wonderful speakers. This blog is my reflections on a message about the New
Covenant from British pastor Anthony
Chapman.
God’s New Covenant is?
Before hearing this message, I thought I did. As pastor Anthony spoke, I
realized that I was living in the Old
Covenant with Jesus added, like a get out of jail free card. I believed
that I was expected to follow every one of the 10 Commandments and when I fail (since we all fall short),
Jesus is there to save me. This is the Old Covenant life with Jesus.
In the Old Covenant,
the people were given the law. When the people failed to keep the law
perfectly, they broke the covenant with God. This obviously did not work out so
great, since there is not a single person who could perfectly keep the law;
hence God’s idea for a new covenant. Hebrews 8:7-13 explains this well:
For if there had been nothing wrong with
that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.
8But God found fault with the
people and said[a]:
“The time is coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant 
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
9It will not be like
the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them, declares the
Lord.
10This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the
Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”[b]
“new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete
and aging will soon disappear.
makes it clear that the New
Covenant is not the Old Covenant plus Jesus; it is entirely new. We are no longer
required to live under the laws of the 10 Commandments. Please DON’T stop here!!! It is not wrong to following the 10
Commandments; not murdering, stealing, or creating idols are all sound
principles that are good choices to make. What
the New Covenant says is that rather then live under these laws we are to love
God.
this point of the message, I was at the edge of my seat. So what is this new
covenant? If it means that I am no longer bound by the law, what do I need to
do? How do I live by the New Covenant?
live in freedom. In order to live in freedom, our forefathers lived under the
law so that we would recognize freedom. Our
choices in how to live are not out of obligation, but out of LOVE for God.
1 Cor. 10:23 highlights
this freedom:
“Everything is permissible”-but not everything is constructive.
everything will benefit us and you have to live with the consequences of your
choices. We are free to make the choice. We are free to make mistakes. The best
part is that in those mistakes, God grants us grace.
scratch my head. What exactly does the New Covenant require me to do?
NOTHING! You see the Old Covenant required something of us, for us to keep the
law, but the New Covenant is something that God keeps.
The New Covenant, God’s new agreement and promise, is that He will always love us unconditionally. God promises, “I will never
leave you or forsake you.”
How do I live in the New Covenant?
Well, I accept God’s love
in freedom.
I STOP and LET
GOD LOVE ME!
