A Covenant of Peace

 Look around and be distressed;
Look within and be depressed;
Look to Jesus and be at rest.

(Corrie Ten Boom)

"Covenant" is not a word we use much today, except in gated communities, where the meaning seems to have evolved into the opposite of its original.  The only real covenant we have left today is marriage-- where two are made one flesh, one family, one bond.

The original covenant God made with Abraham was a covenant of blood -- a covenant in your flesh, God called it:  My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant (Gen. 17).

By the time of Jeremiah and the other prophets, however, we hear that that covenant in the flesh means little:  

How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you a desirable land,

the most beautiful of any nation.

I thought you would call me "Father" and not turn away from following me.

But like a woman unfaithful to her husband,

so have you been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel," says the Lord (Jer. 3).

Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns.

Circumcise yourself to the Lord, circumcise your hearts,

you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem (Jer. 4).

...even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart (Jer. 9).

The result of abandoning the covenant, or the bond with God, is that the beautiful land "...has been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross" and, furthermore,

Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses;

it has cut off the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares (Jer. 9).

The prophets, however, notably Jeremiah, promised a new covenant, "not like the covenant I made with their fathers...[.but] I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts....they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest" (Jer. 31).

And Ezekiel says, "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant....My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God and they will be my people" (37).

....a covenant of peace.  The mark of those who dwell with God.  At the Last Supper, Jesus promised: "My peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."  Finally, it is given to us --- the covenant of peace.  Corrie Ten Boom, despite the worst that Nazi Germany could do to her family and to her, knew that peace.  As do the world's martyrs today.

If you would find the dwelling place of God on earth today, look for the "pearl of great price" -- that peace within men's souls.  It is the sure sign of the new covenant!