Love and Faithfulness Go Before

by Andy Lee

Close your eyes. Wait a minute. That doesn’t work if you’re reading.

Rather than closing your eyes, keep them open as I walk you through a vision the Bible gives us of God.

The psalmist writes,

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you (Psalm 89:14).

Now picture God on His throne. We aren’t told if it’s made of gold or wood with gold inlaid. We don’t know if He has a long gray beard or what Elohiym, the Creator God, looks like. But the scripture does give us details of the throne of YHWH. We know what He rests upon: Righteousness and Justice.

The Hebrew word for righteousness is Sedeq which means honesty and integrity. And the word for justice means fair objectivity, neutrality, honesty, and morality.

Read those definitions again. They are the foundation of God’s throne. His sovereignty. His rule.

Honest, just, fair, objective, neutral, and moral. Boy, our world could use that. It seems we slip farther away from these good traits with every generation. But really, the world has been bad for a long time. And God knows that.

But there is hope.

Our hope is found after the semicolon in Psalm 89:14. Though His throne is the place of judgment, Love and faithfulness go before you.

Through the Cloud

They are beautiful words, poetic and prophetic. Love and faithfulness have been personified by the writer as they seem to walk before God. But picture with me if you will perhaps a cloud that fills the space between God and man. That cloud is His love and faithfulness.

The word love isn’t the emotional feeling we think of. Its Hebrew counterpart is chesed which is associated to mercy. It means merciful loving-kindness and acts of kindness often bound by a covenant and relationship.

God demonstrated His greatest chesed, merciful act of loving kindness, on the Cross. His personification of chesed and faithfulness are found in Jesus, the image of the invisible God who sits on His throne of righteousness and justice.

One commentator wrote, “If mercy hadn’t paved the way, the coming of God to man must have been swift destruction” (Biblestudytools.com).

But chesed and faithfulness buffer our meeting. We can’t come to the throne without walking through merciful loving kindness and God’s faithfulness to uphold His covenant. God sent mercy before judgment.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:17).

The word faithfulness has been translated from the Hebrew word emeth. It means stability and trustworthiness. God does not go back on His Word. He does not change His mind on a whim.

If we’ve trusted Jesus, we’ve walked through God’s cloud of chesed and trustworthiness.

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

Let’s walk through that visual again. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you (Psalm 89:14).

Do you see the throne of God?

Do you see a cloud of love and faithfulness between you and God as we did before, or a person?

I see a person. I see Jesus.

Andy lee is the author of A Mary Like Me: Flawed Yet Called and The Book of Ruth Key Word Study: A 31 Day Journey to Hope and Promise. She is a blogger, inspirational speaker, and empty-nest survivor. Join hundreds of viewers on her Facebook Live broadcast Monday-Friday for the Bite of Bread, and visit her website at Words by Andy Lee where Andy writes about digging deep to live fully. You can buy Andy‹³›s book here: Mary Like Me: Flawed Yet Called.