RENEWING YOUR COVENANT

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep His commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book.

Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors.

Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he had all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors.

2 Chronicles 34:29-33

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It’s easy to get into a routine in life, isn’t it?

When you get right down to it, we’re all creatures of habit at heart. From our earliest childhood days, we find calm reassurance in structure. We all love to find a comfort zone, a place where we have peace and serenity from the helter-skelter nature of living.

Routine isn’t always bad but there are times when we need to step back and assess what we’re doing to ensure we are doing what we need to be doing, to ensure we aren’t missing some improvement to make a good life even better.

This is particularly important when we consider our spiritual life. I say this because if we’re not careful we can be consumed by the world and all its trappings. Our routines can pull us into a time vacuum that threatens to suck up the hours, minutes, and seconds in each day until we fail to take adequate time to spend with the Lord. When something has to give in our daily routine, unfortunately it seems that what goes first are critical aspects of our spiritual life like prayer or the reading of God’s word. Life’s commitments push aside the commitment we are to have to God, the One who never changes His commitment to us.

And so from time to time, we need to assess where we are, to look at how we’re spending our time and ensure that we are eating into our quality time with God. We need to always renew our covenant with Him, to reassert our willingness to make Him part of the life He blesses us with.

As we look at the final verses of Chapter 34 of 2 Chronicles, we find King Josiah and the Israelites of Judah doing just this, renewing their covenant before the Lord. Look again at our scripture for today:

Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep His commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book.

Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors.

Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he had all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors.

You’ll recall that the people in Judah had been in their own routine. They had been doing good things in the name of the Lord, following the lead and direction of King Josiah, but as we learned, there was one very important thing missing. The people had not had the Book of Law containing God’s commands, statutes, decrees, and expectations, the book that had been given to Moses. Essentially, the people had allowed themselves to enter into living daily without having the word of God present.

Once the book was found and read to Josiah, he realized how much its content was needed to avoid living in sin and sparking the wrath and judgment of God. He realized that this is indeed what had happened as their ancestors had not lived in accordance with God’s word either. Josiah would learn that consequences were coming for Judah but because he humbly repented, those penalties would not come during his time in rule.

Now, Josiah could have left things there. He had the assurance from the Lord that no punishment would come upon him or Judah during his reign and could have left it like that. But this wasn’t the makeup of Josiah, the king who had worked so hard to reform the Judean kingdom and its people.

We read where Josiah summoned all his people together from the least to the greatest and had all of the word of the Book of Law read to them. They needed to understand what God’s word said as well as the Judean leadership. And after the word of the Lord was read, Josiah and all the people renewed their covenant with God, reestablishing a promise to remain faithful to His word, will, and way. The people vowed to follow the Lord and obey all of His commands, statutes, and decrees with all their heart and soul.

As a result, the people remained faithful to the Lord, His word, and His expectations during the entire period of Josiah’s reign.

Friends, we need to learn from this important scripture and take a look at how we are living. We need to honestly and humbly examine whether we, like the Judeans, have allowed the word of God and its associated guidance to be lost and thus not followed. And if we find we have failed to follow His word and will in any way, then we need to repent of our sin and recommit ourselves to follow Him and be obedient to His word, to renew our covenant with Him and vow to be as faithful to Him as He is to us.

If we do this and do it fully with all our heart and mind and soul, then we can expect to find the same result as the Judean Israelites. For we will discover ourselves living in righteousness and obedience for all the days He blessed us with and in doing so, living the way He wants us to live.

There’s no better place to be.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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