As a nurse, you how I know when I have hit a wound?
The patient reacts very strongly.
I burned my left hand in 2002. Betta believe if someone woulda come and thumped on it or better yet…tried to clean it out….so it could heal, I woulda possibly screamed.
It was a wound.
But now, 2020, I got a scar. My past is behind me. It shows on my body, but you can thump it all you want….I’m healed.
If our divorces and broken relationships don’t still affect us today or if we SAY “It’s all in the past, we good.” But someone, a.k.a. TT, starts talking about Covenant and you screaming….then, you sure you good? Or is there still a wound?
A wise friend told me if the reaction is supposed to be a 1 and you pumpin’ out a 10, the distance between the 1 and the 10 is the wound.
Covenant is meant to be a whole, good, loving word.
But it’s a wound in our ears as a nation.
Our reaction, is deeply revealing that we are in need of healing.
When we said “yes” to Jesus, we entered into a covenant.
That means, He isn’t going anywhere.
I find so much peace in knowing I can’t lose my salvation.
I don’t know how people sleep at night that believe they can lose their salvation.
I would think that if you believe you could lose your salvation, you could easily finds grounds to divorce your wife, leave jobs, cut people out of your life, and continue the cycle of quitting on imperfect people, including yourself. That’s where we get suicides and self harm from. We can’t accept our own failings or that of others. So everyone gets cut off, including ourselves.
It manifests like:
God can’t stand us.
We can’t stand others.
We sho ‘nuf can’t stand ourselves.
So our actions are constantly attacking us in relationships because of our underlying belief system that when we mess up, God’s bouncin’.
Our relationship with God is compared many times to the Bride and Bridegroom in the Bible. (John 3:29, Matthew 9:14-15, Ephesians 5:22-23)
Now, imagine, I think, as the bride, that when I mess up, my husband is leaving. I would either live a super hypocritical life or I would feel ashamed all the time. It’s not a matter of IF I mess up…it’s when. Our relationship is on the line. My performance is on the line. What I gain in grace, I could lose by works…is inconsistent at best.
Like a pre-nup in our “we want it our way or the highway” culture, that is making sure we don’t lose any dolla dolla bills on the way outta der.
Jesus doesn’t do pre-nups. That’s a contract.
I’m talking bout Covenant.
What’s His is Yours. (Romans 8:17) He just invites your life to get hidden in His. (Col 3:3)
That’s the beauty of our Bridegroom, Christ. Like saying “I’ll be the perfect one….You can’t be that. Then I will stamp you with a seal of my Holy Spirit like a wedding ring. It will mark you, like ‘she’s taken. That’s my bride. We lifers.'” (Ephesians 1:13-14)
Imagine, I woke up every day thinking my King would revoke my seal. Or maybe find a younger, more obedient bride than me and toss me out. What kind of marriage would that be? Or imagine on our wedding day, He said “Teresa, now, your mine, but you wile out…and I’m getting the C-RV.”
But that’s how we do covenant in America.
God isn’t like that.
I hope you have read the Bible through all the way.
That’s how you can get to know Him.
And when you finish one reading, read it again and again.
Study it. Meditate on it. Sing about it. Tell it to your kids.
That is the only way Covenant is truly understood and passed on.
Otherwise you will let culture teach you, bypassing the conviction the Holy Spirit has already tried to teach you about. Culture seers consciousnesses in the area of covenant.
Satan is sitting back with his feet kicked up on a footstool in this area in America, because we bought into the Kool-aid and it’s killing family after family….generation to generation. A cycle doesn’t need an interruption or “attack from satan” when it’s a well oiled machine.
This is God in covenant.
In the beginning, He made covenants.
His chosen, Israel, constantly went after other lovers.
Yet He remained faithful.
Even using the story of Hosea to say, “Y’all wiled out…but I will keep returning to you.” (Hosea 3:1)
He eventually disciplined His Bride. Sent them into exile. (Jer 13:19) Doesn’t mean there might not need to be some lines drawn in the sand with the rebellion. But even in exile, He sends Jeremiah. He offers hope and restoration.
And healing for their wounds. (Jer 30:17)
We love to quote us some Jeremiah 29:11. Yeah, that’s God saying to His adulterous Bride, you maybe getting disciplined now, (Jer 30:11) but I’m here when you get out. I have a really good plan for us. He’s not signing a pre-nup…He’s declaring a post fail restoration plan.
That’s my God. Even says a new covenant is coming. (Jer 31:31) This was about 600 years before Jesus. God sees generations in covenant. He sees decisions now affecting the future.
Then Covenant came with skin on. This better covenant came to show us how it’s done. (Heb 8:6) A completely faithful Son. Our Bridegroom and the Lamb showed up.
He then laid His life willfully on an altar and insinuated “I want a relationship so bad with you, I will die.” (Luke 9:22) Not, “I would die for you.” That’s a country song.
He wouldn’t let anyone stop Him. He didn’t defend Himself. (Mark 14:61) He humbled Himself and allowed the only way Covenant was ever gonna be Perfect.
He knew the whole story already. Yet, He walked the path with disciples that would get cold feet and flee on the wedding day. Yet He still died.
He knew TT would be a hot mess for 22 years. Yet He still died.
He knew YOU would be all you are and then some….yet, He still died.
And once you got your face turned to His, found out He was the Living Water and there was no other…that you had found the One…He stamped you. Said “She’s mine.” “He’s mine.”
Meet me at the altar in your white dress.
If I know someOne is in it for the long haul, no matter what, I can breath deeply. I can rest knowing, this IS a relationship…not an inevitable break up. This is what we get when we give our lives to Jesus.
We get His unfailing, never ending love that says “Baby, I’m a lifer…I ain’t going no where. Told ya since day one I had to wife ya, tell the world that I just wanna love ya, girl, I don’t wanna fight cha…cuz you’re the only one for me….God knows…”
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2: 4-9
We were dead. He brought us to life. This was never about us. This was about His kindness and His grace. I just had to have faith and take the gift.
If you are reading this and have never said “Yes” to Jesus, I encourage you to take the gift. Receive the only real life there is. You will never regret it. Best covenant keeper ever.
