The Now Covenant

By Ted J. Hanson

In this book, I present insights into New Covenant understanding. The New Covenant is a place of relationship. It is not merely a place in history. In the New Covenant light shines OUT OF darkness to reveal the transforming power of Christ's light within us. It is a covenant that writes God's character, nature, way, power, and authority upon our hearts and minds. Our lives were meant to be physical expressions of the will of human souls made alive by the human spirit, which is made alive by the Spirit of God from within. In the New Covenant we receive right passions, right desire, and right fire. True decision doesn't come from instruction; it comes from love and passion. The New Covenant is a NOW Covenant. When something is not NOW it is not new. When we experience Christ's life within our hearts we know that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. The highest form of communication is the voice of he Holy Spirit speaking in the human heart. We are the family of God.
Living in the New Covenant is more than merely living with the power of God in our lives. It is living in a personal relationship with God every day of our lives. Living in the New Covenant is more about being dependent upon the One who is righteous than it is in being right. Man was born to be loved by God and thus live in a continual relationship of responding to the love of God. Only in Christ can we discover the liberty of being able to respond to the love of God. The New Covenant is a covenant that celebrates the life of God in our lives each day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780990825197

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world.

Introduction

New Covenant

– The NOW Covenant

I like to define the New Covenant as a NOW Covenant. The moment our relationship is not a now reality in Christ is when it becomes something less than a New Covenant reality.

God made the covenant with humanity. It wasn’t dependent upon anything we did. It was totally dependent upon what God did for us through His life and sacrifice as Jesus Christ. We didn’t have to love Him for the covenant to be true. He decided to love us. This is the power of the covenant that He has made for all of mankind, and He invites all to come partake and participate in the amazing grace of this New Covenant. To do this we need a manifest expression of God’s life within us. We need a manifestation of Jesus the Christ in our lives to experience the fullness of the New Covenant given to us. To have the manifestation of Jesus Christ we need the Spirit of Christ within our hearts. This is specifically the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes in the name of Jesus; thus our hope is Christ within us revealing the glory of God in our lives. Our hope of glory is the Holy Spirit working within our hearts bringing about the transformation that comes from the New Covenant testimony of Christ. This promise of the hope of glory is for all people who come to receive the covenant that has been freely given to all in Christ.

Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It is the power of Christ within the human heart that is the hope of glory. I define glory as being fully alive. To be fully alive is not simply living a happy life in the flesh. True life is only found in God. Life is only found through an eternal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit in the intimate place of the human heart. It is testified by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). This is an internal dependence upon God in our spirit that makes us come alive by His Spirit from within. In Him we truly live. It is a right relationship with Him from within our hearts that inspires our souls to know there is no separation between us and Him in all things. In Him we move. It is a testimony of having no gap between us and God in the secret place of life found within the human heart. It is the reality of discovering the fullness of joy that comes from His manifest presence within our hearts. He inspires our expressions of life by His life manifest in us. In Him we have our being. Just as the Father, the Word, and the Spirit are witnesses in heaven, there are three that witness in the earth. These three are the Word, the Spirit, and the blood. I believe that the blood is the manifestation of God’s Spirit in our earthly lives. It is not the self-seeking nature of the flesh that formerly motivated our hearts to seek to live lives without Him. It is the blood of the New Covenant made known by the life of His Spirit within us. Christ comes into real human beings that are spirit, soul, and body. The Holy Spirit’s habitation within human hearts is the true witness of the blood of Christ in the earth. The very fact that Christ lives in people is the testimony of His resurrection life in heaven. His shed blood as a man enabled all people to have access to the true life that comes by His Holy Spirit within. When we experience His life within our hearts we know that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. He has come in our flesh! It is not just an experience to remember in the past, it is a living reality each day of His coming. His manifest presence within our hearts is a progressive and continual reality of life in the New Covenant. This is what makes this the constant NOW Covenant forever new in our hearts. The Word, the Spirit, and the blood together make the true testimony of Christ in us. His Spirit in us is the testimony of the power of the blood of the Passover given to us through Jesus on the cross. The proof of the cross isn’t found merely in the historical records of yesterday. The proof of the cross is found in His presence in us. Christ in us is the proof of the cross! He couldn’t live in human hearts if the cross was not true. He poured out every drop of human blood to give us every aspect of His Holy Spirit. His resurrection life in our hearts is the evidence of the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Christ in us is the testimony of our reception of His New Covenant of eternal life for all who believe.

