Experiencing the new covenant
- Jacob Ninan
When God made the new covenant with us through the blood of His Son Jesus, He promised to
1) forgive our sins and to remember them no more,
2) sprinkle clean water on us and make us clean from all our
filthiness and idols,
3) give us a new heart of flesh instead of the heart of
stone,
4) put His Spirit within us and cause us to walk in His
ways,
5) make us His people and to be our God,
6) cause us to know Him from the least of us to the
greatest,
7) put His law within us and write it on our heart,
8) cause us to live in the promised land, and
9) multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the
field (Je.31:31-34;Ez.36:25-30).
Of course, there are many more promises - promising actually everything relating to life and godliness (2Pe.1:3,4) - that God has given to us under this covenant. The condition for receiving all these blessings is that we must ask for them (Ez.36:37).
This is a covenant, involving God and us. God has promised all these things for us, and what we have to do is to ask for them. But what does it mean to ask?
Can we just say a prayer asking for all these things and be done with it? No. God's promises concern every part of our life, and we will keep receiving from Him all through life, a little at a time just as in the old covenant (Ex.23:30). We have to keep on asking.
But is it just asking - meaning, is it just praying? No. It means a longing or desire that grips our heart, and expresses itself in various ways, including prayer. If we have seen what God is promising us, and if we are excited about it, we will long for it - pant for it, as the psalm says. Then it is that we will start receiving the promises, because then God sees that we really value what He is offering.