: What is a covenant relationship?
Part one
The word covenant in Webster’s Dictionary is defined as a formal and binding agreement between
two or more people. They are promises between two people as God’s promises are to His children as written in the bible.
In Hebrews 8:10 Paul defines covenant from God’s perspective as “ For this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will imprint My laws upon their minds, even upon
their innermost thoughts and understanding, and engrave them upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. This is the same promise God gives to the gentile
people who God has grafted into His body because of the Jews unbelief by not believing that Jesus is the Son of God.
The first time covenant was mentioned in the bible was in Genesis 17:1-7 when God spoke to Abram and said
these words when he was ninety nine years old. “I am the Almighty God; walk and live habitually before me and
be perfect (blameless, wholehearted, complete and I will make my
covenant (solemn pledge) between me and you and will multiply you exceedingly.
Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, as for me, behold, my covenant (solemn pledge) is with you, and you shall
be the father of many nations. Nor shall your name any longer be Abram high, exalted father; but your name shall be Abraham
[father of a multitude], for I have made you the father of many nations. And I will make you extendedly fruitful and I will
make nations of you, and kings will come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendant after you throughout their
generations for an everlasting, solemn pledge, to be a God to you and to
your descendents after you.”
Paul the Apostle brings this interpretation a little clearer when he says this in Galatians 3:16. “Now
the promises (covenants, agreements) were decreed and made to Abraham and his Seed (his Offspring, his Heir). He [God] does
not say, and to seeds (descendants, heirs), as if referring to many persons, but, to your Seed (your Descendant, your Heir),
obviously referring to one individual, who is none other
than Christ (the Messiah).
Before Abraham had his encounter with God, he was called Abram meaning a man who had the capability to produce
and raise offspring and have a son. As you can see he was ninety nine years of age and if he was going to produce a son, he
needed a miracle encounter with God to bring this to pass. It was the miracle encounter that made him receive the power to
have this son who he called Isaac and therefore his name was changed to Abraham meaning a man who had a miracle encounter
with God and one who believed what He said and his capacity to have children was multiplied. When ever we co-operate
with God’s thinking our blessings are multiplied.
Genesis 15:6 tells us. “Abram believed trusted in relied on, remained steadfast to the lord;
and God counted it to him as
righteousness meaning he was in a right standing with God. The word for Isaac in the Hebrew concordance is laughter.
Scripture tells us that when God told Abraham that he was going to sire a son at his age, Sahara his wife laughed at the promise.
However, Abraham believed God and Isaac came into being. What started with a promise and a doubting attitude by Sahara became
the whole generation of Israelites who were God’s people. As Genesis goes on to tell us, Sarah’s doubts and lack
of patience on waiting for the promise caused her to influence her husband to sleep with her hand maiden and a son was born
who’s name was Ishmael. From Abraham’s loins came Isaac and Ishmael one born from God’s promise and the
other through man leaning towards his own understanding and doing something in his own strength. Now this is a very serious
thing to consider if; we do not want to be misled and not be able to covenant with God and receive our inheritance from him
as His children. This can happen when a born again believer does not have a passion and first love commitment to meditate
on God’s word day and night like scripture tells us. This causes one to not know what their covenant with God entails
and their whole life can be wasted on trivial pursuits that have no eternal purposes in their lives as far as God is concerned.
(I hope somebody is hearing me on this statement.)
We see here that, once Abraham had this miracle encounter take place of God rejuvenating his ninety nine
year old body, he then was capable of making a free will choice of having sex with any woman and planting his seed and a baby
could be born. He had the choice of waiting on God for the promise of Isaac being conceived by Sarah or he could plant his
seed in disobedience and produce something that God never ordained. We know from this one disobedient act a
whole generation of people came forth and that is why we have all the turmoil going on in Israel and Palestine. This is hard
to believe but, one bad decision and total chaos. Nothing has changed and we are reaping the same things by not coming into
agreement with God’s covenant to us.
Paul the Apostle tells us in Galatians 6:7-8. “Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God
will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts
being set aside. He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.
