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What about Prayer? An East Indian evangelist described his first experience at an American prayer meeting. He was visiting a megachurch known, even in India, for the pastor’s outstanding preaching. He was thrilled when the pastor invited the three thousand Sunday worshipers to the midweek prayer meeting. The pastor even shared that something was “heavy on his heart” for prayer. The evangelist couldn’t wait. In India, the prayer meeting was the heartbeat of the church, where you stormed the heavens, often far into the night. The designated prayer chapel seated only five hundred, so he arrived early to get a seat. But at the designated 7:00 p.m. start time, he was alone. At 7:15, puzzled and still alone, he wondered if he had the wrong location, so he went outside to check the name. Yes, it was the same chapel the pastor mentioned on Sunday. Finally, at 7:30 a few people straggled in, chatting about sports and weather until the leader arrived at 7:45. The leader shared a short devotional with the seven attendees, prayed briefly, and closed the meeting. The evangelist was stunned. No worship. No crying out to God for help. No senior pastor. What was heavy on the pastor’s heart? What about prayer for the sick, for the lost? No one in this story thought that corporate prayer is important: not the senior pastor (he didn’t show up), the congregation (only seven came), or the prayer leader (he was forty-five minutes late and only had one brief prayer). Prayer was a mere window dressing. If you doubt something, you don’t think it works, so you don’t use it. No one here thought prayer works. Unbelief is as practical as faith. The State of Prayer in the Church When we descend from the formal prayer meeting down to the smaller parts of a Jesus community and into our families and friendships, we encounter the same corporate prayerlessness that the evangelist experienced. Christians are praying, but they are doing it by themselves. According to a recent Barna study, 94 percent of American adults who have prayed at least once in the last three months do so by themselves. Barna’s researcher writes: Prayer is by far the most common spiritual practice among Americans. . . . [But] people pray mostly alone—it is a solitary activity defined primarily by the immediate needs and concerns of the individual. Corporate prayer and corporate needs are less compelling drivers in people’s prayer lives. . . . But what would it look like to begin to broaden the scope of those prayer lives? To consider the power of corporate prayer—when more than one are gathered in God’s name? The American church is functionally prayerless when it comes to corporate prayer. Of course, a remnant does the hidden work of prayer, but in most churches corporate prayer doesn’t function in any meaningful way. How big is that remnant? In our prayer seminars, we ask several confidential questions about a participant’s prayer life. In hundreds of seminars, we’ve found that about 15 percent of Christians in a typical church have a rich prayer life. So when someone says, “I’ll keep you in my prayers,” 85 percent of the time it is just words. This isn’t a pastor problem; it’s a follower-of-Jesus problem. The prayer meeting, which used to function at the heart of a praying church, is all but dead. Wednesday night prayer meeting used to be the core meeting, where the most dedicated, spiritual people attended; now for many, the prayer meeting itself is a distant memory. At a recent A Praying Church seminar, I asked participants what they don’t like about prayer meetings. One young man nailed it: “It’s boring.” Someone else added, “It’s depressing.” But the most poignant comment was “I don’t know where I’d go to attend a prayer meeting.” I asked the pastor of a three-thousand-attendee church if he knew of any prayer meetings in his church. He said, without a hint of concern, “No, I’m not aware of any.” How Secularism Killed the Prayer Meeting Which brings us to the unique challenges of praying together in much of our modern world. We are a busy, and often wealthy, people. We didn’t reach our career goals and attain the comforts we enjoy by sitting around, and yet praying together feels like we are sitting around. We can be so intent on building and producing that we don’t pause to reflect on what we are building. Behind our busyness and wealth is a philosophy called secularism, which doesn’t just deny God’s existence but denies the existence of any spiritual world. This is strange, because every culture in the history of humanity has openly acknowledged the spiritual world. You ignored God or “the gods” at your own peril. Given this history, it would be normal for every news program to open