Skip to main content

Ahabah



              Ahabah is the Hebrew word for love that is translated in to agape in the Greek.  Ahabah is the most Godlike love known on earth.  This kind of love centers on the lover rather than the lovee.  It is an unconditional, unbreakable, sacrificial kind of love.  You cannot ahabah popcorn.  It’s not about how you feel.  When you know for certain that you have ahabah is when the subject of your love has betrayed, abandoned, cut out your heart and you remain committed to their well-being.
              Ahabah is not being a doormat.  It is not putting a band-aide on the lovee’s cruel treatment.  It is born out of a struggle with hate, revenge, punishment and unforgiveness.  The journey to ahabah will take you to places within yourself that decent people never want to recognize.  You cannot truly have ahabah until you have recognized that you are capable of being equally as cruel and disgusting to God as the person you despise, yet He sees you as worthy of His ahabah.  He asks you to see that evil criminal the same way as He does.  He wants to give you His ahabah to heal your soul so that you can express ahabah.
              Ahabah’s source is the goodness of God.  You will never express ahabah from your own soul without having received it from God.  Once you truly know God’s ahabah for you, He will ask you to show ahabah to your worst enemy.  Why?  Because He is good and He doesn’t want you to miss out on the experience of ahabah in your lifetime. 
              It’s the love that made seven years feel like a few days for Jacob as he waited for Rachel in Genesis 29:20.  It’s the rationale Moses used for God’s faithfulness even with Israel’s rebellion in Deuteronomy 7:8. 
              When it comes to us humans, the greatest test of whether we have risen to true ahabah is when we are dealing with our adversaries.  In Psalms 109:4, David describes his expression of ahabah; “In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer.”  Ahabah is only arrived at after strenuous prayer.  For David, and most of us, it will involve a little releasing of negative energy toward the betrayer.  Psalm 109:6-20 contains some intense requests of God against the one he claims to ahabah.  God never said ahabah is easy.  If you never get a chance to ahabah anyone in your lifetime, I think you will be missing out on a deeper discovery of how much God truly loves you.
              One of my favorite expressions so God’s ahabah for me is in Zephaniah 3:17:  “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”  God’s heart breaks out in loud song from the source of His ahabah for me.  That thought draws me to Him and causes me to thank Him for opportunities to ahabah a person in my world.  I know for certain it is not as challenging for me to ahabah anyone as it is for God to ahabah me.  My heart rejoices.  Maybe I will follow God’s example and write a song of love for the one I am wrestling to ahabah!
Copyright © 2018.  Deborah R. Newman.  teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Pilgrimage that Started with Tears

                Who would think I would shed tears deciding to set out on a wonderful journey that I have longed to take for many years?   Before I was ready to fully accept God’s invitation for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, I had to journey to a place of agreement between what my soul wanted and what the Lord wanted for me.   For years I have been declining opportunities to travel to Israel—not because I didn’t want to go but because I wanted to go with my husband by my side.   I know that God could have arranged that for me, but instead He asked me to accept that He wanted me to be willing to go and leave everything behind.   When I was asked to make a decision about going on a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, God gave me this verse in answer to my prayer -- Debi, observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are cr...
2 comments
Read more

Advent 3--JOYFUL EXPECTATION

The first week of Advent found me double-booked with activities that included two opportunities to share about the work that God did on our summer mission trip and another opportunity to share the Gospel with a group of senior adults.   On top of that there were regular teaching sessions and several parties to attend.   Though I had to prepare food, devotions, lessons and talks, I cannot contain the joy that was mine for the privilege of sharing with others how God was near to me.   It is what Paul felt in his Philippian jail where he wrote, Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!   Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near ( Philippians 4:4-5).   Joy which results from winning the national championship, landing the big job, or winning the grand prize dream trip is easy to understand.   It is when joy comes from unexpected circumstances that it becomes God-given joy.   It is this kind of joy that we celebrate on the thi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Me?

              When something tragic or unexpected happens, our first question seems to be, Why me?   It’s only human to feel this way and wonder why life has got to be so hard.   God has helped me look at my unwanted circumstances with a different question.   Rather than keep the focus on my pain and ask, Why me?   I focus on Him and wonder, How can You be glorified when everything is going wrong?             Adding one more word to that question makes a huge difference spiritually and opens my soul to find so much more than just my pain.   Another way to look at life’s tragedies is, Why not me ?   Sure, we each have our own amount of personal sorrows. These are the kind of sorrows that have no answers.      We can't explain away death, cancer, rape, bankruptcy and other heartaches.   It is easier to explain...
Post a Comment
Read more