1 Corinthians 12:1-3 What Paul was really saying

Trying to have anything to do with the New Covenant apart from the Holy Spirit is bonkers. Looking at the Corinthian context..... Like it or lump it , we are going woowoo ( as our 5 sense bound brain would call it....

Churchplants - Maintaining and Sponsoring Pyramid Leaders in your locality!!!!!

This open letter (below) looks great in terms of current churches. In that context it's a great letter.
I mean, think in terms of a prisoner concentration camp curate, a man working in incredibly negative circumstances to bring people forth in faith.
But in Biblical terms it's a disaster........read it first

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An Open Letter to Pastors (Hint: You’ll Want to Read This One)By Brian Dodd      Original here
I write this post with tears literally in my eyes. Charles Spurgeon once said, “Whenever God means to make a man great, He always breaks him in pieces first.”
As a member of INJOY Stewardship Solutions, I get to have personal one-on-one conversations with over 1,000 pastors each year. I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who stand in our pulpits each and every Sunday. There are several things I want to say to pastors as someone who sits in your church each week.
I respect your competence. You are smart and the world’s best communicators. You have a supernatural ability to take a passage of biblical text and pull out the truths that bring us comfort and guide us toward right living.
I respect your patience and kindness. You love us unconditionally in spite of our bad advise on how you should preach or lead the church.
I respect your bravery. You do not shy away from tough passages which are not well-received in a politically correct culture.
I respect your diligence. There are countless hard choices you are forced to constantly make.
I respect your preparation. Every seven days you give us a fresh word from God.
I respect your family. You live in a fishbowl and have to appear perfect.
I respect your generosity. You love people so much you are willing to earn far below the level of your education so we can know God.
I respect your compassion. Your knees are callused as a result of constantly praying for us.
I respect your commitment to Jesus and His mission. Because you love Him so much you answered the call to go into an incredibly unstable profession.
I respect your vision. You see those in your church as what they could be, not just what they currently are.
I respect you for being by my side. Every significant moment of my life—salvation, baptism, wedding, hospitals, baby dedications, funerals. You were there.
And I respect what no one sees. I respect the fact that you were broken to pieces by God. Personal Heartbreak. Sadness. Doubt. Disappointment. Devastation. Hurt Feelings. Sleepless Nights. Unspeakable Pain. You don’t talk about this part of your journey much. But one of the main reasons God uses you so effectively is you have been broken to pieces for His glory and our benefit and did not quit. You will finish this race.
And for this I say “Thank You.” And I and countless others will thank you every day for eternity because you were willing to pay a personal price others did not. And because you paid that price, I and others I love met Jesus.
You may not think anyone notices the price you paid. But this is not true. You are loved and respected. And I just want to say one more time to you and your spouse, “Thank You.”

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Chris Welch This open letter looks great in terms of current churches. In that context it's a great letter.
I mean, think in terms of a prisoner concentration camp curate, a man working in incredibly negative circumstances to bring people forth in faith.
But in Biblical terms it's a disaster.......

In terms of the simple gospel obeying Jesus commands
Go into all the world and and preach the Kingdom of God saying
Repent be baptised (totally Greek =dunking) and be likewise dunked totally in the Holy Spirit
so you now have a normal congregation in Jesus terms
where all know Jesus from the least to the greatest, where the New Covenant is beginning to be written with a grace pen circumcisong the human heart, where no one grabs his or her neighbour saying know the Lord for they all know Him as we did when we were birthed into the Jesus Move knowing nothing in the 70s, except for some awful Methodist behaviour in my case which I had to hurriedly ditch in the nearest waste bin.
In Biblical terms where there are elders, and only there because they have been round the Throne a tad longer....until the others learn....because the local church is hothousing them them through 1 Corinthians 12-14 behaviour and Ephesians 4 behaviours.
No in real Christianity terms, the sort we were in nearly 50 years ago this letter is a complete disaster. It describes pyramid behaviour at its worst and doesn't have any Biblical backing whatsoever. Maybe Old Testament Rabbi in a synagogue type backing, but it is nothing to do with what Jesus was building on earth in the gospels nor from heaven in Acts and the letters.
SO NO......THIS MUST BE EXPRESSED IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE WAY. IT IS NOW 2016 AND THE WESTERN CHURCH IS IN OPEN REBELLION WITH HER HEAD, ONLY A TAD WARMER THAN THE CATHOLIC WING.
Brokenness is not a PRIZE of specialness....it's what happens when a person actually does what is on the tinlid and comes into the Kingdom properly in a local church that lives in Galatians 2.20 from GROUND ZERO.

Apostolic Succession?

I am sure Elaine and Adrian won't mind me passing this on, because it is just what this order believe. Their order is an offshoot of Catholicism which nevertheless believes in apostolic succession, in the Papal form, which means the passing of Church authority down by recognition and ceremony since St Peter in one unbroken line.
Actually, this has a certain essence to it, certainly more than an evangelical would say, since evangelicals don't believe in apostles anyway, Without baptism in the Spirit and any concept of anointing why would they?
But here is why it is a fallacy. For example if we made it a Law that everybody in leadership had to have a connection by "zapping" going back to whoever zapped Kathryn Kuhlman, then down through Benny Hinn, to all the people he has zapped.
In genuine Holy Spirit infection terms, something like this did happen in the Toronto blessing. Randy Clark is in the picture somewhere.
But go back to the very first real "commendation we have", Jesus to Peter's confession...."Hey....flesh and blood did not reveal this, but my Father in heaven."
What was the confession?
The Divine realisation that this 'ere carpenter feller, was actually Divine....had no natural father, had come from the Father, was literally God come in the flesh.
This is spiritually discerned. This is in fact our way out.
That's why believing on Jesus saves us. It says there is something else in the Universe which came here and can remove the Adamic curse off us.
But here's the thing.....the Apostolic Word, the apostolic seed, is that we receive that same life without human father, and NOT become two of us.....rattling around in our one tin.....
Romans 6 says.....we died. There is only ONE LEFT.
THIS is the apostolic Word...this same God coming without human father in our flesh.
Jesus clearly states to the disciples who were worried some others were in a separate group....
Nobody who is for me will end up separated.....
WHY? Because the joining is in the Spirit. Whatever God does to circumcise your heart immediately joins you to people who have experienced the same. You don't need club membership. YOU KNOW HIM who is from the beginning. YOU ARE ONE with all those who LIVE FROM the ONE.
Many leftbrainers have searched deeply into things. But try living alongside them. They actually havent been circumcised yet.
When the Body lives happily side by side....then we know the New Covenant has really been formed in us. We can show each other the scars.
Jesus said "Come with Us."
He also said confidently....I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
If you abide....in My Word....you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.
Many abide in their leftbrains in a book. Jesus said Come live with us.
And sure enough , their very failure became the Truth that the apostles needed to be totally free.
The Pope hates this talk. The Black Pope hates this talk. Because it destroys a human line of authority. The new apostolic networks are just like the Pope. If you cannot reference YWAM, or Toronto, or Bethel, or John and Carol John Arnott you are stuffed.
But this simply means they need more eyesalve to be able to see Jesus in us as us. That is the only reference you will ever need, but try telling the whole Catholic order, or the subsection which Elaine and Adrian are in?

He's Always Home - Ralph Harris

When you believe in Jesus, He brings all that He is to you—perfect love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—not eventually, not occasionally, not fractionally (“Sorry, but I’m holding a little bit of myself back.”) but all the way, at all times, at every moment, in every situation. Right now. He is the Treasure you’ve been looking for, He is the Reward for which you long, He is the Performer you’d like to be. And He is in you. Jesus is the Favor you want, the Success you were made for, and the Glory now in you.

If just now you’re suffering or enduring hardship, avoid the temptation to work up more fleshly strength (you’re already exhausted), and beware the thoughts that assign you to the failed scrapheap of humanity. That’s a lie. You were made for Jesus, and for Him with you. His glory, the incredible evidence that He lives within you, is best seen through suffering, most obvious in calamity, and most triumphant in hardship. I know.

So I talk with Him—sometimes I talk at Him more than I talk with Him—and He doesn’t mind. He knows that He’s my best friend, and He’s not threatened by my struggles. Right? He’s got quite a history with struggles, so I tell Him about my troubles, I talk with Him about my longings—even the fleshly, ugly ones—and the crazy things that go on in me. He knows that I weary of feeling the inside struggle that goes on between the Spirit and flesh, confusing me as to what to do.