with a prayer of thanksgiving. We don’t, of course, because secularism defines normal for us. Talking openly about God or to God feels odd. It’s no coincidence that the prayer meeting has declined simultaneously with the rise of secularism, which sees the spiritual world as mere illusion, true for you, but not true for everyone else. That comes from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant, the Enlightenment’s leading thinker (and regular church goer!) called prayer a “superstitious delusion” that God has no need to hear and that therefore accomplishes nothing. Kant’s god is distant, nonpersonal. Ignoring God is a far more effective than denying his existence. If you ignore him, he disappears. Secularism remained confined largely to our universities and our elites until the rise of mass media (radio, TV, etc.) in the mid-twentieth century. Endlessly portraying a world without God and without meaning, it created a new normal. Modern agnostics are not just unsure of God’s existence; they no longer care. God is a nonissue. As one young man who’d walked away from his faith said to me, “What difference does it make?” A Distant God When we relegate prayer to the world of feelings, prayer becomes mere therapy. If it is simply the world of feelings, then praying together feels awkward. When you talk with someone about sports, typically your conversation feels fluid—you share a common interest, language, and knowledge. You enjoy watching football and rooting for your favorite team. You both know that sports exist. But what if everyone in your life who sounded smart and powerful, and everyone you saw on TV, told you that sports are fake, that no one is really playing, and the games you see in person are just elaborate dramas? After you’d heard this nonstop, year after year, it would get into your blood. When we combine a prayerless church with a prayerless culture, it creates a “feelings world” where God feels exalted but distant. Then when hardship comes, God feels impotent and uncaring. This is especially true if you’ve prayed about something difficult and the heavens have been like brass. Eventually, you don’t feel anything about God. He’s merely peripheral. Because our flat, two-dimensional world rules out prayer at the outset, spontaneously praying with friends at mealtime or on the phone feels odd. We’ve lost the fluidity of prayer that you see in children, where in one breath they are talking to you and in the next breath they say, “Thank you, God, for no bad dreams.” We’ll hear sermons on prayer, listen to a pastoral prayer, and begin meetings with prayer, but prayer seldom happens naturally in conversation. It just feels too religious. That’s one reason why it’s a delight to fellowship with Africans or Asians, who are largely unaffected by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. For example, for years Ugandan churches have had monthly all-night prayer meetings. They are keenly aware of the spiritual world, so prayer flows easily. A Peculiar Danger I went to dinner with a young pastor and his wife after one of our prayer seminars for pastors. As a homeschooling mom with three kids, this wife shared with me how she did life through prayer. Then she leaned over and asked her husband, with a puzzled expression on her face, “Isn’t that how you do church?” He shook his head. She was so surprised, she asked him again. “No,” he said. “We pray at the beginning of meetings, but it tends to be official and lack depth.” The megachurch pastor who announced the prayer meeting as if it were a high value but didn’t show up didn’t just devalue the prayer meeting. He sent a mixed message to the congregation. His words said one thing, but his actions another. Jesus calls that hypocrisy. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus singles out prayer as a “hot spot” for hypocrisy (Matt. 6:5–6). There is nothing worse for a Jesus community than looking Spiritual on the outside but being hollow on the inside. Hypocrisy in leaders creates cynicism in followers. After I’ve reflected with a group of pastors on their struggles to have a consistent life of prayer, I’ll ask, “How good are you at public praying?” They usually say, “Pretty good.” I query again, “So, what does it do to your heart to be outwardly good at prayer but inwardly bad?” They groan, because they are good men. Of course, this applies to all of us. Any time we cultivate an outer appearance of maturity but mask inward weakness, we corrupt our soul. That weakens our best gift we offer to others—a soul that walks with God. If you doubt something, you don’t think it works, so you don’t use it. This article is adapted from A Praying Church: Becoming a People of Hope in a Discouraging World by Paul E. Miller.

