I seem to have some great prayer times whizzing along on my road bike down the high line canal trail with everything the deep green of Spring. As I was riding and praying I was asking the Lord about upcoming meeting with some people. I sensed Him speak to my heart that every commandment that is given in the New Covenant is really an invitation into our true identity and destiny. I don't know too many people that have feel all warm and squishy inside when they think of being given a commandment, many of us bristle or withdraw. Unfortunately we often read the commandments of the New Testament as if they were the cold, stony, and demanding expectations of a God who is angry with us. Thus when we are told in Ephesians 4:26 "Be angry, AND YET DO NOT SIN, DO NOT let the sun go down on your anger." We have a picture in our minds of a demanding, disappointing, and judgemental look of a teacher who expects us to not handle things well. Another command in Ephesians 4:32 says, "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." In this one there is a sense we ought to forgive and the person demanding this has no understanding or compassion for how deeply we have been hurt. Also the person who expects this is also not willing to help us in any way. Now let's look through the lens of Christ and the New Covenant: Jesus has entered being insulted, betrayed, abandoned, and abused then has been united with us so we now have the power to respond as He responded with forgiveness. Christ is a forgiving person and so are you if you have been born-again because you are united to Him. So if you step into forgiving the people who have hurt you, you are actually stepping into your truest identity and in the process being released into freedom and life. Jesus also says at one point in the gospels says to "...Love your enemies, bless those persecuting you...", sounds like a lot of fun when you are pain, yet as I have seen people do this very thing they seemed to launched into an identity of manifesting Christ to others. All this must be taken in the context of understanding every one of these commands are given to the New Nature of who we are "in Christ" (our Truest self) and not to our old nature. Thus when preachers get up to beat us with the Word of God of what we are not doing for God and the implied message is that He is disappointed in us, this is not the New Covenant but the preaching of the Old Covenant. Unfortunately, much of the preaching that is out there is trying to get people's old nature to behave like Jesus. I heard one of our Advanced Training students say as she was learning about her new identity and union with Christ, "This changes everything". It's important that we even look at Scripture through the eyes of the Holy Spirit and the finished work of Christ, then we will see freedom, life, and love rather than condemnation.
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