As a young adult, I was earnest in my faith yet found it exhausting and frustrating to try and keep God’s Law. I realize now that I was living in a legalistic manner trying to please God by earning his favour. That was an Old Covenant way of viewing God and it caused me to become spiritually proud, personally stifled and judgemental of others.

The term “new covenant” is rarely heard these days in church circles, much less understood. And yet it is intrinsically Biblical and the very reason that we have access to God through Jesus Christ. It helps us understand how the Old Testament must be read through the eyes of the New Testament. It is, in fact, the key to living the Christian life!

In learning about the New Covenant over the years I have discovered no less than a new and vibrant way of life – marked by grace, faith and the power of the Holy Spirit (hallmarks of the New Covenant). I often creep back to my old ways but God, before long, reminds me of this new way of living that he has covenanted. Charles Spurgeon was so moved by this theme that he wrote:

What a Magna Carta is this! The old covenant says, “Keep the law and live.” The new covenant is, “You shall live, and I will lead you to keep my law, for I will write it on your heart.”