Guard Your Steps Several years ago, Carolyn was coming into church on a rainy Sunday morning. She had on heels, a nice dress, and a coat. In a flash—for that’s how these things happen—she found herself face down on the wet sidewalk. A young man pushing a stroller nearby saw her fall and rushed to her aid, anxious that she might have hurt herself. Carolyn laughingly assured him that she was fine, and he offered his arm to help her up. Pulling together her umbrella, her purse, and her dignity, Carolyn walked the few remaining steps into church very carefully. Here in Ecclesiastes 5, Solomon tells us to walk carefully into church: “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God” (Eccles. 5:1). It isn’t high heels or slippery sidewalks Solomon is concerned about; he is warning us to watch our words and our hearts on our way into church. Do not rush into the church service, he exhorts us. While we are to work industriously, we must come to church cautiously. That’s because, when we come to the house of God—in Solomon’s day, the temple, and in our time, the church—we are coming into the presence of God. Learning to Tread Carefully Imagine that you were given an audience with the [royalty]. You would no doubt arrive early—in fact, that’s one of many rules of protocol. You would walk carefully toward the queen, being sure to have practiced your curtsy. And you would never turn your back on her on your way out. These guidelines and more you would carefully follow. Contrast that with the way we often casually cruise into God’s presence each week. Maybe you got up late, and instead of a shower, you pulled your hair into a messy bun. During church your mind wanders to conversations you hope to have during fellowship time (I wonder how her vacation went?) or to what you are going to have for lunch (Deli sandwich or a fresh salad?). Maybe you rush out as soon as church is over to watch a sporting event or take an afternoon nap. Solomon knows the slapdash way we are tempted to go to the house of God, the place where we have been called together to worship. Here he warns us to proceed with the utmost caution. You are coming into the presence of the Holy One. Guard your steps, or else you may slip. Be very careful when you come into God’s glorious presence. “Guard your steps” is Solomon’s way of picturing the fact that we need to guard the way or the manner in which we come to worship (Eccles. 5:1). In short, he says, we should be quick to listen and slow to speak in the presence of God. First, he says: we must be quick to listen to God: “To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil” (Eccles. 5:1). To point out what is “better” is Solomon’s favorite way of telling us how to truly live. Here he tells us that it is way better to listen in church than to be fools. You see, when we come to church, we draw near to God himself. It is true that we come to sing praises to God too, but even more importantly, we come to listen to God’s word preached. We come to listen to the words that God himself has “breathed out” (2 Tim. 3:16). His words are not hevel like our words; Scripture contains the sure, eternal, authoritative, and unchanging words of God. And on Sunday mornings, God has appointed the preacher as his spokesman to deliver his words to his people. Solomon, “the Preacher,” urges us to listen up. Listening, of the biblical kind, requires preparation and application. We prepare for all kinds of things the night before to get the children off to school or to get to work on time or to get a jump-start on a big house project. How much more should we prepare to draw near and listen to God? The young people in Puritan pastor Richard Baxter’s church apparently spent three hours together on Saturday evening, just to prepare their hearts for Sunday morning! Your preparation need not take three hours, but consider: How can you prepare your heart and your home for church? Preparation begins with prayer. Pray that God would help you to draw near to him, to listen to his word, to hear his voice, and to receive grace to obey. Prayerfully review the past week: Is there any unconfessed sin in your heart, or any person with whom you need to be reconciled? Consider needs and requests for the week to come. When your heart is prepared to draw near to God, your thoughts will wander less and focus more on God’s word. And if your church publishes the sermon text ahead of time, read and familiarize yourself with the passage. Practical preparation also aids your ability to listen well during church. Making plans the night before to get to church on time (or even a few minutes early) means you won’t be so flustered and distracted when church starts. You will be on the edge of your seat, eager to listen to God. But listening doesn’t end with the preacher’s closing prayer. Proper listening in Scripture does not occur until we obey what we hear. And so, instead of rushing out of church and into your week, take some time on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning to review the sermon and ask the Lord: What is one way I can listen by obeying this week? Check Your (Sinful) Attitude at the Door Next, Solomon piles up the imperatives about taming the tongue in church. Not only should we be quick to listen, we should be slow to speak: Be not rash with your mouth. (Eccles. 