To Save By Many of By Few

1 Samuel 14:1-7

All victory that we experience is not really ours exclusively; it is the victory that was purchased by Jesus at Calvary. We can claim no battle as having been won by our own intelligence or goodness since we are merely joint-heirs with Jesus in what He has won by His finished work. Anything that God does on our behalf He does for two reasons: He loves us, and He honors the sacrifice of His Son.

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Jonathan, son of Israel’s first king Saul, was a mighty warrior who fought loyally for the crown. Realizing that his father was awash in doubt and anger, Jonathan saw the need for an Israeli victory over the oppressing Philistines and knew that it would only come without his father’s involvement. Taking only his armor-bearer, Jonathan ascended a mount and looked into the camp of the enemy. His statement to his companion speaks volumes of his faith and dependency:

“Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few” (1 Samuel 14:6).

Two important things surface in this verse that shows us the mentality of Jonathan. First, he refers to the Philistines as “uncircumcised”. The sign of circumcision was given of God to the Jewish nation as a mark of identification with the Abrahamic covenant. Every child born had to pass through the sign of covenant, thus placing them under the promises of God. To cite the lack of circumcision had nothing to do with physicality, but had to do with the fact that the Philistine was not under the covenant provision of God.

Second, Jonathan refers to God as “LORD”, which is the English rendering of the Hebrew word Yahweh, or Jehovah. It means, “Covenant keeper”. As “LORD”, God is obligated to recognize the covenant that He cut, giving Abraham protection from His enemies. Jonathan is appealing to God’s righteousness and justice for the victory that only He can provide.

“There is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few”, holds a double meaning for us under the New Covenant. Primarily, it means that God honors covenant no matter what. If it is to protect the entire nation He honors it, or if it is to provide victory to only Jonathan and his armor-bearer. Covenant is covenant, and God is God. By appealing to covenant, Jonathan was guaranteed victory before every lifting a sword.

Another meaning to us under the New Covenant is that God is not restrained to save sinners by many or by few. He will go to all lengths to save a nation or to save one lost soul. There is no respect or persons great or small with God, for all are in need of His saving power and loving grace. If there are 99 sheep in the fold, He will leave them there to hunt for the one lost lamb. There is truly no difference in God’s eyes from one sinner to the next; He loves them all equally.
Appeal to the covenant that Jesus cut with His Father, where you get the benefits while He paid the price. This will bring great victories in your life; all of which will have been His victories first.

Led by a Lad

Judges 16

I include the entire 16th chapter of Judges because it would do us all good to read it a time or two. It encompasses the story of Samson and Delilah, which shows the sad fall of a great man of power. Samson was not a man of high morals, nor did he show a real heart for the things of God. He was raised up by God for a certain purpose of delivering Israel from the oppressive might of the Philistines. His strength did not lie in his ability to walk holy or live right, but in one single obedient act. He was to take a vow of a Nazarite, “from the womb to the day of his death” (Judges 13:7). He could neither drink liquor nor put a razor to his head. If he was faithful in this, God would use him mightily.

For this cause, Samson was probably no bigger or more intimidating than you or I, for had he been, no one would have questioned his strength. His power was a mystery to those around him, with the exception of his parents, and that is not unlike the believer under the New Covenant. We look no different than anyone around us, but the power that resides within us due to the finished work of the cross is so marvelous that words cannot explain it. There is no act of holiness or righteousness that we can perform to increase that power; it simply comes from hearing and knowing of the loveliness of our Jesus.

After Samson became infatuated with Delilah, she revealed her true colors and deceived him into telling her the secret of his strength. Somewhere along the way, Samson had forgotten how loved and favored that he was by the Lord. Had he kept his heart focused on God’s favor and covenant with him, he would not have turned for love and affection into the lap of the world (Judges 16:19). Believers that do not focus on the Father’s love for them usually end up trying to explain what happened to them and why their fell into sin.

