Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV). Covenant is one the words used in the Old Testament to describe the relationship between God and his people. It is a relationship initiated by God - what he has done and will do for his people because of his great love. God expects man to respond in the same kind of love. In this passage, Jeremiah tells the Israelites that God will make with them a new covenant, yet to come. God had given the law, written on stone tablets, to the ancestors of Israel and Judah. Many thought of this law as external to themselves. God intended this covenant, made with his ancient people, to be similar to the covenant between a husband and a wife. God had been a faithful and loving husband, but Israel had not been a faithful and loving wife. The real problem was an internal or "heart" problem. Jeremiah tells that the new relationship between God and his people will be intimate and personal. I know you remember the story of Pinocchio. It is a good illustration of this relationship. Pinocchio was a wooden marionette who came to life, but at first did not have his own conscience. Little Jiminy Cricket tried to function in that role, telling Pinocchio what to do and what not to do, but the problem was that Pinocchio would get away from him. "If only I could get inside of him," Jiminy Cricket would say, "then I could be with him all the time and help him." It is just this type of relationship that God wants with us. He wants to get inside our hearts and minds. He wants our love and desire to do his will just because He first loved us. He gave us His most precious gift, that of his son Jesus Christ. If we will let him get "inside our hearts"' we will respond not just by following the rules, but with the love that the new covenant intended. An interesting thing about flight in outer space is that you must "slow down in order to catch up." If two satellites, or spacecraft, desire to rendezvous, the one that is making an approach cannot accelerate. It must decelerate. If it increases its speed, the craft goes into a higher orbit, but if it decreases its speed, it will drop into a lower orbit and actually gain on the craft ahead of it. Most rendezvous are designed so that the approaching craft comes in from a higher orbit and "slows down, in order to catch up." As a result, it drops into place by decelerating. In a sense this is how we best discover God's will for our own life. If we struggle spiritually and emotionally to please God, we only make it hard on ourselves and will probably move further away from God's perfect will. The best way to serve God is to submit our lives to his control. The more we yield ourselves to his power, the more power is available to use for service. It's a case of "If you lose, you win; if you give in, you won't give out." Do you need to slow down a little today? Let Him catch up to you!