Reading
SAA Notes
It is from passages like this that our forefathers in Scotland took their practice of making and renewing covenants within society and church. What is the root that introduces bitter poison into our midst – in family and church? How do you deal with this spiritual weed in your own life?
SJA Notes
* Dear God, You are king forever and ever, and You hear the desire of the afflicted. Please strengthen the hearts of any afflicted today.
“It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with whoever is standing here with us today before the LORD our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.”
Here we see the boundary conditions of the covenant God was enacting.
Who was standing there? The heads of the tribes, the elders, offices, men and women and children, and the sojourners.
AND THE SOJOURNER!
Here is Jesus, writ large!
Here is the covenant of grace, foreshadowed and made (dimly) clear – That via Abraham “shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” (Gen 22:18)
We are the sojourner, we are the gentile, we are the branches grafted into the vine.
David, the great King of Israel, prays in 1 Chronicles 29,
“For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.”
We know that David knew Jesus, and here we see David making clear a truth that Israel kept forgetting – It is only the LORD that sets us apart. Not our own strength or wealth or number.
God’s LOVE for us. Because He chose us in His love.
* Heavenly Father,
We praise You Lord God – Thank You for Your love for us, sojourners and strangers!
Thank You that You have welcomed us into Your people without merit of our own, all of Your grace.
Thank You Lord!
Amen.