Dear friends,
when I studied law many years ago, many things surprised me and I was having trouble to understand them, because they didn’t really make a lot of sense to me – may have been I was too young, but even now, I think some of it goes against “common sense” and is not easy to understand.
I am mainly talking about contracting law.
A lot of it has changed since I had to wrap my head around these things, mainly all the consumer rights which were introduced, they weren’t there before and in those times when I learned contracting law, a contract was a contract and signed was signed.
And basically, when someone hadn’t read the small print properly and had signed something they did not mean to sign, they were still bound by the contract.
Like I said, nowadays, consumer rights have been put in place and it is easier to get out of a contract which is unfair or even if it is not unfair and your circumstances have changed, there are now far more ways to terminate obligations which are too hard for the person to fulfill now even though they once vowed to do so.
This may even seem like the comparison between the Old and the New Testament or would you say that this is an analogy which is too far-fetched?
In the times of the Old Testament, people had to obey the entire law to please GOD and to earn HIS favour and then, after JESUS had come to rescue us, we are now under grace and some people even abuse this to commit sins deliberately and then ask for forgiveness afterwards, as if the small print, saying “the wages of sin is death”, which is funnily enough a New Testament scripture, would not be valid…
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What does this mean?
Does it mean that we are still doomed if we sin, just like the people who lived before JESUS came to earth?
No, I don’t think so.
That wouldn’t be good news.
And that’s what the good news is about, isn’t it?
That someone payed for our sins and we don’t have to die and go to hell – even though we are all sinners and have all fallen short of the glory of GOD.
But this act of paying for us and like we sometimes hear “buying us with a price”, that price being the death of HIS only begotten son, isn’t that a contract or a covenant as well?
And when we give our life to HIM, ask HIM to save us and be LORD over our life, isn’t that a contract / a covenant as well?
And in other places in the bible – without getting into the discussion if the Old Testament scriptures and promises are still valid (which I believe they ARE) or not, there are so many conditions or cause-result scriptures and claims, statements from GOD, the GOD of the Old Testament and even from JESUS HIMSELF in the bible.
Christianity has even been mocked as “a set of rules” you need to follow and then you will go to heaven.
There are promises if we do and also warnings if we don’t follow what GOD says.
And they are all covenants.
Since GOD cannot lie, they are ALL valid.
Without listing them here (go and do some research, it will blow your mind!), what they contain is again promises and warnings, basically, that we will have GOD’s blessings if we follow HIS commandments and that we will not have HIS protection or blessings if we don’t.
What about those people who are not under HIS authority, have not given their lives to HIM?
And what about those who have vowed to obey GOD and then don’t do it?
What about sinning “just a little” or “just this once”?
The good news is, we can repent and ask for forgiveness and GOD will not reject us if our hearts are sincere.
HE may still chasten us or test us, but HE WILL forgive us.
The bad news is, the rules are still in place in a way.
Not in a “small print” way.
It’s all in the book.
Openly.
Everybody can study it.
Ask GOD about it, pray, ask other people, Christians, who can explain.
But what still goes now as it has ever since the fall of men, we need to live GOD’s way and not our way, we don’t own ourselves, HE does, HE owns our lives and souls and hearts and we will be what HE destined us to be and not what we want to be.
HE has bought us.
We are HIS.
And with this comes the obligation to obey and to do right.
It is part of the covenant.
Contracts have duties on both sides.
GOD signed that HE will protect us and HE promised us eternal life if we give our life to HIM.
What a price for obedience and trust and devotion to HIM.
So when we look at it from this point of view, is anything in this covenant unfair?
On the contrary!
We even get countless chances to come back, even after we have fallen.
In worldly covenants, even nowadays with all the consumer protection we can possibly get, if we don’t pay for something we have bought, maybe 3 or more times, we will lose it, a house for instance, or a car.
Not so with GOD.
We fall.
We repent.
HE forgives and takes us back.
Every time.
And every time, we break the covenant.
