Covenant Keeping God
“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.” Deuteronomy 7:9
To fully appreciate this Scripture, we need to understand the power of a covenant which is different from a simple contract.
Covenants are a type of contract, but they do not work like a contract. They are a trust-based promise or pledge that relies on your integrity. While contracts are enforceable by the courts, covenants more often depend on your values.
In this regard, there are two kinds of covenants, one made between equals and the other made by two individuals whose resources and authority are vastly different, like between a King with authority and lots of money on the one hand and one of his subjects who is a poor person with limited resources on the other.
That’s the kind of covenant God makes with us, one that cannot be broken. Moses calls Him “the faithful God” and describes what He promises as a “covenant of love.” Only a loving Father who cares about you agrees to bless you. The Bible calls this grace. You are blessed because you are His child.
The first mention of the word love in the Bible is that of a Father’s love for his son: the father was Abraham, and the son was Isaac. God told Abraham that He wanted Him to present his son, his only son “whom you love” as a sacrifice.
God is faithful in keeping his covenant with His children, and our scripture above says for a thousand generations. If a generation is roughly 50 years, then 1000 generations would be for 50,000 years!
The point is that you can count on God to honour the promises of His Word. You can count on Him to always be there for you.
“God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfil?” Number 23:19