2015-01-02
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week, we discussed the need to recognize the benefits and existence of our covenant relationship with God and with other believers in His Son. The covenant between David and Jonathan was used as an example of this. It extended to many generations of their families, even to Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s crippled son after Jonathan’s untimely death with his two brothers and his father, Saul, at the battle of Gilboa [1 SAM 18: 1-4; 1 SAM 31: 1-6, 8-10; 2 SAM 9: 1-13]. The very fact that Mephibosheth was crippled from the age of five was, because in the face of danger, the advantages of a covenant relationship were temporarily forgotten.
I’m a person who has known rejection, disaster, and other negative consequences in my early life. To begin, I was reared in an intelligent but very dysfunctional family. I had a fifteen year marriage that was a disaster and ended in divorce. No one in my genetic family lives anywhere near me and my present husband. I have experienced serious physical illness, as has my husband. And yet, I’m happier than I have ever been in my life. My second marriage is a happy and long-term one. One might ask, why would the Lord allow all of this to happen in the life of one person? I believe I know the answer. The entire time the Lord has kept me in His sight, and for the first 25 years of my life I knew nothing about Him! Because I’m much older now, I can look back over my life due to hindsight and see my Covenant Partner at work in it. [Don’t I wish I had 20/20 foresight in my past?? J . It would have saved me a great deal of angst!]
Each of us has to go through trials, designed perfectly by the Lord God to foster our spiritual and emotional growth. It’s just as we go to school for our intellectual and social maturation, which is gradually accomplished for most. While my parents were traditionally Jewish, it was their aim to raise me in that custom and faith. But something wasn’t working, and that something was due to Jewish legalism and efforts to force their beliefs on me. Once old enough, I began searching for a belief system that would allow me to know God better and to come to genuine faith in Him and in our Messiah Yeshua [Jesus]. That search took me in a very unexpected direction and ended up with my call to spend the rest of my life serving God while I serve others. All the while, my Covenant Partner was urging me along a path that would prepare me for the immediate purpose for which He had created me. Let me encourage you to look at how our Covenant Partner has impacted your life over the years. It can be most revealing.
If we go back to 1 SAM 15: 7-9, we find that Saul [then still king of Israel] spared the life of the Amalekite king, Agag, and his animals in the course of his battle against these enemies of Israel. God wanted the Amalekites and all their animals to be killed in this battle [1 SAM 15: 2-3]. It is clear that this angered God greatly, and there transpired some tremendously negative consequences from this decision on Saul’s part. The first one was God’s decision to transfer the right to be king from Saul to David [1 SAM 15: 24-26]. God’s will matters tremendously, and we must remember IS 46: 9-10, “I am God, and there is no other! I am God, and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times to what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’” This coupled with the fact that God has no evil in Him [1 JN 1: 5] makes it entirely compelling that we make God’s agenda our own. Now let’s look at the consequences of Saul’s disobedience to God from another angle.
The Amalekite armor-bearer, who helped Saul fall on his sword leading to the king’s death, seemed to take pleasure in telling David about what had happened [2 SAM 1: 8-10]. We must remember that covenant partners share the same enemies. David ordered that Amalekite struck down [2 SAM 1: 16]. The Amalekites, most especially their king, Agag, would remain Israel’s enemies, and it was a descendant of Agag, Haman, who tried to exterminate all the Jews living in Persia during Esther’s time [ES 3: 1-15]. We all need to better understand the ground rules God sets for keeping up our own end of the covenants of our lives. GN 9: 5-6 [God speaking], “As for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man by man his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.’” LV 24: 17, 21, “If anyone take the life of a human being, he must be put to death…Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.” NU 35: 16-24 restates the death penalty for premeditated murder, and recommends residence in a city of refuge for a person who murders by accident without premeditation. DT 19: 4-13 reiterates these rules with the addition that if a murderer who did the deed with premeditation flees to a city of refuge, the avenger of the murdered person may come to him and take his life, even though he has gone to a city of refuge. These are the ancient expressions of rules for a covenant. The people were to do nothing that brings judgment upon themselves.
PRAYER: O Lord, like those ancient Jews living under the Covenant of Law, we live under the Covenant of Grace. We too are to do nothing that would bring down Your wrath upon us. Our lives may be different in customs and practices, but the principles of a covenant relationship with You and with other believers in Your Son, remain much the same. We offer You praise and thanks for the blessings that being in a covenant relationship with You brings. We need to understand what grace really is, and You have shown us it is unmerited favor. EPH 2: 8-10, “For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Therefore, Your enemies are ours; Your will is also to be ours. We are Your children by adoption into Your family. EPH 1: 4-6, “For He chose us in Him [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His [God’s] sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves.” As a family, we must function; as a family, we must show love and care for each other. Our lives are full of losses, trials, illness, and other challenges that are like mountains for us to climb. These are Your design to maximize our emotional and spiritual maturation, as we work through them. Your love for us has made us conscious of the needs of others around us, and we seek You for Your direction and guidance in meeting those needs. PS 119: 105, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light for my path.” This promise from You speaks volumes about Your heart. IS 30: 20, “Although the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with you own eyes you will see them.” We thank and praise You, Dear Father, for You always keep Your promises and love us as Your human covenant partners. In Christ, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I look around me at the people in my life, and their presence in it is real proof that my Covenant Partner always keeps His promises to me. PS 40: 1-3, expresses some of the nature of our covenant relationships. “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a Rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.” Next week, I’m led to recall Mephibosheth’s story and David’s lament. The binding power of a covenant relationship is something worthy and precious in our lives, just as it has been for those who came before us. We need to pray to our Covenant Partner, asking for His will for our lives. Having faith in Christ is part of His will. JN 5: 24 [Christ speaking], “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes in Him Who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” Allow me to close with this worthy prayer for God’s will for us all. HE 13: 20-21, “May the God of peace, Who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the Sheep, equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work within us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Praise and thanks be to the Lord!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2014. All Rights Reserved.
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