5:2) Nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God. (Eccles. 5:2) Therefore let your words be few. (Eccles. 5:2) When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it. (Eccles. 5:4) Let not your mouth lead you into sin. (Eccles. 5:6) Scripture is replete with warnings about the tongue, but here Solomon tells us to be especially careful when it comes to the worship of God.To guard our “steps” (Eccles. 5:1) before we enter church means that we must guard our hearts (Prov. 4:23) and also guard our mouths (Prov. 21:23). We must not enter church having allowed sinful attitudes to enter our hearts, such as bitterness toward a fellow church member or selfish ambition for attention from others. We must not set foot in the church building without first setting a guard over our mouths from speaking words of pride, anger, criticism, or slander. Think about the “words of [your] mouth and the meditation of [your] heart” at church last week (Ps. 19:14). Were they pleasing to God? How quickly did you drift from a focus on God to what so-and-so was wearing? How many of your words before and after church were hastily spoken and from an unruly heart? How free did you feel to criticize your pastor’s sermon or complain about church leadership? Sadly, instead of being slow to speak, we are all more likely to be quick to speak, quick to complain, and quick to judge even (and sometimes especially) in church. We are quick to speak (with authority) about what we think God is (or is not) doing. Quick to express an opinion about what another mom should or shouldn’t do with her children. Quick to question and complain. Quick to criticize. We may dismiss hasty words and thoughts as harmless, but Solomon says they can be dangerous; so guard your steps by guarding your speech when you go to church. You are coming into the presence of the Holy One. Guard your steps, or else you may slip. Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Mahaney Whitacre are the authors of True Life: Practical Wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. – 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 Reading this familiar passage may make you remember a time when a preacher shared it during a marriage ceremony. But relegating this passage to love between a husband and wife does it a disservice. The love Paul speaks of is much greater and much deeper than romantic love—it represents the kind of love God has for his children. If we look at the life of Jesus and superimpose it over this passage, we see that Jesus personified every word. He was patient and kind. He didn’t envy. He emptied himself, humbling himself to the point of death on a cross. He didn’t follow his own desires, but instead followed the will of the Father, pouring himself out for all humankind. From the cross, Jesus bled forgiveness, even for the people crucifying him. He not only told the truth; he is the truth. As we look at how he shepherded his disciples, we see his love, protection, trust, hope, and perseverance. Put love into action Want to truly understand love? Look at Jesus. And then remember this: he loves you with an incredible love. Your response? Do the same with the people in your life. Think about your friends and family. Who demonstrates this passage well? What traits of love does he or she personify? How does that encourage you? Prayer Lord, thank you for showing me what love looks like as you walked the earth. With gratitude for your love for me, I want to show people that kind of sacrificial love. I can’t do it on my own, so please help me. Amen. Drawn from the NIV Radiant Virtues Bible.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. – Psalm 32:8 There is no language he will not speak. Which leads us to a delightful question. What language is he speaking to you? I’m not referring to an idiom or dialect but to the day-to-day drama of your life. God does speak, you know. He speaks to us in whatever language we will understand. There are times he speaks the “language of abundance.” Is your tummy full? Are your bills paid? Got a little jingle in your pocket? Don’t be so proud of what you have that you miss what you need to hear. Could it be you have much so you can give much? “God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Is God talking in the “language of abundance”? Or are you hearing the “vernacular of want”? We’d rather he spoke the language of abundance, but he doesn’t always. Are you hearing the “language of need”? Or how about the “language of affliction”? Talk about an idiom we avoid. But you and I both know how clearly God speaks in hospital hallways and sickbeds. We know what David meant with the words, “He makes me lie down” (Psalm 23:2, emphasis added). Nothing seems to turn our ears toward heaven like a frail body. God speaks all languages—including yours. Has he not said, “I will instruct you . . . in the way you should go” (Psalm 32:8)? Are we not urged to “accept instruction from his mouth” (Job 22:22)? What language is God speaking to you? And aren’t you glad he is speaking? Aren’t you grateful that he cares enough to talk? Isn’t it good to know that “the Lord confides in those who fear him” (Psalm 25:14)? Question: What language is God using to speak to you? What specific steps can you take in response? By Max Lucado from the NIV Lucado Encouraging Word Bible.

