Covenant Relationsip With God - The Blessing

By: Fred Fishburne
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:25:30
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God always has and always will have relationship and fellowship with man through covenants. When seeking the Lord's will for your life you must find out what the Bible has to say about His covenants. In a covenant relationship between two individuals, the weaker always has everything that the stronger possesses.

A covenant is always established by blood and is forever, which means that future generations of the covenant makers automatically become a partaker of that covenant. Nothing can be added to it or nothing can be taken away from it. To keep the covenant active in future generations it must be taught to each family member.

A covenant always has a blessing and a curse. The blessing is in effect as long as the covenant is not broken. Death is required if the covenant is broken. When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, God took animal skins and made coverings for Adam and Eve which was the first shedding of blood for sin.

The Law of Moses required the priest to offer a blood sacrifice of an animal to cover for the sin of God's people. Jesus came and offered Himself on the cross for the sin of the world and was accepted by God as the final sacrifice for sin.

A covenant always governed by laws. The tithe, which means to give a tenth of all, is always one of the laws of a covenant between God and man. A covenant always has a seal, (a sign) where the two parties swear to keep it. Some examples from the Bible of signs would be circumcision, a rainbow, the planting of a tree, the building of a alter and the sending of the Holy spirit to earth.

When God blesses man He ALWAYS does it by saying the blessing. God's words are His creative power. The first blessing that He gave man is found in Genesis 1: 28. Note Genesis 1:27-28, So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish (fill) the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

So we see that God created man and gave him the earth as his possession. Psalm 115:16 states, "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lords: but the earth hath he given to the children of men."

When Adam sinned, a curse came upon the ground and on man, man lost eternal life and the ground would not produce abundantly. Genesis 3:17 states, "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast harkened unto the voice of thy wife, and has eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."

God told Adam in Genesis 2:15-17 that if he disobeyed Him he would surely die. As long as Adam ate only from the Tree of Life he could live forever.Generations later, we see Noah living in a cursed land where every thought in every man's heart was evil continually, to the point that it grieved God that He had created man on the earth. Sin brought on the flood that destroyed every living thing, save those in the ark.

In Genesis 8: 17-22, we read that after the waters from the flood had subsided, God commanded Noah and his sons and all living creatures to go forth out of the ark and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. This is the same blessing that he spoke to Adam when he created him with the exception of two words: "subdue it".

Now look what happened concerning the curse of the ground which came when Adam disobeyed God. Genesis 9:20, And Noah builted an alter unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the alter.

Now notice what God said, Genesis 9:21, And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. The burnt offering of Noah could not change the evil hearts of men and get back eternal life but it did get the curse off the ground for ever.

Generations later, God raised up a man by the name of Abraham and entered into a covenant with him that would remove the curse off of every man, knowing there was one coming later, a seed of Abraham, that would offer Himself a sacrifice for sin to remove the curse from man for ever, making eternal life once again available to all mankind as it was in the beginning. He would be known as the second Adam, Jesus Christ the Righteous. God would make a covenant between Himself and His Son that could not ever be broken.

Romans 5:17-18 states, "For if by one man's offence (Adam) death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."

In Genesis chapters twelve through twenty two we see God calling a man by the name of Abram (Abraham) and his wife into covenant relationship with Himself. These passages of scripture of some of the most important in the entire Bible to study in order to understand your covenant relationship with God. They are directly related to the writings of the Apostle Paul who wrote most of the new testament. Study his writings along with these scriptures in Genesis and the Bible will come alive right before your eyes. God bless the reading of His word.

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