Psalm 36:5-7 (NIV) 5 Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. 6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. 7 How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.
I Peter 1:15-16 (NASB) 15but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."
The foundation for our understanding of “excellence” is to know that the Biblical word for excellence is “holy,” and refers first of all to God. Holy is the comprehensive word that sums up all that is excellent about God. In Scripture the words “holy” and “excellent” are virtually interchangeable.
For us, excellence is conforming our life to the excellence of God, especially as seen in Jesus Christ. That may seem like a tall order to fill, but consider for the moment that this command is preferable to what many may be trying to do today to attain excellence, trying to conform to the ideals of the culture. As Christians, we do not want to be dancing to the expectations of the culture around us. We want to keep our sight steady on the excellence we see in Jesus and our ear attuned to the specific call to conformity that He speaks.
One of the chief characteristics of the excellence of God is “hesed,” a Hebrew word meaning merciful, steadfast in love, or loving kindness. God’s loving kindness is seen in the fact that though we harden our hearts against God, God does not harden His heart against us. Though we fail God repeatedly, God does not give up on us.
People who have “hesed” make life good for others. You can depend on them to keep life human in the truest sense of that word. They are there when you need them and even when you reject them. They can give help when needed even if that help is nothing more than to respect the other person’s desire for privacy. When you talk to them you know they have spoken the truth to you in love, so it is easy to accept criticism or affirmation from their lips.
How many of us can say that we are “hesed” in all our behavior? Can you think of some moment in your life when you did something for someone, did it with no hope of a payoff, did it at some cost to yourself, but did it because you saw the need? Our ability to practice loving-kindness is a gift that comes from our own experience of God’s “hesed.”
Preached by Henry Dobbs Pope October 1989
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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