New Covenant vs Old Covenant - impt that we know how to differentiate between the 2
Just to quote here something I left as a comment on a friend's blog =) Gonna paste this here coz I think some of us need to hear it and to reflect on it. Then going to go ZZZZZZZZZZZZ coz it is 624am and I have not slept a wink yet. (Thank God my Dad's babysitting my son today. =D)
Here goes:
I think it is crucial to remember this - the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John relate to the times when men were still under the OT laws- ie they are pre-new covenant.
New covenant in Christ only started after Jesus's death and ascension into heaven (ie ACTS onwards).
Crucial to note LORD'S PRAYER is OT prayer. Why? =)
"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us." - With His death, Christ has forgiven us of our sins past, present and future. Now redeemed, we live a life of repentance - not saying sorry all the time, but a life of heart transformation.
And also, by His death on the cross, Christ has delivered us from evil.
Unless you are saying that His work was not finished on the Cross as He said it was. ^.^"
Also LORD's prayer was an example of how to pray - praise, requests & inward reflection and just humbling onself before God.
When we read the bible, it is crucical i feel to discern what is pre-new convenant teaching and what is post. It makes a whole lot of difference to understanding scripture. This is not my own unique view I am sure and there are writings discussing this topic.
Before I go, even understanding the parables told by Jesus require us to understand first of all who was he addressing His parables to.
An example of OT parable-
The rich young ruler whom Jesus asked to give up his wealth and position and follow him, couldn't and parted sadly - that young ruler had claimed he had fulfilled all of OT's legalism. But Christ wanted to remind him that he was not perfect and had not kept all law as he proudly claimed he had. By not being able to leave his wealth behind, that young man had sinned under Mosaic law because those had become source of his idolatory. The young man knew that truth and left with a heavey heart. And under Mosaic Law, crucial to remember also - sin one, keep nine = breaking all ten regardless.
The difference btw the young man in the parable, and those of us who believe that Christ's death has won the victory over the devourer and thus prospers us in ALL areas of our life is this - because of Christ's death on the Cross, a new convenant has rendered the mosaic law obsolete (says so in the scriptures)- but that does not mean we live to sin now that we have grace... no way. Because law has been made obsolete in His death, the curses have been lifted. By putting Christ first in our pursuit of life, He adds the rest of the blessings to us. We prosper as our soul prospers - we achieve a victorious life in our spirit which leads to a victorious life in the physical realm.
When one is sound in Spirit and Jesus is one's first love, God is able to bless us with blessings that bring us no sorrow.
A man who loves money before Christ cannot be trusted with wealth as it will only make him sad - money will always be, as Jack Neo says, no enough for the dude.
But when a person puts Christ first and is able to give what God has blessed him with away to wherever the HS has led him to sow, God knows that he can bless the guy with wealth because the dude is a good steward whom money has no power over.
The veil in the temple was torn at the moment of Christ's death so we are no longer sinners enslaved to a cursed fallen earth, the torn veil means we can now see God face to face and call Him ABBA FATHER!
And see prodigal son story? That is a grace parable. The Father forgives his son and gives him signet ring and sandles. the ring represents all my wealth and riches are yours, the sandles respresent restoration of his status if not wrong. In Christ, we are no longer sinners, but the restored and redeemed. We have sonship through Christ and we have authority, provision and abundance because of Christ.
The focus of our church sermon, as Stan so clearly states, is JESUS glorified. Everything else we have we are blessed with because of His sacrifice on theh cross. The sermons at NCC dun preach cheap grace, love for money... the gospel we hear in NCC preaches a victorious Christ, a loving Father and the wisdom we can only have if we listen and obey the Holy Spirit. Not man. Not money. Not the media. Not the flesh.
Honestly, if they preached money I dun think people would have stayed on the way we have. As my son once said, people seek God because they want to be healed. People find grace to be healed spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically in our church. They come to fall in love with Jesus again not because of dollars and cents, but because of ALL that He gave to us on that cross, ALL that He bled for us, ALL that He went through for us so that we can be redeemed by the shedding of His innocent blood.
That is the gospel we hear preached every Sunday - Christ glorified.
And it is sad when people who go by hearsay or one sermon, two sermon clips proclaim our church preaches material vs Christ spiritual.
Anyone of us who attends week after week and has heard hundreds of sermons over the years have the same opinion - that we see Jesus glorified over all things, all situations, all strongholds. We see grace so clearly and beautifully. Our focus is on Christ, not on things of this world.
That is the view my husband, my son and I share.
My parents have been moved to tears about Jesus's love for them and I see years of hardened scales falling off from their heart every time my son talks to them about the message of grace, when we play sermons at home, when they see how our lives have been transformed.
If a church is teaching wrong values, one should see an escalation of sin in that church.
But all we've seen are transformed hearts, lives transformed for good... my hubby always remarks how he sees people from his school who were real bengs and bad asses attending our church reformed totally by Christ's love for them. He was from a Methodist school btw and he said the whole legalism and condemnation preached by the pastors screwed many lives over.
Now that they are sitting under right teaching, so many have come to see God's love for them and seeing God's love for them they can truly love, truly forgive and truly live a life of victory over bad habits, over sin, over the strongholds that had chained them down.
This is why so many of us speak passionately for the gospel of grace - because without it, there would be no hope, no freedom, no love, no renewed lives.
Jesus is our everything and in Him I have everything. I believe that my God is so big, so strong and so mighty... so much bigger in heart and generosity and understanding and mercy than we fathom Him to be through our puny intellect n pathetic human understanding =).
