Covenant of Life

 

All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful toward

 those who keep the demands of his covenant. 

– Psalm 25:10 (NIV)

Reading through Psalm 25, we see that if we keep the demands of God’s Covenant, He will guide us, teach us, prosper us, protect us, and rescue us from snares.  And our children will inherit the earth.

I want to keep His Covenant, don’t you?

But what exactly is His Covenant?

I think we need to look at Deuteronomy 30, where God says that His Covenant is not that hard to understand.  He says:

What I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach… It is not up in heaven… nor is it beyond the sea … No … it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it…

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction… Now choose life (Deuteronomy 30:11-19) (NIV)

He had set before us life and death a couple of chapters earlier, in Deuteronomy 28, where He described some amazing blessings in the first 14 verses and some horrific curses in the remainder of the chapter.

He tells us to choose the blessings, choose life, and I believe Paul later explains how.  In Romans 10, Paul repeats these words from Deuteronomy 30 and then adds,

it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.  (Romans 10:10 NIV)

So what if the Covenant is this:  In Christ, if you take one of the blessings found in the Bible, believe it in your heart, and confess it with your mouth, it will become yours.

In a Covenant, both parties have a part to play.  In God’s Covenant, our part is to choose life and blessing (by believing it, thanking Him for it, speaking it), and God’s part is to give it to us.

 

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973,1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.