A Covenant Keeping God
From the very first member of GodÂ’s earthly family — AdamÂ’s family — the relationship of God and His creation has included a covenant. Never, not once, has our Creator and Father broke His covenant with man. No truth is greater or more established than this fact, “Our God is a covenant-keeping God.” The human family has consistently broken their covenant with Him and often figured out some cheap excuse to try to pardon their self.
Without fail, the saint of God that will walk straight into the Holy Covenant — called the Bible — and will discipline themselves to live the narrow life is going to become beautiful. Abraham left his ancestral home in Ur of the Chaldeans and became the “Father of Faith.” ThatÂ’s what faith is. It is “living by the covenant of God.” Abraham did not get to the top of his mountain overnight. He arrived after many failures.
Late in his walk with God, even the triumphant Apostle Paul said, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).
The Godly life is a matter of subtraction and addition or repentance and renewal. We become Pharisaical when we only subtract or lay aside those contrary or questionable things. That is a part of our covenant, which consists of a constant obedience to each revelation of His holiness in Scripture. But, along with our subtraction, we must hunger and thirst after the greater righteousness which is of faith and is wrought by the blood of Jesus Christ. This level of our covenant walk is sheer divine and the real source of power and victory.
This greater level of righteousness is the missing element of the fundamental church world. The only righteousness that will turn this world upside down is the “righteousness of Jesus Christ in us.” No one can experience this righteousness that does not cleanse themselves and put the unclean lifestyle aside. Jesus prayed, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:15-16).
Everywhere we turn, whether it is a shopping mall, an airport, or just down the street, there is a cesspool. Our Lord Jesus Christ must have a company of saints full of the Holy Ghost and full of the righteousness that reflects the very nature of Jesus Christ. We will start a Holy Ghost revival when His resurrection life saturates our very being with a righteousness that convicts sinners just by being in our presence. “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:11b-13).
Every time we receive communion we celebrate our covenant of the Bible with Jesus Christ. That’s one of the primary reasons He instituted the Last Supper. Apostle Paul said, “After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (I Corinthians 11:25). The New Covenant is in His blood or “sealed and manifest in His blood.” It cannot be broken. This covenant is between two parties, Him and any person that will live in this covenant by His unfailing grace.
His righteousness in me is my part in this covenant. Everything that Jesus Christ is in His divine life and redemption flows in His righteousness. Dwight L. Moody could simply sit down on a train, and those around him would begin to fall under conviction of sin. It was not Mr. Moody. It was the authority of ChristÂ’s righteousness that ruled his life. Every great revival has witnessed miracles of healing and totally transformed communities. It is His righteousness in Godly saints that guarantees a move of Sovereign visitation by the Holy Spirit.
Our God watches over His Word to fulfill every nuance. At this moment, there is a divine movement in the Heavenly realm that is searching for hearts of the righteous, where the sovereign work can begin. The entire Word of God is a picture of God and man living out the covenants of God together. Failures were never the fault of the Creator but of the creature. Our Father cannot change, cannot fail, and will never forsake His own. What an awesome God we serve!