Understanding God's Hesed: The Power of Covenant Love

The word hesed is not just mercy. When you have hesed for somebody, you will be merciful to them because you are hesed towards them. Now, I'm going to use this word like it's English today until you catch the revelation of it. It's also not simply grace. Some people will say, well, mercy is grace. Yes, you have grace for people or you favor people for whom you have hesed for, but it's not encapsulated completely in the definition of grace. But it's a better definition than mercy. [20:16]

It's the prerequisite to many of the words. There is actually no word in English that can properly convey the mindset or the idea of chesed in Hebrew. That's why many translations pick a word because you can't have every time the word chesed is in the Bible, which is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, maybe even almost a thousand times, you can't have two, three, four, five, six paragraphs, an entire chapter for one word, so they pick one. [21:07]

When you understand chesed, you understand that what Jesus did on the cross is not only legally yours. Are you ready for this? God has obligated himself to provide these things for your life. No one can obligate himself. No one can obligate God except himself, and he said, I want to show you the power of covenant or contract. I'm going to obligate myself through chesed that when I sign this covenant with you in blood, then I have to. [21:53]

That's idolatry because you don't want Him, you want what He can do for you. But once you understand chesed, you know that God's obligated to give that to you and it's not based on your merit system. And so you don't have to have fake relationship with God. You can spend time with Him. When you understand chesed, you're going to want to spend time with God. Some of you will probably shed tears this morning when you catch the revelation because you'll recognize how good our God really is. [23:44]

Hesed is an obligatory action because of a covenant relationship. It's an obligatory action that comes as the result of a covenant relationship so because there's a contractual covenant relationship then I'm obligated to do certain things or to treat you a certain way and if you begin to study the old covenant and ancient times contracts or covenants were made through blood the shedding of blood in Exodus 21 it even talks about whenever someone decides to become a bond servant of somebody. [27:43]

The obligations and rights acquired through a covenant are translated into corresponding actions through hesed. Now, here's the final definition that really wraps it all up. It can be defined simply as two words, covenant loyalty. Covenant loyalty. Loyalty is interesting because, like we always say, man's best friend, dogs are loyal. They're the most loyal animals, right? Cat lovers, sorry, there's no loyalty in a cat, right? Dogs are loyal, man. [32:05]

Psalm 25 10 says, all the paths of the Lord are mercy. You see that word mercy? That's the word hesed. So I'm going to start saying hesed instead of how it's translated in English. Because when I say mercy, most of us in modern Western society immediately think of not getting something you deserve, right? Like if I have mercy on you, that means I'm not going to do something to you that I could have done. That is the worst definition possible. [34:53]

Once you understand that, you will begin to understand his character. And at that point, you will fall in love with him. At that point, you'll never be bored another day in your life reading the word. At that point, you'll never be empty, spiritually speaking. Joy becomes unspeakable, and it becomes past your circumstance when you understand God's loyalty to you. Because loyalty and the fear of a lack thereof stops us in our relationships. We don't realize we do that with God too. [35:52]

Through the Lord's chesed, we're not consumed. That means the consuming of the enemy is halted through chesed. So once you understand God's chesed for you, then the destruction of the enemy is stalled and it has stayed in your life. The enemy can't touch you when you have a revelation of his chesed. Let's keep going. Because his compassions fail not. Verse 23. Thank you, Chris. That's chesed right there. I felt it. All right. They are new every morning. [37:47]

The truth sets us free. But if you just think it's the truth that sets us free, then everybody on earth that has a Bible will be free completely. But it's the truth that we know will set us free. And so, I'm going to preach this for many years, and when God showed me that scripture, I said, you know, it's the truth that sets us free. It's the truth that of course, we know that it sets us free. But if you just think it's the truth that sets us free, it's the truth that sets us free. [43:32]

And so as we have faith in your hesed, then God, he's obligated. He says, I've obligated myself to respond and act in accordance with the covenant. the contract. So it wasn't them singing the latest CeCe Winans song. By the way, if you don't have That's My King by CeCe Winans, get it. I listen to it every day, 30 times a day. It'll change your life once you get the revelation of it. And it sounds good too. But anyways, side note there, just free. [44:58]

He wasn't looking at just what Jesus could do. He said, you're the son of David. And Jesus said, what? And then when he said hesed, Jesus said, I got to stop. He stopped, verse 49, and said, call this man. So they called to the blind man, cheer up on your feet. He's calling out of all the people. For some reason, no one could see it. He's calling you. And verse 50, throwing his cloak. [58:47]