Covenant # 6 - Written on our hearts

As we continue on our Covenant journey, Matthew 1:1 identifies the One who established the New Covenant: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Mt.1:1).

Jesus' Ancestor Abraham -
We know that the Abrahamic Covenant was a one-sided agreement God cut with His friend, Abraham. In it, He promised the Land, countless descendants, and many nations to come through Abraham's own seed. That Covenant passed from Isaac to Jacob, who was later called "Israel."


Jesus' Ancestor David -
The Davidic Covenant included God's promise that He would build a house/Kingdom for David that would last forever. Ultimately, this Covenant was realized when David's descendant, Jesus, was born to be the Messiah.

The Covenant of the Law -
God had also made the Covenant of the Law with the people of Israel, a 2 sided agreement made when the Nation was freed from slavery in Egypt. The people were meant to live a holy life before those around them, showing God to the world. This Covenant was broken when the people rejected God and chose false gods, inviting His chastisement, instead.

Jesus sharing about the New Covenant. (VisualBibleAlive.com)

The New Covenant - 
Kay Arthur says, "The Law was given so God's people would know how to live in the land." But what the Law could not do, Jesus accomplished (Rom. 8:2-4). The Son of God was the only One who could fulfill the demands of the Law for us. In doing so, as the Son of Abraham and of David and of God the Father, He created the New Covenant, and it went further than any other.  He celebrated this New Covenant at the Passover dinner with His disciples. (Luke 22:19-21)

This New Covenant reaches me! It reaches you!

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."   Jeremiah 31:33,34

For those of us grafted in as God's people, we share in the New Covenant made when Jesus, Himself, was the sacrifice:  the torn flesh, the spilled blood, the promise. More than the tablets of stone upon which the Law was written, God wants to write His truth on our hearts.  As His word is etched on our very being, He wants to be our God, to have us be His people, to know Him, to be forgiven. 

Tablets of stone may be broken, lost, or faded, but by the New Covenant, His word on our hearts and lives will change us and bear fruit that lasts!