“For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: The time is coming, declares the Lord, when i will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant i made with their forefathers when i took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and i turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant i will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘know the Lord’, because they will all know me, from the least of them tot eh greatest. For i will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Hebrews 8:7-12

It is amazing at how many truths the Bible holds, and yet we often try to come up with answers to questions we are absolutely clueless of. How many times have you had the New Testament questioned? How many times have you met people refusing to go to church on Sunday because they said God rested on the Sabbath? How many times have you found people stock in the Old Testament declaring other Christians to be at fault, because they have ‘supposedly’ missed one of the laws? When we spend time reading God’s word, we find answers to questions we have been asking our elders, those who found faith before us. 

Just because they found faith before you does not mean they hold the answers to all your questions. It clearly states in Hebrews 8:7-8 ‘For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” God saw that the covenant written on tablets was easily abandoned and he knew he had to do something about it, if the people were suppose to walk in faith with him. If the law given to Moses in the Old Testament had no fault in it, God would not have had to make the New Testament. God saw that the law was powerless because it weakened by the flesh. The people did not remain faith to God and each of them turned to their own way. Hence he declared a new covenant.

Recently, I asked a man if he went to church, and he said “I used to, but stopped.” I asked him why and he said “The Christians have corrupted God’s law.” What do you mean? “I am a Roman Catholic and I have read the Bible and try to read it at least 2-3 times a week. When God gave the commandments, he said to respect the Sabbath, but Christians have declared Sunday to be the day of rest. Sunday is actually the first day of the week. The Sabbath is Sunday. God made the world and rested on the seventh day and declared it a Sabbath”. We talked some more, but the whole time I realized how little of God’s grace he knew and how little of the New Testament he knew. Not saying i had the answers to everything, but my heart cried out at the fact that he would deny fellowship with believers because one of the commandments according to him was not kept. 

Another thing that struck me was the fact that he was not able to accept grace. Why should God pay attention to people who crucified his son? He refused to have someone else take care of his sins and said he was responsible for the wrongs he has done. How could a man like that know so much about God and yet deny the hand that offers him freedom? 

The Old testament shouldn’t be disregarded, but it has been made obsolete, through the new covenant. “I will put my laws in tier minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their god, and they will be my people…For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” We are the ones who remember our sins and put ourselves in a prison. God offers much more than that. He offers you freedom through his son Jesus Christ. You don’t need to do good works, refurnish your life for him to accept you. He already accepted you when you recognized that you were a mess. You are the only one holding yourself back. Let go and take the hand extending to you.