When Samson’s seven locks of hair were cut off, he became as any other man, and the Philistines captured him and “put out his eyes” (Judges 16:21). The seven locks are representative of God’s perfect rest, for seven always indicates either rest or completion. Since Samson’s life was not complete, nor was his work, the hair had always indicated that he was at rest in the promise of God. When he lost the hair, he lost the rest, and the only place for us to go when we are not resting in the finished work of Christ is to the millhouse of our own works.

The time came when Samson was brought to a large gathering of Philistines for a sacrifice to their god. They rejoiced when the saw Samson in chains, and they all desired for him to come before them so that they could mock him. Samson spoke to a “lad that held him by the hand” to lead him to the main pillars that held up the house. The lad led him to the pillars and Samson, whose hair had begun to grow back while in the prison house, pushed the building down in one final, victorious act.

A new generation is going to take the church by the hand and lead her to the pillars of this world. The bride has lost her rest and her spiritual vision, but God is raising up voices to bring her back to her glory, where she takes her rightful place as the victor that she is. Will you be the restless, blind church, or the lad that leads?

I See Nothing Wrong!

Numbers 23:18-21

Call me biased, but I see nothing wrong in my children. My son and my daughter make mistakes, no doubt, but I see nothing wrong with them, for they are mine and I love them unconditionally. There is no error that they could make, no wrong that they could perform, that would cause me to beat them, break their legs, rob their future, or destroy their dreams. I love them too much to cause them pain, for they are an extension of me. I may see problems in your kids, but not in mine!

God views every person on the face of the earth as a sheep. Many of the sheep have gone astray and are living on their own in the wilderness, and they need to come to the shepherd to find eternal life. The sheep that dwell with the Savior know His voice (John 10:27), and He refers to them as more than sheep. Those who are saved, He calls His friends (John 15:15).

When Balak, king of Moab, hired Balaam to curse the children of Israel as they passed through his land, Balaam jumped on the opportunity to make some easy money. After ascending a mountain to view an arm of Israel as it sat at camp in the valley, Balaam opened his mouth to curse God’s people, but a blessing came out instead (Numbers 23:11). When Balak moved him to another mountain in order to view Israel from a different vantage point, the result was much the same, with Balaam commenting, “I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it” (Numbers 23:20).

Though Balak had moved Balaam to a different mountain in order to see Israel in a different state (he would do it a third time as well in 23:27), each time God prompted a blessing instead of a curse. Remember, the people that Balaam wants to curse have done plenty to deserve it.

They murmured in the wilderness about having no water (Numbers 20) and then about having to eat manna (Numbers 21). They have been a complaining, miserable people since they left Egypt, yet look at how God views them in Numbers 23:21, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them”. No matter how bad they had lived, God did not see the sin in His people, for He had provided a way of escape through the brazen serpent of Numbers 22.

There is the shout of a king among God’s people when they learn that their heavenly Father is not mad at them, and that He sees no iniquity in His people. It is not that we are living without sinning; it is that God views His Son’s sacrifice over our sins. WE are the ones that dwell on our wrong-doing, while God is dwelling on Jesus’ finished work at the cross.

Just as I know that my children are not perfect in their every action, our heavenly Father knows that we are not perfect either. He no more demands that we be mistake free than we would demand such impossibility from our own children. It is not that God is soft on sin and failure, but it is rather that God was hard on sin and failure in the body of His Son at the cross. God cannot be just if He is hard on Jesus for your sin and then hard on you as well. The price has been paid in the blood of Jesus, so when God sees us, he sees us as His own. Praise God that when the Father sees you, He sees the Son!

The Finger of God

Exodus 8:19

We have four separate instances in the Bible of there being a mention of God’s finger writing something. The first is found in Egypt, when the magicians that work for Pharaoh comment that the recent plague of the dust turning to lice cannot be duplicated by their tricks, thus it “is the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19). Hence, the term “finger of God” denotes God intervening in the affairs of man to do something that no man can undo, and that no man can duplicate. What is written with the finger of man can be erased, but what is written with the finger of God abides forever.

The next three instances are actual events, not just titles used to describe events, as was the case in Exodus chapter 8. In Exodus 20, God gives Moses the 10 Commandments, which He etches into stone with His finger (Exodus 31:18). These commands are just, holy and good (Romans 7:12), but they provide no life; only death (Galatians 3:21). The first time that God’s finger appears and writes, it gives us Law, which defines God’s holiness and demands that man live up to that standard.