The “Back” of God God is present throughout the events of the exodus. But theophanies represent events of intensive presence that underline the principle that he is always present with his people and that he is faithful to his word and his covenant. After the incident with the golden calf (Exodus 32), Israel’s future appears to be in doubt. Moses requests that God show him his glory (Ex. 33:12–18). In this more intensive meeting, described in Exodus 34:5–28, The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Ex. 34:5–7) As is usual with theophany, the visual phenomena reinforce the significance of God’s speech. The divine appearance reveals the character of God, and so does the heart of God’s speech. God “proclaimed the name of the Lord” (v. 5). Before the theophany takes place, God also indicates its limitation: And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Ex. 33:19–23) What Did Moses Actually See? So what exactly did Moses see? Did he see a man-like appearance? Or is the language about “my back” a metaphor to indicate the less than-full nature of the revelation? Mystery remains. Did Moses see the back of a human figure or a vision like Ezekiel 1 or a bright cloud? Whatever the details, Moses saw a theophany of God, and yet one that was less than the fullest possible exposure to the presence of God. The allusion to human-like features builds on the fact that man was made in the image of God. And of course, along with all theophanies, this one also foreshadows the appearance of God in Christ, who is the permanent and climactic theophany. In him, and through his atonement, we can see God’s face and not die (John 14:9; Rev. 22:4). After this climactic experience with God, Moses’s face shone: When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. (Ex. 34:29–30) An appearance of God may include brightness. The striking thing about Moses is that now the brightness of God’s appearance is reflected in Moses himself, who has seen God. This radiance from Moses anticipates the climax in Christ. Christ is “the radiance of the glory of God” (Heb. 1:3). In a manner similar to Moses’s reflection of the glory of God, Christians who have communion with Christ are transformed so as to reflect the glory of Christ: And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:18) Theophanies represent events of intensive presence that underline the principle that he is always present with his people and that he is faithful to his word and his covenant. This article is adapted from Theophany: A Biblical Theology of God’s Appearing by Vern Poythress.

This is perhaps the most important question that you could ever ask. When we look at the Bible, we see that God describes Himself as Love (Exodus 34:6-7; see below). He is not just loving; He is the full embodiment, or the perfect standard, of love. Without God, we have no real reference of what love truly is. Our capacity to either receive or display love is directly and divinely tethered to who He is. This article serves one purpose: For you to catch even just a glimpse of the love of God. Here are two simple, yet profound realities that you need to know about God’s love. First, His love is personal God is not impersonal. He is not like the absent parent who occasionally checks in on you. He is not like the distant lawmaker who wants to control and oppress you. Honestly, He is better, kinder, and infinitely more gracious than anyone you’ve ever met – no analogy or simile to any human would ever do Him justice. With one glance of His eyes, your heart would melt into a molten mass of liquid love. With one word, your soul would be put to rest, knowing that you’re fully secure. With one embrace, you would forget every heartbreak, every bully, every hurtful word ever spoken about you – you would know that you are His, and He is yours. Now, let’s look at just a few examples of how personal God’s love is straight from His word, the Bible – His love letter to you. “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” Exodus 34:6-7 (NIV) “The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV) “I have loved you,” says the Lord…” Malachi 1:2 (NIV) “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:12 (NIV) Yes, God loves the whole world, but He does so by loving you! He knows your name. He called out to you when you were in your mother’s womb. He celebrated when you took your first steps. God wants you to know that it was His love for you that sent Jesus to the cross. His love covers every sin that you’ve ever committed, and every sin you ever will. When you come to understand that for yourself, your gratitude can overwhelm your desire to sin. God loves you personally. Second, His love is unconditional This means that there is no condition you need to meet to be loved by Him. God doesn’t say, “I’ll love you if…”. Instead, He says, “even if you…I’ll still love you.” And if there’s no condition you need to meet to be loved by God, that means there is nothing you can ever do to lose His love. Let’s draw this home a little more: God loves men AND women God loves young AND old people God loves people of every race! Every skin color. God loves people who love him AND people who don’t Understand this: God loving you has never been about what you did or who you are; it’s about who He is. Honestly, we don’t deserve His love; we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s perfect standard. But the GOOD NEWS is this: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (NIV) God’s love is baffling. God’s love is wild. God’s love is holy. God’s love is pure. God’s love is beyond any human description. Today, fix your attention on what God is speaking to you through His love letter, the Bible. Let His love wash over you. Rest in Him, knowing that He personally and unconditionally loves you. By Chase McCartney, Social Media Marketing Coordinator for Biblica.

