A Covenant

Pause: Exodus 20:1-21, 24:1-8, 34:10; Leviticus 26:1-20, 40-46 

Spring term my junior year of college, I vividly remember sitting in class not paying a lick of attention to the programming that was being taught. I was thoroughly distracted by the sun glinting off my sparkling, left ring finger. After the term, I would be entering into a covenant with my beloved. We would commit to one another to love, honor, and cherish one another despite the circumstances. We would continue to love one another even though our continued knowledge of one another would include the good, bad, and the ugly. Our relationship was based on this covenant that we made before friends and family and symbolized with the rings we wear daily on our left hands.

So often we can get bogged down in the details of Exodus and Leviticus and see the ceremonial and civil laws as tedious and over the top, but in reality, these laws were all part of a beautiful covenant that God made with His people Israel. Our God has always desired an intimate relationship with His people, and He made a way possible for it to happen. Those rules were not just rules from the powerful to the subservient, but a way for them to engage with their God like lovers entering a marriage covenant. Not only does our God desire to be with us as He did with His people Israel, He offers us a similar covenant, one much like a groom offers to His bride.

Ponder: How does a list of commandments demonstrate God’s love and desire to be with us? What are the terms of the covenant? What happens if the covenant is followed? What happens if it is broken? How does God extend a covenant to us?

Pray: Father, Thank You for providing a way for me to live with You in an intimate covenant relationship like You did for Your people Israel. Thank You for loving me so much to send Your Son as a baby into the world to establish the new covenant so I can dwell with You on this earth and forever. Amen.

— Jamie Harms