And because I’m chatting at Him, whether silently or audibly, it equals what the Bible calls “offering myself to God.” The offering to God is not to “God out there,” or to “God, who will meet me over there,” when I finally make it or when I finally arrive. No. My offering is to “God in here” now, to God who has arrived in me.

The old way of offering our self to God, the Former Covenant way, was to think of yourself as separate from God, who would lead you because He was ahead of you or “over there.” He had to induce you to come after Him. The pressure was on you to follow, and to keep offering to follow. The New Covenant way of offering our self to God is to believe what God knows is true: “Jesus, you and I are together now; you’re in me. I don’t have to look for you over there, or just up ahead, because now you’re in here all the time. You don’t take vacations, and you don’t run off or find a better place to live. You’re being yourself with me in here, all the time. You and I are at home together.” How good is that?

Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. (Those desires are not like you. They’re not your desires.) 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Italics mine.)

And where is that grace centered? Where is that at home? In you and in me.

So offer yourself to Jesus. And where is He? That’s where you make the offering—to the inside, to Jesus who has made you His home. Listen for Him and look for Him there.

He’s great company, and He’s always home.
(This is a transcript of the video, “He’s Always Home,” and is for those who might rather read than watch. To see the video, click http://youtu.be/4IhuxfXrZG4. You may also subscribe to these regular videos at that link.)

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Covenant Series P2: The Two Covenants by Daniel Yordy

The PDF and Audio can be downloaded here

 
The whole book can be ordered here

Our Bible contains two covenants, the Old Covenant (Testament), and the New Covenant (Testament). A covenant is like a contract – a binding agreement between two parties. The difference is that a covenant is much more intimate than a contract and a matter of life or death. Three books of the New Testament are primarily concerned with the two covenants, what they mean, and the difference between them: Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. Although other books of the New Testament also contribute, these three are the foundation of the New Covenant, that is, the contract that we signed with God and He with us. Our lives are bound by that New Contract – as is God’s.
2. The Two Covenants

