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Establishing the Covenant with Others

by Jerry Ousley  
3/28/2014 / Christian Living

At one time, and for several years, we were mobile home people. When Deb and I first got married we began our humble abode in a well-used mobile home we purchased from her cousin. I say that it was well-used because it was an older model and if we still had it today it would probably be considered an antique. But it was neat and clean, didn't leak, and the only thing that needed replaced in it was the furnace.

I can't remember exactly what we paid for it, but the figure of around $2100.00 sticks in my mind. That little mobile home was in reality a God-send. Not only did we live in it for several years, but it became our equity for loans, and when we finally outgrew it and graduated to a larger mobile home, we got more for the trade-in than what we had originally paid for it.

The day finally came when we were ready for a house. We found one in town that we never dreamed we could afford, which is a story for another time. We were able to sell our mobile home along with the five acres of land in the country and we moved into our house where we still reside.

The mortgage was an obligation. Over the last twenty years or so there have been times when we just didn't know how we were going to make the payment but somehow, by the grace of God, we have always managed to come through. We didn't deserve it, although we have always tried to be good stewards of the financing God has allowed us, meager as it has been. But we made some bad decisions; like the time we were so deep in debt that we had to pick and choose which bill was going to be late. We refinanced to get the money to pay those bills off and it worked for a time but we found out the hard way that you can't borrow your way out of debt.

We can't take credit for good budgeting and planning. I've always said that God has blessed us despite ourselves because we haven't always done the right things as far as financial planning. God is just good is all I can say. So far, anyway, we have been able to fulfill our contract, or covenant with the finance company, and as long as God provides, we will continue to do it.

God wants to establish a five-fold covenant with us. We've talked about the covenant with ourselves and with our families. These are important clauses of the covenant. Another clause is establishing the covenant with others. The covenant, or verbal promise, is our commitment to God and His commitment to us. He will fulfill His part of the deal. The hard part is for us to fulfill our end. The covenant with ourselves means that we have committed ourselves to Him and we live according to His Word and His plan for our lives. The covenant with our families is the part where we are committed to our spouse and children, to be the parent and husband or wife God wants us to be.

The next part of the covenant, with others, is a covenant of love in every case. We are told to first love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus defined just who our neighbors are in the parable of the Good Samaritan they are not just the people who lives across the street or next door, but everyone we come into contact with. We are to show respect, love, and willingness to help just like we would for ourselves.

The Bible also tells us that we are to prefer our brother over ourselves. It means that we are willing to sacrifice our wants and desires in favor of those of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are also told that we must forgive. Sometimes forgiving means that we are willing to take a big swallow and give up what we feel is justly ours, whether it is property, money, or just the bragging rights of being correct.

We are to be willing and always aware of opportunities to win others to Christ. This doesn't mean that we are always "preaching" to those we come into contact with; that can be offensive and drive people away or at least make them think that we are a fanatic, a lunatic or just plain crazy. It does mean that we are always on the lookout for that opportunity where Christ, by way of the Holy Spirit, has opened a door.

Finally we are to love our enemies. That's right; as hard as it may seem, we are to show love to those who hate us, despitefully use us, and are always out to do us harm. We pray for them and if God provides the opportunity, we show kindness to them so as to win them to the Lord.

No one said that the covenant was an easy one. But it is a good one. When all believers in Christ can correctly fulfill their covenant with others, which is really only a clause of our covenant with the Lord, we'll see a big change, at least in the part of the world we come into contact with.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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