The Mosaic (Sinaitic) Covenant Abraham and his descendants had never been told in any detail when or how the promises to them of land, a great nation, numerous descendants and being a blessing to the whole earth would be fulfilled. The children of Israel could have easily surmised that God had forgotten them as they languished in Egypt for about 400 years. But God rescued them in Moses’ day and brought them to Mt Sinai. There, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law (Torah). Because of their disobedience afterward, they had to wander for 40 years in the wilderness, but God eventually brought them under Joshua to the edge of the promised land with a second giving and updating of the Law. The covenant with Moses was a conditional one, based on a sovereign-vassal treaty form developed in the second millennium BC, which the whole of Deuteronomy closely follows. Deuteronomy 28–29 rehearse in detail the stipulations and the rewards for the Israelites’ obedience to the Law and the punishments for their disobedience. Long life, prosperity, safety and freedom from foreign oppression would flow from keeping the Law. Disasters, tragedies, warfare, exile and foreign occupation would eventually come after repeated, flagrant disobedience. To be clear, the Mosaic covenant was about temporal prosperity not eternal salvation. God had already “saved” his people in the exodus – in the crossing of the Red Sea – and in bringing them to the promised land. However, the law detailed how they were to live out a life of pleasing God now that he had rescued them. Their success and failures is found in the rest of the historical books of the Old Testament which details the cycles of prosperity and punishment of the Israelite people based on their behavior. The Coming New Covenant “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘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 wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Jeremiah 31:31–34 The prophet Jeremiah’s description of a new covenant demonstrates that the Mosaic covenant was never intended to be everlasting in its original form. The apostle Paul picks up on this as well in where he speaks of three purposes of the Law. 1. While it was in effect, it functioned in a custodial fashion acting as a deterrent to sin. (Galatians 3:21-4:7) 2. It also highlighted people’s sinfulness, showing them their need for one who could fully save them. (Romans 7:13–25) 3. For the Christian, the Law is fulfilled in Jesus (Matthew 5:17–20). We understand how the coming of the Christ and the teaching of the New Testament have changed the application of each part of the Law. It still though functions as a moral guide for believers (Galatians 5:13-6:10). The New Covenant Fulfilled The old Mosaic covenant was doomed to failure because of congenital human inability to fulfill its requirements. But with incalculable mercy and love God resolved this fundamental relational problem by becoming a human being himself, through Jesus Christ, to do for human beings what they could not do for themselves: perfectly fulfill the relational demands of God’s covenant by his perfect obedience and pay the steep price for everyone else’s disobedience. All who put their faith in this God­man have these immeasurable benefits applied to them. The consequent divine­human relationship is now secure because, in essence, God is on both sides of the relationship—the divine originator of the covenant and the one who fulfills it. The prophet Jeremiah provides the essential details of the new covenant. He says it will not be like the old covenant in that the law would now be put in the minds and written on the hearts of God’s people. Consequently, there will be an intimate, personal knowledge of God shared by every segment of society. This new relationship with God is made possible because of his forgiveness of sins. The New Testament makes clear that all of these details of the new covenant find their fulfillment in Jesus (Luke 22:20). He makes possible a relationship with God in which believers have the law in their minds and on their hearts by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit who facilitates intimate fellowship with and personal knowledge of God (compare Romans 8:1–11; John 14:23) all possible because of the self­sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 10:11–18). Drawn from study material in the NIV Study Bible, Fully Revised Edition.