To Encourage You

Hebrews 8:10 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

I remember so well the words of my grandmother. She was, of course, one of the oldest people I knew growing up, and to hear her words was to hear the words of a bygone era.  She had a way of putting things that others in my life just didn’t do. One of the phrases she would use is “precious hearts.” It was something she would say as an expression of love for her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  I guess you could say it was her way of saying how her heart connected with the hearts of the little ones she loved so much.  Their lives, their inner persons, their “hearts,” were precious to her.  For some reason, it is this expression that came to my mind as I reflected on the verses above from Hebrews 8.  Here God is talking about a very precious thing that involves people’s hearts.  He’s talking about a “new covenant” (Hebrews 8:8). He is contrasting it with the “first covenant” (Hebrews 8:7). He tells us how much better this new covenant is than the old one.  So, what’s He talking about?

Well, we find the first covenant (covenant is just another word for “promise”) in the Old Testament. It begins in Exodus 19 with these words: “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel” (Exodus 19:5-6). It was a wonderful promise of blessing to the nation of Israel. The “covenant” they were to keep to receive these blessings was His Law which was then laid down in the passages that followed. It included the Ten Commandments and the many Old Testament ceremonial laws regarding the tabernacle, the sacrificial offerings, and the priesthood, and the moral and civil laws that were to govern personal relationships.  And what was the nation’s immediate response?  “All the people answered together and said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do’” (Exodus 19:8).  They were excited about this which was, at that time, a new covenant.  They were enthusiastic. It was as if they couldn’t wait to get started. And what was the result?  They, every single person, over and over again, violated each and every one of the laws God had given them. Although He had given His law to them to bless them, they found that they just couldn’t do it.  And it was all because each and every person had a wicked and deceptive heart.  Jesus put His finger on the problem with these words, when he rebuked the Pharisees, who were so fastidious about eating with ceremonially washed hands so that they wouldn’t defile themselves: “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23). 

You see, the first covenant, though it was good for it came from a good God, was a great problem for the people it promised to bless because people are sinners by nature with sinful and defective hearts. They found that it was impossible to keep their side of the conditions for the promise.  God’s Law exposed this, for that was its very purpose.  But in the verses above we learn about a “new covenant.” It’s one that the Bible describes as a covenant that is “better, since it is enacted on better promises” (Hebrews 7:6). And what is this better promise? It’s that God would do a miraculous thing. He would actually change people’s hearts.  He would do this by cleansing all the heart’s defilement, and write His Laws, not on a tablet of stone, as He did for Moses, but on each person’s mind and heart.  And how would he do this? By way of the sacrifice of the only One Who could perfectly fulfill His Law, His Son Jesus. 

Jesus willingly gave up His life on the cross, becoming sin for us, so that we could receive His perfect righteousness in exchange.  He did this so that “though (our) sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). He did this so that all things, including our evil hearts, could be made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). It is in this miracle that God writes His perfect Law on the heart of every Christian, so that the believer is now motivated out of incredible gratitude to obey God’s Law. It’s the miracle that transforms people from being those who “loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19), to those who can sincerely say “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). It’s the miracle of the transformation of a person’s heart from that which resists God’s Law to one that can say, “I have stored up Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11), for that’s that person’s newfound deepest desire. 

So, how’s your heart? What’s your deepest desire?  If it’s other than that made possible by God’s new covenant, you’re missing out on one of the greatest promises of God.