Ray of Sunshine. art

February is a month of love. We celebrate love, we show love, and we obsess over love all thanks to Valentine’s Day. But what is love? What does it mean to be loved by God? How does scripture point us to understand God’s love for people, His love for us individually, His love for believers, and His love for non-believers?

Let’s begin by exploring the definition of love. The Hebrew word for love is hesed which means completely undeserved kindness and generosity; faithful, reliable, unfailing, and loving kindness. The kind of love you find in a covenant. Covenantal love is not a lighthearted school girl crush, it is a serious commitment of steadfast love. God shows steadfast love as His love is predictable, tenacious, and unchanging. This means that His love does not change with current culture; it does not change to fit a narrative to make someone feel good. His love is set and His intensions and desires for humans have not changed. In His covenants He requires faithful love to follow His words, His commands, and His teachings. And sometimes this comes with a dose of tough love. Why is this true? Well, Isaiah 54:10 tells us, “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.” He does this because He has compassion on you and His unfailing love is where you can turn to understand true love.

When we submit to God’s true love, we are asked to love Him in return. In Deuteronomy 10:12, we find this truth, “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to Him, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” To walk in obedience to Him, to serve Him, not to walk in obedience to the world and serve the world. We cannot do both because God is not of this world. How great will it be to understand God’s love and know that feeling? I bet it is better than any earthly thing imaginable.

With this as your start, I invite you to study love from a Biblical standpoint for the remainder of the month and report back here your findings.

Here are some ideas for study:

1. A word study on hesed
2. Scriptures that detail what God’s love is
3. Scriptures that detail human’s response to God’s love
4. Reflect on the difference between earthly love and God’s love
5. Dissect the different types of love (steadfast, faithful, covenant, etc..)

I pray you will be Spirit led in your studies and unearth God’s truth and wisdom. Amen.

Leave a comment sharing your takeaways are from studying God’s love.