Are you in covenant with God? Of course you are, if you have made Jesus the Lord of your life! But did you know there are 3 Steps To Being In Covenant With God that you need to understand and walk in? When you do, it will simplify your understanding of all that God wants you to know about His covenant with you. Furthermore, it will help all the elements of the covenant process, seen throughout the Bible, make sense.
As Kenneth Copeland and Greg Stephens write in their new book, God, the Covenant, and the Contradiction, the process of entering into a covenant always involves three steps. To God, three is a significant number. Throughout Scripture, He often works with groupings of three, a number that conveys completeness. The Bible tells us for example:
- There are three members of the Godhead—God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit—which makes the Trinity.
- There are three facets of God’s existence throughout time—God who was, who is, and who is to come (Revelation 1:4).
- God created us to be triune beings made up of spirit, soul and body.
This pattern of threes emerges repeatedly in all God-initiated covenants because it’s a reflection of His divine nature. It also signifies the fact that all three Persons of the Godhead are actively involved in His covenants. Each member of the Trinity plays a unique part in the process of fulfilling the Father’s plan to redeem mankind and restore us back to Himself. So, here are 3 Steps To Being In Covenant With God.
Step 1: The Calling
The first step in the covenant process is the calling to covenant. God, the Father, takes this step by graciously inviting us to join ourselves to Him. Then He, in turn, can join Himself to us, bringing all of who He is and all of what He has into our lives.
Nehemiah 9 tells us it was God who chose Abraham. It wasn’t Abraham who initiated their covenant relationship. God approached him first. He brought Abraham up from his homeland and gave him a new identity. God even promised to give Abraham all the land as far as his eyes could see (Genesis 13:15), an offer seemingly too good to be true.
God has essentially done the same for us, as believers, today. He has called us, just as He called Abraham, and made us an astounding offer. He’s offered us the opportunity to enter into a relationship with Him for all eternity. He’s promised to BLESS us and assured us, as Romans 8:28 says, that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (KJV).
Do you see it? As believers we are “the called!” That means God has already taken the first step in the process of establishing covenant with us. He has extended to us a personal invitation to join ourselves to Him.
Step 2: Entering Covenant
The second step in establishing a covenant is the actual entering into the covenant. This is where the terms of the covenant are agreed upon by both parties, and the agreement is executed or acted upon. In Hebrews 11:8-9, we see Abraham taking this step. We see that “by faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise” (KJV).
Imagine how much trust it took for Abraham to say yes to God’s call without knowing where that call would take him. Imagine how much faith it took for him to leave everything behind without having any idea of exactly what lay ahead. When Abraham acted on God’s promise in Faith, he entered into covenant. He accepted God’s invitation and joined himself to God.
Hundreds of years later, when God gave the people of Israel the opportunity to enter into a covenant relationship with Him, He added to this second step. He required the Israelites to agree verbally with His covenant conditions. He had them declare out loud together all the BLESSINGS and the curses of the Law. Like the reading and signing of a contractual agreement, this formalized their agreement to enter covenant with Him (Deuteronomy 27-30:19).
Today, because of the new Covenant we have through Jesus, God doesn’t ask us to declare out loud all the requirements of the Old Covenant Law. We take the second step of entering into covenant with God by believing on God’s Son, Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, and receiving Him by faith as our Savior and LORD.
As Jesus declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6, KJV). In other words, He told us, “The only way you can enter into Covenant with the Father is through Me. Yes, He has called and invited you, but I’m your way in!”
Jesus did for us what we couldn’t. He did what mankind had tried and failed to do for thousands of years. By living a sinless life and perfectly keeping God’s Law, He fulfilled all God’s covenant requirements. Then He became the ultimate covenant sacrifice, paid the price for the sin of all mankind forever, and shed His blood to ratify a second covenant, a new Covenant.
The new Covenant cannot be broken. It is between the eternal, Almighty God, and the resurrected, glorified man, Jesus Christ—and we get access to it by faith in Him. One of the articles of this precious covenant is recorded in 1 John 1:9. It says that when we sin, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (KJV).
That means we can’t mess up this Covenant! As The BOOK says, “Jesus Christ (the Messiah) is [always] the same, yesterday, today, [yes] and forever (to the ages)” (Hebrews 13:8, AMPC). Because Jesus is always the same, so is His covenant with God, and therefore ours is, too.
Step 3: Keeping Covenant
The third and final step of the covenant process is keeping or maintaining the agreement. A covenant relationship, like any relationship—whether it’s a marriage, parenting, business or simply a friendship—requires maintenance. Relationships need nurturing. For them to remain healthy and vital, you can’t just forget about them. You must remember and attend to them.
Jesus spoke about this to His disciples just before He left them to go to the cross. During their last Passover meal together, He took the bread, “and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me’” (1 Corinthians 11:24-25, NKJV).
When Jesus instructed His disciples to do this “in remembrance of Me,” He was pointing back to what their Hebrew forefathers had done for thousands of years. When they ate the Passover meal, they remembered how God had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt (Exodus 13:3; Deuteronomy 4:9). This remembering kept their minds focused on their covenant with Him.
This is why Jesus established under the new Covenant what we today call “Communion.” By telling us to eat and drink the Covenant meal, He provided us with a simple action step we can take to remind us that we’re in Covenant with God through Him. He gave us a powerful way to release our faith in that Covenant. This helps us nurture our connection with Him and keep it intact—healthy, active, strong and thriving.
Right after that last covenant meal Jesus shared with His disciples, He also told them another way He was going to help them remember and maintain their connection with Him. He was going to send them the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to help with this third covenant step. He said:
If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you…. he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you (John 14:15-17, 26, KJV).
Notice a major role of the Holy Spirit is to help us remember our Covenant and keep our relationship with our heavenly Father strong and vibrant. He also helps us by empowering us to be faithful to the conditions of the Covenant agreement and to obtain its benefits. But, under the new Covenant, this doesn’t involve following an overwhelming list of rules and regulations, as was required under the first Covenant.
No, as born-again believers, our focus is on the One who went before us and fulfilled for us the terms of the Covenant. We take step three by giving attention to Jesus: to His Love for us and to our place in Him. And we do that with the ever-present help—and continual prompting—of the Holy Spirit.
Have You Stepped Into Your Covenant With God?
If you haven’t yet stepped into Covenant with God, pray this prayer today, making Jesus the Lord of your life. And while you’re at it, go ahead and pray for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing more powerful than receiving both your salvation and the work of the Holy Spirit in you!
Prayer of Faith
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus. Your Word says, “But everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved” (Acts 2:21). I am calling on You. I pray and ask Jesus to come into my heart and be Lord over my life according to Romans 10:9-10: “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” I do that now. I confess that Jesus is Lord, and I believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead.
I am now reborn! I am a Christian—a child of Almighty God! I am saved!
You also said in Your Word, “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Luke 11:13). I’m also asking You to fill me with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, rise up within me as I praise God. I fully expect to speak with other tongues as You give me the utterance (Acts 2:4). In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
To learn more about your newfound Covenant with God, order your copy of God, the Covenant, and the Contradiction today.
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