Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 75. I Have a Covenant with My Creator (sealed with the blood of the One)

Hello human.

During my Witness99Journey I have read four books about spiritual growth and personal testimonies, completed a study on the prophet Elijah, and countless smaller devotionals on Biblical characters.

I had witnessed 63 times, a decent amount of BUOY time, before I took on a Bible read-through, something I have been wanting to do for a couple of years, really all my life—from the perspective of reading about God’s story. Not as a student, or scholar, or spiritual leader, but as a human, a woman on the journey.

On the journey in the Garden, on the arc with Noah, in the bondage of Egyptian slavery, through the Red Sea, on the mountain with Moses, in the wilderness, across the Jordan with Joshua, into the Promised Land, through the era of the judges who managed the law of Moses.

Then as a woman within the United Kingdom, with King Saul, King David, King Solomon, and the building of the beautiful temple, to the Divided Kingdom of Solomon’s son, King Rehoboam and Jeroboam, an official of Solomon in the Northern Kingdom. From the destruction of the southern kingdom by Babylon, the temple and Jerusalem destroyed, to the exile of the Jewish people from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, then the rebuilding of the wall under the leadership of Nehemiah.

To the birth, boyhood, ministry of Jesus. His calling of the disciples, His local footsteps with a global, no, eternal mission. His teachings, parables, and healings. Through His death and resurrection to the journey of the apostles, building the early church throughout the promised land, then outward through Asia, Greece, and Italy along with the apostle Paul, to the final prophecy of the apostle John, the revelation of the second coming of Jesus.

I wanted to be the woman who sees into the future of when Jesus returns again from the perspective of having made the journey through God’s story with His people.

The Power of Being Deeply Immersed in God’s Story

I started the Old Testament on Friday, December 15, beginning with page 1 of Genesis and completing page 1140, the final page of Revelation, on Friday, February 16. The goal was to read it as a story, just like I would read any other book. I had a timeline and some maps so I could place the activity on a time continuum and chart the path of the chosen nation through the 2,000 years to the birth of Jesus, and through his death, resurrection, and the beginning of the first Christian church. The first 100 years of Christ on earth, not on earth, and the beginning of His followers.

I was focused on taking 100% responsibility for it, on my own. No stops to gain “commentary” on a passage, only a random look-up for clarity if I was seriously confused. Why? Because ultimately, we are each responsible for wrapping our free will around His story.

I want to share three insights from my Bible read-through. I started this process thinking I would share my top 10 highlights, but that quickly felt like a book-length response, so, no, too much for one BUOY.

Perhaps better as three insights with deep personal application that I think will resonate with you too.

Even three insights are too much for one soul-filledl BUOY. So, I am naming three insights today, and sharing the first one. The remaining two will come in the next two episodes.

Why? Because God is preparing my heart for what is upon us, human. Easter. Because God’s story has an epic main character of eternal proportion, a plot with no twist but countless human turns toward evil. A story filled with every possible human emotion, every last “rise and fall” of courage, suspense, drama, action—with a blockbuster ending we must wait for.

God’s Story Has the WHY

Because God’s story has the WHY of everything. His Son. The reason for His story.

Insight No. 1:  The Covenant comes from the Creator.

Insight No. 2:  God goes before us in silence.

Insight No. 3: Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of God’s story. And my beginning and end.

1. The Covenant comes from the Creator.

In the Bible, God revealed to more than 300 individuals what His relationship was with each of them, and a nation of thousands, and hundred thousand. He revealed the obedience required to His covenant with His chosen people through the accountability of individual leaders.

The Hebrew term for “covenant” is from a root with the sense of “cutting” because pacts or covenants were made by passing between cut pieces of flesh of an animal sacrifice. A covenant was defined literally as a contract. In the Bible, an agreement between God and his people, in which God makes promises to his people and, usually, requires certain conduct from them.

With each covenant are four elements— promises, terms, blood, and a seal.

There are five covenants that are crucial for understanding God’s story and redemptive plan:

1. God’s Covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:8-10) was an unconditional covenant, that He would never again destroy all of humanity. It was made to Noah and all his descendants as well as “every living creature” and the earth in general. Sealed with a sign, the rainbow.

