Читать книгу Blessed Generation (Second Edition): Understanding Covenant and Inheritance - Kenny Mokoena - Страница 8

Ephesians 2:11-13 tells us that only the Jewish nation received the covenant by circumcision. You and I were excluded and we were strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. We have been brought into the covenants of promise which God made to Abraham through Jesus. This is where Galatians 3:29 comes from. We are connected to Abraham through Jesus. We partake in the blessing of wealth transfer because of Jesus. But Jesus did not only come for us, He also came for the Jewish people. He came to show them the easy way to the blessing. He came to show them that the inheritance is not received by works but because of covenant.

John 8:31-33

“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?’”

The Jewish people were in bondage to the law but they were not aware of it. They were zealous for God but not according to knowledge. Instead of enjoying the blessing as a result of covenant, they worked very hard in order to appropriate the blessing of God. In Romans 9:3-5 the Apostle Paul painstakingly said, “For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.” Jesus lamented over the Jewish people during his time on earth.

Matthew 23:37

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

We are also not different to the Jewish people who are ignorant of God’s righteousness if we attempt to appropriate the blessing of God through works. It’s about time we come to the realisation that God never made a covenant with us, who were once called Gentiles. We were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, but now, in Christ Jesus, we who were far off have been given access through the blood of Christ.

Hebrews 12:25 says that Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant. Ours is the new covenant which has been initiated by Jesus dying for us on the cross. We partake in that covenant because of Jesus, the same way that Isaac and Jacob partook of the blessing through Abraham. You and I should look at Isaac and Jacob as our example. They both walked in the fullness of the blessing and became recipients of supernatural wealth.

How Isaac and Jacob became wealthy is so amazing. It was the work of pure grace with no effort. There is something very interesting about how the wealth of Laban was transferred to Jacob. Jacob worked very hard for Laban but it was not his hard work that caused the wealth to be transferred to him. It was God’s supernatural power. Isaac on the other hand, did not work hard, but experienced supernatural wealth transfer.

I noted something very powerful in Genesis 28 when Jacob was in Bethel where he made a vow to tithe 10% to God. Bethel is now a beautiful city called Bethlehem. It is the place where Jesus was born, where an angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds who were living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night, and told them that a Saviour was born in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord. As the Angel was speaking, suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:8-14)

When God appeared to Jacob in a dream (Genesis 28:13), He said, “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.” Jacob’s father was Isaac, not Abraham. I thought God would say, “I am the God of your father Isaac, and the God of Abraham.” Why is God calling Abraham Jacob’s father instead of Isaac? It is because what God was about to say and do to Jacob was based on the covenant that He made with Abraham, and not with Isaac. God is a covenant keeping God. He blessed Isaac and Jacob because of His covenant with Abraham. He blessed the children of Israel and gave them the wealth of Egypt because of His covenant with Abraham. Today, God blesses us because we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, and by belonging to Christ, we also receive the blessing of Abraham. Through Jesus, we become partakers of the Abrahamic covenant (Galatians 3:13-14).

In Genesis 28:13 God said to Jacob, “the land in which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.” In verse 14 God told Jacob how big He was going to bless him, and then said in verse 15, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”

Look at God’s last words to Jacob, just before Jacob woke up from his sleep, He said, “I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” This passage is a clear reflection of how the new covenant works, it is about God’s promises and His vow to never leave us until He has performed His word over our lives. It is about God’s performance, not our performance. God never imposed a condition to Jacob for the blessing, it was all about Him performing His promises to Jacob based on the covenant that He made with his father, Abraham. Please read verse 13 to verse 15 again and see the heart and the will of God. God’s will is to bless us apart from our works.

And then Jacob awoke from his sleep, in verse 20 and made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God. And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.” (Genesis 28:20-22)

Jacob’s vow, noble as it was, created a theological difficulty for the body of Christ. The Church today, instead of focusing on what God said from verse 13 – 15, a lot of emphasis is placed on Jacob’s vow to tithe. Why do we ignore God’s unconditional promises to bless Jacob and pay attention to his vow to tithe? We even misinterpret Jacob’s vow and place the tithe before the blessing, when Jacob’s vow placed the blessing before the tithe. We wrongly try to emulate Jacob by tithing to get the blessing when the blessing to Jacob accrued to him through covenant. Jacob’s vow was premised on the expectation of the inheritance which God bequeathed upon him in a dream. And that inheritance was tied to Abraham.

All was well when Jacob was asleep because his mouth was shut. When he woke up and began to speak, he put a condition to the promises of God. Look at what he said, “If God would be with me…” Didn’t God say “I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”? Why the “if” when God has assured you of what He was going to do. This is exactly what we do, we put an “if” to what God said He will do for us. What if I tithe and then I’m not able to pay all my debts? What if God does not come through for me? What if they take my car? To doubt that God will come through for us is equal to doubting if Jesus really died for us.