A Covenant is Needed

Usually people ask, “Are you saved?” or, “Do you know Jesus?” or, “Are you born again?” The real question is, “Are you converted?” Conversion means covenant and God’s plan is to save you by joining you to Himself in a covenant relationship.

We need to get to the end of God’s plan to understand the beginning. God wants to transform, heal, and change your soul. Just like a butterfly goes through transformation from a caterpillar to his new design, function, and beauty, we likewise experience the new life of Christ by God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation®.

Transformation takes place IN covenant because that’s how God equips you with the knowledge and tools which you must have to touch Jesus who makes transformation possible. Without covenant a person’s confession of Christ does not result in transformation.

Man’s nature must be transformed to reflect Jesus. God will not accept us in his presence as we are. A covenant is needed. Jesus shed his blood upon the cross to die for our benefit, to provide a new covenant in his name, to set the terms of the covenant in himself, to give us his life and to represent us faultless before God. Jesus rose from the dead to empower our faith by his Spirit and ascended to heaven to show us our true destiny in him. 

The process of your salvation has its origin in grace to prepare your heart for the seal that your relationship with God might mature in the power of the Spirit, that you might know God and that he might give you eternal life. Do you believe?

Grace Draws Faith From Your Heart

We can better understand what grace is by looking at Peter’s experience. When Jesus asked him, “Who do men say that I am?” Peter responded, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

Jesus immediately taught Peter the source of his faith by saying, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”  (Matthew 16:16-17)

Peter’s confession of faith followed the revelation of the Spirit. That’s grace and faith in action. And that’s the pattern you’re going to follow. 

Every day, as Jesus taught, Peter heard the words of truth. He also heard the voice of grace. It was the Father that revealed Jesus to Peter who experienced an awakening as God communicated to him. We could say that Peter experienced an awakening, an aha moment of grace. He knew that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God!

When Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!” he was reciprocating that which he received, he was responding to the grace of God. Grace was drawing faith from his heart. Peter showed his OBEDIENCE to the grace of God in the yielding of his will to God. 

Grace comes first and faith follows in obedience. Now do you understand step 1 and 2 a little better? Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God?

Grace +Faith = Righteousness

Righteousness means that even though God first showed his love towards us while we were lost in the kingdom of darkness, he does not accept us the way we are, in darkness, without Christ. God accepts our faith on the grounds of Jesus Christ to begin a covenant relationship.

When we say that Jesus Christ is our righteousness, we mean that he is the standard by which God measures our faith and judges our soul. Jesus qualifies our faith by his knowledge, stewardship, and tools to reflect his likeness, and this meets God’s expectation perfectly. Nothing of man is added to faith, and nothing of Jesus is missing.

Jesus is God’s standard. Faith is measured to him and must reflect him and express him. God set the standard in grace for us to see Jesus, and God’s expectation is that we respond to his grace to believe God and receive Jesus’ testimony. This is what it means to be righteous in the eyes of God.

First God issued grace and you responded in faith. Now he declares you righteous. God is showing you that the path to him is paved with grace and faith, and thus prepares your heart to receive the sign of his seal. 

First we receive his grace to receive Jesus’ testimony, now we must receive his Spirit to become the sons of God. Do you believe?

You Must Be Sealed 

AFTER you heard the truth, AFTER you received grace, AFTER you believed, you must be sealed. But, how are you sealed?

Ephesians 1:13
“In whom ye also trusted, AFTER that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.”

You received the grace of God and yielded to it, and confessed that Jesus is the Son of God. Now you must receive his Spirit, as God says, “But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:39; Acts 2:4; Acts 10:45-46)

AFTER Jesus was glorified, AFTER he rose from the dead, AFTER he ascended into heaven he sent the Holy Spirit to seal the faith of his disciples. 

Acts 1:4-5
⁴ And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
⁵ For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.

You must be sealed to enter into a covenant relationship with God

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the divine seal upon your faith. It is the fourth and final step to entering into a covenant relationship with God. It is God’s way of marking you as his own. We are talking about the element sanctification, whereas God separates you from the world unto himself by giving you this sign and token of power. 

You will know when you are sealed with the Spirit. You will begin to speak in tongues. When you are baptized with the Holy Spirit you can begin to use the power of the Spirit by praying in tongues every day. 

Acts 2:4
“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Praying in tongues will be a big part of your day-to-day Christian experience, so we have to talk about it. Why pray in tongues? The simple truth is that as you pray in tongues the Holy Spirit makes intercession for you. He is searching your heart for areas that require God’s attention (cleansing and healing to remove Satan’s graffiti from your soul). God’s plan is to restore your soul, to create in you the fruit of Christ (Rom. 8:26).

Don’t stop short of receiving this divine seal, for that would mean falling short of knowing Jesus and who you are in him. Value who he is, and treasure this divine token he has provided for you by making the commitment to pray in tongues daily. This opens the door for God to encourage and build you up in the faith. 

