As we continue to take help to the poor and needy, strengthening the hearts of the tired, and giving hope to the hopeless, we want to share with you THE MESSAGE that defines our intentions and our efforts as we are blessed and honor to work among the poor and neglected.
Our message is simple: AHAVA HOUSE. Our name depicts what we are and what we take and offer to the world.
Regardless of status, belief, race, age, gender or ethnicity, everyone values love and recognizes that it is love that shapes what is true and good. The Word of God tells us, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”— 1 John 4:8
I’ve encountered many people that ask, ‘if God is love, then why are there so many people living in poverty and dying of hunger?.’ If you are one of them, or if this thought has crossed your mind, trying to vilify a loving God does not answer the question or lays a strong foundation on who God is. The person of God, His nature, can only be proven and tested by laying a firm foundation with facts and works of what He has done, and why He has done it.
In today’s society, where social media drives the private-but-really-public life of different types of people who share an equal goal: to be heard, it has become unacceptable among the crowd of virtual friends to degrade people for their mistakes, bad choices, and wrongful doings, without first giving them a second chance, or at least offering our sympathy, pity, or support -even as we know they did wrong. Humanity screams for equality and for a chance, a second chance to redeem equality in the midst of so many differences. And is in the middle of that scream that we have been forced to make an effort to consider and learn how to understand each others’ differences and choices in the quest of finding who we really are and why we all do what we do. And at the end of the day, our test drops the same conclusion… we are all human and we make mistakes. “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”— Romans 3:23
And this is where everybody knows the Bible even if they have never read one page of it… “When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”— John 8:7. The Jesus of the Bible, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, and God on earth, therefore having the same loving nature of God, showed with His actions who He really was. He spoke on behalf of a woman about to be put to death and who was not given a chance to explain her actions before a crowd that condemned her for her wrong doing. But Jesus, ignoring the cloud of mean judges, saw further than her mistakes, and understood the why. He understood she was fallen, just like all, fallen short of the glory of God, and in need of a second chance. That day, equality was settled and her condemners left the scene in shame.
Today, the One that rescued humanity from the stone, and settled equality regardless of the opposition, is the one being stoned, mistreated, and questioned on his intentions by a big crowd of judges, who after the stone was laid on the ground, still don’t understand why.
He did it for love. “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. This is love: not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”— 1 John 4:9-11
It is our desire and our mission to take His love to all humanity. This love is the God-kind of love. In the Scriptures of the Holy Bible there are 3 different types of love that appear in the Greek: EROS, PHILOS, and AGAPE, and these in the English language have been translated to just one word, ‘love’.
EROS, meaning desire and longing, is associated with sexual love. This love is based on physical traits, and unless is redeemed by Agape love, it may end up being possessive, since it always seek to first conquer and then control. It is mostly based on self-benefit.
PHILOS, defined as brotherly love, is conditional. It says, “I love you, but don’t betray me or I may stop loving you.” It’s the type of love between friends but it is not much reliable, since it can end up souring at times as we all have experienced at some point in our lives.
AGAPE, representing the divine love of God towards Jesus His Son and all humanity, is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional, pure and the highest of the three types of love that appear in the Bible. This is the type of love found all over the New Testament, and that was expressed at its highest level with Jesus’ death in the cross for humanity. During his life on earth, Jesus lived out agape love. In Hebrew, the word agape is AHAVA. “…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”— Romans 5:8
We are AHAVA HOUSE, a house of the love of God. Wherever we go, our example, works, and words, bear witness of the message of AHAVA, the maximum expression of God’s agape love manifested in the cross with Jesus’ death to save humanity as an acceptable offer of sacrifice for our sins.
No more stones.
The question now is, why are there so many people living in poverty and dying of hunger and so many do nothing about it? God has done His part. Lets do ours with Him, with AHAVA.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”— John 13:34-35
In His service,
Maria Davis
Founder & CEO