The New Covenant is based upon a personal relationship with God in Christ, whereby each one knows God. The highest form of communication is the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking in the human heart. This is the power of the New Covenant. It is a place of relationship with God in Christ.

As members of the body of Christ, we are all called to be active participants in the ministry of God’s covenant of love and grace. It is very important that we understand that this means that we must be manifest expressions of Jesus. An expression of our own selves won’t do. Even if that expression is accompanied by the gifts that He has given us to accomplish our specific call in Him, those gifts aren’t enough. We need His manifest presence in our ministry. We must express Him. The good news is that Christ in us is the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The key to proper ministry is to unlock the mystery of Christ within us. Because we live in the realm that is natural, it is often hard to realize the full reality of the Spirit of Christ within us. Each of us, as born again believers in Christ, has this anointing within us. It is important that we learn to allow the full reality of Christ to be released in our lives. I’m not talking about the gifts that He gives to us. I’m talking about the power of His presence within us.

2 Corinthians 4:5-7 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

The excellence of the power that is within us is of God. We are earthen vessels with limited abilities without His filling presence. With His infilling presence we are earthen vessels ready to release the awesome power of the Most High God. The knowledge of the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. It is of the utmost importance that we behold His face. I believe that the church is in a season of beholding His face in a greater measure. We have experienced His hand in times past, but we are now in a season of beholding His face. God wants us to behold the face of Jesus in order that we might commune with Him as His true sons and daughters. It is only as sons and daughters of God that we can inherit the excellence of His power and grace. We cannot be expressions of His divine power as slaves and servants. We must behold Him intimately. Slaves and servants cannot behold God in an intimate way. Only sons and daughters can. Although we are servants of God, we do not approach Him as slaves. We are sons and daughters who willfully serve Him in all that He desires. We can only have this perspective if we clearly view ourselves as offspring of the living God.

Light shining out of darkness is really good news! There is hope! There are areas of darkness in our lives, but the life of Christ within us is the very power that will bring us from glory to glory by His light within our hearts. When we minister the life of Christ to others, their hope is not our ministry of Christ to them. Their hope is not that we bring light to their darkness. Their hope is not that we bring healing to their sickness. Their hope is a testimony of Christ in them. Our aim as ministers of life is to activate Christ within the hearts of others. If Christ is not in them, we must serve in a way that allows their hearts to open up towards Him as an invitation for His presence to come and abide. Only Christ in them is their hope of glory. God changes us from the inside out.

For twenty years I pioneered and pastored a church that was based upon the revelation and truth of New Covenant ministry. The things that I have written in this book are based upon my own journey and experience in bringing an understanding of New Covenant ministry to God’s people. That church is now led by my son Jonathan Hanson, who continues to grow, develop, and mature a New Covenant reality in a family of life-giving and liberated people. These things did not just happen. They were made manifest as the Holy Spirit has written a spiritual letter of life and we have willingly partnered with His direction in New Covenant life. That spiritual letter is part of a spiritual inheritance given by God and it is not something that is administrated and facilitated by Christian servants. It is activated, facilitated, and brought to pass by spiritual sons of God in a NOW relationship with Him. The Old Covenant was based upon instructions given to serve, but the New Covenant is a living testimony of inheritance given to the children of God through a transforming grace of intimacy and increasing life.

You cannot give inheritance to servants. Only sons can receive the inheritance of the Father. God wants all to be His sons, because He wants to give His inheritance to all people. Servants alone are bound to a slave mentality. Sons who know they are in Christ can choose to serve, but their service is as sons in the family business. God wants a family relationship with all people where His family business can fill the earth with His glory. God wants for all people to be priestly and kingly in their expression of the family character of God in this world.

In the Old Covenant the best that men could do to approach God was to come as servants. In the New Covenant we have been adopted as His sons and daughters. There is a great difference between Old Covenant ministry and New. In the Old Covenant men were dependent upon the prophet and priest in their relationship with God. In the New Covenant God has made us the ultimate prophets and priests. We are His sons and daughters. We were not appointed as prophets and priests. We were born as prophets and priests. I believe that there is the specific appointment of the office of prophet, but I also believe that as Moses foresaw, God has finally made a way for all of His children to be prophets (Num. 11:29). His prophetic Spirit is within us and upon us in this time.

Numbers 11:25-29 Then the LORD came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again. But two men had remained in the camp: the name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not gone out to the tabernacle; yet they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. So Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, Moses my lord, forbid them! Then Moses said to him, Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!

