Jeremiah 31:31-34 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when
I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband ]”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For
I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
- I see a lot of "I 's"(God) here and no us, you are them
- If he would require for us to give as much as we receive, as you say, then it would not be grace and a gift, it would be "Quid pro quo" (something for something). He did not say / mean this and if you really believe he did, you have a lot to learn my friend.
- Your example of the "Talent" has no bearing on this discussion!
You are correct, my brother there are a lot of "I's", but it is still a covenant rather than a simple no strings attached gift. It is in a sense a lop-side covenant because most of the work has to be done by God. A covenant is an agreement or a compact between two or more parties where each party agreement to certain things.
We are described in the NT as grafted in branches and our grafting in was not done without conditions:
"And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee." Rom 11:17-21
The Tree will endure, but the individual branches that do not produce according to God will be purged from the Tree:
"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." John 15:2
Then consider carefully these words penned by the Apostle Paul:
"Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that
all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
And were
all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
And did
all eat the same spiritual meat;
And did
all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now
these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted." I Cor 10:1-6
Notice that
all were baptized in the shadows of the water and the Spirit and that
all ate of his flesh and drank of his blood, yet
many of them displeased God and over overthrown. This is the type and shadow for you and me today. We can travel the way of Caleb and Joshua or we can die in the wilderness along with 600,000 without the women and children. It is only a type shown in them for us to see, but we are in the real thing. If we do not overcome as Jesus overcame, we will not make. We have the power, but we also have the choice.
He writes several more verses in explanation of these things and then this:
"Now
these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted." I Cor 10:12
There are many more NT verses which apply to this situation. We do have promises from God which He will certainly keep in blessing us if we do what He requires of us with the gifts He has given us. Yes, He has given us gifts, but some of the gifts are to be used by us to make us into overcomers. Jesus was an overcomer and in order to please God we also need to be overcomers. The sacrifice of Jesus did not make it an automatic thing. Rather his sacrifice made it a possibility. We must use what we have to overcome all obstacles standing between us and God.
Read and pray carefully on these things my friend.
!
