The phrase steadfast love, hesed in Hebrew, appears frequently in the Old Testament to describe God’s sovereign and loving commitment to His covenant people Israel in the Old Covenant. Psalms 136 describes the Lord’s steadfast love demonstrated in His sovereign creation, in His deliverance of Israel from bondage, and in Israel’s establishment in the Promised Land.
After Moses delivered the Lord’s commandments to Israel, he describes how God chose Israel to be a people for His holy possession, not because of their number but in keeping His oath to their forefathers. Deuteronomy 7:9 describes how the Lord keeps his covenant and steadfast love, hesed, with those who love Him and keep His commandments.
6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
Deuteronomy 7:6-9
The topic of trials is fresh on my mind since I have been dealing with my first prolonged bout of sinusitis this year. Since sinus surgery in 2021, I have found treatments that helped managed sinus infections, but these have been slow to work, if at all, this September 2023. This trial is made more acute since I planned to travel to my hometown, Atlanta, GA, this week for the G3 conference and to visit family.
In the past, a trial or disappointment like the current one could leave me frustrated and questioning God’s purposes. Deep in my heart, I may be asking, “How could God have any higher purposes than for me to keep my good plans to attend a Christian conference and visit family?” In the distance past, with a weaker understanding of God’s sovereignty and goodness, I might question Him and murmur like the Israelites wandering through the desert. Like most evangelicals raised Arminian or in the line of General Baptists, I still was lacking comfort in God’s sovereignty. An Arminian in a time of trial can question, “God must not be all powerful if He cannot guarantee any lost people will be saved even after the sacrificial death of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross. This trial may even be out of God’s control.” If I would be so bold, I might even question silently why God would not give me good gifts even though I had chosen to follow Him. In my heart, I doubted His sovereignty or goodness though I knew what Romans 8:28 tells us about God’s sovereign and good purposes for His children.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[h] for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Romans 8:28-30
This is where a deep understanding of God’s covenant and steadfast love with His New Covenant people is important and why it is not simply a “debatable topic best ignored for the unity of the body.” For those of us who are God’s children, who believed and repented under the work of His Spirit, this is a comforting doctrine and leads us to glorify God all the more. God foreknew us in that He wrote our names in the Book of Life before the foundations of the world (Revelations 17:8). He predestined us to be adopted into His family and conformed to the image of His Son. He works all things, even trials, for our good.
While our plans seem most important to us, God ultimately cares about conforming us into the likeness of His Son. Inconvenience, cancelled travel plans, discomfort, trials, all of these can be used by God to conform us into His image. In the meantime, we can wait patiently on the Lord: resting knowing He is sovereign and good since He predestined to redeem us, trusting that He keeps his covenant and steadfast love for those who love Him, those who have been called, justified, and glorified for His glory.