In Genesis chapter 10 we find an account of the descendants of the sons of Noah. If you do a study of this chapter you will find that the descendants of the sons of Noah were represented in 70 different peoples. The sons of Japheth were 14, the sons of Ham were 30, and the sons of Shem were 26, for a total of 70. I believe that the number 70 is a testimony to the nations of the world and God wants to bring New Covenant salvation and life to them all. In the story of the 70 leaders of Moses, the Holy Spirit came upon them all. Two men were out in the camp and not in the right place. Their names were Eldad (meaning, favored or loved of God) and Medad (meaning, he that measures or water of love). These men represent God’s favor and love for all people. Moses’ servant wanted them to be silenced because they were in the wrong place, but Moses foresaw that God wanted to make all of His people prophets. In Acts chapter 2 there was a firstfruit of God pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh and Peter testified that it was the prophetic Spirit foretold by the prophet Joel.

Chapter 1

The Priesthood of Believers

God has always desired that His people be priests in connection with Him and kings in their influence of the world. His will is a royal priesthood of humanity that brings God’s life to the world. God always intended that His children would be a priestly and kingly people. In the Old Covenant only the tribe of Levi became the tribe of the priesthood when they stood with Moses at God’s judgment concerning the making of the golden calf (Ex. 32:25-29). Even in the Old Covenant God intended for all of the tribes to be a royal priesthood before Him, but only one tribe chose to stand in the place of priestly responsibility. The fact that the Old Covenant had one tribe as the priesthood affects us in our mentality today. We create clergy and laity divisions in the church. The responsibility of being priests before God falls on a few, while others view themselves as subjects or, perhaps at best, kings. God’s plan is that all of His children be a testimony of Him to the world. He desires for all of His children to be kings and priests. We are a priesthood of believers before Him. We are a royal family of destiny for His name. There are not some who stand before Him while others serve as subjects to them. No man is a mediator between God and other men. Christ is the mediator, but all find themselves standing as members of His body before God. There is not a hierarchy of ranking among God’s people. Among the classes of men all are evergreen trees before Him. They know only the season of life in Christ, and thus they are all evergreen in their testimony.

Isaiah 41:18-20 I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree, the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine and the box tree together, That they may see and know, and consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.

These trees are planted to become generations (trees) of living humanity before God in the earth as the perfection of all men. These are kings, great men, rich men, commanders, mighty men, servants, and free men (Rev. 6:15). Even the least among them know God in a personal way. The common connection of these classes of men is that they are all evergreen trees. They are humanity standing in generational destiny as living trees before Him. They vary in measures of authority, but they are equal in their value before God. They live with the power of Christ within them and are alive because of it. Intimacy with God is their personal treasure and a testimony of His life to the world around them is the witness of His grace.

Jeremiah 31:33-34 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

The power of this New Covenant relationship with God is found in the sufficiency of Christ within us. We have moved beyond the limitations of Old Covenant ministry into the endless bounds of New Covenant life and liberty. It is all credited to the sufficiency of Christ within us.

2 Corinthians 3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the New Covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

It is only the ministry of the Spirit that gives life. This entails not just the theology of the presence of the Spirit. It must be saturated and full of the presence of the Spirit in order to bring life. I believe that much of the walk of the Christian church has been in an Old Covenant relationship. We love the letter of the instruction, but it is not the letter that gives life. We are always hungry for the ‘how to’ instructions of God, but it is only the manifest presence of the Spirit that brings life. As ministers of Christ, we must see the ministry of the Spirit increase even more than we have previously known. We need more than words to teach. We need the unsurpassable power of God’s Spirit in our midst.

There is a glory that comes in Old Covenant ministry. That glory, however, is a glory that quickly fades away. Old Covenant is simply an old way of relating to God. How many times have we looked to the ‘man of God’ to bring the anointing that will set us free? That’s an old way of relating to God and it is for slaves, not sons. Clearly, we need men and women of God with anointing, but our hope is not in someone hearing God for us. Our hope is in an intimate encounter with the Spirit of Christ both within us and to us. Our hope is that God will use ‘His man’ or ‘His woman’ to activate and release that intimate relationship with Him within each of us.

2 Corinthians 3:7-11 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.

The Old Covenant was based upon visitations and revivals. It was a covenant dependent upon remembering the things that God had done. The fathers would instruct their families to remember the things that God had done in His times of visitation to them. The problem came when no one could actually remember what God had done. They only remembered the stories told them by the fathers. Many times we slip into this same mentality today. When we live for revivals we create an attitude of being unsatisfied with God today. We recite the revivals of the past and then question when God will move again. If I had this kind of relationship with my wife my marriage would be in great trouble. Bonnie and I don’t live for revivals in our marriage. Our big goal in life is not some ocean cruise or vacation. We like those times and incorporate them into our journey, but our path is one of everyday relationship. We seek to be intimate with one another every day of the year. It can be seen in good days and in bad ones. We appreciate the ordinary and the extraordinary days in our relationship together.