Our Bible contains two covenants, the Old Covenant (Testament), and the New Covenant (Testament). A covenant is like a contract – a binding agreement between two parties. The difference is that a covenant is much more intimate than a contract and a matter of life or death.
Three books of the New Testament are primarily concerned with the two covenants, what they mean, and the difference between them: Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. Although other books of the New Testament also contribute, these three are the foundation of the New Covenant, that is, the contract that we signed with God and He with us. Our lives are bound by that New Contract – as is God’s.
Here is the first part of one of many of Paul’s arguments and comparisons between the two covenants. Many Christians do not realize that the New Testament says a lot about both covenants, what they mean, and how they relate together.
“Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants . . .” Galatians 4:21-24
Let’s begin with the old. However, none of the apostles ever discussed the Old Covenant without contrasting it with the New Covenant. We also are bound by their example. We cannot study the Old simply by perusing the books of the Old Testament. The only way the Old Covenant can be understood is to see it through the New, that is through Christ.
Paul makes that requirement clear in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16. “But their (the people of the Old Covenant) minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
This requirement is clear, and always true. The moment a person steps aside from Christ to “study” the Old Testament, that veil of blindness comes upon his understanding.
God entered into a covenant with the children of Israel on Mt. Sinai. The terms of that covenant are simple and clear. They are best seen in Deuteronomy, chapters 5-8.
Moses said, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb (Mt. Sinai).” 5:2
A contract is very simple. Two parties sign an agreement together, let’s say Bill and Joe. Bill agrees to build a porch for Joe on Joe’s specifications. Joe agrees to pay Bill a certain amount of money AND to make it clear to Bill what his specifications are. Joe contributes his part – the specs for the job. Bill contributes his part, the work of constructing the porch by those specs. When the work of the contract is completed, both parties are rewarded. Bill receives payment in full from Joe, and drives off to enjoy what that payment can buy. Joe takes ownership of his new porch and throws a barbecue for his friends to celebrate.
Now, what if Bill refuses to complete his side of the agreement? Let’s say he uses Joe’s money to buy the materials, then builds half the porch, but his way, not Joe’s, then leaves the job unfinished and a mess. Bill has broken his side of the agreement. Joe, therefore, will not keep his side of the agreement, but rather, will go after Bill to extract back from him all that Joe has lost – and more. On the other hand, if Bill fulfills all of his part of the agreement to full measure, but Joe refuses to pay, then Bill is thrust into a great difficulty. He has spent much time and now has nothing with which to feed his family. He must take Joe before a court of law and expend much more effort and grief to get his due with a real possibility that he will end up with nothing.
Compare these two paragraphs. It is clear that when the contract is kept, everyone is happy and blessed. It is also clear that if either party fails to keep his side of the contract, misery and ruin are the only results.
This scenario is clearly the Covenant that God entered into with the children of Israel on Mt. Sinai.
God gave the specifications of exactly what He wanted Israel to do for Him. 5:1 – “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I (Moses) speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them.” 6:17-18 “You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, and His statues which He has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord . . .”
The children of Israel voiced their agreement in 5:27. “You (Moses) go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say, and tell us all that the Lord our God says to you, and we will hear and do it.” A better rendition of their statement is found in Exodus 19: “All that the Lord says we will do.”
Now, the contract had to be signed. God signed His name by the blood of the sacrificial lamb offered in the consecration of the tabernacle of Moses, as the Shekinah glory of God appeared. The children of Israel signed their name by the rite of circumcision.
Just as Joe, in our example, agreed to pay Bill a certain sum if he kept his side of the contract, to build the porch according to Joe’s specifications, so God agreed to pay the children of Israel a certain sum if they kept their side of the agreement.
Here is the payment, repeated over and over. 5:33 “. . . that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.” 6:18 “. . . that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the Lord swore to your fathers.”
Simply put, God agreed to pay the Israelites three things if they kept their side of the covenant: long life, blessing, and the land of promise. On the other hand, there are clearly two sides in this contract, blessing if Israel kept their side of the agreement, and cursing if they did not. In Galatians 3:10 Paul quotes from Deuteronomy 27:26 concerning this curse: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”
This curse is absolute. Paul says, “As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.”
This is different from the simpler contract between Joe and Bill. Bill did not agree to come under incredible cursing and affliction, horror and waste, if he failed to keep his side of the agreement. If Bill did not do all that Joe required of him, then Joe was limited to what he could take from Bill within the scope of the agreement.
Not so with the Old Covenant.
The specifics of the curse that sits upon all those who attempt to relate with God by the terms of the Old Covenant are found in Deuteronomy 28:15-68. There is no horror story ever written, nor nightmare ever dreamed worse than this curse God pronounced upon ALL who come to Him on the basis of the Old Covenant.
Notice the requirements of the Old Agreement. “ALL that the Lord says we will do.” “Continue in ALL THINGS which are written.”
Did Israel keep their side of the agreement? NO!
Did one person in Israel keep his side of the agreement? NO!
Moses did not. David did not. Isaiah did not. Israel did not.
One half of the foundation upon which the Apostles built the New Covenant in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews is this utter failure of Israel to keep their side of the agreement. Let me give you an example. Paul quotes these words from David in Romans 4 as an essential part of the foundation for the New Covenant Paul was describing. “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven; and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”
Let’s rephrase what David is saying, “It’s a good thing God doesn’t keep His side of the Old Covenant, because we sure can’t keep our side. If God kept His side of the agreement, we would all be toast. I’m so glad God does not actually keep His promises (of cursing) in the terms of the Old Covenant.”
Now in Galatians 3, Paul pulls in a statement of Moses in Leviticus 18:5 to set as the extreme CONTRAST between the Old Covenant and the New. “You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man DOES, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.” The New Covenant is 100% opposed to the Old Covenant. There is no agreement between the two from a human point of view. Here is the New: “The just shall live by faith.”
Paul makes it clear in Romans 3 and 7 and in Galatians that it does no good to keep most of the law. It does no good to keep 99.99999% of the law. James says it this way in 2:10-11 “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ said also, ‘Do not kill.’ Now if you commit no adultery, yet if you kill, you are become a transgressor of the law.”
To fail in one point of the law is to break the entire covenant.
Let’s be specific on what that means. Let’s pick a godly, anointed man of the Old Testament. Isaiah would be a good choice. Here is a good man, with a true heart. All of his life he seeks God, to know Him and to walk in His ways. God opens to him the glories of His kingdom and the revelation of Christ like no other Old Testament saint could see. His testimony to the eyes of man is impeccable. He is a shining light of all that God meant in the Old Testament. Or is he?
You see, once, when Isaiah was 16 (we are assuming here to make clear the terms of the Old Covenant), he saw his friend wearing a brand-new robe. Isaiah had never had anything but hand-me-downs all his life. He looked at that brand new robe and wanted it for himself. He spent an afternoon planning how he could get his hands on it. No, he did not follow through. But for one afternoon, during his teenage years, Isaiah coveted, he broke the tenth commandment. Let us assume, for the point of argument, that all the entire rest of his life, Isaiah kept the law of Moses to perfection.
That afternoon of his sixteenth year, Isaiah broke the covenant he had entered into with God when he was circumcised as a little boy. Isaiah was a covenant-breaker and now could expect nothing from God except all the ramifications of the curse laid out in Deuteronomy 28.
Now, before you cry, “No way,” consider that it is this exact point that Paul lays out oh so very carefully in both Romans and Galatians as the FOUNDATION of the New Covenant.
Now we come to the beginning of Paul’s argument in the book of Romans.  3:9 “. . . we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks (all gentiles) that they are ALL under sin.” 3:19-20 “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Paul’s argument about God’s purpose for the Old Covenant through both Romans and Galatians is fantastic and almost too much to believe. Yet it is upon this argument of Paul that the entire New Covenant is built.
God gave the terms of the Old Covenant to the children of Israel for the sole purpose that, knowing they would break their side of the terms of that Covenant, they would thus pass under, in its entirety, the curse of that covenant spoken by God in Deuteronomy 28.
Because this claim of Paul is so radical and so beyond human reasoning hardly anyone takes it seriously. Let us not be among those who do not.
Paul claims that God’s entire purpose for the Old Covenant was to bring, not just the Jews, but all of mankind under the curse of God, guilty before Him.
And so, appropriately, the Old Covenant ends with a curse, that is, the final single word of the Old Testament is the word “curse.” “Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
But the Old Covenant does not end there, for the Lord Jesus Christ makes it much, much worse.
Here is what He says in Matthew 5:18 “For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
Do you see how terrible these words of Jesus are? The terms of the covenant are binding and cannot be set aside. David can talk all he wants about how nice it is when God does not deal with a man according to the terms of that covenant. Jesus says it’s no good. Every jot and every tittle of that agreement must be pursued until its very end.
Not one descendant of Israel ever kept his side of the contract, not then, not now. Therefore, every element of Deuteronomy 28:15-68 must come upon, not only all Jews, but all humanity, as Paul so ably argues in Romans 1-3.
The curse of the law MUST be fulfilled. No one can escape.
Do you see the spirit of hatred flowing out of those who, in our day, would seek to place the Jews of today back under any part of the Old Testament? Every single person who attempts to relate with God under the terms of the Old Covenant must be brought through torment into death. To apply any part of the Old Testament to any Jew in today’s world is true anti-Semitism. It is to condemn them to death and to all the curse of God.
Thank God that the terms of the Old Covenant are not its heart. Thank God that hidden in the depths of the Old Testament, hidden inside the agreement between God and the children of Israel through Moses, is a promise of something new. Thank God that there was a man with the seeing and anointing of the Apostle Paul and his protégé, the writer of Hebrews, that were able to seek out that “needle in a haystack.” To set aside all the terrible pronouncements of the Old Covenant, the binding requirements that could not be kept, the curse, the death, and to find a phrase here and there, a part of a verse here, a tucked away handful of words there, and to discover the glorious revelation of Christ, to discover the New Covenant written all through the fabric of the Old.
Yes, Jeremiah did speak of the New Covenant that God would make with those same children of Israel. But it was Moses who placed the heart of that New Covenant right there inside the Old.
Deuteronomy 18:15-19 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’ “And the LORD said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.”
And so, right from the start, even as the initial terms of the Old Covenant were being hammered out on the slopes of Mt. Sinai, God had spoken something entirely different, something the children of Israel did not know about until almost 40 years later.
The writer of Hebrews wrote his argument, his contention for the New Covenant against the Old, specifically to the Jewish people scattered across the earth. The timing of the book of Hebrews is important.
In AD 64, the Jews walked out of Paul’s house in Rome in a final rejection of God’s covenant with them – the closing of the book of Acts. We will look a bit more closely at that later.  The book of Hebrews is penned in AD 65. Paul and Peter are killed by Nero’s orders in AD 67. Jerusalem is destroyed in the bloodiest orgy of self-slaughter in the history of man, Jew killing Jew, the finality of the curse of the Old Covenant, in AD 70. Before that happened, every single one of the disciples of Jesus save John, and many of those followers of Jesus named in the New Testament, including Luke, who had just finished writing the book of Acts, have been martyred. All of this in the space of 6 short years.
The writer of Hebrews takes the words God spoke to Moses on the slopes of Mt. Sinai, right in the middle of the terms of agreement between God and the children of Israel and makes those words the birthing of the reality of God into the world.
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” Hebrews 1:1-4
A massive shift has taken place for ALL who want to have any kind of relationship with God, whether Jew or Gentile. Through the Old Covenant, God spoke through Moses, through Isaiah, through David, through many different people in many different ways. Now, in our day, God speaks by His Son, God speaks by Christ.
As Moses said, “Hear Him!”
At the moment that God began to speak through Christ, ALL other voices ceased. To now read Moses apart from Christ, as Paul so clearly says in 2 Corinthians 3, is blindness and death.
Christ IS God speaking. “In the beginning was the Word.”
And so the real terms of the Old Covenant, the agreement God entered into with the children of Israel through Moses, had nothing to do, really, with the ability or the inability of the natural Jews to obey the terms of that covenant. Paul made it 100% clear that they did not do so. Rather, the real terms of the Old Covenant are this: “When Christ comes, He is God speaking to you, HEAR HIM! And each individual person among you, among the children of Israel, who does not hear Christ, is cut off from Israel and has no part in the promises of God.”
Let’s return, now, to this most horrifying of things that Jesus said, “. . . one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
The curse of the law CANNOT be escaped. No Jew will ever escape that curse. No Gentile will ever escape that curse. All are under its weight. All will suffer its horror. There is no other possibility.
Except one.
And oh, I would that all Christians, all Jews, all mankind would learn and take seriously the specific contrasts between the two covenants that Paul and the writer of Hebrews lay out side by side, hoping against hope that people will believe what they say.
Galatians 3:13 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) . . .”
The Lord Jesus Christ became the curse of God upon all mankind. The cross is the fulfillment of every jot and every tittle of the Old Covenant. There is the curse, there is the death, there is the end.
But the cross of Christ is very large. It is larger than all the children of Israel, it is larger than all the earth, it is larger than all of mankind.
In the cross of Christ every single human being descended from Adam DIED. We all died under the curse of God; we all died BECAUSE OF the Old Covenant. That Old Covenant cursed us and condemned us to death. Our death was cursed; our death was grisly and horrible.
And our death is finished.
“It is finished.” In those words of Jesus as He died, are found the fulfillment of every jot and every tittle of that covenant that no human being could ever keep, especially the Jews.


