Unmerited Favor (9 page)

I personally believe that the physical root cause of many medical conditions today is stress. Stress can produce all kinds of imbalances in your body. It can cause you to age prematurely, give you rashes, cause gastric pains and even lead to abnormal growths in your body. To put it succinctly, stress kills! Doctors tell us that certain physical symptoms are “psychosomatic” in nature. That’s because these symptoms are brought about by psychological problems such as stress. Stress is not from God.
Peace
is from Him!

I trust that you are beginning to understand why Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
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Now, Jesus would not have used the word “peace.” The Greek New Testament renders “peace” as
eirene
, but since Jesus spoke Aramaic-Hebrew, He would have used the word “shalom”—“
Shalom
I leave with you, My
shalom
I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.”

In the Hebrew vernacular, “shalom” is a very rich and loaded word. There is no English word that can accurately encapsulate the fullness, richness and power contained in the word “shalom.”

Hence, English Bible translators were only able to translate it as “peace.” But while the word “shalom” includes peace, it means so
much
more. Let’s look at the Brown Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon to get a better idea of what Jesus meant when He said “Shalom I leave with you.”

The Hebrew Lexicon describes “shalom” as completeness, safety, soundness (in body), welfare, health, prosperity, peace, quiet, tranquility, contentment, peace used of human relationships, peace with God especially in covenant relationship and peace from war.
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Wow, what a powerful word! This is the shalom that Jesus has bequeathed you: His completeness, His safety, His soundness, His welfare, His health, His prosperity, His peace, His quietness, His tranquility, His contentment, His peace in human relationships, His peace with God through the covenant made at the cross and His peace from war. All these, my friend, are part of your inheritance in Christ today! I don’t know about you, but I am jumping up and down in my heart and shouting praises to the Lord as I let this sink in!

Can you picture the full implications of what it means to experience Jesus’ shalom in your life? Can you picture your life being free from regrets, anxieties and worries? How healthy, vibrant, energetic and strong you will be!

The Peace Jesus Gives Sets You Up For Success In Life

Jesus gives you His shalom to set you up for success in this life. You cannot be a success in your marriage, family and career when you are crippled and paralyzed with fear. Today, as you are reading this, I believe with all my heart that Jesus has already begun a work in your heart to liberate you from all your fears, whatever they may be. They may be the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of people’s opinions of you or even the fear that God is not with you.

All the fears that you are experiencing in your life today began with an untruth, a lie that you have somehow believed.
Perhaps you have believed that God is angry and displeased with you, and that His presence is far from you. That’s why the Bible says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
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This scripture tells us that when you begin to have a revelation that God loves you perfectly (not because of what you have accomplished, but because of what Jesus has accomplished for you), that revelation of the unmerited favor of Jesus will cast out every fear, every lie, every anxiety, every doubt and every worry that God is against you. The more you have a revelation of Jesus and how He has made you perfect, the more you will free yourself to receive His complete shalom and succeed in life!

The shalom of Jesus is on your side to make you a success in life.

My friend, know that as a believer in Jesus Christ, you have absolute peace with God. The new covenant of grace is also known as the covenant of peace. Today, you stand upon the righteousness of Jesus and not your own. Today, because of Jesus, God says this to you: “I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke [condemn] you. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My
covenant of peace
be removed.”
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God is on your side. The shalom of Jesus is on your side to make you a success in life. All of heaven’s resources are on your side. Even if you are caught in the midst of a storm right now, just think of the picture of the eagle chicks nestled under the wings of their provider, sleeping soundly in spite of the storm. And may the shalom of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.
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Go in this peace, my friend, and rest upon His shalom!

Chapter 8: Covenanted To Succeed In Life

This chapter could possibly be one of the most pivotal and crucial chapters in this book. I believe that if you take time to understand what the Lord has put in my heart for you today, He will lay a strong foundation in your life that will set you up for every success. My desire for you is that there will be no more compromises when it comes to understanding the gospel of God’s unmerited favor in your life. God’s grace and unmerited favor IS the new covenant that you can enjoy today. Compromise and confusion occur when believers start fighting to put themselves back under the old covenant of Moses.

