The Psalmist penned in Hebrew, “Olam chesed yibaneh”. 

Translated, The world is built on love. Psalm 89

God founded the world on love and He can heal and restore the world through love.  I know our world is pretty messed up.  But God is drawing people to Himself and those people being in a relationship with Him will change the world one life, one neighborhood, one community, at a time. 

The keyword here is “love” translated from the Hebrew word, Chesed or hesed. This may be the most important word in the Bible. Unfortunately, it is one of the most untranslatable Hebrew word found in the Old Testament. 

Hesed has been translated 169 different ways across six English translations of the Bible.  

In 1535 Bible translator Miles Coverdale invented the word, “lovingkindness” to better capture hesed. 

Thye best to understand Hesed is to see hoew God uses it to describe Himself when He appears to Moses.

The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love (hesed) and faithfulness.  I lavish unfailing love (hesed) to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.  Exodus 34:6‭ NLT

God does not talk about His power or His authority, sovereignty, or the worship, He deserves, Instead, He describes His loving nature.  

This Hesed love of God can also be described in psychological or neurological terms as… 

• Unconditional love – 
• Attachment love – in view of neuroscience we have been examining. 

Hesed is closely tied to another Hebrew word we looked at the second week of our series,  dabaq, which means to be glue together, attach, cling, stick to, join to, overtake. ‘to cleave’ Occurs in the Bible 52 times. It describes a loving commitment. A love that never lets go. The Apostle Paul ends his description of love in 1 Cor. 13 with “love always perseveres”. 

This is why I believe “attachment love” may be the best definition of God’s love. 

God promises to “never leave us or forsake us”. He speaks this to Joshua and Jesus tells His disciples the same thing. 

Many people have not experienced attachment love, from God or from others, and they probably didn’t get it in the early stages of their human development. Others may have gone through the trauma of abuse, betrayal, or neglect.  All of these past circumstances affect our lives today. 

Dr. Karyn Purvis of TCU has spent her life studying attachment and its impact on children and how it continues to impact them into adulthood.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNqRhK1fE0U&t=6s

Dr. Purvis defines attachment as “an affectionate bond between a caregiver and a child.”  

Example: As a grandparent, you live for your grandkids. Like a parent, you’d do anything for them and many times you do what mom and dad won’t because you have time.

As much as you want to do for your grandkids it starts with attachment.  When Lyla, our first grandchild was very young she did not attach right away to me or Lori. It took a while for her to warm up to us.

As much as we wanted to share our love, our time, and resources with her she just hadn’t attached well enough to trust us.

It didn’t matter that we loved her with all our hearts she just was not receptive to our care.

I think humanity is this way with God. 

With Lyla, over time this all changed and now we have a wonderfully close relationship. 

But it is true if we do not have someone’s heart we cannot care for them.  They will not receive our love until they can trust us.

No matter how much God loves us and wants to be close, if we cannot trust Him completely we cannot enjoy Him. 

This is why… Jesus lamented, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem—you are the city that murders your prophets! You are the city that stones the very messengers who were sent to deliver you! So many times I have longed to gather a wayward people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings—but you were too stubborn to let me. Matt. 23:37 TPT

Picture these little chicks running around in a storm. They are scared, not knowing what to do but in effect running away from the source of protection and shelter. 

This tension between God pursuing his people and his people rejecting him is detailed in the Book of Hosea. Hear God’s heart for you in these verses of God describing His Hesed for the Israelites. 

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. Hosea 11:1 

Notice how God uses the language of human relationship, of family.

2 But the more I called to him the farther he moved from me, offering sacrifices to the images of Baal and burning incense to idols.

 If we reject God as the center of our life there will always be something else we put in that spot and we will worship it instead. We will use it or them to meet our needs instead of God. This is how you define idolatry. 

3 I myself taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand. But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him.

4 I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love. I lifted the yoke from his neck, and I myself stooped to feed him.

How did Israel respond? How have many responded throughout history? 

7  For my people are determined to desert me. They call me the Most High but they don’t truly honor me.  

This is the conflict within every human heart. The God of wisdom, mercy and love pursues us and we chase something else. 

I like how Dr. Purvis defines attachment, “an affectionate bond between a caregiver and a child.”  How many of you would use this language to describe your relationship with God?

Do you see God as an affectionate caregiver, parent, Father?  I shared a few weeks ago this was the breakthrough in my life. 

10 years into ministry,  and longer walking with God,  but I didn’t grasp this affectionate bond. Why? Because I did not have it in my life with other people. Public but not private relationship. 

Two men who loved me enough to confront me. 

Something missing in our life. Something that is causing you pain and causing you to hurt others. 

I took the time to meet with God. Had these men to help me. Some good resources that helped me find healing and discover God’s love personally. 

When you grasp this hesed, this attachment Love to God, you begin healing from all the trauma in your past and improve all your relationships moving forward. 

Video: Attachment 2 (3.5 min.) 

This idea of attachment expands beyond our relationship with God. 

If we don’t have the hearts to trust our spouses, unconditionally love our children, our friends, our co-workers, we cannot properly love, and help, and influence them. 

Socrates was challenged one day on the failure of his Socratic method to change one of his students. Socrates replied, “I couldn’t teach him, he didn’t love me.”  He understood relationship matters.

We all know this at some level. Why when we send our kids to their first day of school we all ask the same question,  “do you like your teacher?”. We say this unconsciously because deep down we know learning comes out of the relationship. 

When we go to the parent-teacher meeting what do we want to know but are too nervous to ask, “do you like my child?”

Paul Ellis document on 50 things a parent should be saying to their children. This builds attachment love, affectionate bond. 

Back to Hosea.  How does God respond to being rejected by His people?

8 “Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Admah or demolish you like Zeboiim? My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows.

That is attachment love, that is Hesed.  What an amazing statement God’s heart is ripped open and what flows out, compassion because that is what he is filled with. 

10  For someday the people will follow me. I, the Lord, will roar like a lion. And when I roar, my people will return trembling from the west.  Hosea 11:1-4, 7-8, 10

Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  His roar destroyed sin and death and separation from God. His roar will awaken the deadness without us.

The way to have the kind of life God intends for you is to receive His hesed, His, lovingkindness, His attachment love that will never let go or stop. 

Prayer: Jesus roar into our lives. Let the roar of your love break, through the walls of pain, doubt, unbelief that have been erected in our lives.  Help us to take the risk of trusting you. Through the love we experience in You may it overflow throughout our lives and all our relationships.

My situation took me trusting some men in my life to help me see my issue and to help me experience God’s love at a new level. We as pastors and leaders are here to help you. 

contact us at vlindy.com and we will help you finding healing from the past and that new level of relationship with God.