Daily Worship, Spirit and Word July 4, 2024
What is a Covenant? A Covenant is an agreement. It is a testament. It is words. A covenant is words between two people who agree.
God cannot lie. God has bound Himself to His word. When God speaks, it is true. In one sense, practically all promises are conditional. We do not believe that everyone on the earth is saved. However, we believe the Scripture that tells us God desires for all to be saved. We also believe that Jesus Christ died for all sins and not just ours. We believe that sin is no longer a thing that keeps us from relationship with God. We believe that we can enter into the promise of salvation only through faith in Jesus Christ. So there is even a condition to receiving salvation. It is believing your heart the Lord Jesus Christ and confessing with your mouth that he is Lord unto salvation. The condition for receiving the grace of God is faith. According to Holy Spirit, God has given every man the measure of faith. So everyone has the ability to believe God’s word and enter into His salvation. Salvation belongs to The LORD. It is received by faith as a the gift of God.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ …For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:4–9, NKJV)
If we are going to boast, we do not boast in our own strength. Our own wisdom. Our own wealth. No. We boast in our intimacy with The LORD. He reveals Himself to us through his word by His Spirit. Our hearts are moved by his word and the power of the Holy Spirit and we respond in faith, hope and love.
If salvation is conditional upon our faith response to His word, why would we think that the other promises of God do not require a faith response? All of the promises of God are in Christ, “yes”, and in us, “amen”, to the glory of the father. All of the promises are in Christ, but they require our “amen”.
When you have made a hard decision, were you able to carry out that decision without obstacle or resistance? Did not your own flesh resist you? Did not your own physical capacity restrict you when you tried to go after that dream? Didn’t you have to learn something new? Didn’t you have to build muscle that wasn’t there? Didn’t you have to grow in understanding, wisdom and knowledge?
Any worthwhile endeavor requires us to grow to expand to build in order to become something bigger and better than we were when we started. So it is natural that when we start believing God‘s promises, we will face obstacles that must be overcome. Jesus said this himself. he said persecution comes for the word sake. He said when the seed is planted, the adversary comes immediately to try to take that seed.