Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Everlasting Commitment

Are you struggling with a bad habit or addiction? Is there something in your life that you keep tripping over? Or perhaps you are just a little discouraged that your “relationship” with God is not flourishing at this moment.

One of the most beautiful truths in the Bible is the fact that God has made an everlasting covenant with us. The dictionary defines a covenant as “an agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.” We often view the word “covenant” as meaning “contract.” Thus, in our minds, God and we have a contract. God will do His part if we do our part.

But that is not what the Bible teaches about the “everlasting covenant.” The term “everlasting covenant” reveals as much because in the relationship between us and God, only He is “everlasting” and eternal. Thus, this everlasting covenant that He made with us existed long before we ever existed or we could sign the contract. So it must be a one-sided affair.

In essence, this “everlasting covenant” is an “everlasting commitment” that God has made towards us. He takes the responsibility for our wellbeing, for our success.

Ezekiel 36:26, 27, though it doesn’t use the term “everlasting covenant,” says as much. The Lord is speaking here and notice what His part of the “contract” is and what our part of the “contract” is: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you: I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (emphasis added).

Over and over again in this passage, God says, “I, I, I, I.” He is the one who performs the actions and we are merely the recipient of those actions. He invites us to merely receive the work He wants to do in our lives. Thus, He takes the responsibility for us quitting smoking. He takes it upon Himself to give us the victory over our anger or loneliness or lust.

Today, you and I can simply “choose” to allow Christ to do that which He wants to do in and through our lives.

4 comments:

Staci said...

Amen and amen!!

Anonymous said...

perhaps the everlasting covenant has a connection to the everlasting gospel in Revelation.
Tim C.

Shawn Brace said...

I think you are right, Tim!

Sherman Haywood Cox II said...

Once again, I like the emphasis. The idea that it is God that is doing this on our behalf. It is this emphasis that is one of the reasons the Message is so beautiful.