Bible Study on My Travel

Was sitting at the airport in New York yesterday, on my way to Pittsburgh. So happy about the two-year anniversary we celebrated at our daughter church SOS Church Bienne Switzerland on Sunday. I was working on a Bible study on the new covenant and the Spirit of Law of Life. Here's a brief selection. Here we go:

The New Covenant

This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
    after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
    and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.

Heb 8:10

God decided to make a new and better pact with His people and in the long run, with all of his cherished humanity through His Son Jesus (Heb 8:6). The old covenant was replaced with a new and better one. Finally we became His people for real and He our God. We became children of the promise!

Jesus said in His sermon on the mount that He did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill it. Our righteousness was to go far beyond that of the Jewish Pharisees (Matt 5:17-20). The surprised listeners that day wondered how this would happen. That day Jesus sharpened the law yet at the same time His words breathed hope, authority and power. But how was this righteousness about to take place and be fulfilled?

After God had reconciled with us through Jesus' death and resurrection, He gave us His Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit it was now possible to live out the law through simply following the nudges of the heart. God wrote the commandments in our heart and minds when we were saved. Jesus meant that "the double commandment of love"; i.e. love God and your neighbor as yourself, was the fulfillment of the law and the new "commandment". This commandment of love replaced all the others. (Mark 12, Joh 13) Love does not want any evil (1 Cor 13:5).

One who follows the commandment of love must, and simply has no choice than to live pure. The Apostle Paul calls it "the Spirit of law of life " (Rom 8:2). We follow the Spirit who leads us on the narrow road that leads to life and ultimately leads us home to Jesus.

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 

Gal 5:16 & 25

Through the new covenant we are circumcised in our inner being. A circumcision of the heart through an active and living faith. We received a new covenant-sign; love. We became His people. This happened completely supernaturally when we believed the gospel. We were born again through His Spirit because of grace and faith. By listening in faith we received the Spirit and not by following the law. The letter of the law that killed, suddenly became alive through the Holy Spirit. We now receive our encouragement from God and not from people. We stand in grace. We live through the victory of Jesus. We follow the Spirit.

See ya!