We concluded last week with the truth that the mind is to drive the heart. That what we know should define and control what we feel. Truth trumps emotion, this is not to exclude emotion, but our feelings are subject to our mind. And they MUST be so. This only works because God has renewed us in every way. So, as the mind is made new, the emotions and affections are tamed and trained, and in the context of this renewal we are entirely re-created. God has entered into the work of the new covenant by which He makes us over, into a people who CAN and DO love Him. This is a work that ONLY God can accomplish, which is why He states plainly that the result of this renewal is that He will be our God and we will be His people.

The purpose of God in our lives is to change us into the image of Christ that HE might receive the glory for all He has done. When we think about the new covenant we must lost lose sight of this central reality. God does not save us for our sake, for the sake of our need or desire, those are all secondary issues. We are saved for the centrality of the Glory of Christ. We are saved for HIM. This means that when we are saved, God does not want us to remain as He found us, but wants us changed, renewed, transformed. This is the heart of the New Covenant. God makes us able to become by His power and grace what He desires us to be. We are by His Grace made NEW.

As we move into the consideration of God's declaration of the New Covenant He is making with the house of Israel; the children of promise, with those He has chosen out of all mankind (both Jew and Gentile) we pause at the first to remember the Source of the Covenant. This is the covenant that GOD is making… the first clause of verse 10 tells us plainly - "this is the covenant that I will make". This simply statement causes us much confusion for most of mankind is under the impression that we are co-covenanters with God. That our actions in some way are also making this covenant… nothing could be further from the truth. We are NOT making the covenant. We are RECEIVING that covenant which has been made by God. Now this is a nuanced statement, for God DOES call us to lives of obedience to this same covenant and all that it requires, but that is the outcome of the covenant not is cause. The covenant which saves us a work of Grace which supplies all, and needs NOTHING from us to be effective, nor to be fulfilled.

As we begin to think about the new Covenant that God has forged for us in Christ, it is worth noting the foundational truth that the new stands atop the old that we rejected in our sin and hatred. It is further worth noting that apart from the gracious intervention of God we cannot keep the new covenant any more than we could the old. What is more, it is up to God to make us able, according to His own good will and pleasure and that reality shapes everything that is. GOD alone is the author of life, GOD alone is the one who draws us into fellowship even while we hated Him. If God does not do this, we are without hope.

We are often confused about the truth that God has altered His covenant with us. The fact of the change might strike some as showing God to be unfaithful, the difference in condition might make some feel superior. Still others are just unsure of what it all means… does God mean what He says? Take heart, the simple truth is that God is at work displaying the same truth, using the language of the times to communicate the fullness of His purpose. We could never take it all in at once and so God paints for us a multilayered picture, a great and power-filled panorama stretching across the millennia of creation's span. Zeroing in with laser focus on the wondrous truth that God WILL save a people, that NOTHING can stop Him and NOTHING that He purposes will fail.

God Himself is the Great Good of His covenant with us. We often focus on inferior matters, like going to heaven, or more commonly, NOT going to Hell… but hear this plainly - heaven apart from a relationship with God IS Hell! We must consider that the whole affair is about KNOWING HIM. Let us consider just how infinite is His condescension to even enter into covenant with us! Let us further consider the wisdom grace and mercy that makes up that covenant. And let us rest assured of the wondrous power that assures us of its every condition being met.

Although God gives us a new Covenant in Christ, there is an inseparable bond between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. It is true that the old covenant, given at Sinai, was impossible for man to keep; but it is also true that God was already looking to the fulfillment in the new covenant, which was going to be the fulfillment of the old, and counting the that broken old one as obeyed in Him. It is important for us to understand this fact, for we might be tempted to think that God is fickle, changing His mind and course because of our actions. Nothing could be further from the truth! For God has always been working out the perfection of His plan, and bringing to fruition His purpose to save a people He chose for Himself.

Whenever God made a covenant with His people He would give them a sign of that covenant. Sometimes the signs were singular occurrences, sometimes they were lasting actions or obediences. But always, they were marks that God had interjected Himself into the history of His creation and His people. Always they pointed to change and always God was at the center of the promise and the sign.

God's working with His people involves promises. He makes covenants with us according to His eternal purpose. These covenants are given to accomplish His will and to give to us assurance in the days of our sojourning here that God is absolutely guiding and governing His creation to fulfill His perfect will. There is never any need for us to fret or worry over anything, for God is accomplishing His purposes in, for and through us. The Old Covenant involves works and perpetual sacrifices, for the conditions of the Law were impossible for us; the new, however, completely fulfills the righteousness of God in Christ.

We serve the living God. And in that simple truth there is much to discover and contemplate. He is the God who made all things and sustains them by His power. He is the God before whom we must all appear and to Whom we must give and account of our lives… every thought, word and deed. He is the God has the power to do whatever He wishes and who owes no being any account whatsoever… and this omnipotent God, this all powerful, all knowing, all seeing God has chosen in His incomprehensible mercy to SPEAK to us and to reveal Himself to us; and the mere fact of His speaking obligates us to hear Him, to listen and to obey.