God’s timely instruction for the church today is the same as it has always been, that we retain our tethering to Him by remaining joined to Him in covenant. There are many in God’s restored government, working together with the anointing to return your confidence to Jesus’ stewardship of your faith. We’ll start our study with Ecclesiastes 12:11.

Ecclesiastes 12:11
The words of the wise are as goads, and the nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.

The word of salvation that we heed comes from the wise shepherd, Jesus Christ. He is the Master of the assemblies of the saints, which means that He is the governor and prototype of our faith and executor of His covenant.

God’s wisdom is His direction. Just like a shepherd uses an instrument (goad) to gently lead his flock in the direction he wants the sheep to go, so also is apostolic stewardship a rod in the hand of God to direct the church in this new season of change.

The wisdom that God imparts in Ecclesiastes 12:11 is timely for this generation as the church shifts to the new covenant Jesus built as a house for our faith to abide in. The question is, is God building one house of faith or many houses of worship? God intended that there be only one shepherd for the church, only one truth we follow, only one foundation upon which we build, and only one house of worship.

Even though there are many assemblies around the world and many gatherings of the saints, we all assemble in one house of faith under one shepherd, under one family roof.

God’s new building plan (to build one house) would be puzzling today, as one observes the current state of the church. We see diversity of doctrines, many shepherds (pastors and ministers so to speak), and thousands of different paths of faith (the knowledge one bases faith upon is not Jesus’ covenant house).

What immediately stands out in this shift to assemble in one house of faith is the shattered illusion we see painted in today’s current Christian culture as ministers claim to build many “houses of glory”.

The spearhead of restoration is the new covenant. God’s purpose in this new apostolic season is to return the church to His counsel concerning what our faith is made of and how that influences our assemblies and the purpose of our gathering together.

Covenant is how God defines our faith, so covenant is God’s tipping point that changes everything! So, let’s go to Hebrews chapter 3 to see how God sets this out. We are going to see two very different covenants described as two very different houses of faith.

Hebrews 3:5-6
⁵ And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;

⁶ But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

Moses was the steward of the house of the first covenant and Jesus is the head over His own house, the new and better covenant. Even as Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 2:19,“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”

We are called into one household of God. Before entering into a covenant relationship with God, a person is exposed to many different truths about Jesus. Many different churches are visited in search of the vital things that have gone missing from their faith. The question we should ask is, where is the house of Jesus Christ? It is nowhere to be found.

Each key of knowledge opened the door to a different house (ministry). But if we look at this from God’s perspective, He only gave one faith that He framed in one covenant house of Jesus Christ.

The church has thankfully transitioned to the one house of Jesus Christ, where He governs our faith, meaning that He mediates the terms (God’s conditions) for our contact with Him to experience the many manifold grace of God. Our faith in Jesus’ house is experiential, but it is based on the terms God set for our contact and increase.

God selects the word “house” not only to describe the residence of our faith and the family to which we belong, but also to describe the fundamentals of our faith and its construction.

A house normally starts with a foundation and that’s where God starts. The foundation is God’s way of equipping your faith with a complete set of knowledge to draw from. God differentiates His knowledge from the knowledge of the world and the knowledge of self because He is not building those houses.

A house also has a frame and Jesus’ house is no different. God frames our experience of Him by equipping us with knowledge that is functional. How do we prophesy? That function is already framed by the covenant priesthood. How do we pray? That function is already framed by God’s inner work to recreate our soul in His likeness.

Where is our altar? That function is already framed by Jesus’ DNA. Our faith reflects who Jesus is and we mirror His substance and likeness when we build the altar of Christ in our heart with the 12 elements of the gospel. These are God’s whole stones, untouched by man’s tradition.

Joshua 8:31
As Moses the servant of the Lord commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings.

When the house of God is built by His master builders (Jesus’ apostles), all the connections are there from the foundation of truth to the altar in the heart to the spiritual sacrifices of prophecy we offer to God, to the process of regeneration, and our experience with the anointing and stewardship of grace.

Something God is teaching the church in this new apostolic season is that when the covenant is stripped of its meaning (many houses of glory instead of one house of Jesus Christ), a shift in purpose takes place, not for the better, but for the worse.

You may be thinking that God is not in the examination of faith, but rather in the waiting you might do in prayer. In truth, this is prayer stripped of its covenant meaning.

Point-by-point, God’s instructions in this new season becomes the new language we speak so that we speak with purpose. God designed His new covenant language to divide the old from the new. The old way of relating to what God is doing has been to say that God is doing some “special things”, while neglecting to tie God’s work to His uniquely crafted priesthood where God starts off with the design of the altar itself.

This “special thing” God is hoped to be doing here and there is an example of an open-ended statement, mentioned by Apostle Estelle in her teaching, Can the False Religious System be Fixed?

