The Hebrew word checed, translated as “lovingkindness” in the King James Version, is also frequently translated as “mercy” and sometimes “kindness” or “goodness.” “Lovingkindness” as a word cannot be found in secular dictionaries. It occurs twenty-six times in the Bible, in Psalms, Jeremiah, and Hosea.
What is the lovingkindness of God? It is the divine love that God has lavished on His people in unmerited kindness by forgiving and showing mercy. I believe we cannot fully comprehend the preciousness of God’s lovingkindness towards His people. His lovingkindness prompts His loyalty to His covenant even when we fail. He is truly faithful to His promises. He said in Psalm 89:34, “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” He lavishes His people with unmerited kindness by forgiving us our sins. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5).
God’s Lovingkindness Is Better Than Life
I believe the Psalmist couldn’t sufficiently describe the lovingkindness of God when he was in the wilderness. He did remember the power and glory of God in the sanctuary; David said, “Your lovingkindness is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). What could be better than life? We all cherish our lives; life is all we have under heaven and without it, we cease to exist.
In Psalm 69:16, he said, “Your lovingkindness is good.” It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). When we foolishly get ourselves into trouble, God always make a way for us to get back. When the children of Israel sinned and were bitten by poisonous snakes, due to His lovingkindness, He made a way, and all who heeded His instruction were saved. When Adam sinned by disobeying Him, because of God’s lovingkindness He made provision for Adam and Eve and clothed their nakedness. And He ultimately made provision for humanity’s redemption through the gift of His only begotten Son.
God’s Lovingkindness Draws Us Back to Himself
We go astray many times like sheep. Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). We go astray in our thoughts, and we are enticed by worldly things and backslide, but out of His lovingkindness He draws us back to Himself. And that is why God says He delights in us knowing and understanding that He is the One who exercises lovingkindness in the earth, so that we are not consumed in our sins.
God’s Lovingkindness Causes Him to Hear Our Prayers
In Psalm 119:149 we read, “Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness.” His lovingkindness prompts Him to hear our prayers. God said, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). He has also given us His Holy Spirit to help us in our prayers, since we do not know how to pray as we should (Romans 8:26).
God’s Lovingkindness Does Not Cease
God promised David that He would not take away His lovingkindness from him, nor allow His faithfulness to fail (Psalm 89:33). In like manner, He will never fail those who trust in Him. He said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).
In Lamentations 3:22-23 we read, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” Hosea 2:19 reads, “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, in lovingkindness and mercy.”
God Requires Us to Show Forth His Lovingkindness to Others
In Micah 6:8, the Bible says, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” And, in Zechariah 7:9: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.” We read in Hosea 12:6, “Observe mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually.”