God’s rewriting of His law was a demonstration that no man could fulfill and keep the law! Sin built the golden calf! The two tablets of the law were placed in the Ark of the Covenant waiting for the one who could keep the law! The Ark of the Covenant was made of wood (humanity) and was covered with gold (Deity). Only Jesus was fully man and fully God could keep the law and be the perfect sacrifice to satisfy God’s Justice and Judgment! You cannot have gold without wood! When mining for gold you have to have thick wooden timbers to support the mine shaft. Without God becoming humanity (wood) you could never have Deity (gold) dwelling in these earthen vessels! The Cross members of wood supporting humanity dwelling in God delivers us from a lawless life! The Ark of the Covenant shows us that man’s best efforts cannot save us! Only God’s plan and effort will deliver us from our own attempts to reach and dwell with God! We did not go to Him He came to us! In the Book of Revelation it describes the Golden Altar before the Thrown of God! The Ark of the Covenant on earth represents what is already in Heaven! When you accept Christ God’s plan in Heaven becomes a reality in your life here on earth! Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Tag: covenant
Covenant Marriage or Contract Marriage?
What kind of marriage you enter into will determine outcome! There is no perfect marriage but understanding God’s plan and purpose for you and your spouse is critical to success! Under the New Covenant our lives should be lived in Christ! Jesus accomplished the Old Covenant through the New Covenant by giving up all His rights and taking full responsibility for our sin! Yes even death on a Cross! A marriage should reflect the same spirit! Each spouse should give up all their rights and take full responsibility for their marriage! It is not my responsibility or her responsibility! We cannot fix one another! We together in Christ take responsibility for our marriage! We carry each others burden! A three cord rope is not easily broken! The worldly contract marriage is just the opposite! In a contract marriage we keep all our rights and do not accept responsibility for our marriage! Just like no fault divorce! If you do not give me what I want like sex and money then the contract is broken and we divorce and move on! In Creation God took part of Adam and made a woman. They were joined together! In God’s covenant He paid a great price even His blood to give us victory in our marriages! Victory over division and unity as you serve Christ together as one!Christ has forgiven us and we should forgive each other! Let no man separate what God has joined together! Source: Excerpt from Message given by Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado
What Did Jesus Say About Following Him? Matthew 7:13-14
Jesus had a radical message! You can only enter in at the narrow way, narrow passage or narrow gate to follow me. A narrow gate would only be about the width of your shoulders. You cannot carry any baggage with you when you go through it. Following Jesus through the narrow gate requires focus with no distractions in the way. The broad road or gate leads to destruction. Jesus does and did not go this path. It is a dead end road. Few people choose the narrow gate. American culture is more Christ resistant than anytime in our history. To follow Christ today is more costly than in previous generations. We are considered radicals by our culture and ridiculed. We are considered on the outer fringes like space cadets. Did you ever notice the on-line surveys always give you a way out. You are never committed to a yes or no answer. Kind of like politics today. Christ gave His disciples no third choice. It was either Heaven or Hell. The same holds true for us today! Yes or no? Easy or difficult. Matthew 5:1-2. Jesus real audience was more than the crowds it was His disciples. They had already made up their minds to follow Him but their trust level was low. It takes time to figure out if you can trust someone. Jesus told them the Kingdom of God is right now! It was not yesterday or tomarrow. Living right now is Monday through Saturday working, school and difficult schedules. Jesus said let Heaven break into your boring day to day world. Jerusalem has 12 gates. The wide gate is the most used gate. Examples today are convenience stores, shopping malls, fast food, ect. We like the best paved roads with the fewest traffic lights. They even have drive through churches today. Just hear a message on the internet or television. Why go to church? Studies have found that women like to shop on the internet after 9:00PM. Why? Convenient! We like to choose the easy way over the difficult. Going through the wide gate we can take along as much baggage as we want. No constraints, no sacrifices, easy choices, no boundaries, no commitment applies to all who travel the wide gate. Taking this path leads to ruin. Jesus took a narrow path from The Judgment Hall to Calvary. It was also a steep climb carrying your Cross! He took your unforgiveness, hurt, pain and all your sin. Jesus was a teacher of virtue. Creativity