How should new covenant people fast?

Ok, so we’re looking at the New Covenant prophecies, specifically lately, Isaiah chapters 40 – 66. I am going to posit parts of Isaiah 58 in a bulleted list, and I would invite you to look at all the bullet points and consider the church as you experience it today, and perform a mental inventory to see if most of the list actually fits your experience. I am going to eliminate the verse numbers and just place it in a bulleted list:

• Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?
• "Is not this the fast that I choose:
• to loose the bonds of wickedness,
• to undo the straps of the yoke,
• to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
• Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;
• when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
• Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
• and your healing shall spring up speedily;
• your righteousness shall go before you;
• the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
• Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
• you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'
• If you take away the yoke from your midst,
• the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
• if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
• then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;
• and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. (Isa 58:5-12)

There is a whole group of evangelicals that are fasting and praying all the time. They have shut ins and group fasts. Perhaps they would do well to look at this bulleted list. How much of this list could just as easily be applied to evangelical Christianity, especially the Pentecostal wing. Is it just me or have self righteous people always been angry, judgmental and cruel?

Removing the pointing of the finger could be universal to both the Pentecostal,  and non-Pentecostal evangelical institution. Evangelical Christianity as a whole is pretty judgmental and they base it on their particular read of the scripture. More often than not they do not even consider that they perhaps are reading scripture wrong.  Likewise, it would be prudent to consider Matthew 25:31-46 and Matthew 5:16. Jesus encouraged them to let their light shine before men that others may see the good works, and thereby glorify their Father which is in heaven. I am not saying that there is no group in institutional, evangelical, Christianity which promotes social justice, but they are far more rare than should be the case… especially given the above scripture passages. Is it possible that fasting as practiced today is an attempt to manipulate God much like in the day of Israel?

What if we really are new covenant people, completely under the new covenant? What if much of current Christian doctrine and dogma is in fact the strong delusion mentioned in 2Thess 2:11? What if now is the ripe time for the manifestation of the sons and daughters of God? Not some supra holy group of people that follow all of the biblical laws to a tee, but rather, men and women, boys and girls that are certain that they are children of God… that they love God so much, and are at complete peace and rest with him, that they begin to love supernaturally. The supernatural love is the characteristic that makes them the obvious (synonym for manifest) sons and daughters of the living loving God?

An everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David

Isaiah 55:1-4  "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.  (2)  Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.  (3)  Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.  (4)  Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.

Writing on to the new covenant people… We learn in Acts that David was a man after God’s own heart. What was it about David? First and foremost it was his faith in God’s love and protection. He was set apart to be a commander of the people and a type of Christ. It is through the linage of David that the kingdom of God gets its king. The kingly prophesies of Christ Jesus always included David.

The interesting thing about this prophecy is who is addressed… “come EVERYONE who thirsts” It is not just a promise to the nation, natural Israel. It is a promise to everyone, Jew or gentile who thirsts. Jesus said the following: Matt 5:6  "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” He is explaining what was meant by Isaiah 55:1. Thirsting for righteousness is really thirsting for justice. It is one who desires in his or her heart to be just and righteous. That will be the trait of new covenant people. Even when they fall short, none the less they still thirst for righteousness.

I have known addicted people, that is, people with addictive personalities hunger and thirst for righteousness. Conversely, I have known many who think that they have achieved righteousness by their behavior that have no apparent hunger or thirst. Remember Jesus’ parable about the two that went to the temple to pray… I would sincerely watch thanking God for helping us to be righteous. What we need to do is thank God and rejoice for declaring us righteous right where we are!

Further down the passage in Isaiah, we Gentiles are included in the promise of Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55:5  Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Here again is ample proof that the new covenant people are neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, but rather, a new creation/creature.

Right now, if you are struggling day by day, but if in your heart you hunger and thirst for righteousness… like for a cold drink and a plate when you are parched and hungry, know this, you will be filled. New Covenant People are filled by the blood of Jesus Christ and that makes them love… they love God… they love each other… and they love and seek everyone who hungers and thirsts.

Your God Reigns; a promise to new covenant people

Isaiah 52:7  “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."

Proclaiming the kingdom of God is as easy as saying your God reigns. The reign of God, the government of God, and the kingdom of God are all the same thing. To say it in today’s language you could simply say “God rules.” The above passage is descriptive first and foremost of Jesus and his mission. He came to bring the good news of the kingdom. That is the message, your God reigns. One could not say God reigns without meaning that the kingdom of God is a now thing. It is a present reality.

