This year in worship, we are doing something different. We are slowing down and pulling back the curtain on how the Bible came to be and how it holds together as a living story of faith. Through eight sermon series, each with weekly handouts, we are building a shared resource; a binder for each family with tools to engage scripture more deeply, paying attention to context, genre, and the unfolding journey of the biblical story.

This week, I’ve been working through the Covenants series of our journey which we will engage in Lent. Doing so, I’ve been struck anew with the one-sidedness of God’s covenants with us.

From Adam forward, covenant is never a balanced exchange or a contract negotiated between equals. God binds God's self to humanity knowing the risk involved. God promises presence, faithfulness, and blessing while knowing we will falter, resist, misunderstand, and sometimes violently reshape the story to serve our own ends. Yet, again and again, God assumes the risk while we receive the gift of continued presence. (Granted, picking up the cross and denying ourselves isn't without its own dangers and hardships.)

Across the sweep of the covenants with Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David the pattern holds: God remains faithful knowing that we will not. God keeps choosing relationship over withdrawal, mercy over abandonment, and presence over retaliation. It's a story of divine persistence despite human unfaithfulness.

That pattern finds its fullest expression in Jesus. Covenant love, revealed in him, shows itself through through self-giving love and vulnerability. It absorbs betrayal. It meets violence without returning it. The authority of this love comes from the only place it can: pure, divine love.

We encounter this God in every season of life. A God whose faithfulness does not hinge upon our perfection, and whose love continues to stay bound to us in a world that often chooses power and control instead.

As I write this, news has reached me of a profound tragedy close to home. It's the kind of darkness that leaves words feeling thin and answers insufficient. In times like these, the only light that endures is steady, faithful, and rooted in love that will not let go.

My wish for you this week is that you will rest in the steadiness of a God who keeps taking the risk of staying present. Breathe in love that does not withdraw when the cost is high, and does not abandon us in the places where we feel most fragile. May that covenant love hold you gently, shape you faithfully, and quietly draw you toward life. That's the fiLLLed life.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa ​

P.S. If you would like access to these materials from this 8-series journey, you can find them HERE.​