For the past week I’ve been studying the book of Jeremiah. If you’re ever looking for some inspirational, soul lifting, positive word from the Lord, don’t go to Jeremiah. This is 52 chapters of God’s people sinning, God’s warnings, his people ignoring, then God destroying. Over and over again, God fills Jeremiah with his divine words to give to the people to redirect and save them, but they continue living in all the wrong ways, doing what God has told them not to do, going where God has told them not to go. So there is panic followed by pits and punishment. Destruction and desperation. Judgment and condemnation. God is angry and his anger is not withheld.

I’m a light hearted kinda gal, this kind of stuff just hurts my heart. I’ve literally struggled studying this, trying to understand why. Why all this loss? Why all this wrath? I mean let’s be real, at one point these people were literally burning their children as burnt offerings to one of their new gods, Baal. So God sends his prophet Jeremiah to tell them to stop, but they won’t stop. So God brings absolute annihilation to their people. That makes sense. Still, I struggle understanding it all.

There were innocent people caught in the annihilation. Good people fell to this destruction. Honestly, you and I could have just as easily been born then instead of now, to these people who were doing horrible things. It wasn’t our good choices that plopped us into safer times and better conditions. We didn’t choose when and where to be born. So what about the unfortunate souls born then and there?

I’m trying to understand this.

God’s covenant was broken. A covenant is like a contract. It was an agreement between God and his people. If they kept his laws, he kept them. If they obeyed him fully, he blessed them. The problem came when his people failed to keep the laws. They went left when the were told to go right. They lost their way. They were tricked by false prophets teaching false gods. Following those false gods led them away from the covenant of the one true God, and that’s why there are 52 chapters of God’s warnings and wrath.

We struggle with always getting this thing right. It’s a human condition. We don’t always listen, we don’t always understand, and we don’t always uphold our end of this deal. And sometimes we willingly dive head first into what we know we shouldn’t do. So, does that mean God is angry at us? Does that mean he is sitting on his big white throne with angry eyebrows and a big stick ready to strike us? Does that mean he is conspiring 37 different ways to punish us?

If you only skim through the chapters of Jeremiah, that’s exactly how it will leave you feeling. But, tucked between the prophesies of destruction and God’s judgment of his people, is a paragraph titled “The New Covenant”.

Jeremiah 31: 31-34: “Look, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt – my covenant that they broke even though I am their master. Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my teaching with them and write it on their hearts. (Y’all, that’s the gift of the Holy Spirit within us.) I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.”

You do know this scripture is talking about you, right? You may not be from where these people were from, but scripture makes it clear, THIS IS US. Galatians 3: 28-29, “You are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.”

So, in the middle of God’s people following false gods and doing unimaginably bad things that God punished with destruction, was the promise of the new covenant to come. A new contract between God and his people. The old contract had been broken by their sin. But God didn’t walk away. He fixed this mess! And here’s how …

Jesus said to his friends at the table during his last meal before the cross, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22: 20).

Jesus is the new covenant.

It’s what he did, not what we do. It’s his sacrifice, not our sinless living. God did it all for us because we could never keep our end of the deal. And all we have to do is accept Jesus.

A cup represents God punishment. And Jesus says, this CUP is the new covenant in my blood. Remember how immediately after this final meal with his friends, Jesus goes out into the garden to pray and he falls facedown and says, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39) It was the cup of God’s punishment for you. For your sins. For your failures. For your shortcomings. And God willed for his one and only son to take that cup of punishment for YOU so you wouldn’t be destroyed in wrath.

I have a friend who’s current reality is a hardship beyond any hardship I’ve ever endured. She has experienced tremendous loss and the days, weeks, months ahead will be hard. So hard. Naturally, she began questioning if something she did created this. Is she being punished? Is God’s wrath being poured out on her? Is her family suffering because of something she did or didn’t do?

Maybe you’ve questioned the same thing. You’ve feared that you brought God’s wrath onto you or your family and your circumstances are his punishment.

Well I’m going to be bold and call that exactly what it is. That’s a lie from the pits of hell, sent to make you hide in darkness and overwhelm you with guilt and shame.

Yes, your Bible has many examples of God’s wrath because of people’s sin, but Jesus bore all the wrath so you wouldn’t have to. God promised with the new covenant of Jesus, he forgives your sin and never remembers it again. If he never remembers it again, my sister, he can’t be dragging up your past and forcing you to wallow in it now.

This is what the enemy does. He tempts us to sin. Oh how he dangles temptation right in front of us and makes it easy to mess up. Satan makes sin look so appealing, so easy, so irresistible. He tells us no one will know and it will be worth it. He seduces us into doing what we know we shouldn’t do. Then, when we have sinned, he tries to rub our nose in it with guilt and shame. Yes, that’s what he does. He talks you into doing it, then rubs your nose in it after you do.

But this is what God does. God always gives you a way out of the temptation. He fills you with the strength of the Holy Spirit to turn away, then he opens another door for your exit. But for the times you were tricked by the enemy into sin, God offers grace instead of condemnation. He offers holy conviction that directs you to do better next time. But he doesn’t rub your nose in it and dish out punishments of wrath.

We live in a fallen world. Things are not perfect here. People mess up and create messes. We live in the middle of those messes. And we certainly create our own as well. But the blood of Jesus is the new covenant, and it has been poured out for you, my sister. Your sins have not only been forgiven, they have been forgotten.

Jeremiah 31: 37 “This is what the Lord says: ONLY IF the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below explored, will I reject all of Israel’s descendants because of all they have done – this is the Lord’s declaration.”

Honey, those heavens will never ever be measured. It won’t happen. The foundations of the earth can never be explored. It’s untouchable. And God says only if those things were to ever happen, would he reject you because of what you have done. And well, that’s not happening!

God is not rejecting you because of what you’ve done.

Will there be consequences to your actions? Absolutely. We don’t just get to do whatever we want to do and not clean up the messes. But there will be no condemnation from God. His grace has fully covered you, everything you’ve ever done, and anything you will ever do in the future, and you’ve been forgiven, redeemed, and sealed with the blood of Jesus under the new covenant that marks you APPROVED!

That’s God’s grace … and you’re completely covered in it. That grace not only forgives you, but it stirs a desire within you to do better now. So, do better now, my sister. Walk boldly in this new covenant and all that Jesus has offered you! Jesus came to give you LIFE and live in abundance. (John 10:10)

I finished reading the book of Jeremiah and literally said out loud, “Whew, it’s done. I don’t ever want to go through this again.” Then it hit me … that’s what God said too after all that chaos. All that sin. All that wrath. All that destruction. “Whew, it’s done. I don’t ever want to go through this again.” That’s why he sent Jesus. To finish this.

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