For
whatever a man sows that and that only is what he will reap. For he who
sows to his own flesh (lower nature, sensuality) will from the flesh reap decay and ruin and destruction, but he who sows
to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
God gives mankind the freedom to act and create life in many ways. He gives us the capacity to plan our own
destiny and equips and sets decrees in motion for man to accomplish great feats with a choice to do it God’s way or
man trying to do it his way. God says, let me now instruct you with a covenant I have made with you and as you allow the Holy
Ghost to instruct you in our covenant; you will do great things in my name and will fulfill your destiny in your arena of
life. Mankind has a built in mechanism put there by God during conception that; gives man a desire to reach for great heights
of fulfillment however; they must be interlocked with the creator of life to fulfill this purpose built in by God.
As a born again believer who is a child of God and wanting to be His ambassador to the weak and hurting people
who are held in bondage in many areas by Satan, we through our covenant with God are called to do the same signs and wonders
that Jesus did when He walked the earth. What a privilege and great trust God has in us as His children to be empowered and follow in our older brother
Jesus’ foot steps.
The word for covenant in the Hebrew and the Greek gives the connotation of becoming clean on the inside of our heart. God’s
promise to Abraham was a promise that can only came through Jesus, who was Abraham’s heir and descendent as Paul stated
and, He is the one that ushers us into God’s kingdom and only the Holy Ghost can motivate that life after we become
born again. All perception and discernment comes to us through receiving our righteous spiritual state from our Father God’s
D.N.A. at our second birth. That’s right; we who are born again have our Father’s D.N.A, in us with all of His
characteristics.
If you are born again; the next thing is for you to walk in obedience to Math. 6:33 which states. “Seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things in life you need will be given to you” Only the Holy Ghost can teach you how your covenant works and
it will take a total commitment on our part and comes by presenting our body as a living sacrifice with a hunger to meditate
on the word of God night and day. This has nothing to do with rules or obligation acts or trying to carry a certain standard
for living. A covenant with God is formed in our heart where the issues of life come from. When we walk in this covenant;
our behavior and obedience to the Holy Ghost’s leading will automatically fall into place.
Our covenant with God is fortified through a deep seated conviction of our eternal security as a born again
believer and having a sure conviction that we will see Jesus face to face when we leave this mortal body and be told “
well done thou good and faithful servant.” This can only happen if; we have a spiritual revelation of what
righteousness represents in us who are believers. Our true understanding of what righteousness means and how we are to flow
in it will determine as to us walking in our spirit or in the flesh. We said that covenant means that our hearts
become clean through our born again experience. Well, what does a clean heart represent? Let’s remember that the Holy
Ghost works from the inside out in our being. As we allow our heart to be influenced by God or the devil; and make covenant
with either one so shall our outward behavior be changed.
Now as I have stated countless times in many articles on the web site. The word righteousness means being
justified (blameless), innocent (free from evil), and holy (set apart from the world and able to walk in God’s
presence.) It’s very difficult at times to realize that God looks at us as blameless, innocent and holy in His sight
every day, because we have to deal with being tempted to look at our faults and failures as we walk with the Lord. As we hunger
and thirst after Him, the Holy Spirit reinforces our doubts of our permanent eternal security and favor that God wants to
lavish on us because; we are totally accepted by H Him as his children. It is us functioning in God’s Righteous
Spirit that will cause us to make agreement and function in our covenant with the Lord.
Our constantly being reminded by Him of how highly He esteems us; helps Him to search our heart and give
us a vision and a purpose for the calling He has put on our lives. As this takes place, we become more like Him in our characteristics
and temperament. As we experience righteousness, it acts as seasoning or a spice to our daily walk, just as
spices in our food enhance and create flavor to our palates. It makes us experience peace and joy in our walk with the Holy
Ghost and; it is acceptable and pleases God as He sees our maturing to know him better. It also makes our communication with
people a lot better, because of our higher self-esteem. Scripture tells us that,
Unless we are skilled and have come to understand what our
righteousness in Christ represents. We will continue to live as babes because we lack the skill of living in a righteousness
mentality with the mind of Christ.
Now please hear me on this
. Our righteous standing that
God our Father has imputed unto us has nothing to do with any thing we have ever done or anything we have to
do to earn this status. We became a new creation automatically when we became born again and we should have died to our old
way of trying to be good and live a good Christian life by trying to follow the Ten Commandments or some other rules that
we had set up for our lives. This is clearly stated in 11 Cor. 5:17 by Paul the Apostle.
