It’s a good idea to take a look each January (or February) at the “State of the Union.” Hopefully, transparency, honesty and truth will show us our true condition in America.

A look at the “State of one’s Household” or the “State of one’s Church-house” could help one, honestly and truthfully, check-up on the relationship with God. Our God is a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God. He expects His followers to do the same. As one experiences coming into a right relationship with Him through repentance of all sins and acknowledging faith in the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, that covenant is established.

God, through the prophet Jeremiah, announces a “new” covenant He would make with all who would believe in the coming Messiah (Jer. 31:33). The new covenant would not abolish the old; the new would fulfill the old and achieve its purpose. This New Covenant (Testament) would be put in the minds and written on the hearts of God’s people (all who believe in Jesus), rather than on tablets of stone. God promised that those who believe in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, would know Him directly.

The fulfillment of the old covenant in Christ opens the door of faith to all people, which God intended from the beginning (Isa. 42:6; 49:6). The “seed of Abraham,” the defined community with which the covenant was made, was redefined in Christ. All people who are united to Christ by faith become “Abraham’s seed” in Him (Gal. 3:26-29, while no one outside of Christ can be in covenant with God (Rom. 4: 9-17; 11: 13-24).

The goal of God’s covenantal dealings is, as it always was, in the gathering and sanctifying of the covenant people “from every nation tribe, people and language” (Rev 7:9), who will one day inhabit new Jerusalem in a renewed world order (21:1-2). Towards this goal God’s shaping of world events still moves. What is the “State of your Covenant” with God?