Thus we come to the second covenant, to the New Covenant in His blood.
It is not my purpose in this chapter to explore the extent of that New Covenant. Rather, my purpose is to set the two covenants in contrast to each other in the way the God does through Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, and scattered here and there through the other books of the New Testament, and especially in the book of Revelation. This is a contrast that was once understood clearly by most true Christians, but that, in our day, has been almost entirely lost.
Let’s begin with the strongest things God says in the New Testament about the terms of the Old Covenant, that agreement between God and the children of Israel through Moses on the slopes of Mt. Sinai.
Colossians 2:14 “Having wiped out the handwriting (the certificate of debt) of requirements that was AGAINST us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
The requirements that we could not keep, that ministry of death, as Paul calls it in 2 Corinthians 3, the Ten Commandments, all the ordinances spoken by God through Moses and written down in the Old Testament, ALL OF IT, was nailed to the cross of Christ.
The Old Covenant is wiped out.
Hebrews 8:7-8,13 “For if that first covenant (the Old Testament) had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them (all the terms of the Old Covenant), He says, ‘Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel . . .’ In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
Notice that God said through Jeremiah, “a new covenant with the house of Israel.” That is so very important to understand reality in today’s world; we will come back to it.
God Himself found fault with the Old Covenant and set it aside. Why did He find fault with it? Paul tells us clearly in Galatians 3:21 “. . . if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.”
No law, no statute, no ordinance of the Old Testament can ever give LIFE. All the Old Testament can ever do for anyone is to kill. That is why God found fault with it. God does not like the Old Covenant because all it ever did was kill everyone God wanted to bless.
In fact, God did not like the Old Covenant when He gave it. He entered into that covenant with the children of Israel for one reason and one reason only – to make the cross of Christ full and complete, so that the resurrection of Christ could be all that remains.
That’s the only thing God wants. He wants all descendants of Adam dead, especially the natural Jew, so that the only ones who live are those who come up to Him through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That is the New Covenant.
Here is the picture God Himself gives us of the Old Covenant, of the Ten Commandments in the very day that He gave them. “And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand . . . Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets . . . So Moses anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.” Exodus 32:15-19 
The first thing Moses did with the law was to shatter it upon the mountainside! That is and has always been God’s estimation of the Old Covenant. Hebrews 8:8 says that He does not like it.
You see, God says all kinds of wonderful things, all of His promises to the Jews, all through the pages of the Old Testament. But the problem was that Old Covenant. It always kicked in; not one jot or tittle of it could ever be removed. Every individual member of the commonwealth of Israel violated the terms of that covenant, even Isaiah: the covenant kicked in, and they all perished under the curse.
All.
Not one promise of the Old Testament can ever come to anyone apart from Christ. The terms of the Old Covenant always kick in and kill everyone before any blessing can ever come their way.
The Old Testament is a curse and there is no way out of that curse.
The cross of Christ does not remove that curse. Every single Jew who lives or has ever lived DIED upon that cross. Every single Gentile died upon the cross. You and I died upon that cross. The cross is absolute and complete. Its work is finished. We are all cursed of God and dead.
That is the purpose and entirety of the Old Covenant.
And this is why the Jews hated Paul’s gospel and why we must be born again.
The strong and overwhelming claim of Paul in Galatians and in Colossians is that all Jews are dead. There are no Jews in Christ. God does not accept even one of them. Neither are there any Gentiles in Christ. They are all dead. God does not accept even one of them.
A dear Christian Jewish woman said to me once in all earnestness, “I don’t like all this talk of “salvation.” The Jews are wonderful people; they are God’s gift to mankind; they do not need to “be saved.”
Paul damned every single Jew, and he placed them fully upon the cross of Christ, cut off from God, and dead. (There are Jewish Christians today who have cut Paul entirely out of their New Testaments.)
Paul said in Galatians 2:20 “I (the most zealous, law-keeping Jew out of all the Jews of Israel) am crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live . . .” He said in Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11 that there is not one Jew found in Christ, not one, ever, nor any Gentile.
 If one Jew alive today has escaped the cross of Christ, then that cross is of no effect for anyone, we are all in our sins, cursed before God, and without hope. This is the full, powerful, and overwhelming argument of Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews; it is the argument of the New Covenant.
So what else happened upon the cross of Christ?
Now we come to the most important thing Paul says in the New Testament regarding the natural Jew – and he says a whole lot, most of which most Christians in today’s world try so very hard to ignore.
Ephesians 2:11-18 “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh . . . 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. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”
Would that every believer in Jesus read these words over and over and over until they are no more words, but living, breathing reality all through the fabric of their souls!
There is NO SUCH THING as a “Gentile” church! The New Covenant is 100% an agreement between God and the children of Israel, just as Jeremiah said, “I will make a new covenant with the HOUSE of ISRAEL . . .”
But here’s the deal. There is a little clause in this New Covenant, a little door, through which we who were once Gentiles can not only enter into the New Covenant, but actually become, ourselves, part of the commonwealth of Israel and inheritors of all of its promises. It was Paul who found it, grubbing around in the Minor Prophets.
Romans 9:23-26 “. . . that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?  As He says also in Hosea: “I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved.” “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
Those who were once Gentiles have the privilege of also entering into this New Covenant, along with all those Jews who keep the real terms of the covenant God made through Moses and hear and receive the Son whom He sent.
More than that, the wall of separation that once existed as an impenetrable barrier between Jew and Gentile is abolished upon the cross of Christ, along with all the commandments, and we are together, both those who were formerly Jews and those who were formerly Gentiles, now one new man in Christ, ascending to God in Christ’s resurrection.
One final thing before we look at the nation of Israel and the natural Jew in today’s world through what God actually says in the New Testament.
What about all the promises, all the good things God wanted to give the children of Israel all through the Old Testament, but never could because of the terms of that covenant? Does the breaking of the agreement between God and Israel by every individual Jew mean that none of them ever get to know the good things, the blessings, the promises of God?
Not at all. Every individual Jew who accepts God’s pronouncement that they are no good, that they can’t keep their side of the covenant, no matter how hard they try, that they have no chance at one good thing God promises, and that they have perished under the curse of the law in the cross of Christ, can then come alive in Jesus Christ and there discover ALL of the promises of God fulfilled in fullness in Him.
And here’s the secret – these are the promises God spoke to the natural Jew, all of them now found and experienced in Christ by all those Jews who do keep the real covenant God made through Moses – to hear Christ, and we Gentiles, having also perished in the cross, now we also get to share those same promises.
That is the whole argument of Paul in Romans 11.
2 Corinthians 1:20 “For all the promises of God (in the Old Testament, the New Testament was not yet written or compiled) in Him (Christ) are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”
Galatians 3:13-14 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
And what is the blessing of Abraham? Paul says it here: the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Old Covenant places every Jew who ever lived under it under the curse of God without hope. The cross finishes them all off, whether they accept it or not. And in Christ alone they find all the blessing promised by God in the Old Testament, a blessing that we who were once Gentiles also get to share.
That’s the New Covenant. That’s the gospel according to Paul.
And that is why most of the Jews of Paul’s day rejected it completely and why they still do so today.
There are three specific things the natural Jew hates about Paul’s gospel. First, they despise Jesus and want nothing to do with Him. Second, they are deeply offended by Paul’s claim that they must die upon the cross of Christ, that no Jewishness of any kind is acceptable to God, no Jew is found in Christ. And third, they can’t stand the thought of sharing anything on any form of equality with the Gentiles.
The cross of Christ is to the natural Jew a deep, deep offense.
Let’s return, now, to Paul’s clearest contrast between the two covenants, Galatians 4:21-31.
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?  For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—  for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children — but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written:
 “Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear! Break forth and shout, You who are not in labor! For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.”
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.
Let’s create a chart from this critical instruction Paul gives to the church.

The New Covenant	The Old Covenant
The Free Woman - Sarah	The Bond Woman - Hagar
Isaac, son of the free woman - Born through promise	Ishmael, son of the bond woman - Born according to the flesh
(Mt. Zion) Jerusalem which is above The Church of Christ – the mother of us all (Christians – formerly Jew and Gentile)	Mt. Sinai The city of Jerusalem in today’s world in bondage with her children (Natural Jews)
Formerly barren and desolate, yet filled with children	Married – has a husband, yet produces bondage
We, brethren, are children of promise.	Ishmael persecuted Isaac; The natural Jew persecutes the believer in Christ.
Commanded by God to cast out the Old Covenant and to cast out the natural Jew who rejects Christ.	Shall not be heir – shall not inherit the promises