Jude 1:20
“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.”

There is no way to fully appreciate the value of the tool of tongues until you get the connection between praying in tongues and God’s fruit bearing process within your soul. This is the primary purpose for tongues. When you think of everything that you want to be and do, and everything God intends for you, think of fruit bearing. 

I know that it might not sound as tantalizing and promising as the unwrapping of amazing signature gifts, but trust me on this one; there is nothing more valuable to God  than your soul. An empty soul, of course, is of no value. They are like the 5 foolish virgins who awaited the Bridegroom, but were not ready to be received because they had forgotten to take oil in their vessels. 

When the Master came to open the door, they were not present. Their empty vessels required a trip into town to buy what was required, and when they returned they knocked and knocked at the door, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us!” But the Master replied, “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” (Mt. 25:6-12).

Their empty vessel cannot please God, but the soul that is filled with the fruit of Christ has tremendous value and potential to God.

God Accepts Your Faith. You Belong to God

The covenant that God established through Jesus must be sealed to show that God has accepted your faith. God gives you this token sign that you have entered into a covenant relationship with him. By the engrafting of his Spirit, Jesus qualifies your faith to the equal value of himself for the promise of the inheritance.

God seals your faith with a token of himself, as a sign that you belong to him. God engrafts his Holy Spirit within you to put his stamp of approval upon your faith and to claim you as his own. This is the sign of your adoption. Christ is IN you through this seal, which God calls the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You received His testimony and now Jesus receives you into His house.

You are now converted to Christ. This is the new birth and your entrance into a covenant relationship with God. It is the divine power for the divine change. God gives tongues as a sign that you are sealed. Tongues is the first new covenant tool you receive.

Transformation takes place in covenant

Did you follow these 4 steps to covenant faith? Continue to seek the Lord for the baptism of the Holy Spirit until you receive it. Read the free eBook “The Seal of the Spirit” published by Apostle Eric vonAnderseck to learn more.

These same 4 steps that you just took to enter into covenant with God are the very same steps God showed Abraham to bring him into covenant (Genesis 17:7-11). Apostle Paul reflected on this for our learning that we might take confidence in God leading us through the same 4 steps to covenant faith.

Romans 4:12
“And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the STEPS of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.”

What’s Next?

You may be wondering: What do I do next? How do I walk with God? How does God communicate with me? As you can see, we are now talking about discipleship, which is  why God added a fifth step to begin a covenant relationship with him.

Many experience what happens when discipleship does not follow the seal, as a believer finds himself in the Wayside, Rocks, and Thorns (Mt. 7:3-7). Did you know that transformation takes place IN covenant? That’s how God equips you with the knowledge and tools which you must have to touch Jesus who makes transformation possible.

So, we added discipleship to your menu. Discipleship means foundation building. We start with the foundation to help you learn God’s purpose and plan for you to grow in the image and likeness of Christ.

God’s desire is that you experience spiritual transformation his way. Once the foundation is laid, you’ll understand God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation, and more importantly, you’ll experience it.

When we read the Bible from the standpoint of God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation, we can see God’s willingness to transform our lives through Jesus Christ, to transform the way we think and the way we act by simply teaching us how to access his power.

When a believer says that he desires Jesus to change him, that he desires to be made new, or that he desires to be all that God wants him to be, he is talking about his desire for spiritual transformation God’s way—God’s design in Christ.

We see transformation in nature, how the caterpillar exits his cocoon completely transformed into the butterfly he was always meant to be. Everywhere we look we see that life follows a divine pattern and blueprint. Similarly, the transformation of our soul is by divine design and follows a divine pattern and blueprint of knowledge. 

Did you know that a caterpillar does not need knowledge to transform? He didn’t buy a Transformation for Dummies book. God placed the design in the caterpillar to go through the process of transformation to teach us about his plan for our daily transformation.

Unlike the butterfly, our transformation is by knowledge because we need knowledge to direct our faith into fruitful obedience to God. God placed his intelligent design for transformation in a special kind of new covenant knowledge and Jesus is the blueprint.

The mistaken idea that God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation happens by instinct has led to years of disappointment and downright frustration. Most were led to believe that after making a decision for Jesus or a decision to go to church that voilà: the miraculous metamorphosis took place. When it doesn’t happen that way it’s understandable that people feel terribly let down.

If you are like many seekers, the simple faith that God designed in Jesus Christ has become extremely complicated and confusing. You might have had a lot of starts and stops and misfires along the way, and that can be discouraging.

Many find it difficult to understand why different Christian denominations with different beliefs and practices exist. It seems hopeless to try to make a choice between churches.

IDCCST^® Christian discipleship fills in the blanks, divides the old from the new, puts things into proper covenant context, and ties everything together from start to finish.