Author:
Apostle Bronwyn Du Plooy
Bronwyn serves as a called and confirmed Apostle in the restored government of God, and she is an IDCCST Spiritual Life Coach. Apostle Bronwyn helps you to begin a new and final chapter in your search for truth. View my profile.
The other day whilst setting order to my home in preparation for a visitor, I started thinking back to when this custom of setting order to my home was developed. As I thought back, I remembered that I learned this from my mother as a child. The custom was that before guests would arrive, my siblings and I were each allocated a specific chore, so that our home would be ordered and presentable upon their arrival.
This analogy of a simple family custom helps us to understand God’s covenant ways, and how He has always cared for His house by first setting order to our faith. In the old covenant, this was called the “due order”.
1 Chronicles 15:13
For because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.
In this verse God talks about a house that is not set in order because God’s covenant plan was set aside. The children of Israel did not care for His house as He did. God’s due order for them was understood as the law and commandments He gave through Moses. Seeking God, but ignoring how He set order to their faith meant that God turned His back on their prayers. And many today feel the same breach upon their prayers.
Maybe this is where you’re at? Seeking God’s personal involvement in your life, but feeling empty inside. This doesn’t have to be a place of condemnation; it can be a place of change. Every time we read in the Bible that the children of Israel chose not to follow God’s due order, God showed the people that their house was spiritually corrupt. And today, as the church awakens to the same condition, many are seeing that this breach can no longer be ignored. Those who were asking, “Why should we keep our house clean?” are now asking, “How can we keep our house clean?”
Realizing that a spiritual cleansing needs to go deeper than what is seen on the surface, the awakening has led to an all-out hunger for God to change the church. And that takes me to the purpose of this article. God is shedding light on the way man thinks – it’s not in man’s nature to care for God’s due order. What I’m getting at is that before God can do His deep cleaning in the soul, He first sets order to the covenant knowledge we need to serve Him according to His expectations in Jesus Christ.
God Sets Order with Knowledge
To shift our focus on God’s due order, we’re going to consider how knowledge flows from God to His church. This is important because God is establishing a direct link between His new covenant and the face-to-face contact that we have with Him. To shed light on what “covenant” means to God, we’ll look at a short quote from the EVA Terms Glossary (which everyone who signs up for the IDCCST Course has access to).
Covenant: God has always been a God of covenant whereby He establishes ground rules to set the terms for contact for us to approach Him and engage with Him. Without a covenant we tend to approach God on our own terms, making promises of commitment and new resolutions, which is never a good idea as it is backwards to the way God operates…
A covenant is the agreed participation of faith with the KNOWLEDGE and TOOLS given, with the hope of the promises in return. A covenant is the terms God set for man to observe to be joined back to Him. When we meet those terms, God forgives sins, allows us to engage with Him for fellowship, and accepts our faith.
When believers choose to embrace the knowledge of the Lord according to the terms of His covenant, that is when a relationship begins. Spiritual cleansing is part of that relationship, as God creates in us the image of Christ as He heals our soul.
Embracing the knowledge of the covenant may sound strange, but this is just another way of saying that we take heed to consider our agreement to the terms of Jesus’ covenant. We agreed to build with His foundation knowledge to partake of Him and remained joined to Him for His work in us to honor Him. But what is the source of knowledge we are taking heed to? Where does it come from?
1 Corinthians 3:10-11
10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
In the above scripture, Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, is referring to his calling as an apostle, thus showing us that the apostles are the wise master builders that God calls and equips to lay the foundation of truth in the hearts of believers. Through this we begin to understand God’s due order to begin with master builders, and we value God’s restored government who teach the knowledge of Christ to the church. The apostles are God’s knowledge stewards. That’s something God established that we can’t ignore.
Stewardship Comes First
Stewardship comes first, and this is a teaching point that will be repeated many times to shift to God’s due order. Let’s look at the pattern again because it’s God’s key for us to understand how He works. Before God gave the children of Israel His laws and commandments, He first gave them His steward, Moses. Moses was the steward of God’s house. God established that order in the old covenant and He now repeats that in the new covenant.
God wants us to see the pattern and clear connection to stewardship to understand that we are no different today, and that God has not changed. Before believers can know how to keep Jesus’ new covenant law of grace and truth, before God can work in us, God first calls stewards of His grace. God uses the apostle’s office to oversee the function of the church. The apostles are given the measure of grace to set order to the faith of believers according to God’s expectations.
Isaiah 55:8-9
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Because the truth of the gospel is not something we know naturally, it must be learned through instruction. The apostles are called wise master builders because God uses the calling of the apostle as that key of instruction. God also uses knowledge as a tool to separate our thinking from the thinking of the world, from the natural to the spiritual.
Preparing Your Heart for Fellowship
Remember in the beginning of this article, I spoke about how it was my preparation for a visitor that had prompted some of these reflections to bring out these teaching points.
When we think about receiving a visitor, we think about spending time in that person’s presence where conversation is exchanged that contributes to quality time spent to nurture and preserve your relationship with that person. Oftentimes there is a considerable amount of preparation that takes place in order to receive your visitor to make them feel welcome and comfortable. We too, prepare our hearts for fellowship with the Lord, as we read in Revelation 3:20.
Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Many times, believers liken their fellowship with God to mean that whenever they turn their thoughts towards God and think about Him being with them everywhere they go and involved in everything that they do, that they are sharing an intimate and personal relationship with God. However, the preparation in truth (God’s due order) has not taken place and so the fellowship is one-sided and the long prayed for, deep spiritual cleansing still is not happening.
As I said earlier, this doesn’t have to be a place of condemnation; it can be a place of change; and change is what believers are praying for. In this season of change God is again teaching His due order, how He sets order to faith, and as believers prepare their hearts with truth to seek God His way, they begin to experience Jesus’ continual cleansing and fellowship and begin to walk anew on the path of the covenant God prepared for us in Jesus Christ.
