Good morning, Connect Friends, and happy weekend! I’ll start with a personal question of reflection. . . . “Who has betrayed you in the past?” … To whom have you entrusted yourself, your love, your service? You cared for them, and they absolutely betrayed you? … What did they say? What did they do? How did they breach that relationship with you?

I want you to go there _emotionally _with me, because this week in our “ESSENTIAL DOCTRINES OF THE FAITH SERIES” we will deal with the DOCTRINE of COVENANT. Often times in our walk with the Lord we absolutely neglect to look at things from God’s perspective. The truth is, you and I, WE have completely betrayed God. Recently we have looked at the story of Genesis. God made the heavens and the earth, and carefully prepared the earth for you and I to live on. God made our first parents, Adam and Eve, in His own image and likeness. God blessed them, God spoke to them, and God honored them. God gave them tremendous freedom – he cultivated a garden for them to live in. He said they could eat of any tree except one. He brought them together. He created marriage so they could be in love and have marital relations with intimacy and joy.

However, our “first parents” and every one of us since have absolutely, utterly, completely betrayed God with our sin. Put yourself in the position of God. If you had done all of this good. and then were betrayed in such a way, how would you respond? Here’s how God responded: He pursued, loved and established a COVENANT with his people. In fact he constantly upgraded that covenant, because his people did not meet their obligations. But those “upgrades of grace” were only expressions of His constant love, affection and absolute devotion to His people. Join us for Connect worship, Sunday March 7th right here: https://youtu.be/Rqh3dsC0tS0 , where we will discover “GOD’S COVENANT, GOD’S PURSUIT.”

Blessings in Our Covenantal God! Pastor Eric