Thank you Father for giving up the life of your only Son so that I can gain life and life more abundantly through His death. You are so amazing, so good and so wonderful!
Keep me safe under your wings, I will be still and know You are GOD =)
Here goes:
I think it is crucial to remember this - the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John relate to the times when men were still under the OT laws- ie they are pre-new covenant.
New covenant in Christ only started after Jesus's death and ascension into heaven (ie ACTS onwards).
Crucial to note LORD'S PRAYER is OT prayer. Why? =)
"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us." - With His death, Christ has forgiven us of our sins past, present and future. Now redeemed, we live a life of repentance - not saying sorry all the time, but a life of heart transformation.
And also, by His death on the cross, Christ has delivered us from evil.
Unless you are saying that His work was not finished on the Cross as He said it was. ^.^"
Also LORD's prayer was an example of how to pray - praise, requests & inward reflection and just humbling onself before God.
When we read the bible, it is crucical i feel to discern what is pre-new convenant teaching and what is post. It makes a whole lot of difference to understanding scripture. This is not my own unique view I am sure and there are writings discussing this topic.
Before I go, even understanding the parables told by Jesus require us to understand first of all who was he addressing His parables to.
An example of OT parable-
The rich young ruler whom Jesus asked to give up his wealth and position and follow him, couldn't and parted sadly - that young ruler had claimed he had fulfilled all of OT's legalism. But Christ wanted to remind him that he was not perfect and had not kept all law as he proudly claimed he had. By not being able to leave his wealth behind, that young man had sinned under Mosaic law because those had become source of his idolatory. The young man knew that truth and left with a heavey heart. And under Mosaic Law, crucial to remember also - sin one, keep nine = breaking all ten regardless.
The difference btw the young man in the parable, and those of us who believe that Christ's death has won the victory over the devourer and thus prospers us in ALL areas of our life is this - because of Christ's death on the Cross, a new convenant has rendered the mosaic law obsolete (says so in the scriptures)- but that does not mean we live to sin now that we have grace... no way. Because law has been made obsolete in His death, the curses have been lifted. By putting Christ first in our pursuit of life, He adds the rest of the blessings to us. We prosper as our soul prospers - we achieve a victorious life in our spirit which leads to a victorious life in the physical realm.
When one is sound in Spirit and Jesus is one's first love, God is able to bless us with blessings that bring us no sorrow.
A man who loves money before Christ cannot be trusted with wealth as it will only make him sad - money will always be, as Jack Neo says, no enough for the dude.
But when a person puts Christ first and is able to give what God has blessed him with away to wherever the HS has led him to sow, God knows that he can bless the guy with wealth because the dude is a good steward whom money has no power over.
The veil in the temple was torn at the moment of Christ's death so we are no longer sinners enslaved to a cursed fallen earth, the torn veil means we can now see God face to face and call Him ABBA FATHER!
And see prodigal son story? That is a grace parable. The Father forgives his son and gives him signet ring and sandles. the ring represents all my wealth and riches are yours, the sandles respresent restoration of his status if not wrong. In Christ, we are no longer sinners, but the restored and redeemed. We have sonship through Christ and we have authority, provision and abundance because of Christ.
The focus of our church sermon, as Stan so clearly states, is JESUS glorified. Everything else we have we are blessed with because of His sacrifice on theh cross. The sermons at NCC dun preach cheap grace, love for money... the gospel we hear in NCC preaches a victorious Christ, a loving Father and the wisdom we can only have if we listen and obey the Holy Spirit. Not man. Not money. Not the media. Not the flesh.
Honestly, if they preached money I dun think people would have stayed on the way we have. As my son once said, people seek God because they want to be healed. People find grace to be healed spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically in our church. They come to fall in love with Jesus again not because of dollars and cents, but because of ALL that He gave to us on that cross, ALL that He bled for us, ALL that He went through for us so that we can be redeemed by the shedding of His innocent blood.
That is the gospel we hear preached every Sunday - Christ glorified.
And it is sad when people who go by hearsay or one sermon, two sermon clips proclaim our church preaches material vs Christ spiritual.
Anyone of us who attends week after week and has heard hundreds of sermons over the years have the same opinion - that we see Jesus glorified over all things, all situations, all strongholds. We see grace so clearly and beautifully. Our focus is on Christ, not on things of this world.
That is the view my husband, my son and I share.
My parents have been moved to tears about Jesus's love for them and I see years of hardened scales falling off from their heart every time my son talks to them about the message of grace, when we play sermons at home, when they see how our lives have been transformed.
If a church is teaching wrong values, one should see an escalation of sin in that church.
But all we've seen are transformed hearts, lives transformed for good... my hubby always remarks how he sees people from his school who were real bengs and bad asses attending our church reformed totally by Christ's love for them. He was from a Methodist school btw and he said the whole legalism and condemnation preached by the pastors screwed many lives over.
Now that they are sitting under right teaching, so many have come to see God's love for them and seeing God's love for them they can truly love, truly forgive and truly live a life of victory over bad habits, over sin, over the strongholds that had chained them down.
This is why so many of us speak passionately for the gospel of grace - because without it, there would be no hope, no freedom, no love, no renewed lives.
Jesus is our everything and in Him I have everything. I believe that my God is so big, so strong and so mighty... so much bigger in heart and generosity and understanding and mercy than we fathom Him to be through our puny intellect n pathetic human understanding =).
Thank you Father for giving up the life of your only Son so that I can gain life and life more abundantly through His death. You are so amazing, so good and so wonderful!
Keep me safe under your wings, I will be still and know You are GOD =)
Comments
Post a Comment