She explained that the open-ended gospels are the old way. I want to share some of her teaching:

God ministered to me a word of knowledge ‘open-ended’ that further reveals why He is not going to revive a failed and rebellious system. This word of knowledge, like the divine dream ministered by the Holy Spirit reveals the many avenues that are offered when the gospel is not centered in Christ, and how each avenue seems like an opportunity God will open up.

We all know what open-ended statements are. They allow for conversation or situations to be interpreted in several ways. The false-prophetic speaks in an open-ended style to provide room for the imagination to fill out the blanks.

So, when we hear ministers speak of “special things” God is doing, your imagination is called upon the fill in the blanks. This very ambiguous language reflects a lack of purpose.

The altar of Christ is not a figment of our imagination, nor is it merely a place of prayer. As I mentioned earlier, the altar is made up of the 12 elements of the gospel, which are God’s whole stones that He set in the heart for the new song of charity (spiritual sacrifices of prophecy) to redound with the virtues of Christ. It happens every day!

A tremendous black hole develops when we get away from the actual design of the altar and God’s purpose for it. A black hole, in the context of faith in Jesus Christ, is a failed delivery system that fills the heart with pain, desire, regret, and fearfulness.

Prayer, stripped of the covenant, is a failed delivery system and spiritual black hole, which should not be pawned off as a new move of God.

A spiritual black hole is knowledge without contrast. As believers are called to the many altars of prayer to seek God, the purpose is to try to shed light on darkness. But you can’t see in the dark, you need the light of the knowledge of Christ for contrast. The light of Jesus’ knowledge that we build with gives contrast to see Him, and as God makes this contrast, the challenge of darkness is overcome in Christ, seeing that we are in His covenant, at His altar, using His tools.

People live the experience of darkness and struggle with that challenge and they begin to describe their faith in that way. They are not overcoming the challenge; they are describing the challenge while in the dark. This translates awfully to prayer. What do people do when they find their faith in such a state as we’re describing here? They come together in consolidated, focused prayer that feels purpose driven in that the heart is set upon seeking God’s face, but these false altars of prayer are failed delivery systems. Jesus (and His covenant) is not in the black hole.

Coming together like this, without God’s covenant purpose, would be rightly called feigned unity. People might come together in prayer, but not being united by Jesus’ covenant, they lack everything God uses to unite them to Him.

Prayer that has not shifted to the covenant is not connected to the altar and a person prays according to the struggle and not according to the covenant, trying to see hope in God while still in the dark.

For example,

• –feeling lukewarm and complacent, a person will use prayer to shed light on complacency.

• — feeling the desire to be open for God’s will, a person will use prayer to shed light on where he might have closed God off.

A pandemic of false knowledge has caused mass confusion in the church when in fact, God has made faith simple according to His new covenant terms.

Going back to Moses and that first covenant, we read that Moses was ordained by God as the steward of the first covenant. Those who went against the word of the Lord spoken through His steward kicked against the rod of God’s selection. We can read something similar to Apostle Paul’s experience at the time of his conversion.

Acts 9:5
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Jesus appeared to Apostle Paul before his conversion to address his aggressive attitude towards the transition of the covenant from Moses to Jesus. Jesus transitioned the covenant to Himself and Paul resisted and kicked against it.

When Jesus said, it is hard for you to kick against the pricks (or rod of sanctification), He meant that Paul was resisting God’s wisdom that was meant for his liberty. Jesus was referencing Saul’s vain works as kicking against the change He was establishing in Himself as the new record faith was to follow. Paul ignorantly loved (and defended) his religious aspirations more than God.

Before his conversion and calling into the apostle’s office, Paul’s religious principle would not allow him to see Jesus, and that’s why, when Jesus appeared to him, he asked, who are you Lord?

In the false religious systems today, the church is sadly in the same state, kicking against the stewardship God has elected and established for the restoration of the church to purify and return the bride back to Jesus and not seeing Jesus clearly.

Jesus made it very clear that to build a relationship with Him we have to suffer the loss of our religious principles (futile works which do not glorify His Name). Because God is a Spirit, we have to know how to worship Him in Spirit. Because God is truth, we have to glorify Him accordingly in fruit (what the seed of truth produces), and because Jesus is risen, we have to know the pattern He set for our faith to follow in that blueprint of salvation for the same resurrection power to work within us the experience we truly desire to make the transition from darkness to light.

Jesus chose and raised up living apostles for the perfecting of His saints. But He chose one steward in each new season of change to call His remnant out from the wilderness. Seeing that Israel had always gone astray having mixed their faith with diverse doctrines created by man and devils, the church is as Israel of old, having run after doctrines of devils and the tradition of man, and in need of the form of correction that only God’s steward can bring.

The sword of truth must prick the pride of man’s false beliefs to conform to God’s will which is His Christ.