This week as we continue to travel down this road of the Good Way. thank you for joining us. When I started writing this week or was beginning to look at things to write about and to share with you, the word covenant continues to come up in my mind. So I decided let’s take a look at covenant in the Bible and their importance in our scriptural journey. When you walk the good way, there will always be something that’ll come along to challenge your efforts to live as God would have us live so there’s something very important that we need to remember at all times. When the road gets rocky when there’s some potholes that are really causing us some hard times and loss of direction, we need to remember that God always keeps his promises and he is a God of promise and hope and will never ever let us down. With that having been said let’s pause a minute and give thought to what it means to serve a God of promise.

First of all, we need to understand exactly what a covenant is. And to keep it simple, which in truth, it really is is nothing more than a promise between two parties to perform certain actions. A covenant is very similar to a promise. When we get into our scriptures and study those we find that they are a very significant   part of the Scriptures. Consider this…the word testament is just another word for covenant. We can learn a lot about God, his plans, purposes for mankind, and part of that learning comes from understanding and knowing the history of Israel. There are several major covenants in the Old Testament in which God promises to do something. Again, I repeat a covenant is really nothing more than promising to do something. They were old Testament covenants, and there are New Testament covenants. In an ancient times, covenants were a well-known and accepted concept and they could be made between two equal parties or between a king and a subject. A covenant could be conditional or it could be unconditional.

Bible scholars recognized several major covenants in the Old Testament in which God promises to do something. One of the first unconditional covenants that was made can be found in Genesis it occurred right after the great flood, and God promised that he would never again destroy the world by a flood, and he also passed on basic principles for humanity to live by. We all know what happens through Bible scripture that the people descended into rampant disobedience. God kept that covenant made in Genesis, even though the people had rebelled there was not another flood. God made a covenant with Abraham promising him if you follow me and do as I’ve asked of you I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. The covenant is in Genesis 12:1–3. The covenant is reiterated again in Genesis 15 and 17. This also was an unconditional covenant. In Exodus 19 chapters 19 through 24 speak of the covenant made with Israel about the use of the promised land. This was the land that had been given to Abraham’s descendants unconditionally but the use of the land by any specific generation of Israelites was dependent upon their obedience to God. There were times that the people fell away from their obedience to God and because of that they were unable to fully enjoy the benefits of that land. You can read some of the trials of that time for the Israelites in the book of Judges. There came a time that the Israelites were exiled from the land due to their disobedience and idolatry, but God still made the promise to bring back a later generation to the land. We find that in Isaiah 11:11–12. We also read that he kept his word. 2 Samuel 7 recounts David’s desire to build a temple for God and God’s promise to establish David’s dynasty forever. This covenant is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Son of David.

God promised a new covenant with Israel. You find that in Jeremiah 31. The fact was that Israel had repeatedly violated the terms of all the previous covenants of God but this one would be a little bit different because the hearts of the people would be changed and they would want to be faithful. This fulfillment, that of the hearts and minds of people being more receptive and faithful will take place in the New Testament through the coming of Jesus Christ and the dwelling and empowering of the Holy Spirit. It would be through the Spirit that people learn how to obey God, but there’s a little surprise in all of this, and it is that the Gentiles were also included in this covenant.

And wrapping up our blog for this week, we know that the concept of covenant has been lost in modern society. People don’t keep their word like they used to, when circumstances change so do their promises. Contracts are broken, and the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman for life does not hold the strength today that its had in the past. The one thing we can take from all of this is regardless of how unfaithful people may be, God will never be unfaithful to His covenant promises.

Life is Good

jk

Source: gotquestions.org/what-is-a-covenant