Daily Devotion – March 19, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Jeremiah 31:31-34
31:31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
31:32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt–a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.
31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
31:34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
The Lord is faithful, ever-longing to be in relationship with humankind. The Lord made all kinds of covenants prior to the days of Jeremiah, and when those covenants were made, God promised to be faithful, no matter whether the people broke the covenants or not. And the people always broke them.
But God kept coming back, over and over again.
And God still keeps coming back to us. After Jesus’s death and resurrection, God sent the Holy Spirit of Jesus to continuously be with us, and the Spirit calls us every day to be in relationship with the Triune God. We don’t always listen for that call, but the call faithfully comes.
Most mainline Christians in North America, when interviewed about these things, confess that they believe God isn’t up to anything anymore – that God may be watching us from a distance but is not connected with living human beings and the things they do. I’m pretty sure that the Israelites believed the same thing many times in their history. Do you agree with this assessment of God’s activity?
I do not. I know individuals and congregations who work hard at faithfully listening for God’s call to them in these days, right now, and experience God pushing or pulling them to notice what God is up to in cities and towns and country places all over the world, and to join God in those efforts. God is faithful and ever calling us, even today. And people do experience the Lord writing the Law in their hearts, being with them, dwelling with them, and speaking to them from God’s living word. It transforms them.
God is still keeping God’s promises, if only we would notice.
Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for keeping your covenants, even when we human beings forget to do so. Thank you for nudging us to listen and look for you, keeping your promises, in the world today. Amen.
