Ahavat Olam

אַהֲבַת עוֹלָם everlasting love

“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love, I have drawn you to myself.”

Jeremiah 31:3 (NLT)

We love Him because He first loved us

1 John 4:19 (NKJV)

Think back as far as you can. Do you remember when you first sensed the love of God for yourself?

I do. It may surprise you to know that I didn’t sense His love even on the day that I gave Jesus my heart. I was an eight-year-old child.

I just knew that I was a sinner in need of forgiveness. On that day, I began to grow in my new salvation—painfully, slowly.

I first sensed God’s true love for me in high school, which was a difficult time in my life. I felt sad and alone, but one day while walking to class, I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that the Spirit of God was right there. He didn’t speak audibly; I simply leaned into the inner voice in my heart.

I would like to tell you that the pain went away, and I have lived happily ever since.

That isn’t the way God works. We live in a world full of sin, including my own. But God takes shattered lives and perfectly fits them back together with His tender grace. He transforms broken hearts into testimonies of living hope.

I bet you have a story to tell, too. If you don’t have a story of the nearness of God, could it be that you

• are stuck in a sinful lifestyle
• are deeply affected by someone else’s sin
• have never truly given your heart to Him.

God’s love can touch each of those dilemmas.

God’s love is mighty, unconditional; it’s personal, and it is miraculous.

One of the most misunderstood stories of God’s love is the love that He has had for the Hebrew people.

Take a look at this.

The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 

but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

“Therefore, know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”

Deuteronomy 7:7-9 (NKJV)

It tells me of a Savior’s love,

Who died to set me free.

It tells me of His precious blood,

The sinner’s perfect plea.

O how I love Jesus, Because He first loved me!¹

God knew the end of the story before life on earth started. He often works differently from our expectations. He selected a small nation to fulfill His plan. This plan was to create a lineage for Jesus’ birth. He could have chosen any nation, but He chose Israel.

God chose the nation with the fewest people to establish His covenant and share the story of redemption with every nation.

Israel is positioned amid pagan nations so they can witness God’s power, might, love, and mercy, all through His Son.

For the most part, Israel rejected God. However, God’s purpose to bring Jesus through the tribe of Judah has been fulfilled. No part of God’s plan has failed.

All of this is because of God’s love.

What great sadness that most people never know God’s love. These are the people who will not accept the love of God, and they really cannot love other people in the truest sense of the word—Hesed.

Now here’s a challenge for you, regardless of your belief in God. Below is a proof text. This is evidence of God’s love that is either in your heart or reveals the true condition of your heart if you don’t believe.

1 John 1-4

Share the Good News in your world!

Isaiah 52:7

1. O How I Love Jesus
   Frederick Whitfield
   CA 1855 ↩︎

New Living Translation (NLT)

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

New King James Version (NKJV)

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.