There is even an unlimited and unrestricted “back door” in this covenant.
Whereas a back door is usually a clause (normally a hidden one, hidden in the small print or in technical terms which a lay person will not understand) to get out of the contract, in our case, in GOD’s covenant, the back door, called REPENTANCE, is the back door to always get back in – and it is always and will eternally be OPEN.
But.
And the but is so big, it should even be called BUTTTTTTT:
The covenant stands and it has a back door back in, but it also can be broken and we can be outside of it.
Which means we don’t have GOD’s protection, do not have HIS benefits and that’s only the beginning of it, because what it also means is that if GOD doesn’t own us, all of us, our entire life, that’s not good.
It’s not only not good, but really bad.
Because the consequence is not that we own ourselves.
That’s not possible.
There is only 2 possible ways of rulership, ownership for human beings (like it or not):
either GOD owns us, or the devil does.
And GOD will always be open and fair and tell us ALL the rules and be honest with us.
HE doesn’t lie.
HE is reliable and fair and predictable and HE never changes.
Not so the enemy.
He will tell us we can do what we want, that we are our own rulers, our own gods, that we are gods, can do anything, attain anything, manifest, become enlightened – does this remind you of anything?
Perhaps of the lie of the serpent in the garden when he said to Eve that “she could be like gods”?
Genesis 3:5
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And what happened?
They were thrown out of paradise.
Friends, NOTHING has changed.
GOD never changes. HE is still the same today, yesterday and forever!
Hebrews 13:8
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
And the devil also still goes about the same business he has ever since he was thrown out of heaven and then got Adam and Eve to be thrown out of the Garden of Eden – that’s his plot and that’s still what he does.
Even his motives are still the same: he wants to be bigger than GOD, wants to be adored, wants to have power over us and other than GOD, he will do anything to sign “his contract”, to sell our souls to him or to sign up for an eternity in hell with him by NOT signing a contract with GOD.
It’s all very simple and yet, the devil makes it look as if there are so many options and choices.
No.
Only two.
And if you want to have eternal life, you must sign a covenant with GOD. If you want to go to hell, then, don’t sign it, sign something else or don’t sign anything at all – it’s all the same.
Only by making a covenant with GOD can we get back to paradise.
There is NO other way, regardless of who tells you so.
See it that way:
even if we don’t agree on the logic I just layed out.
We do all agree that paradise is owned by GOD, yes?
So, if that is so, don’t you think HE gets to say who is allowed there, in HIS house?
Can a landlord not chose whom he rents his property out to? Can a home owner not chose whom he invites to stay there as a guest or even live their with him permanently?
And if you are a tenant or a co-habitant (as a friend, a relative or a spouse) in someone’s house, don’t you always have to abide by their rules?
If we believe in GOD and believe that HE made the heavens and the earth, like the bible says, is it not HIS?
HIS house?
Just like paradise / heaven / the Garden Eden?
There are tons of scriptures about this, just one here:
Exodus 19:5
“Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:”
What else do you think you can do?
Even JESUS needed the protection of this covenant when HE was here on earth, because otherwise, HE would not have been able to defeat the devil, to withstand his temptations when he was tempted by him in the desert for 40 days.
And he countered the attacks by quoting GOD’s laws and saying “it is written”.
Matthew 4: 1-11
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Do you think you are stronger than JESUS?
Or that GOD will allow an exception for you if HE didn’t allow one for JESUS?
If you believe that, you are deceived.
And that doesn’t mean you are stupid or stubborn or anything negative, it is very most likely not even your fault.
The devil is a liar.
And is out to get us all.
He is a master of deception – we mustn’t forget that he once was the most beautiful angel of GOD… GOD didn’t take away the anointing when he cast him out, only his rights and his favour…
The covenant we have with GOD is the most important contract we have ever signed in our life – and if you haven’t given your life to JESUS yet or if you have strayed away from HIM and need to re-dedicate your life to HIM, please, please don’t wait any longer.
