Who God is

105. God is a covenant person!

 

Most people do not understand covenant. It is the strongest relationship that there is and it carries the most responsibility!

 

Oh, I have such an ache in my heart to bless my covenant family!

 

David asked, "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?" (2 Samuel 9:13)

That was the cry of David, but it also the cry of Jesus. Ephesians 2:4 (Amplified Bible) says, “But God – so rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us.” David was an example of the heart of God showing that He has an ache to bless His covenant people. David was a callused warrior, but he cried out to bless his blood covenant family.

 

Why is there such a big deal about Mephibosheth?

Read 2 Samuel 9:1-13.

2 Samuel 9:1-13 (NIV) says, “David asked, ‘Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?’ Now there was a servant of Saul's household named Ziba. They called him to appear before David, and the king said to him, ‘Are you Ziba?’ ‘Your servant,’ he replied. The king asked, ‘Is there no one still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show God's kindness?’ Ziba answered the king, ‘There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in both feet.’ ‘Where is he?’ the king asked. Ziba answered, ‘He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.’ So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel. When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, ‘Mephibosheth!’ ‘Your servant,’ he replied. ‘Don't be afraid,’ David said to him, ‘for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.’ Mephibosheth bowed down and said, ‘What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?’ Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, ‘I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.’ (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.) Then Ziba said to the king, ‘Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do.’ So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table like one of the king’s sons. Mephibosheth had a young son named Mica, and all the members of Ziba's household were servants of Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table, and he was crippled in both feet.”

Mephibosheth was limp and lame like us. His name means a dispeller of confusion and shame. He was Jonathan’s son, the grandson of Saul, who had tried to kill David. He had been living beneath his rights. He had a covenant with the king and did not know about it. He was living in Lo Debar, which means a place of no bread. The Bread of Life is the Word of God. If we don’t know the Word, we don’t know who we are. We need to know it.

One day the covenant love just hit David so hard he could not stand it. He just had to bless someone. So he called to find out who was a survivor of his covenant with Jonathan.

David made sure that Mephibosheth was served the rest of his life by Ziba and his family. They ran the farm for Mephibosheth. David poured out his entire household for this covenant, and Mephibosheth ate at David’s table the rest of his life.

 

Jonathan, Mephibosheth’s father, had made a covenant with David.

1 Samuel 18:1-4 (KJV) says, “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.

And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.”

 

Questions

 

Did Mephibosheth deserve this?

 

Why do we need a Blood Covenant with a king?

 

 

Mystery # 1.

We inherit curses and blessings through blood. The Law of Inheritance is that we inherit blessings and curses from our family, going back many generations.

1. From our forefathers

Exodus 34:6-8 (Amplified Bible) says, “And the Lord passed by before him (Moses) and proclaimed, The Lord! The Lord! a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, keeping mercy and loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation. And Moses made haste to bow his head toward the earth and worshiped.”

2. From our own sin

Romans 6:23 (KJV) says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”

 

Where does the Law of inheritance live? Is it in the body or the spirit?

Both. That is why people look like their parents. But the invisible part of what is inherited in the spirit fools most people. There are two parts of a person that can have life or family inheritance.

John 3:5-6 says, “Jesus answered, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’”

The physical life carries the looks and build of the body.

The spiritual life is the life that carries the inheritance of blessings and curses.

Mystery # 2.

That doesn’t seem fair, but there is a solution; the Law of Substitution. This is the Good News!

Example: The law of gravity keeps an airplane on the ground. But when the plane taxies down the runway fast enough another law takes over and nullifies the law of gravity; that is the law of lift. In the same way, the law of substitution nullifies the law of inheritance.

This basically means that people may be born into a certain family and from that family lineage they will receive blessings and curses as their inheritance, but it also means that those can be changed. Tribes in Africa, in American Indian culture and some Asian type societies have always looked for ways to swap or trade blessings and curses with other people.

Before the foundation of the world, God prearranged to have Jesus crucified according to the ETERNAL Spirit, which means that the substitution principal was in effect before any man was created.

Revelation 13:8 says, “All who dwell on the earth will worship it, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

 

A good example of the law of substitution was the Passover.

Exodus 12:13-14 (Amplified Bible) says, “The blood shall be for a token or sign to you upon [the doorposts of] the houses where you are, [that] when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall be upon you to destroy when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be to you for a memorial. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations, keep it as an ordinance forever.”

 

Mystery # 3.

How does the blood do anything? I was not there when Jesus died; that blood is dried up by now. I’m glad you asked, just hang on and find out!

The blood is eternal. Hebrews 9:14 (NIV) says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

The life is in the blood. Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”

Since the beginning of creation, man was the subject of blood covenants. Adam had a covenant with God that he broke. Many primitive cultures still believe that blood covenant brothers are closer relatives than those born of the same mother. A blood covenant actually intermingles the life of both partners and creates a new common life. A marriage is a blood covenant. Ephesians 5:31 (KJV) says, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.”

 

Mystery # 4.

The blood of Jesus makes us partakers of the divine nature, and He was made a partaker of our sinful nature. The result is intimacy and oneness with God!

2 Peter 1:4 (NIV) says, “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

We don’t only become partakers of the divine nature, but we also become partakers of the resurrected nature, over which death has no more dominion.

 

We have an absolute guarantee that God will care for us. He cannot break the blood covenant! It is the most powerful guarantee mankind could ever have. It is guaranteed by the very life of Jesus, and He cannot die again!

 

Mystery # 5.

Do you cut your wrist? NO! The spiritual blood is transferred by words!

John 6:63 says, “It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” Jesus told the poor people in this chapter that they needed to get rid of their curse. They needed to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Then He made the transition to the spiritual. He said the flesh profits nothing, but My Words are spirit and they are life. Read the story in John 6:63.

 

 

Luke 4:4 (KJV) says, “And Jesus answered him, saying, ‘It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”

 

Jesus IS the Word.

John 1:1-3 (Amplified Bible) says, “In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being.”

 

The Power of God is within our reach!

Romans 10:8-11 says, “But what does it say? ‘The Word, is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the Word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’”

 

You could summarize it this way: The Power of God is in His Word.

 

Mystery # 6

Why doesn’t this always work?

In order to complete a blood covenant, it takes two deaths.

Luke 9:23-25 (NIV) says, “Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?’”

Deny means to say no to something. The word life used here means soul, or our will, mind and emotions. We must daily say no to those things of our will, intellect and emotions that don’t line up with God’s will and character.

Is this difficult? NO - YES! No, it is not difficult to bow and worship a loving creator God who gave His life for you. Yes, it means giving up all rights to your own life to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. This is not a “religious or church” thing. This is becoming one with the creator of the universe.