Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the covenant nature of God. Throughout the Scriptures, God initiates covenant with His people: Adam, Noah, Abram, David, the nation of Israel. I think all of this says something about God’s nature, His heart, His essence. God seems deeply committed to the idea of covenant. It’s as if He’s going out of His way in Scripture to let us know that all these covenant stories point to the heart of a covenant God.
Gary Chapman writes about the difference between covenants and contracts. Contracts are temporal and they’re focused on services rendered. If you meet the terms of the contract, then I’ll pay you; if not, then failure to perform will cost you. Covenants, on the other hand, are permanent and selfless. The conditional “if / then” language of the contract is replaced by the unconditional promise in a covenant. “No matter what. I’ll never leave you nor forsake you. ‘Till death do us part.” That’s covenant.
We live in a contract world. But God calls His people to demonstrate covenant love, the kind of love He has first shown to us. The Hebrews had a word for this covenant love; kesed. In the Hebrew Scriptures, kesed is used often to describe the nature of God — His lovingkindness, His covenant loyalty, His faithful mercies which are new every morning. This kesed God — the covenant God — calls His people to embody this same kind of love, to not merely pay lip service to their commitment but to live deeply in light of it. The kesed God calls a kesed people.
This answers some of the pressing questions of our time. Why should God care if, for instance, our marriages falter? What difference does one more divorce really make in the grand scheme of things? Why does God care? The answer, I believe, lies in God’s covenant nature. God cares when covenant is violated because such a violation runs counter to His nature. When God enters into a covenant relationship, He is kesed. He is faithful; He keeps His end of the bargain; He is a covenant God. To disregard covenant as something meaningless and disposable is to minimize the essential character of the Almighty. That’s why God cares about covenant.
I write this on Valentine’s Day, a ridiculous holiday that has more to do with commerce and guilt than with real love. Valentine’s Day love is contract love. It’s “buy me something to prove that you care about me” love. What a sham. Real love — the kind of love that is represented in committed relationships — isn’t contract love. It’s covenant love. It’s commitment. It’s permanent. It’s kesed. It’s God.
May we love in the deep, abiding, kesed faithfulness of God.
May His love be the wellspring from which we live and move and have our very being.
And may we demonstrate God’s lovingkindness in a lost and dying world.
already & not yet 
Gotta disagree with your opinion of Valentine’s Day and this is coming from someone who has always deplored that “holiday” and someone who does not take part in that “holiday.”
“Buy me something to prove that you care about me” is not what it’s all about. It’s not all a sham. It can be seen as a day when someone does something nice for someone else, and that doesn’t even have to be romantic in nature. It’s my opinion that we shouldn’t need a special day for that but some people do. That can’t wholly be a bad thing.
Valentine’s Day can also actually be useful in bringing two people closer together. God Bless them if they can be nearer because of that help. I’d also bet that God has used Valentine’s Day to bring people together who He has planned to be together in life! It’s a small spark in something infinitely larger. It is lame yet I think there are positive aspects that can be recognized.