Think for a moment about your deepest loyalty. Is it a person, place, or thing? Is the connection so strong, absolutely nothing could make you betray or walk away from it? People feel loyal to many things: institutions, marriages, family, ideals, their country, their church … what is it for you?

Today we are stepping into the “Way-back Machine” and traveling all the way back to the time of Noah and the great flood. There are many lessons in this passage, but I want to focus on our understanding of the word “covenant.” At its core, a covenant relationship expresses a connection so powerful, nothing could break it. It is a reciprocal promise, an unbreakable trust, an iron-clad commitment, and a loyalty so concrete, both parties can count on it indefinately .

Genesis 9 (Common English Bible)

^8-11 Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”

^12-16 God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.”

¹⁷ And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve set up between me and everything living on the Earth.”

After making the violent but necessary correction of flooding his creation, God starts humanity over again on the basis of a covenant. He makes an indelible promise that no matter how bad things get, he won’t destroy all life again. People might argue that we are living in bad times right now and deserve punishment, but our covenant God has promised not to destroy his creation, but to redeem it. Indeed, he went on to send his only Son for that very purpose. His rock-solid promises are just that: rock solid.

We don’t have anything in life that is as immovable as our God. Institutions will fail. People will let you down. Relationships change. Ideals waver and fade under pressure. Everything is dust in the wind … except God.

I hope that brings you comfort today. Our covenant God will never leave us or forsake us. There is nothing we can do that would separate us from his great love through Jesus Christ.

Romans 8 (Common English Bible)

³⁵ Who will separate us from Christ’s love? Will we be separated by trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?³⁶ As it is written,

We are being put to death all day long for your sake.
    We are treated like sheep for slaughter.

³⁷ But in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. ³⁸ I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers ³⁹ or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.

Nothing.

Even when we break the covenant with him, we can always return and come back. This is the way of repentance. True repentance restores the covenant, through the forgiveness of sins.

Have you walked away from your covenant God? Come home, rebel.

The Way Back by Hannah Cornish