Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)
DEVOTIONAL: Francis Collins, an American-physicist and engineer, and also the head of the Human Genome Project, wrote a book about his work called The Language of God. He writes that, through his work and study of the intricate details and specifics of the human body including genes and DNA, it is clear that the mark of God has been written all over us.
Speaker and author Louie Giglio would agree. During his nationwide tour with well-known Christian musician Chris Tomlin titled How Great is our God, Louie brought the American public’s attention to a very peculiar molecule in the human body: Laminin. Laminin is actually a protein adhesion molecule, meaning it is responsible for holding you together right now. It’s the rebar, the glue, which is literally holding all of your skin on, holding the linings of your organs on, and basically keeping you from being a pile of bones and flesh on the ground. If you’ve never “Googled” Laminin, I suggest you do so immediately. Pretty cool, huh? Right now, as you sit here, you have thousands of tiny crosses holding you together; it’s almost like God put His stamp on each of us.
When Jeremiah says “…and write it on their hearts,” I immediately thought about these current findings of science. It’s almost like this isn’t just figurative language, but rather that the law, language and essence of God actually is imprinted on the deepest and most detailed makings of our being. It is written on us. You and I are walking masterpieces of God’s love and creativity, beings so complicated and detailed that there literally is no other person in the universe exactly like us. No one.
And what does this God ask for in return? “Follow me,” He says. “Follow me.” He wants a free and personal relationship. He wants not only our trust and love, but our pain and hurt too. He wants it all.
I don’t know about you, but I say “amen” to that. After all, it’s who I am; it’s stamped, imprinted and written all over my being.
Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.