Saturday, June 13, 2009

Part 3 of 6 New Beginnings – The Passover


“There are four conditions that must be met to get assurance that our petitions as Christians will be answered affirmatively:
1- We must ask in faith
2- We must abide in a relationship with Christ
3- We must be properly motivated
4- We must ask in accordance with the will of God.

He Lord desires us to stand in the gap, positioning ourselves between the failings of man and the sufficiency and forgiveness of God.”
Francis Frangipane – “A World Without America”

Part 3 of 6 New Beginnings – The Passover

“Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
‘This month shall be the beginning of months for you;

it is to be the first month of the year to you.’”
Exodus 12:1-2 NASB

The Passover was a prophetic foreshadowing of Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary. It was for the children of Israel a new beginning proclaimed by God Himself by directing Aaron and Moses to rotate the Hebrew calendar and mark this festival as their first month. It proclaimed a new beginning for them, just as our rebirth in Christ’s sacrifice delineates a new beginning for us.
After the Passover meal they were to embark on a new journey. They would leave the only home they had ever known and sojourn in lands they had never seen, to seek a land promised to them by God. Their lives would be totally changed from the bondage they had once known, and their faith would be established and stretched throughout their journey. Are not our lives in Christ the same?

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature;

the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB

“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:4 NASB

When we enter into the blood of Christ, He becomes our Passover, we are born again into a new creation. To the children of Israel it was a physical experience, to us in Christ it is a spiritual change (which often results in physical changes in our own lives.) Our environment may not change, but because we now take on the mind of Christ, how we view our surroundings changes. How we interpret our circumstances changes. What we choose to embrace changes.

“The spiritual man makes judgments about all things,
but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 2:15-16 NASB

Religious people can bring temporal change. Spiritual people change the hearts of others, bringing spiritual freedom and everlasting change to the world. When we are born again in Christ Jesus we behold a whole new kingdom…the kingdom of God.

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you,

unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’."
John 3:3 NASB

A mini-rabbit trail
The Kingdom of God is all about our relationship with the Lord, taking on His perspective, His mind, His Love, His mercy, His joy, His compassion.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the result of us taking on the character of Christ, the anointing of God, the power or God, the Peace of God the authority of God…etc
End mini-rabbit trial

Our position in Christ is a highly preferable deliverance.
The new covenant is far superior to the old covenant.

“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—

not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
2 Corinthians 3:6 NIV

“(for they indeed became priests without an oath,
but He with an oath through the One who said to Him,
‘THE LORD HAS SWORN
AND WILL NOT CHANGE HIS MIND,
'YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER');
so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers
because they were prevented by death from continuing,
but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever,
holds His priesthood permanently.
Therefore He is able also to save forever
those who draw near to God through Him,
since He always lives to make intercession for them."
Hebrews 7:21-25 NASB

Jesus right now is standing in the “Gap” for each of us. He is standing in the place in between what we are right now, and what we can become in Him. He is continually interceding for us (the Holy Spirit too) to become more and more like Him.
Jesus takes the old man and the old carnal nature out of us and brings us into the Promise Land of His Kingdom. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). The Kingdom of heaven established through our relationship with Him (the kingdom of God) right here on earth today! Christ changes men’s hearts and lives so that they will become ambassadors of reconciliation to a lost and dying world.

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."
2 Corinthians 5:20 NASB (my emphasis bold)

Fallen man has since that day of deception, always had a tendency to be focused on himself. His world revolves around him as the center. He is in control, as Frank Sinatra used to sing: “I’ll do it my way!” Each one of us as children of the fall have inherited this deception of the enemy. Until the time that we choose to be reconciled to the Father through the Passover blood of the Christ, we are held in bondage to that lie. Once free, we are free indeed to see the Kingdom of God and the Lord’s perspective… then we walk in a new land of freedom… we see His kingdom of heaven invade the culture of earth and bring His provision.

End Part 3

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