A Covenant of Faith

Greetings;

Wow! What a great day it was yesterday at ALife! Pastor Jonathan delivered a great word of life and the presence of God was wonderful among His people in the family of God. We have been anointed to speak words of life to others. We have been anointed speak words of freedom and life to the world!

We are receiving the blessings of God through the internal kingdom of life within our hearts. We are sons and daughters of God in the family of God and we were born to know Him and to reveal Him in and to the world in which we live. We were people of the kingdoms of the world, but now we are being made one as the people of God.

In the Old Covenant the people of God were known as the nation of Israel. Israel was not the result of God’s covenant with Moses. God’s covenant with Moses was the result of God’s covenant with Israel and God’s covenant with Israel was a further testimony of God’s covenant with Abraham. It was a covenant given by Melchizedek, not Aaron. The true Israel of God is not a testimony of the Law covenant of Moses, but the Grace covenant of Abraham. It was established through the line that evolved to become the Torah/Temple system of Moses and the nation of Israel, but given to Abraham by God with an intention of being revealed in its fullness in all the nations. What was natural had to die and be grafted into the eternal stump of Christ. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil had to be cut down and new life had to be found in the Tree of Life and Christ. That grafting in would be both the grafting of what was formerly not in covenant with God and the grafting in of what was once covenant, but refused to see that the greater covenant was one of grace and not law. Those who did not know the law of God had to recognize their death in Christ to be grafted into the grace found in Christ. Those who knew the law of God had to recognize that the law left them in death and they too had to be grafted into the grace of God in Christ. It was a covenant of Melchizedek and not Aaron. Paul confirmed this truth when writing to the Gentiles concerning his Jewish countryman and the salvation of all nations in Christ.

Romans 11:24-27 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob”. For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”

God’s covenant is not just with one nation, but with all nations that the kingdom of God might become the internal kingdom of the heart that consumes all the kingdoms of the world. It is the internal kingdom of God that makes us all one in Christ. All of Israel is not all of the natural nation of Israel, but all of those who are of the faith of Abraham. This includes the Jewish people descended from the natural nation of Israel, but also the people of every nation, tribe, and tongue upon the earth. Those who are blessed are those who of faith in Christ. This is not just for those who had the promises of God through the Torah/Temple system of Moses, but those who are the Truth/Spirit Body of Christ. The blessing cannot come by any natural means, but by the supernatural power of God’s grace in Christ.

Romans 4:9-15 Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised. For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

Faith happens when we hear God speak to our hearts. Faith works through love and it is always toward the one who spoke. Faith towards God comes by hearing God in our hearts. It results in actions on our part, but those actions are inspired by a revelation of God’s love in our hearts. We know that God loves us and thus we hear Him in our hearts. We respond with actions of love towards Him and towards who and what He loves. It is by the power of God’s grace that we are granted a right relationship with God in faith. We hear Him and we respond to His voice of love with the actions of our lives. The life that we live we live by faith towards Him in all things. It is a testimony of grace and the power of God at work in our lives. It is not a discipline of the flesh or a mere obedience to a ‘what to do’ code.

Romans 2: 28-29 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

God is at work in our hearts through His internal, eternal kingdom of life and peace in Christ. We are born to be loved by Him and when we receive a revelation of His love for us we cannot help but love Him and all that He loves. We are being transformed from the kingdoms of self to the kingdom of our Lord and Christ by His anointing within our hearts.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson