How often have we committed to someone or something and failed to keep that commitment?
For instance, one person wants to catch up with their friend, and their friend promises to catch up soon. However, they did not keep their promise because they had gotten busy or forgotten.
Another example is finding many desirable things people want to commit. However, they eventually cannot keep one or more of their commitments as time passes.
Faithfulness is one of the human beings’ challenging concepts, to be honest. It even was shown in the Scriptures, especially Old Testament.
The covenant God
However, the Scriptures also indicate that God is the covenant God.
But what is a covenant?
According to The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, the word ‘covenant’ defines as “a formal agreement or treaty between two parties that establishes a relationship and in which obligations and mutual responsibilities may be enacted.”
As God is unconditional, the unconditional covenant is the “covenant in which one party makes a promise to another without action from the other party required.” (The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms).
Although God knew human beings would sin by dishonouring and disrespecting God, He already planned for their spiritual salvation and redemption. He sent His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to be sacrificed for their sins.
He did this out of His love for human beings (John chapter 3, verses 16-17; 1 John chapter 4, verses 9-10).
God’s mission
In ancient times, when people sinned against God, they brought animal sacrifices to their priest, and then the priest had to atone for his community’s sins with the sacrifices (Leviticus chapter 16).
As people were continually sinning and had to bring the sacrifices to their priests, God had planned that Jesus Christ, His beloved Son and the great high priest, would make an atonement for their sins once and for all by sacrificing Himself.
Only Jesus Christ could atone for people’s sins once and for all with His blood since He was entirely divine and human, and therefore He never had sinned (Hebrews chapters 8, verse 1-chapter 10, verse 18).
Since Jesus sacrificed His life for our sins, is there anything we could do to repay what He did for them?
Today’s culture influences us to repay each other for what we have done, but the covenant God does not expect us to do anything to repay Him.
God only wants us to accept and believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour for the rest of our lives. Through faith in Him, good works only can be done through the power of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians chapter 2, verses 4-10; Titus chapter 3, verses 3-8).
If people have sinned, even if they became Christ’s followers, repentance could be done continually. Repentance is turning away from old ways and to the new way by becoming obedient to God and His will through following Christ and faith in Him (Acts chapter 3, verses 17-26; 1 John chapter 1, verse 5-chapter 2, verse 2).
Although Jesus had been hoping many people to become His followers, He ministered to them without expecting anything in return.
Like Jesus, we need to show and express our kindness to others without expecting we want to be treated in the same way, but in the hope that He may be shown through us with God’s love by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
Application
But how can we have bigger hearts like Jesus and love others unconditionally?
We are not to think less of ourselves because we find our true identity in Christ through faith in Him.
However, we can think less of ourselves in terms of humbling ourselves about whether we are deserved to be spiritually saved or not. I do not mean to be judgemental, but the answer is that we do not deserve to be saved, even if we are doing good deeds.
God’s standards and our human standards are different. If we compare our standards with God’s, then we should feel that we are unworthy.
However, God didn’t mind our unworthiness. He chose unqualified people and let them partner with Him in bringing salvation to the world.
How fortunate is that?
Although God’s primary work is changing people to become Christ’s faithful followers through the power of the Spirit, our main job is to bring the good news of Christ with God’s love in whatever formats.
For example, God has given me the gift of writing through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. So far, I have written devotionals for over five years and articles for Press Service International for four years.
I am also a testimony speaker at Waiheke Island Baptist Church, sharing testimonies of church themes. Although I have a disability in speech because of cerebral palsy, I write my testimonies and play them through a text-to-speech application on my iPad.
My hope and prayer for the world is that everyone gets reconciled with one another and God so that there will be God’s peace flowing the whole world all the time by praising Him together as the body of Christ (2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 11-21; Romans 15, verses 4-13).
Kevin Park is studying at Carey Baptist College and finds that Christian-writing is his ultimate will of God and his ultimate method to build the kingdom of God. He started to become a Christian writer from 2013. Other than his writing life, Kevin desires to see that each finds everlasting satisfaction in God, the Almighty. You will be able to contact him at kevin.park1991@gmail.com. He loves to encourage others spiritually.
Kevin Park’s previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/kevin-park.html