Many years later, God’s finger appears again, this time in the feast room of a secular king, Belshazzar. “In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace” (Daniel 5:5). The “handwriting on the wall”, as it has come to be known, revealed God’s judgment against Babylon. Specifically, the judgment stated that Belshazzar had been weighed in the balances and found wanting, meaning that God’s even-handed judgment found sin and iniquity in the rebellious Belshazzar. The same night that the handwriting appeared, Belshazzar was killed and the throne changed hands.

God’s judgment must inevitably follow God’s Law. Where the Law is proclaimed, men are held accountable for their keeping or breaking of that Law. Paul wrote, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). God’s finger had written the Law, and now God’s finger had written the sentence for the breaking of that Law. Since both were written by the finger of God, there was no reversing either.

Then comes Jesus, sitting in the temple one beautiful morning, when the religious leaders bring Him a woman that they have just caught in the act of adultery. They cite the law of Moses as demanding that she should be stoned, which encompasses both of the first two instances of the finger of God. In the first case, God wrote, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. In the second case, God’s finger wrote of the punishment and judgment for breaking that law, which was death by stoning. Jesus seems not to notice, instead electing to stoop down, “and with His finger wrote on the ground” (John 8:6). Do you see where Jesus is going?

The “ground” that Jesus wrote on was the pavement stones of the temple courtyard. The scuttling of many feet over the stones left the floor with a thin layer of dust, which Jesus moves with His finger, much like someone writing “Wash me” in the dust of a car window. We do not know what He wrote, but whatever it was, it caused the accusers to drop their rocks and walk away. We may not know the exact words, but based on the history of the “finger of God” and the fact that Jesus turns to the woman and says, “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more” (John 8:11), it is obvious that this time, God’s finger wrote something like: “Grace”, and if God wrote it, no man can erase it!

The Covenant of Promise

Genesis 15:6-18

God counted Abraham as a righteous man, though there is ample evidence that Abraham did not live like a righteous man. The reason that God viewed Abraham as righteous was that Abraham believed what God told him, and God called this “faith”. That faith made Abraham righteous in God’s eyes, though his actions spoke otherwise.

God has always chosen to deal with man on the basis of covenant. In covenant, two parties decide upon an allegiance, swearing to one another by the killing of an animal and eating of a covenant meal. If one party breaks the covenant, they are held accountable by death, thus you did not enter these things lightly.

When the Lord chose to give Abraham a promised land, Abraham wanted proof that he would inherit it (Genesis 15:8). God then introduced covenant to Abraham, asking for a specified number of animals to be sacrificed. Their bodies were to be divided and placed apart with a walking space in between the pieces. The two parties involved in covenant would then pass between the pieces, stopping to cut their hands and then bind them together to mingle their blood with one another. Then they would eat and converse to seal the covenant.

After Abraham places the carcasses on the ground, he sits and waits on God to do whatever it is that He is going to do. In the meantime, the fowls of the came down upon the carcasses and Abraham worked to drive them away. God sees this action and makes a crucial decision. If God enters covenant with Abraham, then Abraham must live up to some pre-set, specified set of rules. If he fails, he breaks covenant and God must kill him. This negates his inheritance, for he won’t be around to take what God wants to give him. This poses a great problem, which is characterized by Abraham’s action in driving away the birds. God needs to make this covenant happen in way in which Abraham puts no effort into it, and has no standard to live up to. The only way to remove the possibility for Abraham to fail is to remove Abraham. Thus, God puts him to sleep during the ceremony.

While Abraham sleeps, God passes between the pieces of animal in the form of “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp” (Genesis 15:17). The smoking furnace is a type of God, the booming voice of Mt. Sinai, while the burning lamp is a type of Jesus, the light in a dark place. God literally cuts covenant with Himself, for He won’t break the deal on either end. When Abraham awakes, God tells Him all that He has given him, and He gives Abraham no requirements to keep.