Can we be intimate with one another every day of the year? Can it be in good days and bad days? Can we love every moment of our lives? Revivals come but revivals aren’t supposed to last. Bonnie and I live for our marriage and we have revival moments. The Old Covenant depended upon a visit, and then the glory of the visit began to fade. How many times have we done that with revivals, events, worship, conferences, or other experiences? Where is the 100-year plan of our lives in Christ? We don’t live for revival and visitations; we live for intimacy and from relationship with God in Christ. We must appreciate His extraordinary presence in the midst of every day of our lives. This includes the extraordinary days of revival as well as the common and ordinary days of life. We must be in love with the One who loves us, not addicted to the revival moments of His presence. We don’t live for revivals; we live for Christ. We are alive with Christ.

Both Old Covenant and New Covenant ministry are dependent upon the manifest presence of God. Old Covenant was a visitation and the New Covenant is a habitation with Him. God wants us to be a place where He rests in the earth.

I am in no way saying that we don’t need the ministry of men and women of God in special times of God’s manifest presence. I am simply saying that all ministry is dependent upon the manifest presence of the Spirit of God. It is not enough to simply deliver a word that God gave us to give yesterday. We must take the words that He gives and then become totally dependent upon His manifest presence to see the liberty of His New Covenant reality released to those to whom we minister.

2 Corinthians 3:12-15 Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech -- unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were hardened. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.

The reading of the Old Testament is not where we read in our Bibles. The Bible is a written expression of the one covenant that God desires with man. Before Jesus rent the veil, it was a covenant that was heard by a few and expressed to the whole. Since Jesus rent the veil, all of us have access to His holy presence. We are no longer dependent upon someone hearing God for us. We are both dependent and responsible to bear the ark of His presence upon our own shoulders. This New Covenant is no longer one of Sinai, but rather one of Zion. Even as David pitched a tent for God’s presence, we have now become a corporate tent for the presence of God. Whenever we hear God for someone else we are reading the Old Testament (old testimony). An Old Testament brings control and bondage. Only a New Testament brings life and liberty. Once again, I am not saying that we cannot receive a word from God for someone. I am simply saying that in the delivery and receiving of that word we must be dependent upon the manifest presence of the Spirit of God.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

It is the manifest presence of the Spirit of the Lord that brings liberty. It is only the manifest presence of God in our lives that brings about change. Each time He manifests in us, we see more of His glory revealed through us. It is not through words of instruction. It is through His manifest presence in the midst of His instruction. Oh, God! We need You, not just the words that You have spoken to us.

This Scripture doesn’t just say that where the Spirit is there is liberty. It says that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. The manifest presence of the Lord in our hearts gives us the correct desires of life. He gives us boundaries that define the flowing force of life within us and He gives us the flowing force of life within that forcefully manifests through the boundaries of life. Flowing water without boundaries is a flood. A flood is a force of water, but the end result is destruction of some kind. Water within boundaries without an outlet is a lake, a pond, a reservoir, or something of the sort. It can produce recreation or even be a resource of some kind, but it doesn’t carry a flow of destiny. A boundary without flowing water is a rut, a ravine, a canyon, or even a grave. Flowing water within boundaries is a river and it can be a means of transportation, power, or some form of flowing destiny. This is the way of the Spirit of the Lord in our hearts. This is the life of the New Covenant. The manifest presence of Christ within us gives us the boundaries of life and the force of life for the wellbeing of others. This is the true testimony of life!

Chapter 2

The Anointing Oil

I have often heard it taught that the anointing breaks the yoke. I believe that this teaching is in error. It is not the anointing that breaks the yoke. It is the anointing oil. The anointing can produce a light that others can see, but only the anointing oil can produce a flame for light. When we see a personal manifestation of Christ in our lives, we receive the anointing oil of His presence. That is what sets us free. The mere illumination of light that comes from the anointing on someone else can produce a glory in our lives, but it is a glory that fades away. It is Old Covenant ministry and can only cause a momentary change.

Isaiah 10:26 -27And the LORD of hosts will stir up a scourge for him like the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; as His rod was on the sea, so will He lift it up in the manner of