"But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far BETTER COVENANT with God, based on better promises. If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it." (Heb 8:6-7).
"For that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies—physical regulations that were in effect only until a BETTER SYSTEM could be established." (Heb 9:10).
It is clear that God intended that the New Covenant should be the better covenant. The New Covenant people are to enjoy a greater experience with God than any other people in the bible. The other verse above stated that the Old Covenant had to do with physical regulation, it was all about physical things.
They had a physical temple, the Priesthood is based on physical bloodline, their law was written physically, they observed physical days, and sacrifice physical animals, with physical altars and physical fire, they also have physical cleansing ceremonies and abstain from certain physical foods, I am sure you have gotten the idea by now.
"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23-24).
A covenant is all about God's relationship with man, it defines the relationship. From the creation of man, in the garden of Eden we noticed that God wants to be close to man, but how close? Shockingly He wants to be as close as possible, He wants to be one with man — and this God is spirit. Your relationship with somebody is affected by who the persons is.
If you and the person are from the same tribe and nation there is a high tendency that you guys will get really intimate, you can easily become one with that person. But the tendency of that oneness decreases when the person is from another tribe, or another country, or another continent, or another planet, or even another species or animal. The oneness becomes impossible when you are a man and the person is a lion.
You see God is spirit, He can only get very intimate with that which is spirit like Him. The Old Testament people are dead in their spirit, no one can have an intimate relationship with a dead person. So it becomes a problem, with God always trying to meet them in the flesh (the physical) because they are flesh. It is like a man trying to have a relationship with a dog, they are not the same and as such there will always be that gap. He cannot discuss with a dog the way he would discuss with a fellow man, they simply cannot be one, in the true sense of the word.
Man as to become spirit also in order for God to have that relationship that He wants. He has to give man life and made him alive in the spirit so that they can have spirit to spirit intercourse. Intercourse is how you become one with somebody; if you spend enough time with a person, having intercourse, exchanging thoughts, experiences, heart desires, worldviews etc. and you keep at this, little by little you guys will become one.
Your heart becomes one with his/her heart when it is having intercourse with his/her heart.
Your desires becomes one with his/her desires when it is having intercourse with his/her desires.
Your worldviews becomes one with his/her worldviews as it continues to have intercourse with his/her worldviews.
Your flesh becomes one with his/her flesh when it have intercourse with his/her flesh.
So also your spirit becomes one with the other person's spirit when there is a spirit to spirit intercourse.
God is spirit and if He truly wants to become one with us then there must be a spirit to spirit intercourse. So with that knowledge take a second look at this verses;
"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23-24).
This is a better covenant, a covenant that will give God what He truly wants — which is oneness with us. The only way to this oneness is spirit to spirit intercourse between us and God. And the truth is that God has already achieved this goal in Christ.
"This was His eternal plan which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Him and through faith in Him we may enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence." (Eph 3:11-12).
In Christ God has already accomplished this, yet Paul went on to say we should enter. In Christ we are one spirit with the Lord, our spirit is in a constant intercourse with the God who is spirit, but yet we still need to enter into that. In Christ we are with God, we are in His presence, having intercourse with Him spirit to spirit, yet we must enter into God's presence. Do you understand all that?
It has already been achieved, it has been accomplished but we must enter into a living experience of it. We must be awaken to this reality in our flesh. The intercourse and oneness is already perfected in the spirit but we must experience it in our flesh and manifest it in this physical world — the manifestation of the sons. The sons are spirits, this reality is spirit but we must be awaken to it in the flesh and manifest it in our everyday life.
The Old Covenant is God reaching out from the spirit to have relationship with man in the flesh, but the New Covenant is God having relationship with man in the spirit and having man manifesting this in the flesh. It is a spirit to spirit relationship that is manifested in the flesh, for Christ is God who is spirit manifested in the flesh. And since we are the body of this Christ it means we are the manifestation of that reality in the spirit.
Yes, it needs to be manifested in the flesh, for this is who we are. We cannot truly be who we are until we, in our flesh, are able to reach out beyond the flesh, meet God spirit to spirit and have intercourse with Him. Yes, "we in our flesh", "manifesting in our flesh", do you understand? The spiritual reality but become real in the flesh.
This is who we are as the body of Christ, this is what the Father desire. Anyone who has seen the Father's heart will pursue this thing. This is the very reason I keep emphasizing on coming/entering (in the flesh) to God spirit to spirit. Jesus, through his sacrifice, made us alive to God in the spirit and now we can approach Him spirit to spirit. In our flesh we are not disconnected from the spirit, we have life, we are alive to God in the spirit.
It is sad to watch Christians trying to avoid this and holding on to physical things in their relationship with God. They cannot reach out beyond these physical things, they cannot reach out beyond the flesh and as such they cannot enter into the spirit to spirit intercourse and manifest it in the flesh. The sad truth is that we are not truly practicing the New Covenant, we are yet to understand it well enough to actually practice it. May the Lord help us and bring us to a living experience of the New Covenant.
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