God likes to use covenants. They are important to Him and should be to us…but they aren’t.
We can say with all good intent that we believe that when we make a promise we keep it and that is part of the ‘integrity’ we should all have. What is so bad is that as a society (at least in America) we have become so accustomed to breaking promises and contracts that we no longer view the covenants God makes with us with the gravity He does. The proof is in the pudding as the old saying goes – just consider the number of marriage contracts broken, the number of home and car repossessions, and the number of bankruptcies we see today. As much as we might like to say that these things happen for good reasons in our own minds, a closer look at covenants would do us well. Why should we study covenants…because according to Galatians 3:14, the covenant blessings of Abraham are also for us. “in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (NAS) Only a fool would not want to know his/her obligations and benefits of a contract he/she was a part of.
To begin with, in 21[SUP]st[/SUP] century America we use the common definition of the word ‘covenant’ to determine our understanding of what it is – an agreement or contract. This is logical and acceptable for modern secular life, although ethically, it is still terrible that we go back on so many contracts, so easily. However, when pondering the status of most of our prayers – answered or unanswered, or any other aspect of our spiritual health, or anywhere that God is concerned, we need to use His meaning of the word. In order to do that, we have to look at history.
Most of us probably never even looked at our salvation as a covenant with God but we enter into Covenant when we proclaim ourselves to be “saved” or a “believer or “a Christian” or simply a “follower of Christ.” We accept God’s gift of salvation without realizing the point of it is to bring us back to that state of fellowship for which we were created. That is the purpose of His covenants. Understanding all of this, to realize that He could have simply said, “I will do this and you do that,” but instead He chose to partner with us in covenant, while being breathtakingly awe-inspiring, is at the same time, equally as humbling. God created us to have fellowship with Him, and this is proven by the fact He makes covenants with man…as if He could not be trusted to keep His word. 1 Peter 2:9 (NAS) tells us we are “…A CHOSEN RACE, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light ;” The moment we enter into Covenant with God we are His…dedicated to Him much like the Nazarites of Bible times.
We do not understand Covenant God’s way. Not only do we no longer respect authority and view dependence as weakness, we refuse to practice submission – all vital components of Covenant. Currently in America the separation of church and state has accelerated the process of covenant breaking and not understanding covenant because it is meant to infiltrate all of our daily lives, and used to be integrated into all of life until we began harping on the misinterpreted phrase, “separation of church and state” issue. God blessed America for befriending Israel and being the first to recognize her as a legitimate country when she became independent in 1948. Americans lived better and had more than ever before, until we allowed the separation of church and state to pull us away from the principles we stood for and propagated in our society…and look at us now.