I have already stated that the decrees of Isaiah chapters forty through sixty-six are promises written to the New Covenant People. That is the reality of who we are. We are new covenant people, completely under the new covenant. The covenant is made by God’s declaration. It is entered into by apprehension on our part. Not apprehension as in anxiety but apprehension in relationship to apprehending or arresting.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the book. Let’s take a look at Genesis. Gen 1:27 & 31  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  …..  (31)  And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”  There you have God’s point of view, man was created good in God’s image. In the reign of God, God’s view is the correct one. With the knowledge of good and evil, man doubted God’s original decree, and wondered if humanity was bad and not good. In the long run, humanity concluded that they were essentially bad. Christ came to this earth believing God’s original decree that he was good. He was willing to die to prove it, knowing that God would raise him from the dead. This was proof of our eternal nature. Because of Jesus, we can believe that we are eternal, and loved by God, and that God thinks we are very good. That is in a nutshell the gospel… that is the good news of the reign of God. Believing that specific gospel message restores us to the original state. That is what redemption is.

It is truly good news to find out that our God, your God, everyone’s God (I say that because there is really only one true God) reigns. God reigns and therefore despots do not. However, the reign of God is spiritual. It only moves into the natural realm when we subject ourselves to his reign. The first step in this subjection is to apprehend the gospel and the kingdom. We must, as I have said over and over again, latch on to, hold on to, firmly grip this truth. We apprehend it and do not allow it to go.

So then, the beautiful feet on the mountain top are the feet of Christ Jesus. But, when we are united to him by apprehending faith, and we begin to proclaim the love of God, and the message that our God reigns in love, we begin to have the beautiful feet ourselves. No matter what may come, our God reigns eternally. No matter what may come we are eternally connected to our reigning God. We can rest in the fact. If God merely reigns for this earthly life what good is that? It is THE eternal reign that makes us bullet proof.

Now then, eternal awareness should not cause us to cop out from achieving all that God wants for us here. It should free us up to grab for the brass ring. It should free us to reach for our highest achievements; all the while proclaiming our God reigns!

Accounted Righteous

Isaiah 53:11  “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

I remember from the sixties a song with the line… when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn? As I sit at the keyboard right now, I hear that line playing over and over in my head… when will they ever learn? The scripture is replete with the concept of accounted or imputed righteousness. Paul plainly states that one of unbelieving Israel’s main faults was that instead of accepting God’s accounted righteousness, they were busy trying to establish their own righteousness and as a result of that, they MISSED God’s righteousness…. the song continues in my head, when will they ever learn?

Recently, there has been a group of theologians that are critical of Luther’s understanding of imputed or accredited or accounted righteousness. They insinuate that imputed righteousness is not really imputed. That no one is really righteous without acting and behaving righteously. That makes a lot of sense to the human mind… and the song goes on… when will they ever learn?

As I have come to understand the spiritual transformation process, imputed righteousness is the only thing that makes sense to me. It is the source of Sabbath Rest. God’s declaration that one is righteous based upon faith frees one up to love and trust God completely. Remember the first and greatest commandment according to Jesus. “Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy might and with all thy strength.” That means that one must really truly love God! There is absolutely no fudging on that point. It is something one either does or they do not.

There is no room for saying well, I love God, but I am afraid of him…. People, people, people… when will we ever learn? Can I get some honesty? One does not really love and trust someone they fear. I will guarantee, that the fear of God that most evangelicals harbor, secretly for the most part, causes them to be unable to really fulfill the greatest commandment. It is impossible to love with all your heart, mind and strength someone you fear. If you fear you do not love…. Yet, pastors think that they must teach their people to fear God… a little fear is healthy they say…. There goes the song again; when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Let me make this really clear. Imputed righteousness, accounted righteousness is the ground… it is the foundation… it is the true catalyst for love for God. Love for God is the motivation for real, genuine, true, sincere, transformation. It will not happen short of complete trust and complete trust cannot happen without absolution. One must be given the righteous status freely without merit in order to completely trust.

And on and on the lyrics play… when will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

New Covenant Promises to the New Covenant People II

In the last couple of posts I have begun to explore the New Covenant promises as written in the Old Testament Prophets. Let me expand on my point. The New Covenant promises are what I call sovereign decrees of God which are guaranteed to the target audience of new covenant people. They are decrees that can be counted on completely. To use a metaphor, they are decrees that you can take to the bank or bank on. Let me give an example from Isaiah 54.

Isa 54:16-17  "Behold, I have created the blacksmith Who blows the coals in the fire, Who brings forth an instrument for his work; And I have created the spoiler to destroy.  (17)  No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their righteousness is from Me," Says the LORD.

If you take the time to read Isaiah 54 and put these verses in context you will see that it is a promise to new covenant Israel. This brings up a legitimate question; who is new covenant Israel? What constitutes new covenant Israel? Paul takes a side trip in Romans, in chapters nine, ten, and eleven to explain this. He uses the olive tree metaphor. Branches are cut off for unbelief. Wild olive branches are grafted in, and some of the cut off branches are re-grafted in the original tree. All of the branches are grafted in because they believe in Christ Jesus. So then, New Covenant Israel is made up of both Jews and Gentiles. The New Covenant people lose the status of being either Jew or Gentile. They are in fact a new creature/ creation in Christ.

