Ḥesed is God’s steadfast covenant love and faithfulness as revealed in His character, His promises to Israel and David, and ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Because God has shown us this loyal love, He calls us to reject empty religion and become a ḥesed-shaped people who faithfully love Him and one another.

The Hebrew word ḥesed describes God’s steadfast, covenant love: loyal, merciful, faithful, and kind. God’s ḥesed calls us not only to receive His love and faithfulness with confidence, but also to practice the same kind of loyal love toward Him and one another in the church.

Exodus 34:6–7 — God reveals Himself as merciful and gracious, abounding in covenant faithfulness (ḥesed).

Deuteronomy 7:9 — God faithfully keeps His covenant faithfulness (ḥesed) across generations.

Psalm 136 — The ḥesed psalm: God’s ḥesed endures forever.

2 Samuel 7:11b–16 —God’s loyal love (ḥesed) is expressed in God’s covenant promise to David’s house.

Luke 1:68–75 — Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s covenant faithfulness (ḥesed).

Hosea 6:6–7 — Essentially, God is saying, “I do not want empty ceremonies from people who are betraying Me in their heart. I desire ḥesed.”

Micah 6:8 — To love ḥesed is to love covenant loyalty. It means we do not treat our relationships with God as a convenience or something to discard when it doesn’t align with our desires.

Ruth 1:16 — “For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people are my people, and your God is my God.”

Galatians 6:1–2 — A ḥesed community is one filled with loyal, gentle, burden-bearing love and faithfulness.

Looking at three examples in the Bible of people who abandoned their previous group identity to join God’s family, we see a pattern to emulate. Rather than thinking of yourself as an American or a businessman or a student who goes to church, think of yourself as a child of God who is also an American or a businessman or a student.

Joshua 2:1-21 Rahab took a huge risk protecting the Israelite spies. She had heard about Yahweh who had demonstrated his power in Egypt and she wanted in.

Joshua 6:15-25 She abandoned her Canaanite group identity to become an Israelite herself. She and Salmon had a son called Boaz who became a man of integrity and compassion.

Ruth 1:7-9, 18 Ruth responded to Naomi’s immense suffering through a self-sacrificial act of loyalty. She abandoned her Moabite identity to care for her mother-in-law, taking on her religious beliefs and practices.

Ruth 3:10-11 Rahab’s son, Boaz, took note of Ruth’s character and loyalty. He married her and their child was the grandfather of the great king David.

Philippians 3:4-6 Paul was a man of religious fervor and zeal. As a Pharisee, he adhered to the strictest sect of Judaism. That was his identity.

Acts 9:3-6 When Jesus presented himself to Paul it resulted in his sudden abandonment of his previous group. Henceforth he threw his lot in with the Christians, the very people he had been persecuting.

Philippians 3:7-9 Rather than mourning the loss of his old group identity, Paul now considered all his previous accomplishments as trash in comparison to “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus.”

What is your group identity? Do you first think of yourself as a child of God, part of his family, or does your identity lay elsewhere?

Luke 15:7 lost sheep; 10 lost coin; 20 lost son – God is our joyful Father

Numbers 6:24-27

Psalm 89:14-16 “countenance” in Hebrew is paneh – “face”

Psalm 16:11 “presence” is again “face”

1 Thessalonians 2:7-8 joy is experienced in a relationship when someones face lights up when they look upon you with love

Neurologists and psychologists often distinguish:

• Pleasure — brief sensory enjoyment
• Happiness — a broader emotional condition
• Joy — a deeper, often relational or meaningful, positive emotional state that can coexist even with hardship

Psalm 31:16, 19-20 You hide them in the secret place of Your presence

Psalm 67:1 cause His face to shine upon us

Psalm 80:3, 7, 19 when Yahweh shines His face upon us we experience joy; thus enjoy stability, balance, peace, and well-being

Zephaniah 3:17; Psalm 149:4; Jeremiah 31:3; Micah 7:18; Nehemiah 8:10; 1 John 3:1

Two great ways to fill your joy tank are fellowship with fellow believers and practice gratitude.

Acts 2:41-47 face time at church, prayer partner, mentor, socialize

Gratitude – increasing your joy capacity

• think of a memory that makes you feel grateful and connect with God in that memory
• give the memory a short title
• what do you think God might have been wanting to impress upon you by the memory
• start a list of grateful memories with the goal of having ten
• use this list to go into five minutes of nonverbal gratitude every day