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A NEW COVENANT( JEREMIAH 31:31-34)

REFLECTION

“A New Covenant” is the theme for our reflection. A covenant is an agreement between two or more parties which states the rights and obligations of the parties under the said agreement. Jeremiah brings a new dimension of how God intends to deepen His relationship with Israel through a new covenant. The new covenant will not be premised on hard laws but laws that will flow from the heart of God’s people. In other words, the new law will not be merely going according to the law as it was written but the people will understand the spirit of the law and be guided by good conscience and the love for God’s will.

God had made different covenants between himself and Israel. Notable among these covenants are the Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, The Mosaic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant and the New Covenant. In each of these covenants, God assigned his people duties and rights and God’s part is to reign sovereign in the lives of those who will abide by the terms of the covenant. In other words, the covenant simply says, “Trust and obey the Lord and the Lord will be your saviour” The terms of the Mosaic covenant particularly was hard law which the people usually offended. This explains why Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 31:31-32, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.” God now intends to write the terms of the new covenant in the hearts of his people so that it guides their conscience and will. Jeremiah 31:33 says “For 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”

Beloved in the Lord, the only way we can please God and become beneficiaries of the new covenant is to accept Jesus Christ into our hearts and follow his examples. Jesus is the law of God in the New Covenant, he is the Word of God as written in John 1:1-5, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” When you know Jesus and accept his teachings and live by them, the darkness in your heart will disappear, your conscience will be rekindled and your relationship with God will be deepened.

The Advent season offers us the opportunity to renew our covenant with God by coming to him in repentance and having His law written in our hearts by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. When this is done, we can joyfully say with Paul in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” May the Lord have mercy on us and continually grant us the grace of the New Covenant in Christ. Shalom.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. What does the Lord require of you to maintain the new covenant He has with you?

2. In which ways can we Christians bring others into this new covenant?

PRAYER

LORD JESUS, LET YOUR HOLY SPIRIT EMPOWER ME TO OVERCOME ANY TEMPTATION THAT WILL MAKE ME FALL SHORT OF MY OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE NEW COVENANT, HELP ME TO REMAIN FAITHFUL TILL THE END. AMEN