Our Covenant of Faith, Part 4
We have so
long been taught that what Jesus did for us was only for the hereafter. Very few people have taken what He did in His
resurrection and applied it in our everyday life. We have worked at being food to people and
trying to keep our own lives in line with the things of God. Mostly we stopped doing the things we used to
so before we were saved, but never pursued the things we can do now that we are
saved. For some reason, we have never
allowed the power of Jesus’ victory to also become our victory. A lot of people read the Bible and for some
reason, see themselves as victims of the devil instead of VICTORS over the
devil. It is true that the devil is
still here and that he is still trying to force his will on all of mankind, but
for those in Christ Jesus, His victory is our victory as well.
When I
speak of a covenant of faith, it goes much further than going to heaven when we
die. In the John 17:18-23, Jesus prayed
that as you sent me into the world, I also send them into the world. Vs 17 and Vs 20, He said He wasn’t praying
just for His disciples, but for all of us who have believed through the things
that they preached. If we were sent as
He was sent, then once the power of sin is broken off from us and righteousness
has been restored through Jesus, then everything that He was to do for mankind
has now become the ministry of all who believe.
Jesus said in John 17:22 that the glory and honor the Father gave Him,
He has given that same glory and honor to us.
Church, we
need to expand our faith in the finished works of Jesus to include what God’s
grace has provided for us, not only for us, but for us to take to the entire
world. God told Paul in II Cor 12:9 that
His grace was sufficient for his ministry. That same grace is enough for us as
well. When we are weak, His strength is
made perfect. Who is there among us that
have not run into weakness in our own lives?
The thing is, when we run into these areas of weakness, we should not
let the weakness win out, but put faith into the grace to lift us above the
weakness and into the victory. We have
spent much time talking about the thing that we are not to do; we forget what
we are called to do.
Everything we need to complete the things laid
out before us has been granted by God’s grace.
The thing about grace is that it takes faith to access it.
In I Cor
12, we read about the gifts of the Spirit.
Most of us disqualified ourselves almost instantly because we thought we
didn’t measure up. What we didn’t see
was that these gifts are not for the church to consume themselves, but for the
church to use these gifts to set the captives free. The gift of healing is not for the well man
(that by faith believes that by HIS stripes I am healed), but for the sick
people that the enemy has still held in captivity. These gifts (when used and received by faith
in Jesus according to what we read in John 17) are weapons of God against the
enemy to loose the bonds of captivity and set at liberty those that are
bound. These gifts are given by the Holy
Spirit to those (who by faith) will use them to break the hold of the enemy
over people’s lives. Isn’t that what
Jesus was anointed to do? In Luke
4:18-19, Jesus proclaimed what His ministry was and what His anointing was to
accomplish. In the Gospel according to
Matthew (28:17-20), Jesus declared that all power has been given Him both in
Heaven and on Earth. We were to go now
in the power of His name. In Acts 3:16,
Peter made the statement about the miracle at the Gates of the Temple that the
name of Jesus – and by faith in that name – had made the man whole. Could it be that we have not used the faith
in His name by understanding that grace has called us by and into that name?
For some
people down through the years, we have seen power in their lives, but they were
more of the minority than the majority.
I think that there are still some “too far people” out there that will
expand their faith in grace, not only for themselves, but for the world to know
Jesus.
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