Skip to main content

Exodus 2:23-25: Tied to be Fit

The three-legged race is always fun to watch at. Perhaps you have noticed that some seem to run it with ease while others trip over each other. I have seen dads tied to their kids who simply pick them up and run without breaking the tie. It is a lot of fun but you'll notice that the team that wins moves in sync with each other so that with every stride they are matching their partner. When you have two independently minded people, however, you see two people going nowhere other than to a pile-up on the ground.

This is not unlike covenants: the origins of the most common OT word for covenant, Berit[h], refers to being bound, tied, or shackled together, not unlike the three-legged race.

We in the Salvation Army are a covenanted people. Our covenants are important to us. They can certainly be one of our organisational strengths. General Clifton wrote that our covenants are one of the main ways in which the Lord chooses to provide opportunities for us to join him in the work for the salvation of the world. It is a sacred covenant through which the Lord binds Himself to us. 

Salvation Army soldiers pledge to uphold our doctrine and, among other things, abstain from all that can enslave the mind and body. Officers covenant to make soul-winning the primary focus of our lives. The Lord binds Himself to us in these covenants. As Christians we are all yoked together with Christ. Commissioner William Francis wrote that 'the key to upholding our sacred covenant is staying close to God, keeping faith with him.' This is significant and this relates very closely to the three-legged race.

Any of us who have ever been in a three-legged race will remember the challenges that this can hold when one tries to move at a different pace than another and I am sure I am not the only person who has fallen on the ground laughing as my partner and I stopped moving in unison: it is difficult to move, let alone win the race, when the one you are yoked together with is going in the other direction.

It is the same with our covenants. If we tie ourselves to YHWH in a sacred vow and do not follow Him, it is difficult to finish, let alone win the race and experience the victory with Christ. On the other hand, as we walk in step with each other; when, while bound, we put are arm around our partner and run together; when children lean on their parents and rely on their strength in the race, the race is easy and the child often moves even faster than if she were running on her own. As we remain faithful to our covenants and allow our Heavenly Father to put His arm around us we will find that through our covenants it is even easier to walk in step with our Lord. At times, often when things are most challenging as well, when look to Christ, indeed we will find that He is carrying us towards the finish line where we will celebrate that anticipated victory in Jesus.

This is what our covenants are like with the Lord. As we bind ourselves to Him with covenantal ties that won't be broken and as we continue to follow in proper covenants, the Lord's yoke is easy! And really, is there anything in life that we can accomplish on our own that isn't accomplished much more easily and effectively, when we were tied to the LORD?
More daily blogs at
More articles, sermons, and papers at
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hosanna! The Triumphal Entry into Holy Week (Matthew 21:1-11)

Today  is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is when we commemorate the Sunday before Jesus’ death. Jerusalem was occupied then, like it is now; now it is occupied by the Israelis, then it was occupied by the Romans. The Judeans in the first century didn’t like being occupied then any more than the Palestinians like it today. The Romans were harsh, not nearly as brutal as modern Israel, but harsh enough that the first century had their version of … (Remember the suicide bombers of the ‘70s and ‘80s?) …suicide bombers: the Sicarii (zealots), Judean terrorists / revolutionaries would walk into crowds with daggers looking for Romans to kill –. One of Jesus’ followers, Simon, was arguably a Sicarii or zealot.   Passover is the commemoration of ancient Israel’s birth as a nation. The Angel of Death passed over Egypt and the nations of Isreal and Judah were created through the Exodus. Passover, in the Roman period, was a time when many people of Judean descent descended upon Jerusalem. I ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Luke 24:38-34: Revelation of a King

James V, the King of Scotland used to go around the country disguised as a common person. That is because he wanted to meet the everyday people of the country not just the rich and powerful. He wanted to see how the normal people lived. One day he was dressed in very old clothes and was going by a place known as Cramond Brig, when he is attacked by robbers who don’t know who he is. There is a fierce struggle and he is nearly overcome when, at just the right moment, a poor farm worker - Jock Howieson - hears the commotion comes to the disguised king’s aid. Now Jock, the poor labourer, who works on this portion of the King’s land, Cramond Brig, unawares takes the undercover king home and gives him a dinner of broth and Jock - as the king is recouping – naturally asks the man who he is. The King responds ‘I’m a good man of Edinburgh.’ ‘And where do you live in that city and where do you work?’ ‘Well,’ says James, ‘I live at the palace and I work there too.’ ‘The palace, is it?...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lanterns (Matthew 25:1-13, Psalm 146)

  The topics I chose from our Lenten list for today are “God has rescued us from the Dominion of Darkness”; “He has Freed Us from the Power of Sin”; the Kingdom of God is at hand. Do we believe that? Do we live that?   In theology we use the term ‘prolepsis’ to refer to the time when the Kingdom of God begins, which is now, the time between the resurrection of Christ and His return at the eschaton. This is the time in which we are living and as Christians it is our responsibility to be willing instruments of God to display what it means that He has rescued us from the Dominion of Darkness; He has Freed Us from the Power of Sin, that the Kingdom of God is at hand. But do we even actually believe that He has already done this? And if He has why does it not seem that the Sin and Darkness still reign?   We know the parable of the bridesmaids (holy ones) in the Bible who needed to keep their lanterns lit – because lit lanterns were to be there when the Bridegroom Jesus returns...
Post a Comment
Read more