Understanding God's expectation

I have said so many times that God only wants our covenant response. When God's Word loses its relevancy to our daily lives, our daily lives lose response. We can actually "wake up" and realize we have not thought about God or His Word for even several days and, perhaps for some, a whole week until time to go to church again. This makes going to church our "response" and everything we do is only a religious ritual. We see this in the O.T. in the example of Israel. By the time Jesus comes to light the way, the religious rulers do not even recognize God in their midst..

Jesus did not come by the "way of the Law". He did not come under man's control. God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way. What we may not recognize is the shaping of God's hand in John's life. He became a unique vessel. Early in his life, he learned to follow the Spirit's leading and to know the Voice of God. He left the prescribed, expected path his life was to take to follow God's way. For nearly 1500 years the Law had been the guiding light for Israel. The priests knew exactly what they were supposed to do. That was right and it had been Israel's protection. But it had become habit and ritual and the response was no longer to God but to their ritual. John left that ritual and Jesus came outside of it. He came fulfilling God's prophetic Word. John came proclaiming God's prophetic Word. He spoke in the desert region far from the ornate and accepted way that had become stagnant with man's control. He prepared the way for God to speak to this realm in a "different", deeper way that was liberating for man's spirit. Jesus came speaking to the spirit of man and calling to that spirit to respond. The ones who had not listened to John were not ready to respond. Luke 7:29-30(NLT) 29 When they heard this, all the people—even the tax collectors—agreed that God’s way was right, for they had been baptized by John. 30 But the Pharisees and experts in religious law rejected God’s plan for them, for they had refused John’s baptism.

Jesus' message took out the "curse" in the law that had been so familiar to Israel. In the next few blogs I want to show you words of Jesus as He expressed the expectation of the New Covenant. He did not tell them it was a new covenant, but hit at the way they held the old covenant and responded to it. I see the way He led the people forward is again the way the Spirit is leading God's people toward a deeper relationship with Him. He is uncovering our stagnant acceptance and leading us to a liberating response to Him. We must be careful to follow closely the leading of the Spirit as we are being prepared by God to be a part of the Day of the Lord.