It is not permissible, by the terms of the New Covenant, for any Christian to contemplate relating with God within any part of the Old Covenant.
It is not permissible, by the terms of the New Covenant, for any Christian to accept any claim of the natural Jew, separate from Christ, to any part of the inheritance.
The Cross forbids it.
The only thing God accepts in the New Covenant is that which comes to Him through the resurrection of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ is an entirely different world, an entirely different universe from the bondage of the Old Covenant and the striving of the natural man, sinners all, cursed of God and dead, to claim the benefits of a covenant they have never kept.
What if Joe promised to pay Bill $1000 if Bill built the porch to Joe’s specifications? And what if Bill signed his name, but then did not build that porch? And what if Bill went around claiming that Joe owed him that $1000 simply because Joe had promised to pay? And what if Bill attempted to sue Joe in a court of law to extract the promised $1000 from Joe even though Bill had never kept his side of the deal?
We know that everyone would hold Bill in complete contempt; no one would regard his claims.
Now, understand this, the Old Covenant had hundreds of specific commandments concerning every part of life. Yet God requires of the natural Jew obedience to one commandment out of all of them – one commandment only. It is not a burdensome commandment; the yoke of Jesus is easy. If the natural Jew will simply obey the one commandment of the Old Covenant, the one commandment given through Moses, an easy command that the simplest child can obey, then God would gladly ignore all the other requirements of the covenant by the cross of Christ and receive that Jew with wide open arms.
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear.”
Hear Christ!
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” John 10:27
But no, the natural Jew, refusing to obey the only commandment of the Old Covenant that counts since the cross of Christ, turned the hundreds of requirements of that Old Covenant into thousands, turning a covenant no Jew ever kept into the fullness of bondage, as Paul said.
Here is the final contention between Paul and the Jews in the book of Acts. This is long after Paul had written Romans and Galatians. Acts 28:25-29
So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying, ‘Go to this people and say: “Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand; And seeing you will see, and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.”’ “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had a great dispute among themselves.”
Paul obeyed the words spoken by the Spirit of God through him. He cast out the bondwoman and he cast out her son. And they did what they have done since, they argued between themselves.
In 1 Peter 2:8, Peter says that God appointed the natural Jew, the child of bondage, to stumble at the offense of Christ and to disobey the word of Moses to hear Christ.
In Romans 11:28, Paul states that the natural Jews, the children of bondage, are the enemies of the gospel during the church age, for our sakes. Yes, God loves them, and is always inviting them to hear Christ, but even in our world today, they continue to refuse the covenant.
In 1 John 2:22, John states that the natural Jew, the child of bondage, who refuses Moses’ command to hear Christ, who denies that Jesus is the Messiah, IS anti-Christ.
And that brings us to our world today in the 21^st century.
It is impossible to understand our world today without the full impact and meaning of a little statement of Jesus at the end of one of His parables directing that understanding.
The issue is the inheritance – the issue of the inheritance rules today’s world.
Two sons claim the inheritance, the first born versus the second born. Ishmael versus Isaac. The natural Jew versus Christ living in His church.
At the center of one claim lies the natural city of Jerusalem, that Paul calls a city of bondage, and that John calls Sodom and Egypt. At the center of the other claim lies the true inheritance, the overflowing Spirit of God abounding in the heart of the believer in Jesus Christ out of which comes all abundance of provision from God.
At the center of one claim is violence, beating others into submission to itself. At the center of the other claim is a laid-down life.
Here are Jesus’ words, exposing the thoughts filling the hearts of the Pharisees who, laying claim to Moses, broke completely the Covenant of Moses given upon Mt. Sinai – Matthew 21:38.
“This is the heir. Come, let us kill Him and seize His inheritance.”
The Beast versus the Lamb. The revelation of John on Patmos is simply a continuation of this conflict over the inheritance.
Now, here is what Jesus says in response to those who kill the Heir and seize the inheritance for themselves by violence – Luke 20:16. “He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others.”
These words of Jesus were fulfilled a first time in AD 70. But that claim of “right” to the inheritance did not end in AD 70. Oh, it was put to death all right. But 1,878 years later, 1,919 years after the cross of Christ wounded it to death, in AD 1948, that Beast crawled out of the pit again.
The natural Jew, Ishmael, the child of the flesh, once again seized the inheritance by violence, apart from the covenant of Moses, apart from hearing Christ.
This reality does not surprise us, of course, because it is all spelled out for us so clearly in the terms of the New Covenant, the covenant we signed with God and He with us.
Paul says so clearly inside the terms of the New Covenant, in Galatians 3:16, one of the central chapters of that New Covenant that God offered to the Jews after they had utterly broken the Old, there is one heir only of Abraham – Christ. There is one heir only of Moses – Christ. There is one heir only of the prophets – Christ. There is one heir only of all the promises of God – Christ.
And then Paul reveals this most wonderful of all truths in Galatians 3:28-29: There are no Jews in Christ; there are no Gentiles in Christ, but only one new man. “And if you are Christ’s, then you ARE Abraham’s SEED (singular – Christ), and heirs according to the promise.”
However, inside the terms of the New Covenant, revealed to us through the Apostle John, there is a terrible warning. John warns us that, during the time when that false claim to the inheritance rises again upon the earth, there will come a spirit into the Church of Jesus Christ.
That dark spirit will look like “Christ,” that is, it will look like a lamb. But on that lamb are horns, the power of natural flesh rebelling against the death of the cross, and it speaks the words of the dragon.
The Apostle John warned us, so clearly, that this spirit of anti-Christ, this spirit that denies Christ come in the flesh, that rejects the covenant of Moses – to hear Christ, this spirit sends forth a teaching into the church of Christ.
Out of the mouths of those who will not heed the terms of the New Covenant, so clearly spelled out in Galatians, in Romans, in Ephesians, in Hebrews, will come an ungodly exaltation of the Old Covenant, there will come a claim that the natural Jew, the son of bondage, the child of the flesh, separate from the cross of Christ, separate from the only possible way any descendant of Adam can ever escape the curse of the Old Covenant, that that false seed IS the heir, and has the right to the inheritance.
And so the battle line is clearly drawn in the terms of the New Covenant, the Beast versus Christ, the Harlot versus the Bride. The nation of Israel and its government versus the elect of God.
The nation of Israel in today's world is NOT the Israel of God.
Christ alone is the Heir; there is salvation in no other – hear Him!

Future Change You cannot choose,but the type of Change you can.

The American Issue: Republican versus Democrat is not the issue.
Nor is the UK  Tory v. Labour one. Nor the Referendum about in or out of Europe. Far greater changes are afoot.
 Really, the issue is do we want the "flesh version" of those changes or do we want the Spirit and lasting version? But choosing left or right is out the window.
Before describing that in detail I want to compare this moment in history with the period 1200-1500AD. The "Monarchy State/Church" owned and controlled everything across Europe. Luther's statement that we are justified by faith had some staggering real world effects. Salvation was personal.By faith. NOT through hoops which had priestly middlemen. It was only a "nod" to personal responsibility, but in its wake we started to move towards a complete political restructuring. Democracy was formed. Not overnight. And it wasn't a complete answer. Churches only got so far in their shift too. OK notionally we were now a "kingdom of priests", and we didn't pray through middlemen any more , but the middlemen still exist. Vicars/Priests/Pastors to this day manage churches as managers. Democracy is too largely a front. Real world controllers have slipped one layer further back and whereas the frontrunners may come and go, the controllers remain from generation to generation.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion even describe the process as keeping the rank and file people ever suspended between two ultimately irreconcileable ends of the poitical debate....both equally needed, but the bulk of the people cannot see how they are ever suspended between the two magnetic poles. While one level sees choice, those running the show just see it as a vehicle for control.
Already New Age thought is making its claims for a total restructure in the way the whole earth is run. So,I repeat, the REAL CHOICE before us, since having no change is not an option, is whether we want a secular/ mixed religious solution which a lot of us don't believe addresses who we are as individuals in sufficient depth, or do we literally see the prophesied emergence of a Kingdom way of Living where ALL, literally ALL is  being brought first into Christ, then handed over complete to the Father.
It's not anarchy, but it looks like anarchy, for every member has a relationship with God, and is walking in step with Him. Actually exactly in step...because they now realize there is no other Life in the Universe to walk in.
St Paul, who saw all this 2000 years ago, saw it as "with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ,"NASV "in regard to the dispensation of the fulness of the times, to bring into one the whole in the Christ, both the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth -- in him;YLT (Ephesians 1:10)
With each generation we have gone deeper into discovering who "we are" as people, and our politics has matched the level we were. But God's Word itself is uncompromising. The world and the church don't believe the Word, because they simply don't believe that Christ is that real. God however says, not only IS the life of Christ THAT real...but YOU friend are going to be living it. You see Christ IN YOU IS...IS...the hope of glory. The breaking out wholesale of the revelation of the NEW COVENANT was spelled out in Jeremiah millennia ago. NO MORE WILL ANY MAN TEACH HIS BROTHER....for they shall ALL know Me from the least to the greatest.
This is awesome
in how we worship
This is awesome in how we live life
This is awesome in how we run things
This is just TOTALLY AWESOME

But it predicates God Himself writing the real New Covenant right across our insides in indelible pen!!!
We're talking about in experience by GRACE through His Word by the Power of the Spirit....but ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

At the moment in churches this promise of God just ISN'T TRUE ENOUGH...because it HAS NEVER REALLY BEEN BELIEVED. But this generation is changing that. This generation is getting desperate enough to BELIEVE EXACTLY THAT.

