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Accessing The Blessings Of The New Covenant

I was asked, “how do I access the blessings of the New Covenant”?  In response, I gave the following answer.

Concerning any Old Testament  Jewish covenants, and even the Old Covenant as seen in the Law of Moses, there are both blessings and curses associated with these covenants.  There is also responsibilities of the participants associated with these covenants.   The same is true with the New Covenant.   Those outside of the New Covenant are under the curse of God that is finalized at the Day of Judgment.   Those who are in the circle of God's New Covenant  are under the umbrella of blessings that are also finalized at the Day of Judgment.

On that Great and Terrible day of the Lord, as the KJV puts it, we who have given our lives to Jesus will receive our rewards, that is, all the blessings of the New Covenant.  It is then that every last blessing will be given to us.  Until then, we have what you might say are partial blessings.  What we do have is the Holy Spirit which Paul calls a down payment on what we will receive in the next life.  Total blessings only come then, not now. 

Until then, our priorities should not be on what we can get from our Lord, but what we can give to Him.  In terms of covenant, our priorities should not be concerning the blessings, but concerning the responsibilities of the New Covenant.  This present life is not about getting, but about giving.  When Jesus was on earth, He was a servant to servants.  He  expects us to be like Him in this respect.  We are to live as servants of God.  Too often we think in terms of living as a king, which is heavily promoted by the Prosperity and Hyper Faith Movements, which I strongly suggest is not New Testament thinking.  

Jesus ascended into Heaven and now rules as King.  Scripture tells us that in the next life we will rule with Him as kings.  We're not kings now.  We're servants now just as Jesus was when He was on earth.

This thinking does not exclude the fact that Jesus can't or won't bless us along the way as we serve Him, but these blessings come as we serve, and most of these blessings are in relation to what we need to represent Jesus as we should. We don't receive as much as we should because we don't serve.  We don't live out the responsibilities of the New Covenant as we should.

Jesus said, "ask in prayer and you will receive".  It is my understanding, because of the words " in my name", that is often added to this phrase, that what we should be asking for and thus receiving are those things needed to properly do the work of Jesus on earth.  Jesus guarantees us that.  He doesn't  necessarily guarantee much beyond the basics in this life.  If this were not so, then people like the apostle  Paul were really messed up and out of the will of the Lord, along with most first generation Christians.

If we are not properly representing Jesus, we don't get the things we need to do His will.  And I'm not sure or convinced that North American Christians know what it means to properly represent Jesus.

Our North American mentality is to think of us first, what we can get, but that's not New Testament thinking.  New Testament  thinking is putting my desires at the bottom of the list in order to think of what Jesus wants, and to think about how we can love and serve those who cross our path at any given time.

My suggestion would be not to think in terms of how we can receive the blessings of the New Covenant  but to think in terms of how we can effectively live out the responsibilities of the New Covenant that we have stepped into once giving our lives to Jesus.

The problem these days is that we've watered down the gospel to what I call "the gospel to get" - get saved, get healed, get rich, get blessings ... This isn't New Testament  thinking.  New Testament thinking is "what can I give to Jesus and to others"?   That's faith.  Faith is giving your life to Jesus and trusting Him with it, no matter where that leads us.  It's led many people over the years to death and imprisonment.  That doesn't sound like lots of blessing, but those who have experienced such a fate will certainly be blessed in the next life.

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