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God in One Word


            If we are ever going to understand our relationship with God, we need to understand the word “covenant”.
            A covenant is not a contract.  A contract is a fair exchange of goods and services.  Your cellphone contract, for example, states that you will pay a certain amount for a defined amount of access to the cell phone network.  If you stop paying, the contract is broken and you lose your access. 
            A covenant, on the other hand, is focused on individual commitment.  Wedding vows are an example of a covenant.   When people say, “I will love you for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part”, they are committing to holding up their end of the bargain regardless of what happens to the other person.  Covenants do not take into account what the other person is doing.  They are only focused on what you said you would do.
            When Jesus says that God “Causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send his rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45), he is speaking covenant language.  When we are told that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), we are talking “covenant” because the focus is what God has chosen to do.  It has nothing to do with the worthiness of the recipients.  This point is brought out even more clearly in Romans 5 which states that, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.  Note again that we did not do anything to earn God’s graciousness.  God acted because he was keeping his part of the covenant.
            That God is a covenant keeper is good news because you never have to worry about how he sees you.  God will always love you and treat you better than you deserve to be treated.  He has agreed to operate based on grace, not reward.
            Now, does that mean our actions do not matter?  Not at all!  In fact, God’s grace makes our response that much more important.  His goal is to draw us into relationship with him.  He wants us to sign up for our part in the covenant.  At the end of time, when this agreement is over, he will see who has responded to his love and who has not and that will determine our eternal destiny.
            For now, though, he waits (2 Peter 3:9) and he keeps his covenant (Hebrews 8:8-13).

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