THIS IS THE COVENANT
Hebrews 8:10-12 NKJV
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
Writing to Jewish believers who had extensive knowledge of the covenant that God established with Moses, the author of Hebrews tells of a new covenant. A covenant is an agreement. A binding agreement. A secular dictionary even lists the agreement between God and His people. In this agreement, God makes promises and requires a certain behavior as a condition of the agreement. The first agreement that God made with His people through Moses was signed, sealed, and delivered with the blood of bulls and goats. But it was not a flawless covenant. If that had been the best covenant, God would not have established a second one. The second covenant, the one the author of Hebrews references, is a covenant also signed in blood. But this blood was the blood of Jesus, far better and more costly than the blood of animals.
This is the covenant we now have with God through Jesus Christ. Now this is in our hearts and minds. When we were made a new creation, our relationship with God was strengthened. Now it’s in our hearts to love and follow God. We must do something with this new life and new love, but the capacity is there. And now those who had no Jewish heritage at all can have a relationship with God. Now, everyone from every tribe and tongue and people and nation can become the people of God. Now everyone has the opportunity to make the living God their God.
This is the covenant where everyone can have a connection with God through Jesus. Now everyone can have a knowledge of God. No longer is God only accessible by the priests, and everyone must wait for them. No longer does everyone have to wait to hear from a prophet. Now everyone can come to know God: everyone, not just a chosen few, but all those who receive Christ.
This is the covenant where we who have entered into this agreement with God through Jesus become recipients of God’s mercy. No longer must a person go to the priest once a year to have their sins covered through an animal sacrifice. In this covenant, our sins are no longer remembered by God; we have a new, clean slate. And when we sin, this is the covenant that allows us to go directly to God and ask forgiveness. And He forgives our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. So we do not have to live under the condemnation of the old covenant, but we walk with the Lord in the newness of life!
This is the covenant that brings God’s amazing grace into our lives and gives us the capacity to live and walk with Him. This is the agreement between God and mankind. This is the covenant, God’s very best covenant!
PRAYER
Thank You, Father, for the covenant that I have with You through Jesus. Thank You that I was born in the day that Your best covenant exists for man.