Covenant Love

Wednesday Wanderings with Dr. Sherri is a time we set aside to wander in the Presence of Jesus and ponder His truths. When you are ready, prepare your mind, body, and soul to have a transformational encounter with Jesus.

Watch the Wednesday Wanderings Welcome for this week.

Now that we have cleared our minds of the clutter, we can wander on the journey of examining covenant love.

PREPARATION: In our last Wandering we examined The Language of Love.  This week we will explore Covenant Love.  When you are ready, you may begin the dialogue with Jesus and state: “Jesus, I invite you to help me to leisurely wander into your Presence where your covenant love can empower me. Illuminate my spiritual senses to encounter you. Prepare my heart to focus my attention on loving you eternally.”

PROMISE: Love is a promise. Jesus demonstrated His Covenant to us when He offered His life on the cross. Out of  God’s love, He sacrificed the life of His only son. John 3:16  reads, “For God so (greatly) loved and dearly prized the world, that He (even) gave His (One and) only begotten son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him (as Savior) shall not perish, but have eternal life.

This promise of eternal life gives us a reason to live the covenant of loving Jesus in life and death. 

PSALM: In the song My Jesus I love Thee William Ralph Featherstone shares his vow to live in love with Jesus.

I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
  And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
  If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

The love of Jesus is an uncompromising, unconditional, unwavering, gracious, and redeeming covenant. Our sin may interfere with how we love Jesus but it does not interfere with how He loves us. At some point in the psalmist life, he realized that God sacrificed His son so that we could live graciously forgiven of our sin and live life IN Covenant love with Him. I wonder what prompted the psalmist to pledge his love to Jesus?

PARABLE: We are more prone to approach our love affair with Jesus as a contract opposed to a covenant. What is the difference between contractual love and covenant love? Contractual love says, “Because I did this for you, you should do this for me.” Covenant love says, “I will love even if you don’t. I will love especially when you won’t.”  If the love of Jesus was contractual, every time we sin, the contract would be voided. Instead Jesus died to offer us covenant love. What is the covenant love of Jesus and what does it do? 

1. 

   The Covenant Love of Jesus is inseparable. Romans 8:38.  It promises that NOTHING can separate us from the love of Jesus.

2. The Covenant Love of Jesus is  immeasurable. Ephesians 3:18. Jesus pledges to love us beyond an identified width, length, height, or depth.
3. The Covenant Love of Jesus is indisputable. 1 John 4:9-10. Jesus’ sacrificial life and death substantiates that God gave His son’s life to pay the debt of our sins.
4. The Covenant Love of Jesus is everlasting. Jeremiah 31:3  It swears that His love has no expiration, is steeped with lovingkindness, and is faithful.
5. The Covenant Love of Jesus empowers: Romans 8:37. It guarantees that in Christ we are more than conquerors of the guilt, shame, lies, and strongholds of sin.

Covenant love is not about us. Covenant love is all about Jesus who lived just to die for our sins. The lie of shame says “We are wrong.” The truth of God’s promises says “We did wrong” but the love of Jesus permits us to repent and be cleansed by His redemptive blood. We can live a life in covenant love with Jesus because His unconditional covenant love is patient, kind, does not count our wrong, and is enduring(1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Will you choose today to live a powerful, thriving, and lasting relationship with Jesus by choosing to live IN COVENANT LOVE?

PONDER and WANDER:

Ponder the question: Has my contractual view of love interfered with me living in the unconditional, gracious, redeeming, and saving covenant love of Jesus Christ?  

Perhaps you have not made a covenant vow to Jesus but rest assured, Jesus has already made a covenant to you. On the cross, He said, “I choose you!” and He will continue to choose you over and over.

If you choose, when you are ready, you may take a few minutes to repent of your sin and renew or establish your covenant with Jesus. Invite the Holy Spirit to use the prompts to guide you to declare your love. You may select which one(s) you would like to include in your vows of love and complete the sentence(s) with your promise.

Jesus I love you…
Jesus I choose you…

PRAYER: Jesus, with every breath you provide me, I will choose to love you without my hurts hindering my view of your Presence, without my sorrow sabotaging your joy, without holding on to my habits tighter than I cling to you. In life, in death, with every breath, I promise to love you. In the loving name of Jesus I pray, Amen.

PRAISE: Now that you have emptied your mind of the clutter and wandered with Jesus, take a closing moment to offer Him your gratitude that He chose you. Let the work of your wandering fill you with the assurance that God loved YOU enough to give His son without hesitation.

Then take the mindfulness of God’s presence cultivated in these last few minutes of wandering into the next ones and beyond.

Until next time, be Resonant.

PERSONAL BONUS: If you would like, you may watch the below video and share an experience that helped me to make a love covenant to Jesus.

This video reveals the moment I touched The Stone of Unction, also known as the Stone of Anointing located in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (The Church of Resurrection) in Jerusalem. This limestone slab of love is where Jesus was laid to be prepared for burial after being removed from the crucifix (Matthew 27:57-60).

It was at this stone that I gained a new perspective of how Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection paid for the consequences of my sin and cancelled the terms of my contract. It was at the tomb where Jesus was buried and resurrected that my guilt and shame, especially of those from my sins of perfectionism, people-pleasing, and performance vanished. It was at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where I realized that though my sin (some of them I was too ashamed to share with anyone) is great, the love of Jesus is greater! Touching that stone where He laid, reframed the meaning of reckless and undeserving Covenant Love. I can relate to Featherstone’s pledge of love to Jesus. Touching this stone, my heart cried “If ever I loved thee my Jesus, tis now!”  Invite the Holy Spirit to search your mind and recall a time within your relationship with Jesus that prompted you to say, “If ever I loved Thee my Jesus, tis now.”

Image Attributions:
I choose you: Google Image
Live in love: Belovedwomen.org
Covenant love: Google images