When you accept Christ, you are not entering into a Covenant with God; rather you are receiving the blessings of the Covenant that Jesus made with His Father. Jesus shed His blood in this Covenant so that you would not have to. You get the inheritance while Jesus paid the price. Paul said that when we accept Jesus, a powerful thing happens to you: “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29). You and I are living under the same promise that Abraham was, without any obligation on our part. We can rejoice that we get the benefits of Covenant because Jesus paid our price. Hallelujah!

No More Curse

Revelation 22:1-4

What a beautiful scene is laid out in front of us in this text. The pure river of water of life flowing from beneath the throne of God, with the Lamb Jesus sitting there as well; all of it a picture of God’s wonderful provision and love. It takes place in the new Paradise, known as New Jerusalem on the New Earth which is our eternal home. God’s provision, as wonderful then as it is now, provides living water and trees which are “for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2).

There will also be no more curse on this New Earth. The earth that we occupy dwells under a constant curse of death. When Adam sinned in the Garden, God told him that from that day forward, “cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground” (Genesis 3:17-19). God also multiplied a woman’s sorrow in conception and cursed her to dependence on her husband, with him being over her. There was also an obvious separation placed between man and beast, as before the fall, Adam had perfect interaction with them.

Death is the most obvious result of the curse, as all of us will meet that same fate someday. When Christ died at Calvary, He became the curse for us so that we could live in the blessings. His death at the cross conquered the entire universe, but He has yet to take claim of all that He conquered, choosing instead to allow time to pass so that more people will accept His payment.

The author of Hebrews wrote that Jesus offered one sacrifice for sins forever and then sat down on the right hand of God. From that moment forward, that same Jesus is waiting as one-by-one, all of His enemies are made His footstool, meaning that Jesus is resting His feet over the forces of darkness, but He has yet to put all things there (Hebrews 10:12, 13). The very last thing that He will slide up under His victorious, nail-scarred feet will be death, thus finishing the curse (1 Corinthians 15:26).

The scene of Revelation 22 also shows us that the name of Jesus will be written in the foreheads of the redeemed for eternity. We will bear a mark on us that identifies us with Him, and this is the opposite of the mark of the curse of this world. Satan will duplicate this action during the Great Tribulation with what we refer to as “The Mark of the Beast”, but where his denotes a curse, God’s denotes a blessing.

This action of the marked forehead providing the cure from the curse was first introduced in Genesis 4, when God told the murderous Cain, “Now art thou cursed from the earth” (Genesis 4:11). Cain complained that his punishment was greater that he could bear and he appealed to God for help. God, who is rich in mercy, marked Cain in the forehead so that anyone who saw him would not kill him. What could God have placed on the forehead of Cain that would make a potential killer back away? It must be something that identified Cain as being protected from God, for the curse shrinks away from the life-giver. Just as we are marked in the New Earth, Cain was marked in the old one. Thank God for His wonderful grace and mercy!

From Death to Life

1 John 3:14

We have all heard talk about passing from life to death; how we slip out of this mortal coil and into the next world, but there isn’t much talk about passing from death to life. The only place that we might hear such talk is at a Christian funeral, when the minister mentions the deceased as having picked up the next life. Thank God that we have better news than that!

John mentions the believer passing “from death unto life” (1 John 3:14), meaning that before you met Christ you were indeed “dead”. Paul said that you were “dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world…” (Ephesians 2:1, 2). Prior to our conversion, we had never really lived at all, awaiting the new life that only Jesus can provide, while we walked with all of the other sinners, in the course of this world.

The moment that we place faith in Jesus Christ, He enters our heart by the Holy Spirit and seals us until the day of redemption. This sealing is so that nothing can come in and nothing can get out. We are protected from the outside world and its influence and we cannot “lose” who we are inside. We may or may not be aware of all of these things when we accept Jesus, but the happen nonetheless.

God does not wish for us to be ignorant of all of the beautiful things that are happening inside of us, so John gives us a way to know that we have changed by showing us a fruit of our salvation. Many things will change about us when we get saved, but one thing that we cannot change on our own is how we feel about other people. In fact, if we have bad feelings toward someone, many of us will say, “Hey, I can’t change how I feel”. How correct we are! This is why John chooses the subject of loving one another as a way of knowing that you are saved.