When God the Father looks at us; He sees us the same as His first born son Jesus who came out of Mary’s
womb a born again believer because; He had His Father’s D.N.A. in Him. This is what entitled Jesus to live in a covenant
with God because He was in the family. His inheritance from His Father is the same as our inheritance from our Father because;
being born again from above; we are also in God’s family and we must have an inner witness of this by
the Holy Ghost.
Now being in the family; we must learn how to function with the characteristics of God our Father and let
Him instruct us as to what His traits are. If it says that our covenant tells us that we have a clean heart; we can not lean
towards our own understanding but; we must allow the Holy Ghost the time to persuade us that what we are hearing in our thought
life is coming from God.
In Matthew 17:1-6 it states. “Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led
them up on a high mountain by themselves. And His appearance underwent a change in their presence; and His face
shone clear and bright like the sun, and His clothing became as white as light.”
We see here that Peter, James and John who walked with more passion and commitment then the rest of the Apostles
were able to have a greater revelation of who Jesus was. Peter got so awed by the experience that, he said he wanted to build
three churches there and set up shop. While this took place a voice came out of heaven and said “This is my
beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”
What they saw was the righteous spirit of God in Jesus as Him wearing a white robe of righteousness.
This is the same robe we acquired on the day we became born again. Let focus on this fact so we can relate our lives with
Him and that being; Jesus with out God in Him was a mere man. However, Christ lived in Him which made him a
Son of God. Scripture tells us that we need to know this but not from a fleshly reasoning in our mind. Jesus was anointed
by the Holy Ghost and was God’s first born again child. Now; God has many sons and daughters.
This is what God told Abraham when he said he would be the father of many descendents. However, it only comes
through God’s first son who paved the way in a supernatural spiritual way. Our believing God was accounted to us as
a faith step to becoming a part of the family of God.
The good news of the gospel is very simple when we teach it with a peace and Holy Ghost explanation and don’t
try helping God out by hyping it up in any way. When we walk in a covenant spirit with the Holy Ghost it is described in Romans
14:17 by Paul like this. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy
Ghost.”
Again our righteousness is the same robe that Jesus wore which we inherited and only as we function in this
understanding and supernatural oneness with God; can we truly have covenant with Him.
Romans 13:14 tells us that, “we have to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and give no
indulgences to our fleshly nature to fulfill the lusts there of.” In the Greek Concordance this means that a
born again believer actually slips into a garment which is Jesus himself.
You must have a spiritual revelation from the Holy Ghost if you are going to rationally understand how this
is done. It’s like swimming underwater and while you’re under; your whole body is submerged with water particles
completely. This is how safe and secure we are in our relationship with God and nothing we can do can change this condition.
What happens; we do not stay umbilical corded to the Holy Ghost in our meditating on God’s word day
and night and the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy our security in Christ by dumping none covenant thoughts in our mind
and we live by fear and not by the faith of Jesus.
Our heart is clean the day we become born again however, it is the continual washing by the water of God’s
word as stated in Eph. 5:26 which keep us persuaded of our righteous position as God’s children which keeps us from
entanglements of fleshly action contrary to God’s ordained future for His children. This washing of our heart by the
water of the word is Jesus Christ Himself as we live in Him in our white righteous robe. This keeps us discerning spiritually
and walking in a sanctified state in complete oneness with the Holy Ghost.
From what I am hearing; I do not believe that the majority of the family of God has a clue of what it means
to be sanctified. Now this is very troubling and scary. Our covenant and how we learn about it is by us discerning
spiritually through our sanctified state by the Holy Ghost’s teaching us. Peter tells us in Peter 3:8 that, “We
need to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.” God’s grace (His unmerited divine
favor) is the only thing that can give us the true knowledge of how our covenant life works in unison with the voice of God.
When God’s grace is by passed in teaching bible doctrine; the only thing left are works of the flesh. It truly boils
down to being a legalist (obeying rules) verses being a person living by God’s grace. There is no in between
or compromise in obtaining spiritual growth with out God’s grace; and anything other then grace is contrary to Jesus
death on the cross and has no anointing or spiritual life on it.
Continued in part two.
