Captain of Love

Captain of Love
Words of Faith 3-22-2023
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2023
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL
www.faithfellowshipweb.com
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Exodus 34
[5] Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. [6] And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, [7] maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

There is a delightful and familiar song from the musical "The King and I" called "Getting to Know You". The song takes place between Anna, the American teacher, and the mothers of the King's children. The lyric goes "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. Getting to like you, getting to hope you like me." I couldn't help but think of that lyric as we study Moses getting to know the Lord God Almighty. Of course, the situation was a little different because the Lord already knew Moses more carefully and intimately than he could imagine!
We sometimes forget that God is wholly other. We may think that we know Him but we really need to get to know Him. As we continue with this text we see three more attributes of God. The Lord Almighty is "abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands..."
The word translated as "abounding" is related to the word for captain, master, elder, or prince. The word implies a superabundance in quantity, size, age, number, quality, or rank. It means "exceedingly full and great" so as to meet every need and always be enough. This word is then related to the attributes of love and faithfulness.
The Lord Almighty is the supreme Prince of Love. The Hebrew word chesed - kheh'-sed means beautiful lovingkindness that is expressed in the favor of good deeds and mercy. The Lord Almighty has a superabundance of chesed and is the supreme captain of this love. His love never runs out!
The Lord Almighty is also the Captain of Faithfulness. This word means stability, certainty, trustworthiness, and assured truth. The combination of these two qualities means that the chesed of God is extended or kept toward thousands. The word literally means "to guard, protect, maintain, and preserve." The Captain of Love guards, protects, and maintains His abounding mercy toward His children even to thousands of generations. There is nothing in the universe that is more stable than the love of God toward us. There is nothing more trustworthy.
The song lyric says, "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. Getting to like you, Getting to hope you like me." We will never know ALL about the Lord Almighty. But we will get to know this truth-- God likes you! We don't have to hope that God will like us. He loves you, and this is the most stable truth in the universe. More predictable than gravity, energy or motion is the truth that God loves you.

Father, God Almighty, I give thanks that I am guarded by You. I am faithfully protected by Your love and mercy which is more stable than the planet You gave me to walk on. I rejoice in getting to know You. Thanks for liking me. In Jesus' name.

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© Jeffrey D. Hoy 2023
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy - Faith Fellowship Church (EFCA)
2820 Business Center Blvd.
Melbourne, Florida 32940 (321)-259-7200
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
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The Words of Faith devotion is published five days a week by E-mail, excluding Federal holidays. Please feel free to forward this devotion to a friend who might be blessed by this devotion. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (R) of The Holy Bible. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Words of Faith (c) 1997, 2023 Jeffrey D. Hoy. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward this copyrighted material or use portions of it with appropriate notation of the source for non-profit purposes.