SCRIPTURE: Hebrews 8
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
This is the covenant I will make with the house 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. [Hebrews 8:10]
Under the old covenant, people related to God through rituals and rules, but these were external practices.
The problem of human nature cannot be altered or repaired by self-will or self-discipline, the problem is too deep.
We need spiritual heart surgery, we need our inner being and nature changed.
We need God’s will inscribed on our hearts and minds, so that it is a part of our nature.
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. [Psalms 51:5-6]
This is what we need, this is our only hope.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever– the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. [John 14:16-19]
Jesus addresses the issue of the heart, He challenges the focus on external rules and rituals in which the Jews put their hope.
But he does more than challenge our behaviour and teach inward morality – He does something to make it real.
By His death, He pays the price for all human sin; by His resurrection He breaks the curse of sin; by His ascension He reasserts our place with God, and thereby reclaims the Spirit for us.
It is because of human sin that we lost access to God’s Spirit, and our spirits became weak, lame, corrupt.
But now that we are restored to God – forgiven and free – God’s Spirit is restored to us and we now participate in the divine nature and can escape the corruption of the human heart [2 Peter 1:3-4].

When Jesus spoke to His disciples, the Spirit had not yet been poured out (will be in you), but now He has been poured out, and this is how God’s truth and God’s will are written on our hearts.
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. [2 Corinthians 3:3]
This is the new arrangement (covenant), not trying with all our might to keep God’s rules and rituals, but by trying with all His might to live His truth and will from the heart.
We still strive to obey God, but not to attain God’s forgiveness and love but because of God’s forgiveness.
We still strive to obey God, but not out of self-effort, but as the fruit of the Spirit within us.
It’s a much better, much more liberating and energizing way to live!
This way allows for failure but never settles for it.
This way is motivated by love, not by guilt.
Live by the Spirit in the assurance of God’s love, and do the best y o u (plural, you and the Spirit) can.

PRAYER:
Lord, thank You for providing a better way. Help me to stop living by the obsolete way, trying to earn Your forgiveness and acceptance. Give me a sense of Your love, and a Spirit-energized love for You that propels me to live for You, according to Your will.