A New and Better Covenant

One of the things the Holy Spirit started to teach me when I was placed in a leadership position in my job was to always hold what He had given me before Him. Imagine you were holding a set of keys in your hands, He said my position was to constantly hold those keys towards Him, palms open wide not closed over clutching or grasping those keys. The point was, He wanted me positioned in such a way that He could easily take what He had given me to steward when it was time to hand it over to the next person.

I totally agreed with God at the beginning. Of course, it was a gift and a privilege to be invited into that responsibility, He was free to take it whenever He wanted. But after 4 years of stewarding this responsibility, I didn’t know that over time some of my identity had become wrapped up in what I did. Realistically, it would be hard for that not to happen.

How can you be fully responsible for something and keep it at arm’s length?

With this responsibility had come tests, trials and sacrifices. It unearthed insecurities I thought I had overcome and revealed others I didn’t know I had. There were sleepless nights and times I cried myself to sleep. Where God has placed you is ultimately intended to refine you because He is committed to finishing the work He has started in you. Imagine coming through all these difficulties, finally coming into your own and then the Lord says it’s time for you to leave. It’s time to release what I gave you to steward.

What?! Did I hear right?

The writer of Hebrews explains in chapter 8 that the covenant Moses instituted, the old covenant, was really a copy and shadow of the heavenly one (Hebrews 8:5). In Exodus 25:40, He was shown a pattern from heaven of the type of tabernacle he was to make on earth.

"And see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain."

When Moses had given the rules of the covenant, he sprinkled the people with the blood of the covenant, the blood of calves and goats. And for years it was a glorious covenant. For generations, the people received blessings and rewards for being faithful to the covenant. They also received judgements for violating the covenant, culminating in becoming captives of enemy nations.

However, when Jesus entered into time to establish a better covenant, the heavenly one that the copy was based on, what He was really saying to the people was, it’s time to release what I gave you to steward. He came to offer Himself in exchange for the blood of calves and goats, to establish a new covenant based on better promises. But He was met with resistance from the religious leaders, the very people who were responsible for upholding the terms of the covenant. Their identity had become wrapped up in the rigors of the tasks and duties of what they were familiar with that they had forgotten they were only stewards.

What is Jesus asking you to give up today?

Just like the old covenant was replaced with the new one. In the presence of the new, the old becomes a shadow. Jesus is so committed to bringing you into greater maturity that He will not leave you where you are right now when He has better for you. What you have may be familiar, comfortable even dependable and what God wants to give you may appear, in comparison, to be unusual and clouded in uncertainty. It may seem like walking in the dark compared to what you know now.

God has always promised never to leave us alone. You may need to develop even deeper roots in Him to follow Him on this new path. This is what He is saying to you from Psalm 32:8.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go, I will guide you with My eye.

What do you say, will you follow Him?