2. God’s Covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17:2-14) was conditional, that God would offer protection and land to Abraham and his descendants, but they must follow the path of God. It was sealed with circumcision.

3. God’s Covenant with Moses (Exodus 31:10 and the entire chapter) was a conditional covenant made between God and the nation of Israel, spoken to Moses, which required Israel to obey the Mosaic Law. All 613 commandments.

4. God’s Covenant with David (2 Samuel 7:13-14) was unconditional, that God promises a descendant of David to reign on the throne over the people of God through whom God would secure the promises of land, descendants, and blessing. David wanted to build a temple; God promised to build a dynasty instead.

God’s Covenant with You, Human

5. God’s Covenant with You, Human. The New Covenant is conditional, the promise that God will forgive sin and restore fellowship with those whose hearts are turned toward Him. Jesus Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, and His death on the cross is the basis of the promise. His blood is the seal.

God first announced and defined the new covenant in the Old Testament through His prophet, Jeremiah. In the longest New Testament quotation of an Old Testament passage, Hebrews 8:7–12 quotes Jeremiah 31:33.34, essentially verbatim.

Hebrews 8:7-12

 

7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said:

 

“The days are coming, declares the Lord,

    when I will make a new covenant

with the people of Israel

    and with the people of Judah.

9 It will not be like the covenant

    I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

    to lead them out of Egypt,

because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,

    and I turned away from them,

declares the Lord.

10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel

    after that time, declares the Lord.

I will put my laws in their minds

    and write them on their hearts.

I will be their God,

    and they will be my people.

11 No longer will they teach their neighbor,

    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know me,

    from the least of them to the greatest.

12 For I will forgive their wickedness

    and will remember their sins no more.”

The Covenant Maker Himself came from heaven to earth to shed His “blood of the everlasting covenant” to make this possible for everyone.

The chosen nation was developed out of a handful of individuals who were faithful and feared God. The voice of God came through his covenant people, judges, kings, major and minor prophets.

I am a witness. I journeyed with them.

Giving That Which is Precious to Me to God Every Day

Whatever relationship I have with God, begins with Him. With His new covenant with me. John 3:16. My every thought, emotion, action, and reaction is in response to my Creator.

God defines the “new covenant” in Heb. 8:8 as four promises He makes to His people. And us.

His first promise, that He will put His laws in my mind and write them on my heart.  He will guide me.

His second promise, that He will always be my guide, and I will always be His.

Third promise, that He will be known by everyone, and fourth, that He will forgive me, and not remember my sins.

What a powerful way to stay in His presence. To walk in His covenant means to be willing and obedient to His words. Abraham was ready to give the most precious gift in his life; he took God’s word and believed in his heart in order to receive the blessings.

And God gave His most precious gift, His beloved Son. So, I seek to give everything that is precious to me back to God, for Him to protect, nurture, grow, and prosper. Sealed in the blood of His Son.

Join my quick prayer, now.  Make it your own, human as we prepare for Easter.

Lord God of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, help me walk in your covenant, respond to your promises with love, obedience, and an enduring loyalty of my free will to your sovereign nature. In the name of Jesus, amen.

God did the choosing. This is what the Bible is about.

God chose His people, He chose each of us, human.

Because He first chose to send His Son, long before any of the 2,000-year journey of His chosen nation came to earthly life.

In 432 BC, as Nehemiah led the efforts to restore the wall surrounding the second temple, I pictured myself looking at the finished work, feeling a sense of peace along with the Jewish people, that this wall represents God’s covenant standing with mighty, restorative power.

But four centuries passed without one known prophetic word. For 400 years God appeared silent to His chosen nation. Palestine was ruled by the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Maccabeans and the Romans. Yet God was preparing for the cornerstone of our eternal redemption with an earthly embrace. A common language for all to hear, and earthy capillaries of Roman-built roads for His Son and the apostles to travel, to spread the Good News of the New Covenant. 

Episode 76. Insight #2. God Goes Before Us in Silence.