A Heart for the Shared Life

The Father restores His people and renews them within

Begin by reading Jeremiah 31:27–34 and Ezekiel 36:16–28.

If a family returns to its home, what will keep the old wounds from returning with it?

A change of place may bring relief. Yet people can carry the same dishonesty, resentment, and resistance into a new beginning. The relationships within the home need attention as surely as the home itself.

The prophets bring this deeper need before us. They speak to a covenant people whose unfaithfulness has disrupted their life in the land. Within that loss, the LORD promises restoration that reaches their hearts.

A covenant broken by the people

Generations after Moses, Israel has lived in the land under judges and kings. The kingdom has divided into Israel and Judah, and the people have repeatedly turned toward other gods and unjust conduct. Jeremiah speaks around the time of Judah’s fall; Ezekiel speaks among people carried into exile.

Exile means being displaced from one’s homeland. The passages connect the people’s scattering and loss with their unfaithfulness before God.

Jeremiah recalls the covenant made when the LORD brought their ancestors out of Egypt. He names their breaking of it. Ezekiel identifies bloodshed and idols among the acts through which they defiled the land.

Read that description beside the commands already encountered at Sinai. Worship and the treatment of human life have again come into view. The people have wounded the covenant life they were called to keep.

Their problem cannot be explained simply through a poor place to live. The land had been given to them, and their conduct within it had brought judgment.

The LORD promises to build again

Jeremiah speaks of God watching over Israel and Judah to build and plant, following the destruction and affliction they have experienced.

Then the LORD promises a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. A covenant is a binding relationship or commitment. We use renewed covenant to describe this promised restoration of relationship. Jeremiah calls it a new covenant and says it will differ from the covenant the people broke. Its newness must be heard alongside its promises of forgiveness, knowledge of God, and His instruction written in the heart.

Keep the named recipients before you. These words address Israel and Judah. The promise meets the history of the people whose covenant has been broken.

The LORD has not become indifferent to His family. He announces a future in which His relationship with them will reach more deeply into their lives.

His instruction written within

The LORD says:

“I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” — Jeremiah 31:33

Law here refers to God’s instruction. The promise brings it into the inward life of His people.

We can look back to Moses’ call for the words to be in the heart and for children to be taught their meaning. Jeremiah now records God’s promise to act within the people themselves.

The passage does not say that His instruction will become unnecessary. It describes that instruction as written in them. Their belonging and their inward response are brought together.

The LORD also promises that they will know Him, from the least to the greatest, and that He will forgive their wrongdoing. The renewed relationship includes knowledge of Him and mercy for the covenant failure.

The family’s future is held within His restoring action. The people need forgiveness, and they need the instruction to reach the place from which they choose how to live.

Restoration honours His name

Ezekiel describes the LORD’s concern for His holy name, which the people have dishonoured among the nations. Their conduct and exile have affected how His people—and therefore His name—are spoken of.

God promises to make His holiness known through what He does in them. He will gather them and bring them into their own land.

Notice the sequence of promises that follows. Gathering is accompanied by cleansing, a new heart, His Spirit within them, and faithful conduct.

The restoration concerns people and place together. The LORD addresses the life that will be lived in the land as He promises their return.

For our question about the family’s peace, this is significant. A restored home needs a restored people. God’s promise reaches beyond their surroundings to their willingness and ability to live in His way.

A responsive heart and the Spirit within

The LORD promises to remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. In this contrast, flesh describes a living, responsive heart rather than the hard heart represented by stone.

He also promises to put His Spirit within the people and cause them to walk in His statutes and practise His judgments (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

The inward gift has an outward direction. Their conduct is to become faithful to His instruction.

Read this beside the family life described in Leviticus: honest dealings, fair judgment, care for the vulnerable, correction without hatred, and love. These earlier passages help us recognise the kind of shared life that faithful conduct must reach.

The prophets do not offer only a call to try harder. They announce God’s own work of cleansing and renewal. We should receive the depth of that promise before reducing it to a few habits for getting along.

Belonging restored in a place to dwell

Ezekiel brings the promises together: the people will dwell in the land given to their ancestors, belong to the LORD, and know Him as their God (verse 28).

Jeremiah uses the same language of belonging alongside the instruction written in the heart. In both passages, the people’s renewed life is held within relationship with God.

This helps us understand why covenant formation concerns more than good behaviour considered on its own. The Father is restoring a people to live faithfully with Him. Their treatment of one another belongs within that restored life.

The promises join forgiveness, inward renewal, faithful conduct, and dwelling. God’s restoration reaches both the place of belonging and the people who will live there.

A hope that reaches the source of the wound

The earlier readings have shown how distrust, violence, deceit, and resentment disrupt life together. Instruction identifies the wrong and teaches a faithful way. Here, the LORD promises to address the heart that has resisted Him.

The question about a family living peacefully at home therefore reaches deeper than arranging its circumstances. The people themselves need to be formed for the life they are to share.

For our reflection, we can begin honestly. Do we want a relationship restored while resisting the change needed in our own conduct? Are we hoping for a new setting to solve what we still carry within?

Bring that need before the Father. The prophets teach us to seek His mercy and renewing work as we attend to His instruction. Hope rests in the God who restores, and the life He promises is a life of belonging and faithfulness.

Search the passages yourself

• What covenant failure does Jeremiah recall?
• With whom does the LORD promise the new covenant?
• What does He promise concerning His instruction, knowledge of Him, and forgiveness?
• What wrongdoing does Ezekiel identify before announcing restoration?
• How are gathering, cleansing, the heart, the Spirit, conduct, and dwelling joined in Ezekiel’s promise?

Continue reading: Luke 22:14–30 and John 13:1–17,21–35. Notice how Yeshua, also known as Jesus, speaks of the covenant and teaches His disciples to serve and love one another.

Read the passages: Jeremiah 31 · Ezekiel 36