THE COVENANT OF GRACE

As I have said that this New Covenant is a covenant of grace, I am therefore going to explain the works of grace in detail.
What is grace? Grace is what God does or gives us freely because of his love for us, and we just receive that by faith. In short, grace is God’s love in action. Grace is just as I explained but we can look at its definition from different angles but still talking about the same thing. For example: Grace is all the riches we received from God for free because of Jesus Christ (GRACE: Gods Riches At Christ’s Expense). Grace is also Gods empowerment by the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life to make him operate like God. Example: God does not sin, so grace gives us dominion over sin, (Romans 6:14). The Holy Spirit’s gifts are called grace gifts because they are for free by the grace of God and they make us to operate like God.

What has grace done in our lives?

1) Grace saved us (Ephesians 2:8)
2) Grace made us Sons of God and put us at the right hand of God the Father together with Christ (Ephesians 2:6)
3) Grace gives us the ability to live the God-kind of life, which is the life of victory over sin, satan, sickness, death, poverty, the world and all that comes as a result of sin. In other words, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in our lives, which we receive by faith. It is the one that empowers us to walk in victory over all these. The God kind of life also includes operating like Him, and getting the same results He would get when doing something. Example, when God speaks, things come into being; we too because of the grace in our lives, we speak and things happen.
4) God gave us everything because of his grace in our lives.
5) God always promotes us and develops us because of his grace in our lives.
6) God forgives us when we wrong him because of the grace in our lives. Everything that God has done for us he did because of his grace.

What does grace do for us?

(1) God always forgives us when we wrong him because of his grace.
(2) God redeems us with his grace when we are in trouble; even if we have gotten ourselves there or gotten there because of someone else: these means that in our walk with God, we may sometimes make mistakes that get us in trouble, but God by His grace will get us out of that trouble and put us where we should be. He will redeem the time that we have wasted when we trust in His grace. An example is that of Abraham. Abraham lied and said that his wife was his sister. But God still protected them in that situation and redeemed them and blessed them even more.
(3) Grace makes us to operate like kings over the world and over all situations (Romans 5:17).
(4) Everything that God has done for us and is yet to do for us, is because of His great grace in our lives.

We just have to understand that everything that God does, He does because of His great love for us, and he does them for us by His grace. We just have to receive His grace by faith, and understand that its not by our good works, but its by His grace which is received purely by faith (Romans 5:2). We do not earn His grace by our good works, but our faith is demonstrated by actions and confessions. Therefore we do good deeds because we are already given grace and because we believe.

THE COVENANT THAT GOD HAD WITH ABRAHAM.

God used Abraham to be the father of faith for his true family, which is the family of Sons and Daughters of God. When God established that covenant with Abraham, the true family of God had not yet began for it began with Jesus Christ. But God used Abraham’s physical family to bring forth Jesus Christ who was going to birth God’s true family. Abraham’s physical family which is the physical Israel is not God’s true family. It was just a nation that God chose to walk with so that through it He would bring Jesus Christ who was going to give birth to God’s true family of sons and daughters. Therefore, the covenant that God made with Abraham is that Abraham is the father of faith to all the children of God, and that all who have received Jesus Christ are blessed together with him because they are the true children of God (Galatians 3:7). This is why we are called Abraham’s descendants and that his blessings are ours in Christ. This covenant between God and Abraham is not the old covenant. The old covenant is that of God and Israel through Moses, which is the covenant of the law. This one between God and Abraham is not abolished like that of Moses’ because its purpose was to confirm Abraham as the father of faith to the true children of God, which is we who have believed in Jesus Christ, because when we believe in Christ we are birthed by God Himself (John 1:12). So now, Abraham is the spiritual father of we who have believed in Christ, not of those who are his physical children. The Israel that comes from him physically is only his physical children. But the blessings and promises which God has made to him belong to him and to his spiritual children in the faith and that’s us who believe in Christ (Galatians 3:9, 3:26-29).

In the old covenant, God used Abraham’s physical family to demonstrate how He wanted to bless and love His true family which is the generation of people who have received Jesus Christ. Abraham’s physical family were just servants of God in the old covenant, not Sons and Daughters of God like us in the new covenant. Abraham’s children of faith, which are those who have believed in Jesus Christ, they are the ones who are the true family of God of sons and daughters and not servants (Romans 4:11-18).

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ACT OF ABRAHAM GIVING ISAAC TO JEHOVAH (Genesis 22:1-24)

According to the blood covenant, one party has to fulfill their responsibilities so that the other can fulfill theirs as well. God wanted to bring his son to earth so that he could reconcile the world back to God, but he had to work with someone on earth for that miracle to be fulfilled because everything that God does on earth he does it working together with a person on earth, and so he found Abraham. God challenged Abraham to give him his son because this would give God the right to give his son as well because of Abraham; Abraham gave his son to the Lord by faith. (Remember that according to the blood covenant, if you did something for me then I have to do the same for you or to fulfill what I promised you). Now because Abraham gave his son to the Lord, this gave the Lord the right to give his son to die for world, and everyone who will believe in his son, Jesus Christ will be called the children of Abraham by faith. Saying that he is the father of nations means that he is the father of those who believe in Jesus Christ regardless of the nationality that they are from (Romans 4:16-18). When the bible says that all nations will be blessed because of Abraham (Genesis 12:3), it referred to Christ who would bless the nations by reconciling them back to God (Acts 3:25b). The reason it is said that nations will be blessed through Abraham is because Christ was going to come from the physical family of Abraham. Our great spiritual father is God, but Abraham is our father in the faith like our pastors and those whom God has given to us as our spiritual parents in the sense that they are our parents in the faith.