Hebrews 8:7-13 -- On Minds and Hearts and Covenants

"For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.

For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

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:

And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth bold is ready to vanish away."
Hebrews 8:7-13


This is kind of a long passage, but I think it includes a more complete idea this way, of the old covenant and the new covenant, and I like the idea here that God will be merciful to our unrighteousness... as humans throughout history..., and is still willing to work with us, and loves us enough to offer us a new and better covenant, and work with us so that we can still improve and become all that he knows that we can be.

I don't know everything involved here of course, but to me the whole idea of not having to teach each other sounds sort of like the Millennium, with the whole earth just infused with the spirit of the Lord.  That's something we can have a piece of now though too.  We can teach and help each other, but true conversion only comes through God, and that personal experience with him.  It takes work of course, but that is the only way, and as we study and pray, and work to learn about and get to know God, we grow closer to that absolute conviction that it talks about here, where God's laws are part of our minds and hearts.

It seems to me that recent events are encouraging us in this direction as well.  The focus on home-centered church, and being without the weekly habit of church to lean on, I think we really have to internalize things more than perhaps we have before... and it is really good for us, if we are acting on that, because we aren't just observers in this process anymore... our minds and our hearts are being infused with that dedication to the Lord that we need to fulfil our side of the new covenant.

Today, let's work on filling our minds and our hearts with God and his law, and looking forwards to the incredibly awesome consequences of that, and the rest of what God has in store for us as we walk his path.