On the day you were born… you were thrown out into the open field… Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels… Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine. Ezekiel 16:4-8

This past month has been a time of weddings! A number of our friends and relatives have “tied the knot” and entered into a lifelong covenant of love and faithfulness. Each one has chosen someone special with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives, serving, encouraging, and building up one another until death do them part. Each time I attend a wedding I am reminded that God’s Word illustrates His relationship with us as a marriage covenant: Jehovah with Israel in the Old Testament, and Jesus Christ with the Church in the New Testament.

It’s not that God chose us because we were such a wonderful bride! In the graphic passage of Ezekiel quoted above, he likens us to a rejected baby thrown out in a field, bloodied and despised, awaiting certain death. But He intervened, and elected to love us, to rescue us and give us eternal life. He provided generously for us and helped us to grow. Then, amazingly, He entered into a marriage covenant with us, so that we might be His people and we might be His Beloved forever! Being married to another human being is privilege enough, but being married to the Creator of the universe is mind-blowing! Human marriages are only designed to last for this life, but the Lord’s covenant with us will last for all eternity! This is an incredible picture of God’s love and grace towards us.

And so, may you and I have our hearts warmed towards Jesus. He not only wants to save us and make us a child of God, He also wants to enter into an eternal covenant of love with us! May this thought be the driving force that spurs us on to live for Him. That we may love Him because He first loved us. And with what a love!

With grateful and humbled hearts,

Andrew “Monk” & Marianne “Tia” Nunn