Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
Thanks for joining our Bible Study tonight as we continue discussing the topic of life under the New Covenant. The main objective of this series has been to discover together the POTENTIAL of New Covenant life according to Scripture and to then aspire to the realization of that POTENTIAL in our lives. Indeed, the fulfillment of New Covenant POTENTIAL requires our PURSUIT. It doesn't come to us automatically just because we said a Sinner's Prayer one day or because we go to church every Sunday or because we do a few good deeds once in a while. Certainly there are some graces and blessings and benefits that flow to believers naturally. But the FULLNESS of the New Covenant is increasingly realized as we respond constructively to the teaching and leading of the Holy Spirit. Our part in that process is to seek TRUTH (John 16:13-15) through the study and understanding of the WORD and to purposefully PURSUE a strong, healthy relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Now, it's easy to notice that a lot of Christians these days are living well below the POTENTIAL that's described in the WORD and the TRUTH is, Jesus has ALREADY paid for it and made it possible for us to latch onto it but it requires our aggressive PURSUIT. Most believers are far too passive in their day-to-day walk with the Lord thinking that all the benefits of the New Covenant Kingdom are just going to fall on them. But the WORD says that life inside the Kingdom of God has to be ACQUIRED by one's PURSUIT. There's a verse to consider in the Gospel of Matthew about this point that I've reworded below from old English to a more modern rendition in order to deepen our understanding of it:
Matthew 11:12 = "The benefits of life in the Kingdom of God must be overtaken (or taken over) by forceful Christians who have aggressively pursued them."
Our failure to realize our New Covenant POTENTIAL lies in our relative passivity, i.e. our lack of AGGRESSIVE PURSUIT of the Kingdom of God. Jesus has made it possible for us to actually live our lives INSIDE the Kingdom of God but for the present it's a spiritual kingdom that must be PURSUED in faith. Our lack of pursuit can be traced to several key failures:
* Inconsistent attention to studying the Word all the way through until we get the UNDERSTANDING.
* Ignoring the presence and agenda of the Holy Spirit.
* Reliance on religious and/or worldly tradition instead of Truth.
* Ignoring the presence, agenda and influence of an enemy who comes to separate us from our
POTENTIAL.
* An underlying resignation to endure our circumstances without doing battle.
* Reliance on our Flesh to arrange for solutions to the problems of life.
The Force of Faith
The key to realizing our New Covenant potential is the building up and use of our faith. Indeed, our FAITH has been given to us by God so that we can use it to obtain salvation and eternal life and after that for the purpose of trusting God and His Word to lead us to His VICTORY in the New Covenant (Romans 12:3). The Body of Christ likes to discuss whether some people have been given more faith than others, and while there's room for discussion, it seems clear to me that everyone has received THE same "measure" of faith which is why the Word says in this same verse (Romans 12:3) that we shouldn't think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. We all start off from the same place because God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11).
The Bible goes on to say that once we're saved we're supposed to live by faith (Romans 1:17) and that from the initial God-given measure, our faith grows greater and stronger in relation to our PURSUIT of understanding the Word (Romans 10:17, 15:4). The more understanding we acquire, the stronger our faith. The stronger our faith, the more able we are to grow toward our New Covenant POTENTIAL. The more we grow the more victory we experience in the Kingdom of God. And by the way, the only place that we can experience true VICTORY in life is when by Faith we're INSIDE the Kingdom of God where Jesus is. The closer to Jesus we are, the bigger the VICTORY.
Keeping Our Eyes on Jesus
This past week during our personal study time, our attention was drawn to a particular verse that bears directly on tonight's discussion topic:
Hebrews 12:1-2 = "...let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of (our) faith..."
If you want to know HOW to obtain the VICTORY of the New Covenant, this verse tells us: fix your eyes on Jesus and keep them there. Wherever He goes you go. Whatever He says, you do. Whatever you see Him do, you do too. And by doing that, the PEACE that passes all understanding will be yours. When circumstances or the world or the enemy or other people or adversity or troubles or confrontations or persecutions or any other manifestations outside the Kingdom of God come against you and try to steal your peace or your joy and make you worry, purpose to keep your eyes on Jesus. If you start worrying about those things it means you've taken your eyes off of Jesus. If somehow you find yourself separated from Jesus, keep in mind He's in the right place and you're in the wrong place. You moved your eyes away from Him and strayed off somewhere. Make an aggressive effort to go and find Him. It's your job to keep your eyes on Him, and He's inside the Kingdom so look for Him there. When my flesh starts to worry about circumstances, I try to visualize deep inside myself the face of Jesus that I know on a personal level and I put my faith on that face using my understanding of the Word to establish my priorities and my proximity to the covering that Jesus makes available.
Remember that it was Jesus who started your Faith for you, He was the AUTHOR of it. And, He's also the One who will see to it by the Holy Spirit that your faith is PERFECTED, that it's POTENTIAL is realized. Your POTENTIAL is the same strength of Faith that Jesus has. Your POTENTIAL is to speak words of Faith that cause things to happen, circumstances to change, people to be healed and delivered and saved the same as Jesus did. Your POTENTIAL is to have the Faith to speak words that will move mountains (Mark 11:22-24), the same as Jesus had. HOWEVER, all of that requires your/my/our AGGRESSIVE PURSUIT, our determination to keep our eyes on Jesus and stay close. Yes friend, keeping our eyes upon Jesus is what New Covenant life is all about!
A number of years ago (1922) a great song was written about this subject. You'll find the words of the song below and a link to one of the best recordings you can go find out on the Internet when you need to remember to fix your eyes on the author and perfecter of your faith. Click on this link if you want a special blessing tonight:
TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS
O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There's light for a look at the Savior
And life more abundant and free!
Refrain:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O'er us sin no more hath dominion-
For more than conqu'rors we are!
His Word shall not fail you-He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on May 29. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!
Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer:
Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into your life and you're a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
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PLN is an outreach of Make A Way Ministries, published continuously since January 1998. It's a FREE e-publication about life in the Kingdom of God and is sent to our email list of MEMBERS. If you're reading this and aren't on our list, please click on the MINISTRY WEBSITE link at the top of this article to find the PLN enrollment link.
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