Today’s Reading: Jeremiah 35-36, Psalm 50

When we choose a spouse, we are not only getting a husband or wife, we are getting a whole family! Some of you are already laughing because you know the hard core truth of that statement. The love of your life comes with parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins… They come with their traditions, their norms and their expectations. So when I said my vows to Scott, I was also making a commitment to become a Sherwood. I love them with all my heart. They are my people.

“I will be their God and they will be my people.” – Exodus 6:7

These are the powerful words of God when He made a covenant with His people; this is the promise Moses held onto as he went to Pharoah with the command to let His people go. It is not a coincidence that God uses these words again through the prophet Jeremiah as His people are once more entering captivity. He reminds them that, just as He rescued them from Egypt, He has plans to deliver them from the exile they are beginning in Babylon.

We may read right over those words without thinking much of them, but to the people of Judah, “I will be their God and they will be my people” meant something. It reminded them of their covenant with God to obey His commandments, the first of which they broke over and over again: “You must not have any other god before me” (Exodus 20:3).

“The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will NOT be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves a wife,” says the Lord. “But this is the NEW COVENANT I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people…And I will forgive them their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” – Jeremiah 31:31-34

This new covenant would not be written on stone tablets; it would be written on their hearts. The old covenant required obedience and faithfulness to the God who was willing to meet with their leader on the mountain while they stayed at a distance. The new covenant would be deep within each individual child of God, written on their hearts as each one had the opportunity to experience a personal God living within them.

What a God of restoration we serve! God’s people were experiencing the fury of God while He equipped Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and take His people captive for 70 years. Yet, in the midst of this sentencing, God was expressing love and promising to bring them home again starting over with a new covenant that would draw them closer to Him instead of pushing them away – a covenant that would last forever!

“They will be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart and one purpose to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants. And I will make an EVERLASTING COVENANT with them: I will never stop doing good for them. I will put a desire in their hearts to worship me, and they will never leave me. I will find joy doing good for them and will faithfully and wholeheartedly replant them in this land.” – Jeremiah 32:38-41

Oh the heart of a God who loves us that much! He finds joy in doing good for us, even when we have a history of walking away from Him. He puts a desire in our heart to worship and serve Him. He is a God of justice who calls us to follow Him and live out the righteousness His Spirit is producing inside of us, and He is also a God of grace and mercy who pursues the restoration of our relationship with Him. He is the kind of God who can look at His rebellious children and say, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

“Bring my faithful people to me—
those who made a covenant with me by giving sacrifices.”
Then let the heavens proclaim his justice,
for God himself will be the judge. – Psalm 50:5-6

“If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the path of salvation.” – Psalm 50:23b