DCLM Daily Manna, Sunday May 29 2016 by Pastor Kumuyi - A Heart-Felt Covenant

Topic: A Heart-Felt Covenant [Sunday May 29, 2016]

Text: Hebrews 8:7-10

Key Verse: "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Hebrews 8:10).

Since the introduction of writing by the Sumerians in the fourth millennium BC, it has been the most important means of communication known to man. Over the centuries, people have written on a great varieties of materials – stones, metals, leaves, textile, paper, and even bodies. But all human forms of writing have one weakness – they are directed at the brain (knowledge).

Today's passage exposes the promise of a superior form of writing - on the tables of our hearts. The old covenant is contrasted with the new covenant of grace. The old covenant made with the fathers of the Jewish nation had Aaron as its priest and Moses as mediator. It served its purpose as a schoolmaster to usher them to Christ. But it could not continue because it was inadequate.

The new covenant which has Christ as its Mediator is therefore more excellent being established on better promises. One of the high points of the new dispensation is God's promise to write His laws in the minds of His children. Once, He wrote the laws on tables of stone, but now on the tables of our hearts (the seat of intellect and understanding). This writing carries with it enabling grace by which it becomes easier to love and obey Him. He promises to be our God and we, His people.

It is a covenant of grace in which there is forgiveness based on the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanses from all sin. It is indeed a great privilege to live in this dispensation which was, to the old Jewish covenant, an ideal. Today, anyone who reconciles with God through repentance and faith in Christ can be a beneficiary of these privileges.

Thought for the day: It matters where God's word falls in you - head or heart.

Bible Reading in one Year: 1 Samuel 19-20

DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.