Keeping the Covenant

 Genesis 9:18-17, Psalm 25:1-10

 Every time we see a rainbow, we need to remember it as a sign of God’s covenant to never flood the earth again. Later in Genesis 17, God will make a covenant with Abraham promising him he would be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.

A covenant is a promise, something on which we can depend. In Psalm 25 David lifts up his soul to the Lord putting his trust in God. He asks to not be put to shame in his trust for protection and not to let his enemies triumph over him. He asks that those who wait on God will not be put to shame but only those who are wantonly treacherous.

In contrast to these evil folks, David seeks to learn God’s ways and what godly paths he is to take. He asks to be led in God’s truth realizing that the Lord is the God of his salvation. The patience of him awaiting deliverance is shown as he says – for you I wait all day long.

He reminds the Lord of God’s mercy and steadfast love that have been since the days of Noah and Abraham. He has faith in the forgiveness of his sins as he asks God not to remember his youthful sins and transgressions. He asks instead to be remembered according to the steadfast continual love promised in God’s covenant with Israel.

This passage ends with David declaring again the goodness of the Lord and how upright God is teaching sinners the way and leading the humble in what is right and teaching them God’s way. He claims again that the ways or paths of the Lord are steadfast love and then adds faithfulness. God being faithful here to God’s covenant but only to those who keep faith in God’s covenant and keep God’s decrees – God’s laws.

When we see a rainbow, let us think beyond the covenant to Noah and Abraham and the covenant of keeping the law. This old covenant was replaced by the new covenant of love made by the work of Christ as he died to save us from our sins – to keep us from having to do the almost impossible of keeping all the law’s decrees. We can now wait in God’s steadfast love and be assured of God’s faithfulness – that God who kept covenants in the past will keep this new covenant of love for all who seek God. Amen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Setting Your Hope in God

 Disclaimer: Paul talks about the Rapture in this passage a concept I still struggle with. I believe that once you die you go direct to the Lord, so bodies awaiting till the rapture to rise is hard for me to grasp. I can see how Paul was comforting the Thessalonians here but was his concept correct? Add any comments you wish to this bafflement of mine. That said, I wrote this per the text. What do you all think? Psalms 78:1-7; I Thessalonians 4:13-18   The psalmist in Psalms 78 is not only telling his current audience to listen to his teaching but to pass it on from one generation to the next. Just like he has heard it from his ancestors, he asks the Israelites to teach them to the coming generations. They are to teach them to the children yet unborn so that these children will teach their children. Why? So, they should set their hope in God, not forgetting God’s works. Fast forward to the New Testament where Paul is passing on this hope to the Thessalonians. The question these bel
Read more

The Things that are God’s

  Matthew 22:34-40, I Thessalonians 2:3-8 In Matthew 22 the Pharisees and Herodians come up to Jesus to entrap him asking him if it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. You see to agree would be against the Jewish Nationalists – the Zealots while not to agree would be a crime of state. Jesus answers cleverly saying “give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Now if I would have been in that crowd I would have asked, “What are the things that are of God?” Later in chapter 23 Jesus will tell the Pharisees that they’re concerned with insignificant things yet neglect the weightier matters of the law which are justice, mercy, and faith. This is a common theme you will read throughout the Old Testament which is summarized in Micah 6:8 as it tells what is required of you – what are the things of God that we are to give back. These are to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. These are the weightier matters of the law the Ph
Read more

Do What they Teach, Not What they Do

  Matthew 23: 1-12; I Thessalonians 2:9-13   Jesus when he talks about the scribes and the Pharisees in Matthew 23 basically says: “Do what they teach but not what they do.” What he questions most is their motivation. They do what they do to be seen by others. They wear fancy robes and love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues. They love to be greeted with respect. All this Jesus sums up in the word pride or not being humble. He states then that those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Years later Paul writes to the Thessalonians telling how he did what Christ had instructed. That he was humble leading a life worthy of God, his motivation being for God’s glory not his own. He tells that not only are the Thessalonians his witnesses of this but God also. They have seen how pure, upright, and blameless his conduct has been. He encourages the Thessalonians to do the same. To live a life worthy of
Read more