The Christmas Covenant[2018]-6

There is great & constant peace which remains thru one’s personal relationship with God.

This ‘mystery’ of God is unfolded in Christ!

With the New Covenant God’s ways are not so much ‘learned’ as ‘experienced’ thru direct communion/interaction/socialization with God Himself. It is not so much ‘doing’ as it is ‘living.’

If you are currently comfortable with an ‘action only’ or ‘appearance only’ relationship with God, then you will always sense a personal weight of guiltiness that will never go away. Your reasons for doing what you do are simply worked by your physical ability to ease your comfort, attempting to keep the guilt at bay.

*That personal weight of guiltiness will NEVER go away, UNTIL you trust Jesus absolutely/completely/totally!

Keeping the Law provided for man a learned, mental, & thus somewhat distant relationship with God. “This horizontal relationship was performed by the mediation of the priest & by the proclamation of the prophets. It was designed around certain people who were ordained to represent the rest of the people in the presence of God. There was no lasting representation of one before the LORD on a personal basis.”—BS JerE.#2, C21-52

“With Christ one has individually been given the power to present himself before God because Jesus intercedes for us on a permanently continual basis. A participant in the New Covenant can therefore, approach God with confidence & boldness because [Jesus is] his eternal High Priest.”—BS JerE.#2, C21-52

The New Covenant has its focus on an immediate spiritual knowledge. For the participants in the covenant, there will no longer be the need to teach each other to “know the LORD” as in the Old Covenant. With those on whom He placed His Spirit, the relationship was a more sporadic event, i.e., the Holy Spirit could be taken away at any time & the intimacy with the Lord broken. They did not have a heart to know God [collectively]. There was no intimate union with God as we have in Christ. The present participants are, instead, taught directly by God on a continuous basis which cannot be changed. One can still refuse to listen to the teaching of the Holy Spirit but, once one becomes a participant in the covenant, he immediately has the access at any time to an intimate knowledge of God’s will. Along with this immediate, intimate knowledge, the covenant participant is immediately & simultaneously under the Lordship of Christ.— BS JerE.#2, C21-52

The New Covenant specifies “the manner in which God’s guiding directions would be mediated.” “Fallen human nature rebels against bowing to external demands or threats to obey. Those under the New Covenant will obey God, not out of duty or fear, but out of a [relational] God-given desire & ability to do so.” “the Mosaic law required the people to teach the law to their children.” “Having the law written on one’s heart is” “a matter of” “transformed attitudes & behavior.” Such results in “not just the knowledge of the law but the knowledge of the Lord” Himself by faith.—NAC