Promise Fulfilled
Opening Prayer
God, I pray that my hopes and dreams conform to what You have planned for me. Show me the way.
Read Hebrews 8:7–13
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said:
“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.
9 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 did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 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.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
How does it make you feel to know that these words are true: “I will be their God, and they will be my people”?Most of today’s passage is taken up with words from the prophet Jeremiah, so it’s worth asking first what he was saying in his own time, before considering what it has to do with the message of Hebrews.
Jeremiah was writing to the exiles in Babylon. In the midst of their despair he wrote to give them hope of restoration and return. But in truth he was looking forward to something much greater than that.
He was looking forward to a time when the old covenant would be replaced. The new covenant that would take its place would be marked by people having the law written on their hearts; they would know God intimately; their sins would be forgiven. All of this would make the old covenant quite redundant.
The message of Jeremiah and Hebrews is that there is hope for those who are in exile from God. That includes you and me. Hebrews tells us that that hope is fulfilled in Jesus. Are you living as though all your hope is in him?
Apply
Hear the promises of Jeremiah’s prophecy as words spoken to you personally. Pray that you will know their reality.
Closing prayer
Dear Lord, put Your laws in my mind and write them on my heart today.
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