The truth is that the new covenant promises are for the new covenant people and there are neither, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free… rather they are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28.) Verse 29 goes on to explain that all in Christ are heirs of Abraham and the promise. The promise is a New Covenant based upon better promises. It is important to realize that all of us Gentiles have to be grafted in via Christ or we could not be part of the covenant people.  There is a provision in the Old Covenant for Gentiles joining in to become Jews. It is found in Exodus 12.

Exo 12:48-49 And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. (49) One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you."

The plain simple fact is that if the New Covenant is not completely in force, Gentiles could not be part of the people of God unless they were circumcised and obeyed all of the Mosaic Law. If in fact, non-Jewish people are in covenant with God at all it must be via the new covenant. Therefore, all those in Christ Jesus are new covenant people and, they can rest assured that God has not formed the weapons that come against them… not only that, they (the weapons) will not prosper. Furthermore, any tongue that rises in judgment will be condemned by the new covenant people. It is the heritage of the new covenant people. And finally, look at the imputed righteousness clause… their righteousness is from Me says the Lord.

Shouldn’t we want to be the new covenant people? We will look further into this and the implications in further posts.

The New Covenant Promises to the New Covenant People

In the last blog post, Repairers of the breach, I began to look at the idea of being New Covenant people. The New Covenant promises in the Old Testament Prophets are addressed to New Covenant people. Who are the New Covenant people anyway? The simple answer is they are all people who have truly apprehended Christ and his provisions. Peter states it this way; 2Peter 1:3-4  “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,  (4)  by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” The great and precious promises are all of the divine decrees proclaimed in the New Covenant passages of the Old Testament Prophets.

Just to name a few, Isaiah 40-66, Jeremiah 31;31-34, and Ezekiel 36:26 come to mind. How does one become a partaker of the divine nature and therefore become new covenant people? The answer is “in Christ.” There is no other way. What I mean by that specifically is there is no other way to be certain of New Covenant status. That is only obtained through union with Christ who is the promised seed of Abraham. Gal 3:26-29  For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  “(27)  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  (28)  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  (29)  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” One is baptized into Christ by simply apprehending the gospel. I like the word apprehend because it is descriptive of real true faith. It is more than mental assent. It grabs a hold of the promises and does not let go. It is the obedience of faith.

Notice it is not obedience to a set of principles. It is a faith that holds on to promises and will not relinquish. It is like the faith of Jacob wrestling with the angel. He would not let go no matter what and that is exactly the description of apprehending Christ Jesus; holding on and not letting go no matter what.

It is in the apprehension of Christ that all of the New Covenant promises come into play. Apprehending Christ is NOT grabbing hold of a specific doctrinal stance. It is NOT talking a certain way, walking a certain way and being in a building every time the doors open. That is NOT the sign of New Covenant people. The promises DO NOT come as the result of church affiliation. They come by apprehending Christ and becoming an heir of Abraham through the promise.

We shall continue to look into what it means to be New Covenant people in subsequent posts.

Repairer of the breach

As one who is close to being a full preterist, I have long believed that Isaiah chapters forty through sixty-six are very important to new covenant people. Actually, I think that they are perhaps more pertinent than the actual first century writings in the New Testament. My reason for this is that the New Testament writings chronicle the lives and times of the early church in a transition period between covenants. Isaiah forty through sixty-six was written specifically to new covenant people. With that said, I would like to begin my examination with the promises in Isaiah 58.

 Isa 58:10-14 NKJV:  “If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday.  (11)  The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.  (12)  Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.  (13)  "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the LORD honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words,  (14)  Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken."

 I include the passage on the Sabbath for this reason. It is important. Not the day Saturday, but what Saturday was a metaphor of. It is important because of the Sabbath Rest (Hebrews 3&4.) The entire purpose of the Sabbath was to point to resting from work and trusting in God. There is so much in this passage and as the days go on we will look at other passages in Isaiah 40 – 66 but this is a good place to begin. What the world desperately needs today is new covenant people; People who are willing to be repairers of the breach.

There is a double entendre in the phrase repairers of the breach. First, it is a metaphysical breach between man and God. This is precisely why God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting sin. Repairing the breach also has a natural and physical component.  It is well defined in this passage and in Jesus words in Matthew 25:31-46. Repairing the breach is also the process of bringing social justice to the poor and disadvantaged. It is a way of off-setting greed. Gordon Gekko was completely wrong. Greed is not good. Greed is a symptom of humanities pathology.

I hope this is helping a light to click on for you. We are not necessarily the church, nor are we just the kingdom of God. We are the NEW COVENANT PEOPLE. As such, we house the potential to be repairers of the breach. More to come on this subject.