Jesus Made Jeremiah's New Covenant Promise Real
Daily Scripture
Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:25-28, Luke 22:20
Jeremiah 31
31 The time is coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 32 It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant with me even though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the LORD. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the LORD!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.
Ezekiel 36
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be cleansed of all your pollution. I will cleanse you of all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove your stony heart from your body and replace it with a living one, 27 and I will give you my spirit so that you may walk according to my regulations and carefully observe my case laws. 28 Then you will live in the land that I gave to your ancestors, you will be my people, and I will be your God.
Luke 22
20 In the same way, he took the cup after the meal and said, “This cup is the new covenant by my blood, which is poured out for you.”
Daily Reflection & Prayer
About 100 years after Isaiah, the prophet Jeremiah grieved over Judah’s disloyalty, leading to judgment and exile. But he looked beyond the coming crisis to God’s enduring mercy. He said God pledged to “engrave” his instructions on each heart open to God’s love. He added God’s merciful promise: “I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.” The prophet Ezekiel offered a similar vision. Centuries later, as Jesus took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant by my blood,” he was pointing directly to the prophets’ promise.
- Jeremiah linked God ‘engraving’ his instructions on our hearts with God mercifully forgiving our sins. This echoed the stone tablets on which God engraved the 10 Commandments—cf. Exodus 31:18. In what ways do you believe mercy can change a person’s way of life? How, if at all, has your experience of God’s forgiving mercy in Jesus led you to live more as God wants you to live?
- Scholar J. Andrew Dearman wrote that Jeremiah 31 “spoke to his contemporaries about the shape God’s action would take in their lives and that of their descendants.” He spoke of return from exile, purified worship, and knowledge of forgiveness. Dearman added: “Signs of redemption point not only to what has already been accomplished in Christ but also to what still lies ahead. There is always a future tense to the life of believers.” * This Advent season, what do you look forward to as God continues to work in your heart and life?
Prayer
A daily reminder from Pastor Hamilton: Our hope is that tonight or tomorrow morning, continuing through Christmas, each of you will, either in the morning or at night, take the time to write down three things you are thankful for. You might write these in the form of a thank you letter to God, or simply write down a journal entry.
Prayer: Lord God, in your mercy please keep engraving your ways on my heart, so clearly and so deeply that nothing I encounter in this life can wash them away. Amen.
GPS Insights
Mikiala Tennie
Mikiala Tennie, who serves as the Student Discipleship Program Director with Resurrection Students, first wrote today’s Insight in 2024. She has nearly 20 years of ministry experience and loves encouraging others in their spiritual journey. Mikiala is blessed to be an adoptive aunt and godmother to many kiddos and lives with her 10-pound Yorkie, KiKi Okoye Tennie.
Years ago, praise and worship duo Shane & Shane released a song that comes from King David’s prayer to God in Psalm 24. We sang it often in my youth group. I learned it in order to lead it as a part of our youth worship team as well. The song was called, “Give us Clean Hands,” and using Psalm 24, it asks,
Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?
4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not trust in an idol
or swear by a false god.
5 They will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God their Savior.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, God of Jacob.
After learning that specific song, I began a practice during communion that would stick with me for my entire life. Any time a pastor would begin to prepare the elements and prepare the congregation to receive them, I would bow my head and meditate on the lyrics of that song, knowing it was based on a prayer coming straight from Scripture.
I felt it was an important prayer to lift up to God as I participated in this important part of worship service. Communion is such a holy practice where we do get to enter God’s holy place as we remember the meal Jesus served his disciples that represented the sacrifice He would make for all of us. It was at that meal that Jesus directed their attention back to Jeremiah’s God-given promise of a new covenant, in which God would engrave his directions on people’s hearts, on my heart.
Today I want to add to my own personal practice before I take Communion. I regularly pray for God to cleanse my hands and purify my heart–but rarely do I take a moment within that prayer to thank God for the act of that cleansing and purification. I take the time to be present in the moment, but I forget to be grateful for God’s present of forgiveness and welcoming me into the new covenant in that moment. I forget to have a measure of personal gratitude in that holy moment.
Much like Mary’s sister, Martha, I busy myself with cleaning house and making sure everything is ready in order to receive the Lord–and in that haste, I miss the opportunity to be grateful I am allowed to sit at His feet and embrace His lessons and love.
From now on, when I sing those lyrics in my head, I hope to remember that as I pray that prayer, I can be grateful that God readily answers it. My communion with God isn’t just about the preparation, it’s being grateful for the ability to connect with God and God’s new covenant.
I pray that in the moments you remember Christ’s sacrifice, you will experience all the love that motivated it and be filled with immense gratitude for it.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* J. Andrew Dearman, Jeremiah in The NIV Application Commentary, p. 291. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.
