The New Covenant: Not Contigent on Me

 I have written about this subject so many times. My mind is resting like never before.

There is new meaning to this verse for me:

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." (Isaiah 26:3)

Yesterday, after 6pm, I pretty much decided to rest for the rest of the evening. I decided that I wanted to catch up on rest. If I am tired, there is no need to fight against it. Just rest. That's OK. No condemnation.

I was resting and receiving greater and greater revelation about the New Covenant.

Here's the text of it in Hebrews 8:

"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8:10-12)

What enforces the New Covenant is not something that we do, but something that He has done:

"I will be merciful (literally, propitious, provide a payment) for their unrighteousness, and I will forget their sins and iniquities." 

Every bad thing that we have done, wilfully or otherwise, God will not hold against us. He will not bear a grudge against us. He will not use against us. Our sins and inquities are gone forever. That is all sin. If anyone has a problem with that revelation, consider that when Jesus died for all our sins, all our sins were temporally in the future! All means all! Amen!

There is nothing in the New Covenant which dictates that we must do something to make it happen besides believe it.

None of these conditions are contained in the New Covenant:

1. As long as you keep your thoughts clean and pure.

2. As long as you keep your mind fixed on Jesus in some way, form, or fashion.

3. If you go to church every Sunday

4. If you confess your sins once a week to the local priest.

5. As long as you do not have lustful thoughts or feelings.

For the longest time, I bought into this horrendous, painful set of distractions, that I had to think, feel, imagine certain ways to ensure that God would be with me. A sense of doubt, panic, and fear would ensue every time my mind would waver or I would get distracted by angry, bitter, or lustful thoughts or feelings.

For years, I have been listening to Pastor Joseph Prince, and I have been learning more and more about the wonderful New Covenant which the Lord Jesus has cut for us.

Yet, it really is true: it takes a great deal of time for all of us to understand how fully forgiven we are. It was so difficult for me to rest in the truth that Jesus is taking care of me every step of the way, every step in the day.

So much has been changing in my life over the last year. Yes, there was the COVID-19 pandemic, and yes, there were ridiculous, brutish lockdowns which hurt businesses of all sorts across the country. Many lives were shaken to the core, and families which had coexisted peacefully had to learn to get along with each other more deeply, more intimately, for better or for worse.

I say without any evasion or suppression that my life went very well throughout the year 2020. No matter how bad things were turning out in the world, my life was getting better. Much better.

The New Covenant, in which God is very much a God to me, and I am one of His children, has played out more than ever. For all that hurts, pains, and setbacks which I have faced, life is good!

Even if I am tired, God is still a God to me. His grace, His power in my life is not contingent on what I do, or how I feel. It's all about Him!

Everything that Pastor Prince has been preaching, now all makes sense to me.

When I think about my struggles with sexual temptations, I see at its core, my deepest fears, and the most profound source of condemnation, was that those perverse sentiments were cutting me off from my loving Father, and that they were frustrating God's grace in my life.

The bondage, the pain, the deception is so strong. Today, thank you Jesus, I understand fully that all of that is lies. ALL OF IT!

For the longest time, I would get worried upset, frightened, tense if what I was thinking was wrong, bad, negative, etc. Now I understand that the New Covenant, the grace and peace which God promises to me, is not dependent, not contigent on how I feel, what I think, or even what I do.

Chang Tou Chen, TrueLove.Is, And the Source of Same-Sex Temptation

Chang Tou Chen shared an incredible testimony for TrueLove.Is. Click on this link to view the video.

He mentions at the outset "I had a great childhood. I didn't suffer any physical or sexual abuse, but I noticed at age 7 that I was curious about guys."

Then he shares that he was looking a picture of a bare-chested male, and he ejaculated. He sensed that this reaction was abnormal, but he did not understand why he reacted the way that he did, and why his curiosity about males grew rather than receded.

If he did not suffer abuse, why was he drawn to males? Why did he engage in so much sexual profligacy with other males for decades?

I asked God for an answer to this question, since it's important for individuals to understand that same-sex temptations are born from something broken, deviant, or dysfunctional in our thinking and believing.

I found the answer when I listened to his podcast discussion on "Yah Lah, But ..." with Pastor Ng

Tou Chen (who now goes by the name David) acknowledged toward the end of the interview that he was very bitter toward his mother. Wow! 

Bitterness is a very serious problem, and it produces sexual perversion.

The writer of Hebrews shares:

"14Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: 15Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; 16Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright." (Hebrews 12: 14-16)

First, we are invited to follow peace with all men. Second, the writer exhorts us to pay close attention, to ensure that we do not fail, or come short of (fall from) the grace of God, i.e. that we stop living a life depending on God for everything, and start living a life in which we trust and depend on our own efforts and planning.

When people fall from grace, a "root of bitterness" springs up, it troubles us, and we become defiled, dirty, and thus we become sexually perverted ("fornicators").

People will start to fall into sexual perversion, whether homosexual or heterosexual, when they fall from grace and start depending on their efforts. How does this engender bitterness, though?

What is bitterness? That sense of hurt and anger which results when we see ourselves trying in our might, trying our hardest to accomplish certain goals and obtain desired outcomes, and those efforts come to naught; whereas in contrast, we notice people who are not trying nearly as hard, and yet the obtain everything that we want, and more.

We become bitter towards others when we are trying to obtain their favor with our efforts, and yet they still do not seem to love us or provide for us what we want. This example reminds me of what Tou Chen possibly went through himself.

Hence, he got physically attracted and attached to other males. I do not know the whole story, but I would imagine that she was abusive or very demanding of her son, and that caused him to feel deep bitterness. Who knows, but that issue of bitterness is very serious, and it induces sexual perversion of many kinds. Notice also that falling from grace causes a "root" of bitterness, which indicates that the causes for sexually profligate behaviors is much deeper than many people often recognize or realize. The fact that the causes for same-sex desire are not apparent helps explain why many people just resign themselves to those same-sex temptations and declare "I guess I was born this way."

This issue of bitterness also manifested with Raphael Zhang. He candidly shared in his very personal tesimony that he was very bitter toward his father. His mentor, Jason, encouraged him to see things from his father's perspective as a means to overcome that bitterness. Still, the point remains: bitterness induces sexual temptations and perverse behavior. I also recall Karen Lee's testimony, in which she declares at the outset, following the sexual abuse she suffered from a stranger: "Why didn't God help me? Why wasn't my Dad there to protect me?" That sense of upset produces bitterness, too.

Hopefully, revelations like this will help more people to "Come Out, Come Home", that they do not have to feel any sense of shame or self-condemnation because they struggle with these issues. In fact, by having a clearer diagnosis for what is ailing individuals struggling with same-sex temptations, they can receive the blessed antitode: "Let us have grace" from God through Christ Jesus (Hebrews 12:28).