Covenant Leads to Relationship

Covenant Leads to Relationship

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

Hebrews 7:22 (NKJV): “by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.”

God relates to His people through covenants.  A covenant is greater than a promise.  It is a bonding. A covenant is a bond in which each of those involved in the matter say, “Everything I have is yours.”  Covenant is total commitment.  In covenant with God, even though we are not totally committed to Him, He is totally committed to us. 

God’s covenants with us are for our benefit.  The purpose of God’s covenant is to bring abundant life.  The apostle John quotes our Savior, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” (John 10:10-11 NKJV)  In God’s covenants, we are assured of guidance, protection and provision. 

What do we have to give to Him as our part of the covenant?  Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:1-2 NKJV)  We are to give Him ourselves in holiness, allowing Him to transform our thinking so that we can demonstrate to the world the transforming, overcoming relationship that results from walking in covenant with our God.

In addition, because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, Christians become participants in the covenants the Lord made beginning with Adam, continuing with Noah, Abraham and the nation of Israel. Today many teach “replacement theology” which says that the Lord no longer deals with Israel and that the Church has replaced Israel in the economy of God.  However, the Word does not support that thesis.  Christians do not replace Israel in God’s covenant.  Paul was adamant, “I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.  (Romans 11:1-2aNKJV)

Paul continues, “For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, "Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in." (Romans 11:16-19 NKJV)  

Because much of the Church has denied our Old Testament heritage, we often do not understand the deeper truths of our relationship with our Redeemer.  The root supports us.

Sometimes our confusion is the result of flawed grammar.  Let’s examine Hebrews 8:7-8 NKJV). “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- .”   Because the pronoun “they” is plural and the noun “covenant” is singular, the writer of Hebrews is not saying that the covenant itself was faulty, but that the people of Israel and Judah were faulty.  The weakness of the Old Covenant was not in the Covenant itself but in the weakness and inability of man. The reason the Old Covenant didn't "work" was because the people did not continue in God’s covenant.

Because the people did not fully embrace the covenant, God, in His mercy, gave us a strengthened covenant that would enable mankind to walk according to His promises. 

The author of Hebrews continues by quoting the prophet Jeremiah, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. (Hebrews 8:10 NKJV) 

The laws of God are still the same, the difference is that they are not etched in stone; they are written on the hearts of those who accept the sacrifice of Jesus as the pathway to covenant with God the Father.  We are transformed by the renewing of our minds.  How does that transformation come about?

Hundreds of years before the cross, Ezekiel prophesied, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” (Ezekiel 36:27 NKJV)

On Pentecost, ten days after Jesus’ ascension, “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:1-4 NKJV) 

The Holy Spirit came to indwell God’s people.  Because of the Holy Spirit within, we grow in grace and knowledge, we are transformed; we become the covenant people of our God.  All believers are in the transformation process.  

Paul affirmed, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16 NKJV) Covenant Christianity is a relationship with God whose Spirit indwells us.

Resurrection Worship

Resurrection Worship

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

Jesus, beautiful Redeemer,

You who bore the agony of Calvary,

Pierced by the thorns,

Scourged,

Wounded,

Forsaken,

Reviled.

Your passion paid sin’s price.

Your death opened the veil.

Your tomb is the key to freedom

From death and the grave.

Your resurrection sealed our covenant

with the Father.

Your return will be the culmination of creation,

The restoration of Eden,

The doorway to eternity.

You are the way, the truth and the life.

May We Remember the Finished Work of Calvary

May We Remember the Finished Work of Calvary

By Rev.  Lonnie C. Crowe

William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, spoke a prophetic word more than 100 years ago, that should call the church today into repentance. He said, “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance,

salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.” 

It is time for the resurrection of the Church.  May we never forget that it is the power of the Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, convicts us of sin and brings us to the cross for salvation.  May we never forget that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life.  May we always remember that in salvation we are transformed by the renewing of our minds and that we are called to be holy because He is holy.  May the church awaken to the understanding that politics without Godly principles leads to deception and anarchy.  May we fully embrace the fact that Jesus paid, in agony, our wages of sin so that we may be delivered from the clutches of Hell into the hallowed halls of Heaven.

“Jesus, keep us near the cross.  There a precious fountain free to all, a healing stream flows from Calvary’s mountain.”  (Fanny Crosby)

The Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control

The Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe 

Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV)
^“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

In the Authorized King James Bible, the Greek word enkrateia is translated as temperance.  In the New King James Version it is translated as self-control.  Enkrateia connotes mastery over one’s self.

  

Solomon warned, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit Is like a city broken down, without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28 NKJV).  Lack of self-control makes us vulnerable to attacks from every source and every direction.  Lack of self-control leads to weakness, emotional instability, disease, poverty, addiction and psychosis.  If one thing is true, its opposite is also true.  Therefore, self-control leads to physical and emotional strength, immunity, sufficiency and peace.  “Against such there is no law.”

Paul used his own life as an example to the Church at Corinth: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27 NKJV) 

Often we become frustrated in our attempts to control others.  We should become frustrated in trying to control others.  We were not created to control other people.  We were created and empowered by the Holy Spirit within us to control ourselves.  Our struggle for self-control should keep us so occupied that we should have no time or inclination to control our peers.  We can give advice, but we cannot force others to follow that advice.  We can, however, choose to follow the advice of our Lord.

God gives us direction in His word, but He has also given us free will.  He does not force us into obedience.  He is in control of the overall plans for time and eternity, but He does not micromanage our lives.  He desires disciples rather than puppets.

Paul explained the pattern and purpose of discipleship:  “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11-14 NKJV)

As Christians, we have been redeemed from every lawless deed.  Through Holy Spirit empowered self-control, we can walk worthy of our calling. (Ephesians 4:1) The list of the fruit of the Spirit begins with love and ends with self-control.  It becomes a cycle.  Our love leads us to self-control.  Our self-control leads us to love.   

Walking in the fruit of the Spirit, we become like Jesus who “being found in appearance as a man, humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”( Philippians 2:8 NKJV)  The cross demonstrates the agape love of God which led to the obedience, the self-control of Jesus on Calvary.