Thursday, February 12, 2009

Responding to the New Covenant

The Old Covenant clearly laid out how to respond to God, God was very specific in his directions to the Israelites. Beware of those today who say they are preaching New Covenant but are still informing you of how to 'respond' to God by specific actions on your part. Beware of 'application' that tells you exactly what you should do or how to 'obey'. This is always indicative of a mixture of the old into the new, and don't be surprised if this mixture explodes your poor little wine skin. It's very messy when that happens, and be sure the ones who preached the mixture to you will be nowhere in sight when clean-up time arrives!

I'm very disappointed in certain ministries and preachers who I respect, disappointed that after having heard them preach the glorious gospel they now weakly back down ashamed of the gospel. They go back to preaching balance or application or response, basically they can't trust God's people to Jesus but feel the need to push them to behave in certain ways. This makes me so sad...

There is only ONE response to the New Covenant: BELIEVE IN JESUS.

Just believe. To all you who are weary and heavy laden, come to Jesus, he will give you rest! Don't go to anyone who offers you anything but rest, it may sound holy and admirable but it's a lie and will steal your joy. Get established in grace, in his gift of righteousness and you will begin to find that you will work harder than ever before in the calling your Father has put on your life, but miracle of all miracles! It won't be you, it will be the grace of God within you, the Spirit of Jesus himself!!!! Lay down your dead works and your self-righteousness and receive freely all that Jesus has won for you.

I'm preaching to myself here...I need to hear this over and over and over and over...and it's good, it gets better every time!

If you haven't already checked out Rob's latest series Being Established in the Gift of Righteousness I highly recommend you do! I believe many of them are also available on GraceStream TV (video) which you will notice is available right here or at Dynamic Love Ministries.

6 comments:

Mattityahu said...

Julie,

the Body of Christ needs attitudes like this to remind them not to revert back to balance or mixture. Thank you for not backing down.

lydia said...

No shrinking back!! I particularly enjoyed the latest CCI message the Ryan preached, and there were a lot of great words given during the worship..............good stuff as always Jul. I think there are a lot of great ministries out there the 'get' a lot of truths, and all but then they have to go and add a few laws, like giving or sowing, and how to respond to God like you said!! No just come, just believe and just rest!!! Radical, no? This little addition, believe it or not, totally thwarts the pure Gospel and doesn't allow people to fully enter their freedom and God's rest!!!

Much love............

The Lewis Family said...

Hey Julie,
I was on Jamies facebook page and i noticed that you had another friend in common from more than 10 years back! Dave Horsman. I just thought that was fascinating considering I have seen you via blogger and the grace of God. How do you know Dave? I know him and Janet from when I was in Minnesota attending Bethany College of Missions. In fact that was where I was when i had a revelation of Jesus Christ as my all and that I no longer had to strive to be Holy, nor go to missions school to tell people about Jesus. . . So yeah, I thought was pretty interesting. . . :)

jul said...

I went to kindergarten with Dave, we share the same hometown I guess! Pretty funny to see how we're connected in strange ways on facebook...

cucca said...

Amen :) Love to read your posts!

Craig Glenn said...

Excellent Juls........these things, when we hear them over and over again are a safeguard for us...renewing our minds, breakiing condemnation, guilt and fear of us until we walk fully as sons and daughters....so keep 'em coming!!