BONUS 2: The Agreement with God

Nehemiah 9:38-10, 11, 12:1-26

by Susanne Moore

Have you ever made a contract with anyone? God’s covenant to his people, the people of Israel, and later to Gentiles at the birth of Jesus, with those who choose to follow him is still in effect today. This is important, as we watch the world unfold in real time. God is still steadfast and true. No matter how we fail him.

A covenant is a binding agreement that seals the future during the contractual period for both parties or all parties involved. I have a non-compete contract in the insurance industry because I write for a captive insurance company. If I leave, I cannot take customers to another insurance company for two years after I quit. It is binding, legal and has consequences because it is a contractual covenant.

I made an agreement with my daughters, when they were in high school. If they did their chores and helped me keep the house clean, they could leave their room in any condition they wanted. They just had to shut the door. This was of course after a long battle, and it was a mom compromising how she felt against the knowing of how difficult it was to manage and navigate high school. This was a simple thing, but it made our lives vastly less stressful, and it was the right thing to do at the time.

Some of these agreements we make are broken by either our own sinfulness or the sinfulness of the one in the pact with you. Our human reality is that we do not hold the strength or fortitude to be perfect. So, we fail. My girls certainly did not always remember to shut the door to their room, or perfectly do the chores when I asked them too. That is our sinful nature.

However, God is perfect, and God does keep his promises. In God’s covenant with his people, they had many requirements, and they failed always in trying to uphold them. It led to years of exile, immorality and struggle. However, God never broke it, he always led them back. It was not ‘you do this, this, and this and I will do this’. No, his response was, ‘I love you I will’. A one-sided guarantee: no matter what you do, no one can snatch you out of my hand.  

Recounting stories like this helps me navigate forward and understand how I got there, and how I move forward. It helps me see how a covenant, or agreement is made and why we make them. In Nehemiah, they recounted all God had done for the people who had been returned from exile and where they had been exiled too. The purpose was to remind them of the covenant God had made with his people and the reality that he had never left them, and the agreement was still intact.

They dressed in sackcloth, fasted, poured dirt on their heads and confessed their sins and their fathers’ sins (Nehemiah 9). They deeply felt the impact that their years of separation had upon them, and the incredible reality that God had never left them, all they had to do was turn north. 

Verse 8: “You found his heart faithful before you and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, The Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.”

The people realized their folly, years of struggle and shame. They speak about the entire plight of their people from coming out of Egypt, to seizing their land and the continued disobedience and rebellion against the promise. Guess what they did again?

They put their firm covenant with God in writing and sealed it with the names of highest order. Promises, promises, promises. How are they to keep them? They do not. God upholds his word.

It does seem impossible when you are human. Do you know how many times God rescues us? Do you know how many times Israel fell away from God? Do you know when Jesus died, we became a part of that covenant and God is in the rescuing business? God loves you as his child and he will move mountains, pull you out of valleys and bring you home. He is in the rebuilding process.

Shouldn’t we be seeking to honor that covenant with God? Giving him our best, our time, our prayers, our worship?

Let’s seek Jesus in our daily. Let’s lean into God’s sovereignty and work towards honoring our promise to him when we said I do. I choose you. Thank you for rescuing us through the wilderness and valleys sometimes in the reality of just living and sometimes of our own volition and help us to be faithful to you, like you are to us.