JESUS – THE GREATEST REVOLUTIONARY

When people hear the words radical and revolutionary they instantly think of some aggressive, gun toting, anarchist that has motives to overthrow an earthly government, but that was not the intentions of Jesus. The word “radical” comes from a Latin word “radix” which simply means “to cut to the root” as in “radical surgery” to remove a cancerous growth — the surgeon “cuts to the root of the cancer” to remove it. In this sense, Jesus was a radical with a radical message that was indeed meant to cut to the root of sin and remove it from our lives.

His mission and the revolution He started was the overthrow of Satan’s rule over humanity and His kingdom of darkness and to replace it with the kingdom of God. 1 John 3:8 — “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

His mission was not to be accomplished with guns, swords, bombs, or any other weapons. He would accomplish His revolutionary mission by demonstrating the inconceivable and unfathomable love that God has for His human creation and the people bound up in the kingdom of darkness. He would demonstrate how much He loves us even while we hated Him. His was a revolution of love – the most powerful force in the universe.

Jesus Christ is God’s revolutionary change agent on the earth. When Jesus came to this earth over two thousand years ago He came and presented mankind with the most radical and life changing reality in history. His primary message– “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”.

He is the key figure in the history of the world and has had the greatest impact on the people on the earth as well as the religions and the governments of this world. He has also dealt with Satan in the spirit realm and has put a stake in the heart of his kingdom rule on this earth

The covenant kingdom is the most radical and revolutionary reality we can ever experience. When I speak of radical Christianity I am not referring to some off-the-wall hyper zealots who choose to live in a fortified compound somewhere in a very isolated area where they have no, or little, contact with the outside world. These folks have missed the whole reality of what Christianity is all about.

When I speak of true Christianity I am referring to a true “revolution in life” that was started by the greatest revolutionary of all time — Jesus Christ. This revolution in life is lived out in His covenant kingdom. The revolution that Jesus started was when He began to declare His radical message– “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”.

This declaration rattled the gates of hell and put fear into the heart of Satan because he could now sense his defeat and the breaking of his dominion over the lives of the human family.

When I refer to Jesus as the greatest radical revolutionary of all time I am speaking of His mission to earth and what He accomplished. This is the reason that the concepts of radical Christianity and the covenant kingdom must be explained and taught. That is what this website about the covenant kingdom of Jesus is all about.

Exalting Jesus as Lord and King over His kingdom; and uncovering God the Father’s heart desire and how it is being fulfilled.

Let me explain some definitions of these terms so we will be on the same page in our understanding of what I am saying. The following definitions are directly taken from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

 Radical— radix – fundamental, extreme, cutting to the root of an issue

 Revolutionary— one who constitutes and brings about rapid change

 Revolution— a sudden, radical, and complete change; the over-throw or renunciation of one ruler or government and substitution of another by the governed

 Lord— from the Greek word “KURIOS” — means master, owner, possessor, maximum or supreme authority.

Seeing who Jesus really is today is a life altering experience. He is no longer the long-haired, bearded, sandal wearing, robe wearing, hippy-looking guy that walked the road of Israel 2000 years ago. He is nothing like Buddha, or Mohammed, or the founder of any of the great religions of this world. Today, we are to know Jesus as the eternal King of all creation and the Supreme power and Ruler of His universal kingdom. He is the most glorious and powerful being in the entire universe and when we meet the true King Jesus our lives become changed forever because we have encountered the life altering message of the King and His covenant kingdom.

Luke 6:46 — “And why do you call Me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?”

Philippians 2:9-11 — “Therefore God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, and at the name of Jesus every knee should bow; those who are in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father.”

My entire teachings are built on the fundamental principle that God has a kingdom that encompasses the entire creation and that He has a plan and purpose for all of humanity. That purpose is established on the principle of covenant as the primary way that man can relate to a living God. My goal is to open the eyes of our understanding to the reality of the covenant kingdom of God so that we might see the truth of scripture and His promise to us of a new covenant and become a functioning part of His covenant kingdom in a covenant relationship with God and His people through Jesus. We can then actually begin to fulfill our purpose as people of destiny and reign in life as kings and priests through the gift of righteousness.

For the most part the institutional church as we know it today has missed the fundamental fact that we are in union with the living God through a blood-covenant relationship and we are to seek first and foremost His reign in our lives because JESUS CHRIST IS BOTH LORD AND KING. For the most part, followers of Jesus see Him as our Savior, but not as our Lord and King to be OBEYED.

Being in covenant with Jesus is not about performance — it’s about relationship. He is our Lord and King as well as our covenant blood-brother.

Please give me your thoughts on this posting.  Thanks.

YOU AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

YOU AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

I believe one of the greatest tragedies of the Christian experience is that the modern-day Christian relies more on other human beings to teach them than we do the Holy Spirit.

We rely more on what we are taught through sermons, books, or teaching we receive through TV or other forms of audio media than we do on the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

He is the greatest gift that God could ever give to a human being and you need to diligently pursue developing your friendship and relationship with Him.  After all, He is the spiritual life force that was in Jesus while Jesus was physically on this earth.

