How Does God Say He Loves You: Part 5 The New Covenant

How Does God Say He Loves You: Part 5 The New Covenant

MESSAGE SUMMARY:

There is a difference in knowing about someone and really knowing someone. Our New Covenant with God gives you and I the ability to Know God in a Personal Way. This New Covenant was fulfilled in Jesus the Christ, as Jesus tells us in Luke 22:19-20: “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’”.  

Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God’s love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God’s “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today’s message, we will discuss God’s New Covenant with us. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant’s terms and rulers.

In the Book of the Covenant (Exodus Deuteronomy 20 through 23 and Deuteronomy), the people made a Blood Covenant with God – the people promised God all that the God has said we will do. Therefore, the people would receive blessings or curses based upon what they did. However, the people always seemed to gravitate toward evil – doing what was wrong in the Lord’s sight. With the people’s sin, he kingdom was split into the “Northern Kingdom (Israel)” and the “Southern Kingdom (Judah)”; and still the people inclined their hearts and behaviors toward evil. Again, God responded by destroying Jerusalem and the Temple and exiling the people to Babylon because they broke their Covenant with Him.

However, in Jeremiah 31:31-34, God declared that that he would make a New Covenant: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”. This New Covenant that God promised applies to us as well as the people of Jesus’ time. The New Covenant is not focused on The Law but on “Knowing God” and having a personal relationship with Him – we are all equal now before God.

With this New Covenant, the Apostle John tells us of God’s love and God’s desire for intimacy with us in 1 John 2:1-2: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.". We have this New Covenant because God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His New Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.

 

TODAY’S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus’ name, amen.    Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

TODAY’S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM A CHILD OF GOD. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (John 1:12f).

SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): John 4:26; Luke 22:19-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34; 1 Peter 2:9; 1 John 2:1-2 (Click below to read the full Bible text for these scripture references.).

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