When you come to Christ, he sheds His love abroad in your heart. As you accept His love for you, your love for others grows accordingly. In fact, it is impossible for you to know how loved that you are in the sight of God, and not give that same love out to everyone that you meet. I am often struck by the testimonies of new converts who cannot put into words what has happened in them since they met Jesus, but they can all make one, common statement, “I feel so much love!” This is the perfect work of Christ in their life, and they give that out with their action and their smile.

You know that you belong to him when the thing that you can’t change on your own is changing automatically. You truly cannot change how you feel about people, but as you change how you view your Father, and you accept His love for you, those other feelings change in turn. Our proof that we are as close to God as we claim to be is our feelings towards fellow believers. Take that litmus test in your own heart, and give God glory for the great things that He is doing and that He has done.

The Stamp of Approval

2 Peter 3:15, 16

The Apostle Paul must have had a moment or two in his ministry where he wondered if he was preaching the right thing. When confronted in the streets over his doctrine by Alexander the coppersmith, no one in Paul’s entourage stayed with him when he gave his rebuttal (2 Timothy 4:14-16). It must have been a lonely time, to look around and see that no one believes what you are preaching. Perhaps it crossed his mind that God had chosen the wrong person, for maybe one of the men who walked with Jesus in the flesh while He was on this earth would have been better accepted by the people.

As you study the composite whole of Paul’s message, you find that it is unnecessary, and even possibly counter-productive to have someone who walked with Jesus be the first preacher of the New Covenant. The message of New Covenant has nothing to do with the walk and lifestyle of Jesus Christ, which is why we never see Paul making reference to the things that Jesus did. Paul knew that Christianity is not about emulating the things that Jesus did, but about allowing His life to be lived through us because of His resurrection from the dead.

Any reference that connects Christianity with how Jesus would do things will invariably link works to righteousness. It subtly teaches the believer that they should be walking better, talking better, etc, so that they can know “What Would Jesus Do?” This type of lifestyle leads to condemnation and guilt, for you will never live up to the standard of Jesus on a day to day basis, and grace never demands that of us. Grace is a free gift, and if we must earn salvation, then it ceases to be by grace that we are saved.

Paul needed a good, old fashioned, honest endorsement for his message from someone who people trusted, and in the Apostle Peter, he found that man. Peter closes his final epistle by putting his stamp of approval on the ministry of Paul, even stating that the wisdom that Paul had concerning salvation was “given unto him” (2 Peter 3:15). Peter knows that the message that Paul is preaching did not come by intelligence or studying, but by divine revelation.

Paul’s writings are complex and they cover a variety of intricate topics within the framework of God’s grace and goodness. Peter said that Paul’s messages contained “some things hard to be understood” (2 Peter 3:16), so don’t be dismayed if you struggle within the writings of Paul even today. Pray for revelation of Paul’s message, where the Holy Spirit can reveal to you the powerful truths behind this wonderful author of God’s grace and mercy.

I must tip my cap to Peter in this situation, for his endorsement did not come easy. Paul openly rebuked Peter for acting one way in front of Gentiles and another way in front of Jews (Galatians 2:9-14). Peter could have rebelled against this and rejected the ministry of Paul, but instead he changed and became open to the message of pure grace, which affected not only his ministry, but ultimately the entire world.

The stamp of approval has been given to the message of grace, and it has been given by those who walked with Jesus Himself. Don’t run from the wonderful news of radical grace, for only that will radically change your life.

Good Days

1 Peter 3:10

Though the world that we live in may be tossed with financial woe, and the people around us seem nervous for their future, the saint trusts in a certain God. We find that it is possible, through the finished work of Jesus to love our life and to rest in the wonderful moments of knowing our Savior.

The Apostle Peter felt the same way, giving us a way to “love life, and see good days” (1 Peter 3:10). In order to have this happen in our lives we are to “let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:” (3:10). “Guile” is craftiness or deceit; so Peter is instructing us to speak that which is good and honest.

