"To Him be glory forever": covenant

Showing posts with label covenant. Show all posts

Monday, December 7, 2015

Without Beginning or End

I like to run. Over the past 37 years the past I have run many, many miles. And every one of them without the "benefit" of musical accompaniment. No radio, Walkman, ipod or MP3 player. Just myself, perhaps a companion and some conversation, and the sounds of the environment I'm running in, wherever that may be. And the thoughts moving in and out of my head.

Today I was running east of Dulce. It was about 40 and warm enough for shorts. I had reached my turn-around point, a bit more than six miles from home, and was just starting to make my way back. Twelve miles today seemed like a good idea when I left and I felt good on the out-bound leg. But with nearly the entire trip back ahead of me I was beginning to wonder a bit. Too late to do anything about it today, but maybe next time I should consider both my ambition and my energy level.

Without music my mind wanders pretty easily and the next thought was of a piece of scripture I'm trying to memorize. It is Hebrews 13:20-21. Truthfully, I memorized it a number of years ago but it has faded and I'm trying to bring it back. It says:

"Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."

As I thought about those verses two words seemed to jump out at me.

Eternal covenant.

In 1 Corinthians 11:25 Paul is talking about the meaning of the Lord's Supper and he says that Jesus told him this:

"This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink of it, in remembrance of me."

I happened to be reading something over the weekend that said we should understand what Paul wrote to the Corinthians as meaning not an entirely new covenant between God and His children, but a new way of looking at the same covenant. The blood of Christ is what has always brought salvation to sinners. It is anticipated in the Old Testament and revealed in the New Testament. This is also brought out in the Hebrews passage, "the blood of the eternal covenant."

But thinking as I ran this morning I had a new understanding of eternal in relation to the covenant. We often think of eternal as "having no ending." The Christian promise of eternal life is a promise that the person with faith in Jesus will one day go from this life into a never-ending life in the very presence of our Savior and Lord. That is a pretty good promise, one that really has no equal. There is not one thing compares to that promise.

And it is a promise that is based upon an eternal covenant, and eternal means so much more than merely everlasting. The promise that God makes is a promise without a beginning and an end. It is a promise that has always existed. It is a promise that precedes the very act of creation. It is not just an "everlasting" promise. At the same time it is both a "has always existed" promise and a "will never end" promise.

May this promise, this eternal promise of God, be the promise you find rest and comfort in, now and forever. Amen.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Giving blood

This morning I went to my local blood bank, which is more correctly titled a ‘Blood Donor Center,’ to donate another pint of blood. I have donated blood quite a few years. I started going just once a year. I didn’t like the idea of a big needle being jabbed into my arm. I still don’t like it, but for quite a while I have gone six times a year, which is the maximum number of times a person can give blood.

The donor center I visit used to have different slogans as they tried to encourage more people to donate blood. One of my favorites, the only one I still recall, was this:

Safe…simple…saves lives.

Which is really true. I learned through experience that donating blood is safe and simple. I still don’t like the needle being stuck in my arm, but that is the only hard part. The whole donation process takes less than 15 minutes. And then they have snacks while you hang out for another 15 minutes before heading off. When it comes to donating blood, getting to the snacks is my favorite part.

And donating one pint of blood saves about three lives. Here is a link to that fact, and many other tidbits about blood and blood donation.

I think that saving three lives just through one donation is something that could be regarded highly. And I could take the number of times I’ve donated, multiply it by three, and pat myself on the back for all of the lives saved through my blood donation. But that isn’t where I’m headed with this post.

Donating blood in the way I did, i.e. “Safe…simple…saves lives” brings to mind one whose donation was a completely different matter.

The Gospel accounts make crystal clear the fact that the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus was anything but safe or simple for Him. This is something that He was aware of as it approached as He prayed in the garden, saying in Luke 22:42,

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

But saving lives? That Jesus did, in ways that the mere giving of blood I did today does not, cannot, and should not ever compare.

Sure, lives may be saved through the blood I gave, but those lives are saved for but a moment. The people receiving the blood I gave will die someday, and the giving of blood on my part, as meritorious as it could be made to sound, will not add one second to my life.

But the blood of Jesus, poured out for those who call on Him in faith, brings eternal life. One passage, of several, that teaches this is in Revelation 7:13-14, where John writes,

“Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Today I am thankful that Jesus has given blood, a donation that saves lives for eternity.

The photo is from the Mayo Blood Donor Center website.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Forever

Last week we bought a new book for our daughter. Earlier in the week we were finishing reading through the Jesus Storybook Bible, for at least the fourth time through, and as good a version of children’s Bible as it is we needed to start something different and give our daughter the opportunity to learn God’s stories told in different words. We went to our local Christian bookstore and did some browsing, returning home with the Adventure Bible Storybook.

It is a storybook and not a Bible, so it takes some liberties in the telling of the stories but not in ways that I think detract from the message of the story or the message of the Bible as a whole. Last night we read the story God’s Promise to Abram. Our daughter quickly exclaimed “His name is Abraham, not Abram!” We said “Let’s just read the story and see what happens.”

We read a version of the story of Genesis 15, where God promises to provide an heir for Abram and to always watch over the many descendants that will come through Abram’s son. And the story ended with the words of Genesis 15:18, saying:

“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram.”

Covenant is a big word for a six year-old, and sometimes it’s a big word for adults as well. We explained it to our daughter as best we could, telling her that a covenant is a promise that God makes to us, a special promise which will never be broken. There is nothing that we can do that would cause God to end the covenant and not fulfill the promises once He has made them.

The Psalm that my wife and I read together last night spoke to this too, although not as directly. We read Psalm 121. The Psalmist is in trouble but remembers that his help is always to be found in the Lord. The last two verses say:

“The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out and coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

That last phrase is what ties it all together for me. It is one of many places in the Bible where God affirms the promise that He made to Abram. The unbreakable promise to always be Abram’s God, which is also to be the God of those who call on Abram’s descendant, Jesus, in faith.

The promise which means that no matter what goes on around us, no matter how much suffering we may be experiencing, no matter how much it may seem that evil has the upper hand…in the end it is all in the hand of God Almighty.

The God who calls us. The God who makes unbreakable promises to keep us. The God whose loving grasp lasts forever.