As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’7 By your favour, O Lord,
you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. (Psalm 30:6-7 NRSV).
When we buy the lie that prosperity is a right and should be our only aim in life, then we have given up the Lord for a god of this world. After that a host of preoccupations and worries will take up even more time and energy – basically squeezing out the Lord even more.
Without the presence/influence of the Holy Spirit there is the opportunity for alternate forms of ethics and morality to begin to assert themselves in order to keep the tenuous hold on ‘prosperity’ – for that is all there is once the Lord is displaced.
We are called to remember that our ‘mountain’ can only stand through God’s continued grace and favour – all else is sinking sand.
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Hebrews 8:10 NRSV)
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment”. (Matt. 22:38)
As much as we might wish to keep this first, and great commandment, experience has shown how difficult it can become when we try to do it alone. Hence the need for the new covenant.
Heart soul and mind represent the whole of person responding to the love of God. There is a similar expression in Hebrews where the Lord will put his laws on “their minds” and write them on their hearts,”
There will be an inner transformation and the life of the recipient will change – there will be no intellectual struggle to ‘know’ God. Instead, we will ‘know’ that we belong to God and who is our God.
But it requires that a decision be made. A covenant is ratified by both parties – it has already been so by God in the person of Jesus – his death and resurrection -and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. Our “yes” brings the final forgiveness of sins and true relationship with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust] consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matt. 6:19-21 NRSV)
‘But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matt. 6:33-34 ESV)