God never promised to give us a new book of instructions, or a new physical person to replace Jesus when Jesus was taken to heaven.  Jesus promised to send us the Holy Spirit to live IN us to be our TEACHER. John 14:16,17, & 26.  That, my friends, is the new covenant promise of God.

I am not saying that you should not listen to Bible teachers, but they are not the ones who actually wrote the Book.

The Holy Spirit is the Divine Enabler who enables us to live the life of a new creation in the Covenant Kingdom of the Lord Jesus.

THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD

THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD

EPHESIANS 3:16-19 & 20 — “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.”

“Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,”

I want you to notice what he asked. He didn’t say, “I ask that you might have nice meetings.” No, he asked that our inner man be strengthened, and that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith.

Meetings can be wonderful, but my spiritual life is not grounded in meetings no matter how wonderful they may be. It is grounded in Jesus who lives within me. If you have not read last month’s edition of this e-zine, please go to the archives and read it.

Now, our meetings can be a help in strengthening us in our inner man, or they can be the greatest single hindrance of all. It depends on whether we are meeting-centered or Jesus-centered.

“But aren’t we all Jesus-centered?” someone asks. When I hear some of the things that Christians say, I wonder if we really are Jesus-centered. I frequently hear statements that cause great concern. For instance, especially among the Charismatics and Pentecostals I hear, “Since I came into this place I felt the presence of the Lord.”

And I would have to think to myself, or to ask them, “And where was the Lord before you came into this place?”

Actually, if we did not bring Him in with us, He is not there. He is not in the habit of hanging from the ceiling and descending upon people each time there is a meeting. He does not dwell in buildings like in the old covenant. He dwells in people in the new covenant.

If Jesus is at the meeting when you go there, it is because He is within you. You brought Him with you in order to release Him to touch others. So how can you say, “Oh, as soon as I get to the meeting I will feel the presence of the Lord?” That sounds nice, but it is heresy.It is absolutely trying to live under the old covenant. It produces great confusion to you in your walk with the Lord Jesus.

Don’t confuse emotion with the presence of the Lord.

When people tell me, “I feel the presence of the Lord”, I seriously question whether they have any real understanding of the new covenant. The same people who “feel” the presence of the Lord in meetings also say “I am going through a dry and barren place and I am so parched” even though they have rivers of living water flowing from within them. They have an Amazon or Nile river of living water flowing from inside of them and don’t even know it because they are “concept” oriented rather than “life” oriented.

To release these rivers of water that we have within us, we simply need to start believing and acting as if what God says is true.

We need to learn, not how to get more from God, but how to release all that we have. “The love of God is spread abroad,” says Paul. Where? “In our hearts.” So all the love that we need is already there.

Don’t say, “Lord, give me more love so I can love my brother.” If you don’t love your brother, it isn’t because you don’t have enough love. All the love you need is within you. You don’t need more love. You need to learn how to release the flow of the love that is already within you.

God never commands us to do something we cannot do. He will never ask you to do something He has not already given you the ability to do. This is His promise under the new covenant. he said, “I will cause you to walk in My ways.”

Do you recall the incident when Peter and John were going to the temple and they saw a lame man laid at the gate Beautiful? They didn’t point to the man and tell him, “You need to come to our campaign meeting so that we can teach you the four steps to healing. If you learn them and believe them, you can be healed.”

No, they said, “What we have, we give. Rise up an walk.” ACTS 3:6.

Peter and John didn’t ask the man to do something. They simply conferred upon him what they already had. It was just the rivers of life flowing spontaneously out of them. They knew what they had. The problem is, we don’t know what we have.

What does it mean to live in the Spirit?

To live in the Spirit and to walk in the Spirit is to be continuously conscious of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus within you. That’s all it is.

“What? That’s too simple!!”

Many books have been written about walking in the Spirit. Some of them are very good. But most of those books deal with all the things we need to unlearn, not what we need to learn to walk in the Spirit. They are mostly directed at Christians who are in error trying to live under the old covenant and the new covenant at the same time.

Life in the Spirit should be the easiest thing you can imagine. The things of the kingdom of God are easy, simple. That is why Jesus said that in order to understand the life of the kingdom we have to forget how intelligent we are and become like children.

Today, especially, we are intelligent people because we have a great deal of education. I believe there are many things concerning the Gospel that we do not understand not because they are too difficult, but because they are too easy and don’t appeal to us.

The things of the Lord have to be very simple if they are for the poor and uneducated. As I have already said, to walk in the Spirit is more simple than we can imagine.

You don’t need to read many books and listen to dozens of CD’s or tapes. Actually, the more you read, the more confused you will become until you really understand the simplicity of the Gospel.

That is why all we need is to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see that because the life of the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in us, we have all that is needful for walking in the Spirit. If once we can see that He in us is everything and that we are joined as one with Him so that we are continuously in His presence, life becomes very easy.

Paul prayed in EPHESIANS 1:18-19 — “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatest of His power toward us who believe..”

That is why, before the New Covenant was even instituted, Jesus said to us in MATTHEW 11:28-30 — “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My load is light.”