exits between boundaries. Whether it be inventions, music, poetry, sciences, discoveries or even the work of a humble farmer. All great work is done within constraints and boundaries. Jesus had to be sinless to fix your sin. Because of the discipline of constraints and boundaries we have very few great people. People do not like boundaries. Live together why get married? Why study? Why work? Get on welfare. Pregnant? Get an abortion. Vote for the political party that offers you no constraints or boundaries. Revelation 7:9. Heaven is not sparsely populated but has a great multitude. Salvation belongs to our God! It is a free gift like a Christmas gift under a tree and is easy to find. Jesus is easy to find but very difficult to follow. Weddings are exciting but then the couples have to learn to live together. Marriage goes from easy to difficult. The wide gate is to get a divorce or just live together unmarried. To remain in covenant is a miracle from God and requires His Grace. To stay married is hard work and a challenge. Getting pregnant is easy but raising children is hard work. The family under the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman is God’s only plan and design for relationships and for the security of future generations. Worship even requires constraints and boundaries. All people will make one of the following four choices in their life. 1. Secularism- autonomy, it’s my life, live for yourself, no boundaries, no restraints. Not Jesus way. No! 2. Moralism- Follow the rules and get the life I deserve. Entitlement. Steeped in religion that says it is all about me. I deserve to be rich and famous because I am a moral person. 3. Religion- I owe my life to God. Obligation. Things better go right with me because I am serving God! Bad exchange. Problems come! Death and disease comes to all! 4. Grace- Jesus says your life for my life! Wonderful exchange! Great Exchange! My nothingless for His everything. Give God your life and He gives His life back to you! Stop living for yourself. It is a dead end. Let Christ come in. Welcome the Holy Spirit! You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. What needs constraint in your life? Do you eat food for comfort? Do you have a drug or sex addiction? Do you feed your senses to no avail. Let Christ increase and you decrease. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and He will add to your life that will help you to victory. Source: Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Message given Sunday September 1, 2013.
Want To Build A Altar To God? Requires Blood! Genesis 35:1
The word for Altar in the Hebrew is the word, “Mizbeach.” It means the place of sacrifice by slaughtering an animal. The sacrificial system was at the focal point of the Israelite system of worship since the sacrifice and subsequent meal were used to solemnize a covenant or treaty to symbolize a position relationship between two parties. Noah built an altar and offered sacrifices on exiting the ark. The patriarchs built altars and sacrificed at various points along their journeys such as Abram, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. At Mount Sinai, God commanded that the Israelites build a tabernacle that included two altars; a bronze altar in the courtyard for sacrificing animals and a golden altar inside the tabernacle for burning incense. Solomon and Ezekiel followed a similar pattern. God also required that the altar for burnt offerings be made of earth or uncut stones so that human hands would not defile it. God also required that the altar would have no steps so that human nakedness would not be exposed on it. Notice that the blood required was not human blood but animal blood. In some religions including Islam human sacrifice is required. God never required us to commit another sin to try to cover our first sin. The blood of animals never did pay the penalty of death for our sin but pointed us to the God-Man Jesus Christ as the one and only sacrifice for our sin. Only the blood of God Himself which was sinless blood would suffice for our guilt. Choose Christ and the gift of salvation that He alone has provided for us! Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Sermon On The Mount Series New Life Church
Matthew Chapter 5; The sermon on the mount is the most taught and least followed of all Jesus teachings! Jesus brings a new imagination ( image ) and a new people out of this sermon. Israel has a history of getting things wrong! They moved from holiness, sin, rebellion, repentance and back to holiness. The difficulty today is the church is just like Israel. Often we cannot tell the difference between the church and the world. Leviticus 18:1-4; God found us in Egypt! God did not want the Jews to be like Egypt or like Canaan. There are traps both in prosperity and bondage. Do not follow the practices of the world. The world is sinking sand. Build on the rock (Christ). The Jews wanted Samuel to give them a king. Why? Other nations had kings. We want to be like the world. God and samuel were greived. So they got Saul, David and a bunch of really bad kings out of forty. Ezekiel 20:6-8; It