Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Kind David lived in an Old Covenant time of Law, but his desire was for the day of New Covenant grace. He knew that the secret to obeying the commandments of God was only found in the heart. He prophetically declared the human need for a changed and enlarged heart to be able to live in the character of God. His view of keeping the testimony of the law was a grant from God.
Psalms 119:29 Remove from me the way of lying, and grant me Your law graciously. 30 I have chosen the way of truth; Your judgments I have laid before me. 31 I cling to Your testimonies; O LORD, do not put me to shame! 32 I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart.
David knew that the ability to run the course of God’s values required an enlarged heart. To receive God’s way in our lives, we must experience a change in our own character and nature. We must experience an internal change to have a change in our external actions. This is a grant from God and not a work of our own flesh. It requires us to respond with obedient actions to the internal change of our hearts. It is a miracle from God. Leaders set an example in exhibiting external actions that are the fruit of internal changes. This was the prophetic declaration of the prophet Jeremiah for us all and it is a gift given to us by God when we willingly and willfully give our lives to receive this granted change from God in our lives.
Jeremiah 31:31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
The new covenant is not a different way of informing us concerning what God desires in our lives. The new covenant is a granted gift from God that puts His desires in our hearts and minds by an internal supernatural power of grace. Our knowing God is not the result of new instructions from God, it is an internal transformation of our hearts and minds by Christ within us. Knowing God is not a matter of understanding His instructions, knowing God is a matter of internal revelation and intimacy with God in our hearts. Leaders set an example in receiving this gift and they inspire others to receive the life-transforming gift of God’s grace that brings about this internal change in everyone who comes to believe. It is a grant from God. Knowing God is a matter of knowing His love that forever changes us. That process is not just a one-time event. It is a way of life that changes us from glory to glory as we each turn to God in Christ.
Christ in us is the source of life for a changed and enlarged heart. Leaders lead others in knowing the power of Christ in them. Each person must know the testimony of God’s grace that gives them a changed and enlarged heart that increasingly becomes a testimony of God’s law of love.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
