This is an astonishing claim. But it’s true. I am talking of the four promises, or provisions, of the New Covenant.
The writer of Hebrews described these promises as better than the promises of the Old. And indeed they are.
They are laid out for us in Hebrews 8:10-12. I’ve numbered them for ease of reading.
- I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.
- I will be their God, and they will be my people.
- No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
- For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
These are better promises because they hit us at our deepest points of need. We need power and the internal motivation to live out the Christian life. We need to have assurance that we belong and that God does indeed love us. We cry out for a relationship with God, to genuinely know Him. We desperately need to know that our sins have been forgiven once and for all.
On all of these points, the New Covenant provides. Jesus’ finish work guarantees all of these promises. I’ve juiced each one down to one word. In this New Covenant we have
- Power
- Assurance
- Relationship
- Forgiveness.
The world, religion and even the flesh make outlandish promises, but they never deliver. Not Jesus. In Him, we have everything we need.
Take hold of these four promises and your life will never be the same.
How would you describe each promise?
My Life in Jesus has so drastically changed.I’ve been a christian for 19 years and after conversion got swept up into the do’s and don’ts of the religious system.I can’t tell you how many laws I’ve been put under only to fall short and fall flat on my face time and time again.My neighbor leads a bible study, after becoming set free as well with God allowing her to find people to people.We’ve been meeting over a year and I can’t express how listening to your teaching has become Truth that is setting me free.Jesus has had do some very unpleasant revealing to my heart in regards to what He is so after.I have had a desire to be in His presence all my life.I even tried to take my life when I was 14 so that I could be with Him. So after discovering what He’s after in my own heart is to simply rest in the finality of the cross.Also He has shown me the motives of my heart.I was so set on working instead of resting which Bob what really set me free was in the CD that you said,IF….Then… which derives from the old covenant or law.I could see everything I was doing was a work to get into my relationship with Him.He works under no other foundation but of Amazing Grace.He is teaching me how to have a relationship with Him under Grace and not under Law.All I can say is wow what a difference.What an amazing God that I need to accept I have His presence with me which is freely given to me.Now as I read and hear things He is really teaching me the difference between old/new covenant.I’m so grateful for your teaching and can’t wait to share with other struggling brothers/sister in Christ.Love,Mary
YOU GO MARY
Hey Mary, thank you for sharing this wonderful testimony. This is the truth that sets us free and enables us to boldly walk into the throne of grace. You have obviously entered in and are enjoying God’s presence in your life. Bob
COMPLETE, NO MORE TO BE DONE AM AT REST FROM THE STRUGGLE I WAS IN PRIORLY
Howard, this is a powerful statement you have made. I hope many more will find rest from their struggles.
Yes it was you alls ministry that got me to understand it was Bob George that when I heard him on the radio challenge anyone to go to the Bible and find any place after the death of Christ, being in a new Covenant where there is any more forgiveness to be asked from God after recieving the forgiveness provided at the cross. I thank him for that challenge to this day and I got straightened out on 1 John 1:9 and what the context is, along woith allpast sins are forgiven and how fast is that before I can even blink But I have many a people just hold onto that bar of soap. then recently it came to me, people just holding onto that chri8stian bar of soap, and God had me reply with okay I have sinned and I believe Jesus came in the flesh, where does it say to continue on repenting after you have agreed to this passage?
Do you get it over and over again because you lose it once you sin again where does it say this?
I am on Christianchat.com a lot as homwardbound and I have a blogger at godjustloveyou.blogspot.com also as homwardbound. I am just trusting God in all as when Moses did backed up against rhe Red Sea and the Egyptians coming for them and Moses in trusting God trusted and what happened God came through and God today still comes through, I see the Mercy and Love over sacrifice, over the letter of the Law, and oh WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you all for this ministry I have read I think everything that Bob George has written and use it along with other analogies that God has given me, but to tell the truth God very much used Bob, and when I was speaking to him one day on the radio and I was reading something that I had written re: God Bob said to me I needed to write therefore the Blogspot even though it took many a years later to start it
Again Thank you all
homwardbound I am
Knowing the New Covenant and the promises contained therein is necessary to be set free. I led a bible study recently in my neighborhood and chose the study A Closer Look At The New Covenant as the source material. After several meetings, one of the attendees, a man in his mid forties, informed me that despite being raised in the Lutheran church, as well as attending a parochial school for 12 years, he had never heard of the New Covenant.
I cannot fathom how any Christian organization can completely ignore the sole basis for our relationship with God. Without the New Covenant, we are condemned, objects of God’s wrath and without hope.
Praise God for ministries like People to People for proclaiming the truth.
William, it is shocking to think that believers have never heard of the New Covenant. But it is true. Seldom is the New Covenant ever taught or preached on from the pulpit. It needs to be. As a matter of fact, it needs to be shouted from ever rooftop. the world needs to hear.
You are absolutely right we stay on the tredmill of doing, actually trying to do good after asking for God into our hearts and are now convicted of sin by this worlds ways, never erasing from the day we were born to the time when we asked for God to come nto our lives not being taught to listen to God who has taken up residence in our hearts. No we are taught to go to Church and liseten to the Pastor or Deacon or someone else. Man over the years has usurped the authority of christ Jesus when thier is only one mediator between God and Man. But today we have others inbetween man and Jesus blocking man from truth, man never wanting to give up and let God do what man himself cannot do and that is be perfect through and because of Christ
King of like the rich man before the death under the Old Covenant he said tha the had obeyed the Law from chuild on, but when Jesus said well then how about giving up your riches and he walked away very sad. What an eye opener that it is impossible for man to go to heaven and in the case of the Law being under it I know I would already haqve all limbs cut off, eyes gouged out and tongue, if anyone wants to go to heaven under Law then the only way would be a torso so that oyu could not sin anymore. It truly is when you give up that is When God says thenk you I know this hapened to me, like Abraham was willing to give up all and God saw that and What God forbade Abraham to do God did it himself with his own Son born of the Virgin, and even Abraham said that he knew that if he was to follow through with sacrificing Issaac that God was and is capable of raising him from the dead WOW!!!!!!!! what insight, It is by Faith in God that one is free and this is as tiny as a mustard seed which grows and grows, I am just over elated I will stop now