Let me illustrate in essence what some believers are doing when they insist on remaining under the covenant of law. Imagine this: Your company has promoted you, giving you a substantial increment of several thousand dollars every month, plus a new car and a beautiful new home as additional benefits. To document this promotion, the human resource department prepares a new employment contract for you, stating all the new terms that your employers have agreed upon. Now, suppose you insist on being paid your old salary, driving your old car and living in your old apartment. Instead of rejoicing at the new employment terms being offered to you, you fight your bosses and demand that you be remunerated based entirely on your old employment agreement!

Sounds ridiculous?

Absolutely!

However, that is exactly what some believers are doing today. They have determined in their hearts that they will remain under the old covenant of law and depend on their own works to earn God’s blessings, approval and favor. They have negated the cross and forgotten that God has enacted a new covenant of His
unmerited favor
through Jesus Christ’s perfect sacrifice. Now, let me give you some scriptures that deal specifically with comparing and contrasting the new covenant and the old covenant, so you know that I am not making this up.

God Found Fault With The Old Covenant Of Law

You are under the new covenant of unmerited favor through Jesus’ finished work. The old covenant based on your works is now redundant. Look at what Hebrews 8:13 says:

By calling this covenant “new,” He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

—Hebrews 8:13, niv

Read this verse in your Bible carefully. It is not Joseph Prince who said that the old covenant is redundant. I am just reiterating what I read in my Bible. God’s Word tells us in no uncertain terms that the covenant of Moses is antiquated and obsolete. It is no longer relevant for the new covenant believer who is in Christ today! So it is not me who found fault with the old covenant of the law.
God Himself
found fault with the old covenant of law.

Let’s look at another verse:

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

—Hebrews 8:7

The Living Bible captures the apostle Paul’s exasperation with the old covenant of law: “The old agreement didn’t even work. If it had, there would have been no need for another to replace it. But God himself found fault with the old one...”
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Think about this objectively for a moment. Just for a second, put aside all the traditional teachings that you have heard or read. Let’s reason together, not based on what man says, but based completely on what God has said in His Word. His Word is our only unshakable premise. Based on this portion of the Scripture that we have just read together, if there was nothing wrong with the old covenant of law, why would God give up His one and only precious Son to be brutally crucified on the cross, so that He could cut a new covenant with us? Why would He be willing to pay such a heavy price, allowing Jesus to be publicly humiliated, and to suffer inhumane violence, if there wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with the old covenant of law?

The cross demonstrated that God found fault with the old covenant and was determined to make it obsolete. He was determined to rescue us from our sins by cutting a new covenant with His Son Jesus. That’s the amazing unconditional love that God has for you and me. He knew that no man could be justified and made righteous by the law. Only the blood of His Son would be able to justify us and make us righteous in Christ.

In all of Israel’s 1,500 years under the covenant of law, not a single person was made righteous by the law. Even the best of them, such as David, failed. The Bible describes him as a man after God’s own heart.
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But even he failed—he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed. What hope then do you and I have under the law?

Under the law, even the best failed. Under grace, even the worst can be saved!

Thank God that under the new covenant of His unmerited favor, even the worst of us can call upon the name of Jesus and receive Him as our personal Lord and Savior. In an instant, we can be made righteous by faith in Jesus’ mighty name! Under the law, even the best failed. Under grace, even the worst can be saved!

Know Your Covenant Rights In Christ

I cannot emphasize enough how vitally important it is for a believer today to know that he is under the new covenant of God’s unmerited favor and no longer under the law. Many good, well-meaning and sincere believers today are defeated by their lack of knowledge of the new covenant and all the benefits that Jesus has purchased for them at the cross.

“But Pastor Prince, we should not be looking at benefits when we believe in Jesus.”

I am glad that you brought up this point. Let’s look at what the psalmist thinks about this: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all His benefits
: Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
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Beloved, this is the heart of God. He wants you to remember
all
the benefits that Jesus has purchased for you with His blood! It is His heart to see you enjoying every single benefit, every single blessing and every single favor from Him in the new covenant of His grace. Forgiveness of sin is yours. Health is yours. Divine protection is yours. Favor is yours. Good things and the renewal of youth are yours! These are all precious gifts from the Lord to you, and it brings Him unspeakable joy when He sees you enjoying these gifts and succeeding in life. But it is the
lack of knowledge
of what Jesus has accomplished at the cross that has robbed many believers of enjoying these good gifts and benefits.

This reminds me of a story I read of a man who visited an impoverished old lady who was dying. As he sat next to her bed in the cramped confines of her dilapidated home, a single frame hanging on her spartan wall caught his attention.

