Covenant of Grace – The Heartbeat behind Grace
Deut. 29:9-21 (NIV)  
    Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do. [10] All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God--your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, [11] together with your children and your wives, and the aliens living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. [12] You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, [13] to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [14] I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you [15] who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.
    [16] You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. [17] You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. [18] Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.
    [19] When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, "I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way." This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. [20] The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. [21] The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

Deut. 29:12-15 (NIV)  
    You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, [13] to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [14] I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you [15] who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.

Deut. 29:9, 20-21 (NIV)  
    Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do…The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.  The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

Deut. 29:13 (NLT)
     By entering into the covenant today, he will establish you as his people and confirm that he is your God, just as he promised you and as he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Genesis 15:9-10; 12, 17-18(NLT)
     The LORD told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”  So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side…As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him…After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses.  So the LORD made a covenant with Abram that day

1. God’s covenant to Abraham – Not only will I be torn to pieces if I don’t keep my promises, but I will also be torn to pieces if you don’t keep yours
Galatians 3:13 (NLT)
     But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.

Galatians 3:29 (NLT)  
    And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and now all the promises God gave to him belong to you.

2. The Covenant and Gospel of Grace will lead us to paradoxical obedience
Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more…John Newton

The covenant of grace makes possible a circumcised heart.  And what is a circumcised heart: A circumcised heart exists when our duty to God and our pleasure in God are joined together as one.  And remember, we don’t obey to get a changed heart; rather, our obedience is the result of the changed heart.  And because of the covenant of grace, we have a paradoxical obedience that desires to obey God out of thanksgiving, gratefulness, a desire to become more like Him.

3.  Consistently expose ourselves to worship, the word of God and communion to make us aware of our deepest longings and how God meets them
Conversion and salvation are continuous but their generating power comes out of our awareness and encounter with the Grace of Jesus transforming us…
Continue to fully grasp the depth of what it took for Jesus to be cut off and make possible a new heart, if that moves you, that is the beginning of a new heart, and obedience and duty will be what we desire.