Epaggelia

God’s love is different in comparison to human love, but since we are made in his image, we have the capacity to enjoy God’s love and practice sharing it. God is love and this part of His nature is what makes His covenants so effective, eternal and attractive.  An example of God’s love in his covenant with the Israelites is seen in David’s Psalm 89:28-34.  If it were not for the love of God, His promised covenant would not remain with us, equally true, if it were not for the faith of Christians, we would lose the covenant’s blessings. This is why the church is considered a bride for Christ in Ephesians 5:23-32. Our faith is our victory, even when hope may seem so bleak  in our everyday life.

Remember the story of the man searching for a job during the 20’s great depression. Frantically needing to feed his family, he went to a telegraph office where he had heard of an opening job. When he arrived, he saw 50 other men in line for an application, he felt like it was hopeless, but he believed he had an equal chance as any other man who knew Morse code. So he took a ticket and stood in the corner to wait his turn for an interview. While waiting, he heard a tapping sound and started listening and trying to interpret the tapping. He learnt the tapping was saying, “if you can hear this, come in the office for a job”, so he rushed to the door, burst in and won the position! Out of over 50 other men, he won. Why? Because the tapping message was loud enough for everyone to hear it, but only he was listening. This is true of God’s covenanted promise. The message is clear and concise and well known in the world (Jer. 31:34 & Col. 1:6).  But who is listening and will believe in order to make this ‘marriage’ work.  Our faith is the victory, 1st Jn. 5:4.  The question is: Do we want the benefits of His covenanted promise earnestly enough to listen, learn, and put into action by faith?

When or if we break all faith in God’s covenanted promise, we begin to live like we do not have hope or faith. Israel did this early in Hosea’s lifetime. God used his children to speak about Israel’s lack of faith. God then promises to bring it all to an end, Hosea 1:6. However, God’s patience with an unfaithful wife would be prolonged until Christ came, please read Hos. 2:18-20.  Eventually God shows us in Romans 7:4, a new marriage God wants to enter into, “…so that you may belong to another…”. The Jews used to belong to God the father of Abraham, but they fell faithless and rejected God as a covenanted husband, but now in Jesus Christ, God is offering another marriage and we Gentiles are introduced to the ‘agape’ of God which keeps this marriage alive, even though we (like the Jews) continually commit spiritual adultery. All of us have at least toyed with idolatry. But God remains faithful, it is only us that breaks off with the marriage, see 2nd Tim. 2:11-13.

Our society does not value covenants sealed with blood, but it does observe contracts. Why? Because they have limitations and involve money, instead of life. We see this in the immorality that surrounds us, consider the letter written to “Dear Abby”, I am in love with two different women, obviously I can’t marry them both, what should I do, and please don’t give me any of that morality stuff, “Dear Abby” replied, the only difference between humans and animals is morality, perhaps you should ask a veterinarian!

How can we grow our faith, love and appreciation for the blood covenant in Jesus with us? Do we view our relationship with Christ like a contract or a covenant? If we accept God’s view of the church as being a bride, then we will enjoy our relationship with him in a covenant affecting our whole life now and into eternity, rejecting the idea of a contract which innately carries many ideas of limits. Ephesians 5:23-32 & Revelation 21:2.