Let's invent a term - Christojudaism

Let's invent a term,for without terms we cannot nail things that have eluded us. Christojudaism. Christojudaism is best practised by the Catholic and Anglican churches. Many freeBelievers now are scared to use the term Christian. Well let's reclaim Christian, because all Christian is, is a nickname. Little Christs. People who pray for the sick and they recover. People who preach peace into conflict. If the nickname fits wear it without intimidation. Christojudaism is NOT the Messianic faith. Messianic churches preach new birth from the perspective of being natural Jews. Christojudaism is the attempt to make the New Way that Jesus preached in John 4 saying, "The time is coming AND NOW IS when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ...when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth"....INTO a forgiveness religion that is Judaic again....involving special buildings,special gobetweens or priests, and special liturgies.

 It isn't the New Covenant at all 

any more than a mono recording is stereo

 just because the CD label on the front says it is. 

 THIS IS CHRISTIANITY : Jeremiah 31:31-34  

A new covenant priest. But he looks so er ...normal. Yup. Exactly.We live by the power of an indestructible life.

The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to[d] them,[e]”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

Sunday, June 17 at 11am

AT ClearView Fellowship is at 2925 N. Green Valley Pkwy, Suite A, Henderson, NV 89014

SPECIAL ENGAGEMENT !!!!

ONE DAY ONLY!!!
Come and fellowship with us! As speaker Rich Novek, of Rich IN Christ Ministries, launches this years Covenant Life Conference Tour, and shares with us in a special service about the truth concerning our New Life IN Christ.

Rich is a published author and has been writing for the past 2 ½ years. His articles can be found in several current Internet publications. He has also just completed his first day by day devotional, which should be available by summer’s end. This will be the first of 7 books, which he has written and will be publishing sometime in the near future.

In 1983 Rich prayed a prayer that was prescribed to him by a friend, “Lord, bring me to the end of myself, and give me a revelation of who I am IN Christ and who He is IN me.”

That prayer started a journey of many trials, testing’s, brokenness, loss and suffering, that after many years, has resulted in a life completely surrendered to Christ.

Join Rich as he shares from his heart and more importantly from God’s heart, the truth concerning our union relationship IN Christ.

For more info and or directions please contact Pastor David Pinzon @ (702) 378-3045 or Brother Rich Novek (682) 229-1636

Hope to see you there!

Rich Novek

‎"But Lord, what, when, where, why, and how?"

In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the "New Covenant" IN My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." (I Corinthians 11:25)

Remember?

Yes! You remember the true meaning of the "NEW" Covenant!

And then you remember you are finite and He is infinite! You remember apart from Him your ways are limited, and He is unlimited, unsearchable and unfathomable! You remember that EVERY good and perfect gift, even the ones that sting like hell, really do come from our loving Father. our Father of whom there is no shadow or turning! You remember to look away from any impulse of "taking a thought for yourself" while at the same time remembering you have the Mind of Christ! And then you remember to simply rest in that "large place" the place He Himself has placed you, the place where you simply allow Him to stretch out IN you and reveal Himself to you! You remember to release "all" of your former limitations of who He is and how He works IN your Life! And you then remember how He operates out of an "other love" that goes far beyond anything we can ask, think, or even imagine! Next you remember whatever it is He is doing or whatever we are going through in this moment, including the trials, disappointment, pain, confusion, frustration, and loss has a purpose far beyond anything we can imagine!

And finally, you remember that He who knew no sin became sin that you might become the righteousness of God (right by His doing alone) IN Him, and no matter what you do or don't do, He could never "forget" about you, as it's YOU who He now lives for, is always thinking of, and praying for.

Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

It's YOU who are His only Pearl of Great Price!

www.richinchristnow.com

· · · 43 minutes ago

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• Ruth Queale Coleman likes this.
• • 

    Rich Novek I think it was Spurgeon who said something like the following; "If we are ever going to finally "grow up" IN Christ, we have to forever remove the words, what, when, where, why, and how from our current vocabulary!" Only God only NOW!

    5 minutes ago ·

The Covenant - Daniel Yordy

1. The Covenant

My Experiment:
1. I take into myself ALL that God says in the New Testament. ALL. When I say, "the New Testament," I mean the words on the page from Matthew 1:1 to Revelation 22:21
2. I exclude EVERYTHING that God does not say in the New Testament. EVERYTHING.
3. I take into myself ALL that God says in the New Testament in TEN specific ways. Each of these ten things comes BY what God actually says at the core and center of the New Testament.

By Daniel Yordy ~ PDF Version for Printing


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Our Path Home - © Daniel Yordy 2012


I am conducting an experiment. My decision to conduct this experiment is full and final. I made this decision progressively over the course of thirty-five years; however, in the fall of 2006, over five years ago, I made the final conclusion of that decision. This decision is a willful and personal decision.

My decision is fixed and irrevocable; if I am wrong, then I lose everything.

People imagine that they should attempt in some way or another to move me from that decision; I really do not understand why they think to try that.

My Experiment:

1. I take into myself ALL that God says in the New Testament. ALL. When I say, "the New Testament," I mean the words on the page from Matthew 1:1 to Revelation 22:21

2. I exclude EVERYTHING that God does not say in the New Testament. EVERYTHING. (The Old Testament contains the New AS it is read BY the New; but the New is destroyed IF it is read BY the Old.)

3. I take into myself ALL that God says in the New Testament in TEN specific ways. Each of these ten things comes BY what God actually says at the core and center of the New Testament.

~~~

The Ten Steps of My Experiment:

1. I take into myself what God says, exactly as He says it in the context without any reference to human ideas or traditions that alter what God says. I understand that occasionally, though not often, the Greek words are mistranslated or misconstrued - in those cases I accept the Greek as being what God says, not the English mistranslation.

2. I take into myself all that God says even if I "imagine" that something God says in one place contradicts what God says in another place. I never place my human "intelligence" or lack thereof above the Word God speaks.

3. I take into myself all that God says in the New Testament by the Holy Spirit; that is, through the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit such that, as the words come off the page, they come through the person of the Holy Spirit and thus come into me as Spirit and as Life - AND by the immediate miraculous power of the Holy Spirit enabling me to BELIEVE that what God says is true. I know that I CANNOT believe that what God says is true except by an immediate miracle of the Holy Spirit.

4. I take into myself all that God says as the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word God is always speaking, made PERSONAL in me. Thus every word in the New Testament is personal, Christ Jesus my life, and alive in me.

5. Since I take into myself all the God speaks AS the person of the Lord Jesus Christ inside of me, I take every word AS God Himself fulfilling ALL that He Himself speaks - in me and through me. I take every Word into myself as a human being created to contain all the fullness of God, but without any ability in me to do or to fulfill any of it. Yet I expect that God, through Christ my life, fulfills every word in me and causes me at all times both to will and to do His will (as He says).

6. I take into myself all that God says as being NOW without limitation or restriction or boundary of any kind - except those very few times where God Himself gives some limitation directly in the context. (I.E. the "lake of fire," whatever that symbol represents, is clearly LIMITED in the context to a future age and is thus either non-existent or irrelevant for anyone in the present age.)

7. I accept fully all that God says in the New Testament concerning His use of symbols and metaphors and I understand all such symbols and metaphors entirely by what God Himself says and by the immediate application and power of the Holy Spirit.

8. I speak everything God speaks in the New Testament. I speak it as Christ fulfilled personally in me without limitation of any kind. If what I see with my present eyesight seems to contradict what I speak, I speak what God says and not what my eyes "see." I call those things that "be not" as though they are.

9. I ask God, specifically, to fulfill every Word He speaks in me. Then, in asking, I believe that I have ALREADY received ALL that I ask. I expect in all ways and at all times that God fulfills ALL that He says in me.

10. I engage directly with God, He in me and I in Him, in a mutual relationship of respect and honor, that EVERY Word that He speaks be fulfilled THROUGH me, personally, into this life, into this age, and upon this earth.

Now, having read through these ten points, let's refer back to #2 above.

2. I EXCLUDE EVERYTHING that God does not say in or by the New Testament.

(Understand that studying "facts" in this world is in a separate category. I do not "believe" any facts of this present age; I study them only and view them entirely out from what God Himself actually says.)

Notice, first, that every one of the ten steps given above is something "I do." That is the structure of the experiment. These are the process steps I undergo in the "lab." Equal in importance to the specific steps of my experiment, however, is the THEORY behind the experiment.

What theory do I hold; that is, what, exactly do I expect to PROVE out from following, as best I can, the specific steps of this experiment?

Here is my theory and the PROOF I hope to see:

The Theory and Proof of My Experiment:

If I believe all that God speaks as He speaks it by the power of the Holy Spirit AS Christ personally in me without limitation, if I speak it out loud, asking God to fulfill all that He speaks in me and through me AS Christ my life - THAT:

God Himself WILL DO ALL that He says
in ALL fullness and without limitation IN me now
and THROUGH me into this present world.

