Christian comment with Isabel Stanley, member of the Local Ministry Team at Randwick Church

A COVENANT is an agreement: it may seem rather trivial like the one we had on our house that said we could not park a 'house on wheels' in the garden.

There are often covenants on houses and they are designed as safeguards: after all, who wants a dance hall in the garage next door?

Other covenants can be more solemn and represent an agreement between two parties, who must respect the conditions in that agreement.

They reflect the willingness of each side to abide by the undertakings they have given.

You could say marriage is a covenant: each partner promises to love and honour the other, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer.

It is when partners fail to keep these promises that a marriage begins to fall apart.

In the Old Testament we read of the covenant God made with his people, the Hebrews - a covenant they constantly broke.

So, in the end God sent his Son to make a new covenant, not just with the Hebrews, but with all people.

Christians believe that this covenant was sealed by the death and resurrection of Jesus, giving us the promise of eternal life.

Yet we often break our side of the bargain: we don’t seem able to stop ourselves doing wrong – sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ones.

Members of the Methodist Church have a “Covenant Service” each year to remind them of their promises to God.

It is a solemn reminder of our responsibilities; of doing what God wants, regardless of whether it is something we find congenial or something we find not to our taste.

It is a serious act of re-committing ourselves to God, of promising to do better, of trying to ensure we take more care of others than we do of ourselves, of doing God’s will, not ours.

The words in this service are not always a comfortable experience but do help us to recall what our life’s work should be.

We shall never be saints but we can aspire to follow the example of those who are saintly.