Take Him in

• Printable Version - Share on Facebook - Posted by Jeffrey Smith July 12, 2016 - Filed in Devotional - #Devotional  #Christian Devotional  #  #covenant  - 2,494 views

  Exodus 24:7-8: Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey. Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.

  When Moses confirmed the covenant with the people of God, he did it according to what God had told him to do. The Israelites spent the day preparing for the covenant completed in the blood of bulls and rams. Moses set up twelves stones to signify the tribes of Israel, and an altar at the base of Mount Sinai. Once this was completed, the covenant of the law was done and God's promise was made complete. The action item for the people of God was to hear and obey. The downside to this covenant is the obeying part. Although Moses made it clear what the people had to obey through the reading of the Book of the Covenant, still you have to think there was that one guy in the crowd that was half paying attention, and was like, "what did he say"? "I have to do what now"?

  There are always going to be people who don't follow the law, even if they are not ignorant of the law. There are people to desire to follow the law, but come up short. There are always people who just seem to be able to follow the law, but not everyone was able to do so. That is why the New Covenant is so important to us. We no longer have to be concerned about our part in the equation. We no longer have to be caught up in whether we looked at law 58.b.2 and followed it the right way.

  Fast forward to the last supper. We see a very similar scene with the ushering in of the New Covenant. There are twelve of the pillars there surrounding Jesus. Jesus represents the altar as well as the mountain ( Micah 4:1-2). The difference is the intimacy. Jesus even knows the one who will betray Him. They are all there in close proximity to Jesus. This is what we have in our Savior. We have intimacy. The New Covenant does not sprinkle us with the blood of bulls and rams, nor is it a law spoken in our ears. No, Jesus is the word made flesh (John 1) and so when Jesus breaks the bread, and blesses it He proclaims that bread is His body broken and given to them to eat from. After the supper, Jesus blesses the cup and proclaims that the cup is His blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. His blood and His body are ingested. This act of sealing the new covenant allows us all to take in Jesus and His life giving, life transformative, sin removal words and blood. You see when we take in the body of Christ through communion, we are taking in the word that Moses read. This is the perfect body of Jesus that we eat from so that we may have the Living word of God inside us and no longer an external act. This is internal as we are all now the temple of the Holy Spirit through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The same with the blood of Jesus, as we take in the cup of Salvation, we are reminded of the blood that Jesus shed for us. We no longer need to be sprinkled with the blood of bulls and rams, but instead we are make clean from Him through our bodies. It is not a superficial fix like painting the outside of a house that is inwardly falling apart. That is what we had in the Old Covenant. We had a superficial temporary fix that left those who followed the law instead of the Lord empty inside. There was never a heart change, just an action change, behavior modification. This New Covenant is the sharing of God's perfect word Jesus Christ, and the blood of the spotless lamb, our eternal sacrifice in Jesus Christ. Rejoice brothers and sister today is a day for us all to be intimate in our hearts, minds and bodies with Jesus and through His New Covenant we are transformed from the inside out, instead of the outside in. 

  Thank You Lord for renewing us daily from the inside out through our Savior, Your Son Jesus Christ. In Jesus name, amen.