~~~

Now, I readily admit that is a very tall order - the idea that God would actually do what He says through someone who believes with all confidence and rejoicing that what He says is true!

When I began this experiment, I was told by a dear Christian sister, a friend of mine over many years, that it will not work. That is, my following the steps of this experiment will not result in God doing all that He speaks in fullness in and through me.

More than that, a number of people have expressed in one way or another that I am off my rocker in even considering such an experiment. Beyond that, others attempt to argue at me that I MUST include things God does not say because those things are, after all, so spiritual and "deep." A larger negative response comes from those who INSIST that I have no business at all believing or, worse yet, speaking this or that word God says in the New Testament because they have discovered why that particular word is decidedly NOT God speaking. (Understand that there are a few verses that I do not and cannot understand - but those things are relatively few and quite minor. I am so enthralled by the BIG things God says that minor things that no one can understand simply do not matter.)

The largest negative response, I'm sure, is simply laughing, walking away, and utterly ignoring this foolish, foolish man.

So - five + years is a decent amount of time! What are the initial results of my experiment, an experiment that is by no means over and will not be over until my body is swallowed up in Resurrection Life - what are the present results?

Present Results of My Experiment:

1. I find that all the emotional turmoil of the autistic neurological disability that I bear, turmoil I have known constantly since age 9, turmoil that is first a physical condition of the nervous system, but that also has been worked on by spirits of torment - has all leveled out into the peace of the immediate knowledge of God filling me in all goodness - leveled out in a way I have never ever known. I cannot say that my nerves are fully healed, nor other elements in my body; nevertheless the settledness I know now, a settledness that continues day after day in spite of momentary and outward fluctuations, this continuing I have never before known.

2. I have moments, now and then, but growing in power and intensity, where I suddenly see by my real eyes, the eyes of my spirit, to my overwhelming amazement, that what God actually says is actually true! This is a phenomenon I have never before known in all my years of walking with God in the experience and demonstration of His power.

3. (This one is first in importance.) I have come to experience, continually, a heart-to-heart intimate communion, not only with the Lord Jesus Christ in person, but with the Father Himself, an intimate communion of His Person inside of my person, His consciousness inside of mine, that answers all the longing of my heart for 50 years, that answers that longing so fully, so completely, that I would be more than happy to be "wrong" in my experiment just to continue enjoying this precious, precious communion.

4. My certainty concerning the enveloping reality of the Holy Spirit has increased significantly, my certainty of His goodness and favor attending my way, His provision always coming just as I need, His love abounding in my heart, His life and joy flowing out from me as mighty rivers of living water, this certainty of the phenomena of God with me (what the person of the Holy Spirit is) has increased beyond what I have ever before known.

5. My understanding of all that God says, that it all makes sense, that it ALL fits so perfectly and logically together, grows and grows. God makes sense to me, in ALL that He says in the New Testament, above and beyond what I have ever known in the past.

6. Number six is different from the other initial results. The more I speak all that God speaks as He speaks it, the more I quickly recognize when other Christians say things God does not say. I recognize those things immediately, and instantly feel sick in my stomach when I read or hear them. Something in my gut tells me that it's just not a good idea for any Christian at any time to say things that are NOT, or that oppose, what God says. (Writing things is identical in the spirit to saying them with one's voice box.)

7. And number seven is this, the boldness and certainty, the clarity and power, by which I move forward in the continuation of this experiment is far greater than any "daring" I held in my heart as I began it five years ago.

NOW - is the theory of my experiment PROVEN in any way by these seven points?

NO! No it is not.

There is only one final PROOF of my experiment - since it is, in fact, ruled by ALL that God says in the New Testament. And understand, God Himself has commanded us to prove Him true. This PROOF has four parts, two concerning me, one inward and one outward, and two concerning this planet - Earth, one negative and one positive.

Here are the necessary PROOFS that my experiment is a success.

Required Proofs of My Experiment:

1. I stand upon this earth, together with all who love His appearing, as the revelation of Jesus Christ as confirmed by the Father.

2. My physical body is swallowed up in the resurrection life of the body of Jesus, immortal and incorruptible, with no knowledge of any shadow of sin or death - forever.

3. The entirety of the curse, the rule of wicked men, and all demon spirits are removed utterly from this planet and from all the experience of mankind.

