2010 – Day 6. Jan. 6 – Commitment to Keeping Covenants

Study from Genesis 15 – 17; Passage for Reflection: Genesis 17: 7 … NIV I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you [to Abram] and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

My Journal for Today: Do you realize what really happened when God made that covenant with Abram (whose name was changed to “Abraham” as a part of this one-way covenant God made with him? When you really look at it, especially from a human point of view, God’s covenant with old Abe really didn’t make much sense. Here was the Creator of the Universe lowering Himself to make a one-way deal with a very fallible man; and to make a commitment into an eternal relationship with that man and his progeny to come. Why would God do such a thing? Well, the reality and truth of God’s covenants in the Old Testament speak loudly of God’s desire to have a relationship with mankind; and He was willing to “stoop down” to man’s level, retaining all of His Deity, and using a concept of man’s culture of that time – i.e., the establishment of a “covenant” – to show man (in the persons of Noah, for example, or in this example with Abraham) just how committed He, God, was to have an eternal relationship with mankind. What a deal !!

And when we realize the true character of God, His Holiness, and His everlasting truthfulness and faithfulness, we have to see – if we’re willing to look – that this one-way deal God made with man is eternal; and it came from the Creator to the created. And that my dear one is truly mind boggling. And it was so mind boggling to Abram, who became Abraham, and his wife Sarai, who became Sarah, that they just couldn’t completely get it. Oh, they believed in their God; but they just couldn’t grasp the depth of the covenant God had made with them … to the point that they tried to devise a human solution to a dilemma, i.e., Sarah being able to conceive a child at her late age, which seemed, to them, even beyond God’s ability to solve.

And it’s that human failing of trustfulness in God’s covenant with His children which trips up Christians even today. We, as Christians, to whom I’m writing here, need to realize that the “New Covenant” is still a covenant with God; and in Christ, the New Covenant is a fulfillment of God’s “Old Covenant” to bring a Savior, a Messiah, Who is Christ, The Lord. But this new covenant with Christ is a two-way covenant; when God sent His Son to be the sacrificial Lamb and die for our sin, being raised to be the Lord of all is God’s part of the New Covenant. But our part of the covenant is a surrender to His Lordship and a commitment to worship Christ with our lives, surrendering our very being to His Spirit so that the Holy Spirit can mold us into the image of The Glorified Savior.

I really don’t think that many, who call themselves “Christian,” realize the depth of a COVENANT relationship as the Bible teaches this concept for our lives. And I’m afraid there are many who sit in the pews every Sunday, thinking that they have the fire-insurance of salvation, when they haven’t fulfilled their part of the New Covenant; and that is to surrender their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. These people may believe that Jesus was and is their Savior; but they haven’t surrendered to Christ’s Lordship. And the Bible is clear that both parts of that reception formula are necessary for the completion of the New Covenant from Christ which brings salvation to the one who believes and receives Christ as BOTH SAVIOR AND LORD.

If you’re reading this, I pray that you recognize the depth of the concept of “covenant;” and I pray that you are sealed by God’s Spirit into an eternal covenant with Christ, recognizing and living in covenant worship of the Savior who has become your Lord.

My Prayer for Today: Lord, I pray that my life is the working out of Your coming to live, die, and to be raised back into glory so that I can partake of Your New Covenant to the glory of Your Father, my Heavenly Father. You are my Savior AND Lord; and may my life reflect that covenant forever. Amen