Hebrews 8 Devotional

Written on the Heart

“For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.”Hebrews 8:10 (BSB)

Hebrews 8 states its main point plainly: believers have a high priest seated at God's right hand in heaven, serving in the true tabernacle that the Lord set up, not any human builder (8:1-2). The earthly tabernacle was a copy and shadow of the heavenly one (8:5).

Then the author quotes at length God's promise of a new covenant. The problem with the first covenant, God says, lay with the people, who did not remain faithful to it (8:8-9). So the new covenant does not hand out the law again. God promises to place his laws in his people's minds and write them on their hearts, to be their God, and to forgive their sins and never call them to mind again (8:10-12). Notice who does the work in every promise. God does. The change you need most is not one you must produce. He has pledged to make it, through the better covenant Jesus mediates (8:6). You can ask him for a heart that loves his will, knowing he has promised exactly that.

To think about: What part of obeying God have you been treating as your project alone, rather than something he has promised to work in you?