Paul warned the believer about speaking evil, saying that it should be “put away from you” (Ephesians 4:31). He also gave us an example of what evil speaking might sound like, and it is not “cursing” or telling dirty jokes. Paul said, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 3:29). When we communicate with others without using the grace and mercy of God in our speech and in our approach, Paul says that this is “corrupt communication”. How many times have we spoken to people with a judgmental attitude, administering law and works into their lives?

When we speak to one another in this manner we grieve the Holy Spirit of God (3:30). The Holy Spirit wishes to minister grace to each person that we come in contact with, but He is limited by the words that come out of our mouths. Don’t grieve His design and desire by saying things to others that are not covered over by the grace of Jesus Christ.

As we minister these words of hope and grace into people’s lives, we begin to love life and see good days (1 Peter 3:10). One of the reasons that we love life more when we minister grace to others is because we begin to rest in the grace that God has for us. Actually, it is impossible to minister pure grace to those in your life if you do not have an understanding and acceptance for grace in your own heart. Life is “worth the living” when you rest in His finished work.

Note that Peter says that you will “see good days”, not “a good day”. When we are resting in Christ, ministering His grace to the world around us, it is not just an occasional day of happiness in Jesus, but there are multiple “good days”. In contrast, when Paul tells the believer to put on the whole armor of God in order to stand against the tricks of the devil, he says that he is preparing us for the “evil day” (Ephesians 6:13). In the world there is an evil day, but in Christ there are good days!

Accept His mercy and grace towards you, and then minister that into someone’s life and watch your good days increase. May these “good days” begin today!

The Better Covenant; The Better Promises

Hebrews 8:6-8

If you were to ask many Christians, “What makes the New Covenant a better covenant?” many would respond, “We don’t have to kill lambs anymore”. This is due to the fact that Jesus died for sins, thus there is no need for animal sacrifice when we fail. Let me be blunt, if that is all that the New Covenant accomplished then that was a royal waste of time.

Jesus obtained a more excellent ministry than his priestly predecessors (Hebrews 8:6). He brought in a “better covenant, which was established upon better promises”. The purpose for bringing a better covenant was because the first covenant was found to have fault (Hebrews 8:7). The fault was not within the law itself, for it was holy, just and good (Romans 7:12). Instead, the fault was in the people on the other end of the covenant, “For finding fault with them…” (Hebrews 8:8). The “them” is Israel and Judah, just as it would be you or I.

The first covenant was faulty because it demanded perfection from a people that could never live perfect. No matter how hard someone tried, they would always be found in contempt of the law in one area or the other. Either they did things that were contrary to the law, or they failed to do the many things that the law demanded. Even in the atoning system of the Old Covenant, man was condemned constantly. If you failed and brought a sacrifice before the Lord, everyone saw you bring it and they knew that you had sinned in some respect. The law provided no privacy and no personal relationship. It was cold and it was distant, unable to help you in any way.

Jesus came to live that Old Covenant to perfection; fulfilling all of its many demands. When He died at Calvary, He cut a New Covenant with His Father, taking the faultiness out of the way. We were at fault under the Old Covenant for we could not keep the Law. Jesus has no fault, thus He stepped into our place and cut the Covenant between His Father and His perfect life. Now, we are the recipients of Jesus’ work, receiving benefits of a Covenant that we are not obligated to live up to.

The Old Covenant held man’s sins against him, while the New Covenant says, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12). The Old Covenant is now decayed and truly old, “ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13), so to return to it for guidance or instruction is to go back to a system found faulty by God.

We have a better covenant and a better promise because we have a better sacrifice. Jesus did what no lamb or bull or goat could ever do; He removed the sin problem (John 1:29; Hebrews 10:4). If we are still dealing with sin it is because WE are doing it and not resting in what HE has already done. When we fail now, we are covered by the better covenant and the better promise and the knowledge of that causes us to live as we should, for His New Covenant is written on our minds and in our hearts (Hebrews 8:10).

Thank God for a better covenant, where Jesus keeps His end of the deal with the Father so that we get the blessings of heaven. Hallelujah!