August, 2010

Dear friend in Christ,

As I sat before the Father, seeking what He wanted to bring to you from His Word, I had so many scriptures that kept coming before me. He wants you free! He wants you to walk in that overcoming victory that belongs to you because of the covenant you have with Him.

Ephesians 2:8-12 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

If you have made Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior, you are no longer a Gentile. The word Gentile means: people who don’t know God and people who are without a covenant and without hope in this world.

Now, we WERE Gentiles, but if you have made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, you are no longer a Gentile. We are the church! But we come from a Western mindset. I’m not talking about being a cowboy; I’m talking about our culture. We don’t think like Covenant people. We don’t have the mindset of the Eastern culture; or the Jewish people because of the fact that we have been raised in a Gentile environment for the most part.

The Covenant sacrifice of the Blood of Jesus took the Gentile believers who were far off from God and joined them together with the Jewish race in the New Covenant. When we made Jesus our Lord, we were GRAFTED in, to enjoy the covenants of promise through the New Covenant, and were included as HEIRS of all of God’s promises.

So why then isn’t the body of Christ, as a whole, seeing more of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit? Why aren’t we seeing more miracles? The Father showed me that the reason most Christians don’t experience this awesome manifestation is due to a lack of understanding concerning our rights and privileges. A lack of understanding the Bible, and all that belongs to us because of what Jesus did for us at Calvary.

The Book of Hebrews promises us that we have a better Covenant with better promises because of what Jesus did for us at Calvary. In order to understand how much better these promises are we must know and understand what the Old Covenant promises were. In Deuteronomy 28 we find very specific promises that God made to Abram and his seed; promises of health and well-being, blessing, prosperity, and victory.

These were very awesome promises, and it was hard for Abram to believe God actually wanted to do these things for him, however, in the Book of Genesis chapter 15, we read how God mad a blood agreement with him in order to convince Abram once and for all that He meant what He said.

Abram understood what a covenant was and how to prepare to enter into a covenant. He knew that a blood covenant signified an absolute and unbreakable guarantee of someone’s word. Nothing short of a blood agreement could have convinced him of God’s desire to bless him. By cutting this covenant with Abram, God established a love relationship with him that could never be broken without the penalty of death.

When two families made covenant together they gave to one another everything they had, and all they represented. They were no longer two, but one. Families bound themselves together in blood agreements in order to fill in the gaps that were created by each other’s weaknesses and needs. Together they were both strong.

In Genesis chapter 17 we learn that the circumcision of the flesh was to be a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham. Those who failed to obey and remained uncircumcised were guilty of breaking the covenant and were considered outcasts. When God laid out the terms of the covenant blessings, He laid out the terms of the Covenant that Abraham was to keep. The major requirement and condition God spoke to Abraham and his seed for them to inherit the covenant blessings was obedience.

The circumcision of the flesh in the Old Covenant is a foreshadowing of the circumcision which takes place in the heart and spirit of the seed of Abraham under the New Covenant. And by making covenant with Abram, God proved that He wanted to exchange His strength, His weapons, and His authority with Abram, and He proved that He wanted to bless him for a thousand generations.

Romans 4:21 tells us that Abram truly got the message. He became “fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was well able to perform”, and his life was never the same again. Even his named changed to Abraham, which means, “father of many nations.”

And while God was binding Himself to Abraham on earth, He was also making that same covenant with Jesus in heaven. Galatians 3, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith NOT, and to seeds as of many; but as of ONE, and to THY SEED, which is Christ.” Abraham was the earthly representative and Jesus was the heavenly representative. That covenant was not only between God and Abraham, but between God and Jesus. And by making covenant with Jesus, His only begotten Son, God was making covenant with someone He KNEW would never break any of it and thereby, He was able to remove the need for a curse.

So, how does this apply to you and me? Galatians 3:29 is the binding tie: “IF you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” We are the unborn generations who looked on as God cut that covenant with Abram as the father of our covenant of faith. And Romans 8:17 calls us “joint heirs” with Christ. Through the New Covenant, God has promised to care for you and me the same way He loves and cares for Jesus. And our Covenant is better than the old. Even though you and I have been guilty of breaking the terms of our Covenant, we have been freed from the penalty.

Jesus Christ is our sacrificial lamb, and He established our covenant with God. His own blood was shed and we have a new and living way to approach God. The very blood of Jesus has made the way for you and me to have a covenant relationship with the Father. And our Covenant with God is a Covenant of peace. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”

I pray God's blessing upon your lives and all that you put your hands to. If you don’t know the Lord as your personal Savior, or you would like to have a deeper relationship with the Father, you can send me a personal note, or you can email me at pastor@streamsoflifechurch.com, and I will personally write you back and pray with you.

Love,

Paula


P.S. I want to thank my Internet listening congregation located in the United States, France, Italy, Canada, China, Latvia, the Republic of Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, Africa, Poland, Australia, Kenya, Zambia, India, and Uganda.

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