Today’s reading is Hebrews 8

Tom writes:

Let me get this straight. God called a man - a pretty ordinary sort of man - and made ridiculously generous and long-lasting promises to him. Then the man messed up. But God passed these staggeringly generous and long-lasting promises on to that man’s son and then on to his sons until all these sons messed up so bad that they got themselves enslaved in Egypt. So God responded to this abject failure on the part of the sons (now called Israel) by walking them out of slavery in Egypt and then making even stronger and even more ridiculously generous promises to them (from the top of Mount Sinai). And then the house of Israel messed up. Again. And again. And again. And then God repeated his ridiculously generous promises over and over, again and again until one day the house of Israel had gone so far that these ridiculously generous and long-lasting promises were no longer tenable. So how did God respond?

He made new promises to them. Except these promises are not scaled-back, slightly-less-risky, minimising-potential-losses promises. No, these are so staggeringly, incredibly generous and so epically, gong-resoundingly long-lasting that they make the previous ones look pathetic by comparison. He makes himself our high priest. He takes his heart and gives it to us. He takes all of his being and places it at our disposal. He does this for us even though our track record is terrible and our future prospects are quite puny. He does it because that is who he is. Our God is the God of ridiculous generosity, of unflinching faithfulness, of relentless determination to do good to his earth. Let’s remember the jaw-dropping personality of our God. Let’s rejoice in it, cling to it, be staggered by it and worship him because of it. In fact I need to pop off and worship him right now.

Question for reflection

How does God respond to human failure?

Hebrews 8 - Monday 23rd September