We’re living in tremendous days! If you’re a person of faith in Christ you’ve just got to be to be positive and excited: days of advancement for the Church and days of shaking in world . . . and when there’s shaking “we receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken”.

The parables of the Kingdom show that the end of the age is harvest time - harvest, of course, speaks of multitudes coming to Christ. But harvest also indicates something coming into its fullness – it’s ultimate state. From the parable of wheat and tares both what God has sown and what the devil has sown come to fullness together. We should expect to witness tremendous increases in the things of God: worship, revelation, healing, deliverance and salvation. Increasing glory. Increasing strong atmosphere of His presence. Increase in anointing and faith we carry in our daily walk.

As we experience all this, we’ll be a people strongly anchored in the Word. The simplicity, the promises and the principles of this Book will undergird every breakthrough, every experience of visitation, and the increasing splendour of the presence of God among us – we will know that we are enjoying THE GOD WHO PROMISES.

I was reading recently about the revival in the Hebrides Islands, just off the north west coast of Scotland. I think that every revival we’ve ever read about will turn out to be just a forerunner, a sample of the massive thing God will do in the earth. But something struck me about this particular visitation that occurred around sixty years ago.

At its core were a pastor and seven elders who gathered in an old thatched cottage three nights a week to pray. It wasn’t just that they prayed … the thing that struck me was that they came before the Lord in the basis of “covenant”.

 A covenant is a binding agreement between two parties. These men would take, for instance, the verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

 “If my people”  signifies the conditions required to fulfil the covenant. “I will” signifies the covenant promise to which God unreservedly committed himself.

These men would take a verse with a covenant promise, and pray “God we come before you to do as you have required, now we hold you to your promise” . . . this was the nature of their praying, of their faith, that struck me: a forthright claim upon THE GOD WHO PROMISES.

 At the ‘last supper’ (Luke 22:14 – 20) Jesus announces something new … a new covenant. The old covenant was performed in an environment of law and requirement – the things they did to invoke the covenant promises of God were done because they were required, and predicated upon the sacrifices the people were required to make.

The new covenant is performed in an environment of grace and love (‘law’ and requirement’ being done away on the cross – Colossians 2:14) – the things we do to invoke the covenant promises of God are predicated upon the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus the Son of God on the cross, and they are done because we love.

There will be a people for whom the promises of God are being fulfilled without reservation. They know that they have been given both privilege and responsibility to act as God’s kingdom agents on earth, to bring his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, by seeing the fulfilment of God’s covenant promises through their lives. They are not passive. They are people of action. And those actions invoke a supernatural response from heaven. However, its vital to know that those actions are not done out of requirement or law, but out of grace and love.

For example: the Old Covenant required all kinds of giving – it was a legal demand. And when Israel gave, it was because of that law and requirement. And in the law age they could rightfully invoke the covenant promises of blessing and overflow.

So the question we now ask is this: if we don’t give out of law and requirement, how can we invoke the covenant promises for the giver?

The answer is in 2 Corinthians 8:7 & 8. Here Paul clearly states that giving is now a grace (i.e. something that is empowered by God as we desire to do it). Furthermore, it is not by commandment but a fruit of our love. By grace and in love we order our lives and position ourselves in a place where we can make a rightful and forceful claim upon THE GOD WHO PROMISES.

We should ask and answer a few more questions:

Question 1      What promises of the Bible can we rightfully invoke in the new covenant? Can we claim Old Testament promises?

Answer            2 Corinthians 1:20 “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him, Amen, to the glory of God through us.

 

Question 2      Are you sure? What’s the guarantee?

Answer            Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

 

If God could give Jesus, it is impossible for him to deny us any other thing – for everything else is lesser – there is no limit to his capacity and will to give to us.

 

Question 3      How come we don’t always get what we ask for?

Answer            Hebrews 6:12 “imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” 

 

Why ‘patience’? Because God’s timing is perfect, and it’s the only way He does a thing – perfectly!

 

Question 4      Should we really expect God to fulfil his promise like he said he would?

Answer            No!

Hebrews 8:6  “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also Mediator of a better covenant, which is established on better promises.

1. •Every promise of the Old Testament is “yes and amen” in Jesus.
   

2. •He incorporates them in his new covenant which is better, which is more excellent.
   

3. •So in the new covenant God becomes excessive – He multiplies, makes greater, increases and exceeds every possibility the old saints had ever dared           believe. There is something greater for us!
   

There will be a people for whom the promises of God are being fulfilled without reservation. They know that they have been given both privilege and responsibility to act as God’s kingdom agents on earth, to bring his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, by seeing the fulfilment of God’s covenant promises through their lives.

Let it be us!

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