is possible not to lust, control your temper and live peaceably. Here is a summation of the sermon on the mount, “An invitation from Jesus to be like him and be set apart.” We are a covenant people serving a covenant God. As a mother feeds her baby through the umbilical cord so we are the branches attached to the vine. Moses could not follow the law! The sermon on the mount is not another set of rules. Jesus in you teaches you and enpowers you. John 15:5-6; Apart from me you can do nothing. Bare much fruit! Philippians 2:12; Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. God works in you! No individualism here but community. The disciples left the crowd but after Jesus changed their lives they went back to minister to the crowds! We are in covenant with God and the community. If we try by ourselves we will fail. Live with Jesus and others. No isolation from community in the covenant. The table of covenant is community. Together we servs the community. We serve each other and we serve Christ as He serves us! The Trinity of the covenant is serving community, each other and Christ! Source; Sermon notes, Pastor Brady Boyd, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Sermon On The Mount Series, 28 April 2013. Thankyou. James Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Christ Saves And Secures! 1 John 3:6-9
In this passage, John examines the question of whether the person “Born Again” can commit sin? In verse six the apostle writes, “Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not”, and in verse eight, “He that commits sin is of the devil.” Furthermore in verse nine there is an emphatic declaration: “Whosoever is of God doth not commit sin…and he cannot sin.” If it were possible for a Christian to sin, there would be a contradiction in these portions of scriptures. In this instance, John says if it is not possible for those who are really born again to sin, there must be very few genuine Christians. Every believer still possesses a fallen, sin nature, as well as the indwelling Holy Spirit. Also the doctrine of eternal security is evident in scripture ( John 1:12, 10:28, Romans 8: 38-39 ). Though you may fall into sin, the believers eternal salvation is not affected. ( See note on 1 Thess. 2:3-9 ). Antinomians contend that the covenant of grace was not established based on conditions. The result of this belief is that no person can be held accountable to any moral law. It is only required that they believe, then they can live as they please. The perfectionist go so far as to say that the sin nature has been surgically removed. John was warning believers against these forms of thinking, that they not continue in sin, but abide in righteousness (v v. 8-9). Moreover, the apostle exposes these doctrines in the command, “My little children, these write i unto you, that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” ( 1 John 2:1 ) This is not the proper rendering of this verse. It should denote the mere action of a sin, not the idea of habitually sinning. John explains that even he is capable of committing sin, not in the habitual sense, but as one particular action. The phrase here in verse nine, “does not commit sin”, is in the present tense denoting continued action. On the other hand in chapter two, verse one John uses the aorist tense, speaking of one point in the past when a sin was committed. Furthermore there were those who taught that the mere intellectual assent to the Christian faith was enough to make one acceptable to God, even though he or she had impure lives. Therefore John reiterates in verse seven that only those who continued in righteousness, ( ho poion, Strongs 4160 ),a particple phrase meaning, “the one habitually doing”, were considered righteous. they were not only making the righteous and holy life of Christ the object of their trust, but also the pattern of their walk and practice. John’s idea of committing sin on a permanent, habitual basis is further explained in 3 John 1:11, “He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil has not seen God.” There are two participial nouns in this verse, ho agathopoin (Strongs 215), meaning “the one being a doer of good, a benevolent person”, and ho kakopoion (Strongs 2554), referring to, “the one doing evil, a malicious person.” This is the same usage found in 1 John 3:7, “he that doeth righteous is righteous.” John does not imply that merely acting good will make one righteous. A person is an artisan who has acquired a skill and works at a trade as his calling or occupation. Hense the correct translation of 1 John 3:8 should be, “the one who practices sin.” The expression, “he cannot sin”, ( 1 John 3:9 simply means the true believer cannot sin habitually, deliberately and maliciously (e.g. Cain sinned out of hatred for goodness, 1 John 3:12. John does not ignore the existence of the sinful nature in the believer which exists as a mortal living in a fallen world. Consequently, John states in 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Source: Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible. Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com