Instead of a picture, the frame held a yellowed piece of paper with some writing on it. He asked the lady about that piece of paper and she replied, “Well, I can’t read, so I don’t know what it says. But a long time ago, I used to work for a very wealthy man who had no family. Just before he died, he gave me this piece of paper and I’ve kept it in remembrance of him for the past 40 or 50 years now.” The man took a closer look at the framed contents, hesitated for a moment, then said, “Do you know that this is actually the will and testament of that man? It names you as the sole beneficiary of all his wealth and property!”

What we need is a greater revelation and appreciation of Jesus and everything that He has done for us!

For close to 50 years, that lady had lived in abject poverty, working day and night to eke out a meager existence for herself. During all this time, she was actually the owner of a sprawling estate and enviable riches. However, her own ignorance had utterly robbed her of a life of wealth and luxury that she could have enjoyed. It is a sad story, but what is even sadder is that this tragedy is played out every day in the lives of believers who do not realize the inheritance that Jesus bequeathed them when He gave up His life at the cross.

What we need today are not more laws to govern believers. What we need is a greater revelation and appreciation of Jesus and everything that He has done for us! In Hosea 4:6, God lamented, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge...” Let’s not be numbered among these people. Instead, let us be a people who are full of the knowledge of Jesus, His person, His love and His finished work. Don’t allow your ignorance to rob you any more. Find out all about your covenant rights in Christ today!

Rightly Dividing The Old And New Covenants

To fully appreciate the new covenant of grace, we must first begin to understand what a “covenant” is. Down through the history of humanity, God has related to man through His covenants. A covenant is not merely a contract or legal agreement. It is much more than that. Also, in every covenant, blood is involved. That is why a marriage is not a contract. It is a covenant. In the act of consummating a marriage, there is supposed to be a shedding of blood. That shows you how serious a covenant is in God’s eyes. It is blood-based and inaugurated by blood.

I am going to show you a very simple way to understand the entire Bible. Look at the portion in your Bible that’s marked “Old Testament”; that deals essentially with the old covenant. When you look at the portion in your Bible that is marked “New Testament,”
that
is essentially the new covenant. However, the new covenant does not actually begin with the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as these books deal predominantly with the life of Jesus before the cross. In fact, the new covenant begins after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Hence, the cross is our clearest marking point of where the new covenant begins.

“Pastor Prince, isn’t this old and new covenants business just for Bible school students? How is this relevant to me?”

Hang on for a second here. Before you throw your hands up and give up, let me explain to you why understanding the division between the old and new covenants is of critical importance for every believer. It is critical because a whole lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Bible that exists in the church today is a result of people reading, studying, interpreting and teaching the Bible without a clear understanding of how to rightly divide the old and new covenants! They merrily quote Old Testament passages without appropriating the cross of Jesus in their interpretations. They make it seem as though the cross made no difference!

So before you quote an Old Testament verse to show how God is angry with believers for their sins, don’t forget that it is in the context of the Old Testament, where Christ had not yet died on the cross. Am I saying that you should not read the Old Testament? No, you should read it, but with
Jesus as the key
to unlocking all the precious gems hidden in God’s Word. While Jesus is in the Old Testament
concealed
, He is in the New Testament
revealed
. The stronger your foundation in the new covenant, the more you will be able to see Jesus unveiled in the Old Testament.

If you are familiar with my ministry, you would know that I am a new covenant grace preacher who loves to teach from the Old Testament and unveil the hidden secrets of Jesus! All Scripture is God-inspired and beneficial—no question about that. But all Scripture also needs to be studied and read in the light of the cross today. Consider this brilliant piece of wisdom that the apostle Paul wrote to his young apprentice, Timothy: “
Be diligent
to present yourself approved to God, a worker who
does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth
.”
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I believe with all of my heart that this advice from God’s Word holds true today for all believers reading the Word and especially would-be Bible teachers.

Learn to rightly divide the covenants! God’s personal promise to you when you do that is that you will not be ashamed. Nobody would be able to pull the wool over your eyes by quoting chapters and verses from the Old Testament out of context to convince you that God is out to punish you for your sins, when you know with certainty that Jesus died once and for all for the full payment of all your sins.
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No one can hoodwink you into believing that sicknesses and diseases are sent by God to teach you character and humility, when you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus came to give you abundant life, and took upon His own body all your sicknesses, pains and infirmities at the cross.
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