4. Rivers of living water flow out of me AS the very glory of God covering this earth and bringing all the healing life of God into every place.

~~~

Now, first, there is not an ounce of self-exaltation in any of this expectation, but simply the quiet faith of a man who believes in Jesus and wants to be with Him more than life itself, expecting what God says in the New Testament.

Second, it is not hard to see that this experiment of mine, if it should actually succeed, will overturn everything else. It is apparent that the vested interest of billions of persons, both human and angelic, including millions upon millions of Christians in their present state, requires that I be wrong, that I be silenced, and that my experiment fail utterly.

Third, it is also not hard to see that this experiment, should it succeed, must be followed by every created being - following not me, but Christ, all the way into the Father.

What a novel idea!! That what God actually says in the New Testament is actually true and that God would actually do all that He says in and through a simple-hearted people, you and me, who actually believe in all confident rejoicing that He does what He says through them!

Why would anyone believe such a preposterous thing? (I speak facetiously.)

Well, hey. Everyone is gambling; everyone is experimenting on their own personal and willful decision to follow some form of truth or reality as they perceive it. Why on earth should anyone fault me because I do the same as they? And why should any Christian be bothered by this personal and final decision of mine?

You might say, "Well, Yordy, you can't possibly claim that you are following all the steps in your 'experiment' perfectly." And I certainly do not make such a claim; I don't need to. Look back at the underlying premise of all my claims. The underlying premise is simply that Christ Jesus is my life and that He fulfills ALL that God speaks inside of me, including every element of the "believing" part of it. All I do is agree with Him in joy - when I remember to, which is more often now than at any time in the past. And when I forget? I give thanks with all joy for my silliness and continue on in full confidence that Jesus does all things well.

I now want to come back to Result #6: the instant recognition when another Christian says or writes something God does not say or clearly misconstrues something God does say because they do not believe all that He says, and the sickness I feel in my stomach when I recognize such words.

God sends difficult things my way, partly because I always reach for Him inside those things. When I do that, He shows me things of Himself and of His Word I have never seen before.

Over the last couple of weeks, God has taken me through what outwardly were minor challenges, yet because of their nature, these challenges caused me to look at the root of my faith in God and my relationship with Him. Out of that challenge, God opened our shared heart for me to see the present need to spell out, as clearly and as specifically as I can, our Covenant with one another.

The Covenant is everything.

Some series that I write are spelled out as specific teachings, building one thing on top of another. Other series I write are more of a following the wind wherever it blows. Others may be a mixture of the two. This series, The New Covenant, I intend to be as specific, line upon line, as the Lord and I together can make it. God gave the arguments of the Covenant spelled out in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, through a mind, Paul's, of a much higher IQ than mine might be. Those arguments are built through sure logic, line upon line. I will attempt to apply my limited abilities in the same direction, bringing the strength and specificity of the Covenant into the present hour.

Let's start with the initial speaking of God.

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. Genesis 1:3

First is God. Paul said, "There is one God, the Father." John said that Jesus Christ is both the beginning of the creation of God and the Word spoken in the beginning. Thus, "Let there be light," is the Son of God. Finally, "and there was light" is the Spirit of God, that is the phenomena of God in the heavenly realms.

Now, look at these two words, "Said, 'Let'" Those two words are the Covenant, they are the first part of the always speaking of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Always Speaking of God begins with the action of the Father, first, and the permission of the creation, faith, second. That is the Covenant.

Covenant is the first part of Christ. God exalts Christ, the Word He speaks, above every other part of Himself.

God does not lie. God is limited and bound - by the Word that He speaks. His Word is more important to God than any other part of His person or being.

All those who attempt to relate with God separate from ALL the Word that He speaks through the Covenant dishonor Him in a way that sends a tremor of horror all through me. I do not know anything about that tremor of horror beyond this: it's just not a good idea. It is not what anyone wants to be doing.

No Covenant means no Christ. The Word begins with Covenant.

The Covenant begins with Blood. It is a Blood Covenant.

Now, I take a very broad view of my Savior and His Salvation. He carries inside Himself all who belong to Him, wherever they might find themselves to be right now, He knows exactly what He is doing with each, and He does all things well. I continue fully confident that He speaks to each, that He reveals Himself to each inside whatever confinements and limitations they presently stumble through. His mercy, by His shed blood, covers everything; His grace sustains all. Even in the midst of horrors, He shows Himself kind, opening blind eyes to see Him alone out of hearts that once raged against Him.

This I believe about my Savior absolutely - and YET! I find that there is more than one way in God of seeing anything. Seeing the same thing from an entirely different angle does not in any way remove the truth found in the other way of seeing. It is perspective, not truth, that changes.

Over the last couple of weeks, I was hit with two completely opposing ways of approaching "God," two ways that I myself do not know - and have never really known.

The first was a cry that Christianity in this critical hour is being destroyed by this whole modern nonsense about "experiencing" God by the "Spirit." The only hope for the church and through the church for the world is if we rush back to the clear logic of "word only." What was not acknowledged by those crying for "word only" was that they really mean, "Augustine," and not the New Testament, which is, in fact, with the Old Testament as well, filled with more Spirit experience inside the human story than any other book on the planet, a minor fact they conveniently overlook.

The second was a cry that Christianity in this critical hour must abandon the limitations and confinements of the words on the pages of the New Testament or this individual, Jesus, and follow the "God within" into the exuberance of a "spirit only" gospel. What was not acknowledged by those crying for "spirit only" was that they really mean whatever imaginative human fancy rocks your boat. It is clear that they want no "words" from a personal God, and especially, no need for any messy "blood."

As this second cry hit against me, it seemed as if the ground on either side of me - and those walking with me, dropped away and I saw myself standing on a knife's edge. I saw all the ages of Desire standing on a knife's edge. Suddenly, the Way that leads to Life became very, very narrow.

On the one side of that knife's edge are the murky swamps of "word only," filled with millions of precious saints, all beloved of the Lord, all brethren with us, yet caught in that which they cannot escape, save by one means alone.

On the other side of that knife's edge are the murky swamps of "spirit only," filled with thousands of our precious brethren, many who came out of the "word only" swamps, yet now they leap headlong into the "spirit only" murkiness on the other side, as much caught in that which they cannot escape as the others, save by one means alone.

All creation labors in the agony of travail right now, groaning to find and to know one thing alone. All those who died in Christ are leaning forward in their seats in the heavens in breathless anticipation, right now, all their hopes and desires pinned on one thing alone. All the bowels and yearning of God Almighty are poured out upon one thing alone right now. All of our brethren, caught now in the final hour of trial, floundering in whatever swamp they have chosen, are utterly dependent on one thing alone.

That one thing is the fulfillment of the Covenant.

This is the great story of God. This is the climax; the whole point of everything. Everything that is gone before is for this one moment. Everything that is to be comes out of this one moment. If there is no possibility of utter loss, there is no story. God is more reckless in His faith in His Word than we comprehend.

The fulfillment of the Covenant stands upon a knife's edge.

I care nothing, in the present moment (in an outward sense), for those who do not want to know the Covenant. They belong to Jesus, not me. I care only, rather, for myself and those of like precious faith, that we would know that Covenant, not "about" it, but that we would know the Covenant in all fullness in all fulfillment. Out from the fulfillment of the Covenant alone proceeds the love and help of God that will alone set all our brethren free.

To that Covenant and to its fulfillment I commit my life utterly and without reservation. From before the foundations of the ages, God seized me in His determination for this very thing, for this very hour, to reveal Christ in me.

The Way home, the ONLY Way home, is 100% Word and 100% Spirit all the time and forever.

The moment people attempt to separate the Spirit from the Word, He vanishes and another spirit takes His place. The moment people attempt to separate the Word from the Spirit, Jesus is no longer in their hand, and another takes His place.

Paul, all through the AD 50's and 60's, was attacked by "word-only" Christians. Everything he wrote came out of the travail of Christ inside of Him to separate the precious saints whom he loved from the legalism of word-only. John, all through the AD 80's and 90's was attacked by "spirit-only" Christians. Everything he wrote came out of the travail of Christ inside of him to separate the precious saints whom he loved from the gnosticism of spirit-only.

John stated in no uncertain terms that any "christ" that was spirit-only, separated from the flesh of humanity, was anti-Christ. Paul was a bit more crude; he suggested that we would all be better off if the pushers of "word-only" would just castrate themselves and be done with it.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, His Gospel and Covenant, comes to us primarily through these two men, and through the strength of their hearts in doing battle against the word-only and the spirit-only mutterers of demonic "wisdom" that seem to fill the ranks of Christian ministry then and now.

I signed a Covenant with God and He signed a Covenant with me. That Covenant is binding in all ways upon both of us. I signed the Covenant with God because I wanted something from God only He could provide. God signed the Covenant with me because He wanted something from me only I could provide.

The something I wanted from God was Himself in all fullness filling all of me. The something God wanted from me was myself in utter abandon given to Him that He might show Himself through me to every reach of His creation.

[As you know, I do not say, "I," to separate myself in any way from you or you from me, but to put into the boldest terms possible the faith that must come from each of our hearts. All that we are, we are together, as one body of Christ, one communion of saints, forever.]

Yet we in God and God in us, we will do exploits. Eternity cannot contain the mighty things we will know, God and us, inside this Covenant, this arrangement by which God and us both obtain all things we Desire.

The Covenant is forever.

I do not yet see the specific order by which we must explore the Covenant. I do know that we must begin with something I have already written, but not included as a Christ Our Life letter. We will begin where Paul begins, in the book of Galatians and the contrast he shows between the two covenants, between the Old and the New.

We must know the legal nature of God and how He grounds everything that He does and will do utterly in legal law. And by legal law, I do not mean the law of sin and death given by Moses, which law Moses first shattered upon the mountain-side, but rather the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. For you see, the Covenant also REQUIRES the continual spontaneous operation of Spirit, for God is never Word without being, fully, Spirit, and He is never Spirit without being, fully, Word.

The Covenant is certain and sure, established in all certainty by both the Word that God speaks and by the Oath of His mouth and fulfilled in the bathing, in the immersion of the Holy Spirit.

We must know how the Covenant is written, yet more than written, forged, through the passage of Atonement, starting with Jesus' prayer in John 17 and ending in His ascension on High - and centered in and drenched absolutely by Blood.

This is a bloody, bloody Covenant.

We must know the specific terms of the Covenant, the fine-letter print that is binding on God and on us.

And finally, we must know just exactly how the Covenant is fulfilled in all fullness in our lives right here upon this earth.

The fulfillment of the Covenant is what all things are all about. Yet, by the ordination of God, that Covenant is fulfilled only upon a knife's edge and only at one pin-point of time and human reality.

There is no question in my mind that there are many alive upon the earth today who are seized by the determination of God for that moment of birthing, that "singularity." There is no question in my mind that you and I are among them.

Believe in Jesus; with all your heart, believe in Jesus.

The travail is upon us. Push, push, beloved woman of God, push!