steadfast love, loyalty, is the mark and expectation of one calling himself or herself a Christian. Am I a Christian?
Many are in name only, because loyalty, steadfast love, is not a characterization of their relationship with Christ. Many would consider Jesus their friend, but the important question is - does Jesus consider them to be so? Again, Jesus said, “You are my friends, if you obey what I command you” (John 15:14).
A person can believe in Jesus and call himself, or herself, a Christian, but a disciple believes in God by what they do (James 2:18).
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
Loyalty, or steadfast love, is a verb, it is a working out of one’s faith in Christ. It is an action, and it is to be the hallmark of a disciple of Christ. As God pledged covenant loyalty to Israel, and to the church, He expects us to pledge covenant loyalty to Him, and to His will and purposes as well. He expects us to tie it around our neck as one would a scarf in winter, to keep secure from the bitter cold, and keep it at bay. God encourages us in Proverbs 3:3-4:
Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.
Or as the Revised Standard Version would quote,
Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and of people.
Loyalty and faithfulness find favor and good repute with God and people. The word translated repute is śeḵel [7922] meaning intelligence, good sense.
The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament 7922. שֶׂכֶל śeḵel, שֵׂכֶל śēḵel
śeḵel: a masculine noun meaning intelligence, good sense.
The word śeḵel does not mean mere book knowledge or learning about a particular subject like math or history; but it means insight or understanding. It is a gift from God (1 Chr 22:12) which He wields to give or take away (Job 17:4).
Only, may the Lord grant you discretion and understanding, that when he gives you charge over Israel you may keep the law of the Lord your God.
Such a gift is a result of being steadfast in our loyalty to the LORD God (1 Chr 22:13).
Then you will prosper if you are careful to observe the statutes and the rules that the Lord commanded Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Fear not; do not be dismayed.
What would we call this ‘good sense’? God-sense. God gives god-sense to those who observe His statutes and commands, in order to prosper in our relationships. When we tie loyalty and faithfulness to Christ, around our necks, then we will receive the blessings of God and His god-sense. I picture this as like Spidey-sense to know when evil is lurking, when something is wise to do or not to do, it is divine understanding, discernment and warning, a gift of the Holy Spirit.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
When we are loyal to God, He gives us His favor and god-sense in order to prosper in all our relationships. This is because relationship rules all things. How we are in relationship with God, will dictate whether we receive good or bad from God, but with God all is good in order to draw us back or closer in our relationship to Him, because He is steadfast love, He is the definition of loyalty. He is good above all things, and He is always good in all things. The question is do we have a proper relationship with God, as defined by God, found only with Christ, through Christ, and in Christ, the living Word? An improper relationship, as defined by God, results in bad-sense and no favor of God or man.
God-sense is good sense resulting in wisdom and understanding in all our relationships. Therefore loyalty to God results in wisdom and understanding from God! Evidence? What did King Solomon ask for from God? God-sense. Solomon’s request resulted not only in unparalleled wisdom and understanding, but in riches and honor, to which no other king would compare, dare I say any other person (1 Kings 3:10-14). Is the LORD God the same today, as yesterday, as tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8)? Then He too, will bless us with His gift of favor and god-sense if we are loyal to Him as He is to us. Plainly, loyalty to God results in the gifting of His favor and god-sense. Disloyalty, therefore, leads to a lack of favor and bad-sense.
In Job’s conversation with God, concerning the affliction that God allowed Him to undergo, even though he did nothing wrong, says this about those disloyal to God:
Since you have closed their hearts to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph.
Those who are disloyal to God, rejecting His steadfast love, will be made senseless. Their minds will be darkened and be delievered over to degrading passions and ultimately to judgment and hell (Romans 1:18-32). Specifically, their minds, their sense will be made nonsense (Romans 1:21).
For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened.
Do You Have God-Sense?
The result of loyalty to God and god-sense? Patience (Prov 19:11).
Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
Do you and I overlook an offense or do we hold a grudge in unforgiveness? One with god-sense overlooks an offence and is slow to anger. They realize that of all persons, why should their offense be forgiven, and not their offender? Is this not the point of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:21-35)? How much in God’s steadfast love has He forgiven of me? Am I willing to extend and obey God’s own command to forgive and be forgiven? Do I turn the cheek or do I hang the offender in bitterness?
To forgive is to be wise, of godly sense, and to be patient and steadfast to Christ. To be slow to anger and to overlook an offense is to be one of understanding and righteous. Am I an understanding person? Am I a righteous disciple of Christ?
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
The apostle James encourages us to be doers of the Word of God, not merely hearers, who forget what they hear without action on what they hear. James 1:22-23
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
Hearers forget the Word, doers act on the Word they hear. Am I a hearer or doer? Jesus prefers us to be doers of His Word so that He can bless us with His favor and god-sense, His wisdom and understanding.
Jesus commands us to forgive, do we forgive? Not because we feel like it, but because Jesus commands us, and forgiveness is an act of loyalty to Jesus on our behalf.
Jesus command us to love as He has and does love; do I therefore have persmission to hold a grudge? Do I have permission to hate? Do I have permission to ignore? No.
As Jesus came to serve, and we are called to imitate Him and do likewise, do I serve? Do I serve Him and His purposes? Do I serve His Church as He serves the Church?
The church should not be the place were we have lack, where we have need for servants or volunteers. We should be a people jumping at the opportunity to serve Jesus, and one another, because of how well Jesus has served us and loved us in shedding His blood on the cross and forgiving our sins for the Kingdom.
We tend to excuse ourselves from serving because we feel we are too busy, not qualified, or not talented enough, or we simply believe somebody else will pick up the mantel. If everyone believes and thinks the same way, then the church suffers, the lost suffer, the world suffers. We are called to love God, and love others. This is a call to steadfast love and service. Brothers and sisters Jesus has called you to be fruitful, He has called you to serve Him and His Kingdom. Are you?
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
Are you a disciple of Christ? Are you being steadfast? Are you being loyal? Jesus commands our service to Him, His will and His purposes. The Church is God’s visible kingdom on earth, His will, His purpose.
Jesus commands us to be His disciples to follow Him. A disciple of Christ is a redeemer and a reclaimer. We have been redeemed by Christ to reclaim the world for Christ. Steadfast love, loyalty to Christ results in salvation, which results in unity, which results in community, which results in the Kingdom overcoming the darkness.
Are we steadfast to Christ? Are we loyal? Do we live with His favor, the favor of the people and His god-sense? Are we doers of the Word, and not merely hearers of His Word? Do we have the proper relationship with Christ, in Christ, and through Christ. Amen.