Me, I realized that the devil can still trick me into sin, even though I have studied these things intensively for many years.
Nobody is immune to his snares, nobody.
That’s why it is SO important to know GOD, to be in HIS word every day, to know what it says and to know what the covenant with HIM entails so that we can be careful not to step out of the safety it provides, the hedge of protection can be broken and then, the serpent will bite – and it WILL.
Ecclesiastes 10:7-8
7 I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
8 He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
What we all need to understand – and I am not talking TO you here, I am talking WITH you!!! – is that GOD’s rules, HIS covenant, is there to protect us and if and when we leave it, HE can’t and HE won’t. It is the way HE designed the contract law of the world. Everybody gets to chose where they sign and when they do, they will be benefiting or suffering from the consequences.
With GOD, there is no small print.
But without GOD, the small print always says you will be going to hell.
In these times of global panic and the media tells us that there are thousands of people dying all over the world – regardless of how much of this is true and if it’s true, if the reason is a virus or something else – do you think that the devil will help you?
Do you think the devil is sad if thousands of people die?
On the other hand, do you believe GOD wants HIS creation destroyed?
Do you think the devil even could rescue you from the virus or from anything, even if he wanted to?
By which power would he do that?
If you take the time to study the devil, you will discover that he has absolutely ZERO power of his own. That’s what makes him so evil and such a trickster and so obnoxious… he is desperate for power, he needs it from us, because he has none and he will do anything to get it – lie, cheat, steal, threat, manipulate and lure, lure, lure, seduce, fake…
So what I came to see is, the more you know, the more GOD expects you to resist the devil – but to some extent, he also expects us to be grown ups and even if we haven’t studied the bible intensively, there are some things GOD will not tolerate and HE will stop protecting us when we do them.
Not that HE hasn’t warned us.
HE said it.
Just like HE said the good things.
So let me ask you, if there was a contract, which was very long and sometimes hard to read and it may even take you many years to know what it contains, and some of it you may not even discover within your lifetime, but this contract would GUARANTEE you ETERNAL LIFE and it would come with countless other benefits, for example the peace which surpasses all understanding, even though it also came with obligations, some of which you would hate and have a real hard time to fulfill…
And the other choice was not to sign this contract above and automatically sign the other one, one where you can (at least in the beginning, in the forefront, until you learn you have been deceived) “do what thou wilt” and live a life of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll (not necessarily of success or of happiness, that’s never guaranteed in this contract) but you will go to hell afterwards.
Purely rational and logically thought through, which one would you advise to sign?
The good thing is, you can always chose to sign the first one, even if you already chose to sign the second one.
That is the biggest lie of the devil, that you can’t go back to GOD – HE will always have you back, no matter what you have done!
Dear friend, now, in these perilous times, it is more important to be with GOD, to be one of HIS, to be under HIS covenant and safe for eternity, even if something happens to us here on this earth.
If you haven’t given your life to HIM or have been disobedient or even deliberately left HIM, please repent and return and if you don’t know what to say or to pray, you can use these words:
Dear Lord,
I come to you empty and needy. I come humbled, seeking your mercy and grace.
I acknowledge my past sins and many acts of rebellion and disobedience and I have realized that I could never save myself from shame and destruction.
Please forgive my sins and deliver me from the shackles of eternal death.I believe you sent your only begotten son, JESUS CHRIST, to die for my sins.
I receive your sacrificial free gift of salvation through HIS death on the cross and I ask YOUR HOLY SPIRIT to come into me right now.I will no longer have anything to do with the works of darkness. I will no longer serve or obey the devil. I am now a changed person, a member of the family of GOD. I am born again and happily so.
Thank YOU, LORD, for saving me.
AMEN.
I found this version on a whatsapp group and I will write more about why I didn’t join it even though the prayers were really good…
Stay blessed, my dear friend, and get right with GOD and don’t wait any longer, that’s my prayer for you today. In JESUS’ name. AMEN.
Witness for Jesus 