I want to share something with you that God impressed upon me about these very questions. It all comes down to this: there are two types of Christians, those who know their covenant rights and those who don't.
We have to realize as children of God that we have been given all these covenant rights just by accepting Jesus as our Savior. But what exactly is a covenant? A covenant is an agreement between two parties. The parties in this case are God and you.
For example, if I had a contract with a guy to paint his house, my part of the contract would be to paint the house, and his part of the contract would be to pay me. In a way, it is the same with God. Our part is to be obedient and God's part is to make sure that we always triumph through Christ Jesus! (1 Cor. 15). What does "always" mean? It means always! Remember that and never forget that God is faithful. The game is not over until you win! It is not over until you have the victory!
David's Covenant with God
Let's look at a guy who knew a lot about covenant rights. In 1 Samuel 17: 22-36, we read an all familiar story. Here we have David going up against Goliath, and by the world's standard, Goliath was a champion.
But by David's standards, and God's, Goliath was an uncircumcised Philistine who did not have a covenant with God! In fact, David went on to say in 1 Samuel 17:36, "And this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God."
David knew his covenant with God. He understood that he did not have to be biggest or the best man out there, he just had to have an agreement with God. An agreement that told him that he always triumphed. Therefore, because he knew his covenant with God he was able to say, "...seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God...." David operated in the unseen…he knew before the battle that he was the winner. Things have to happen in the unseen before they happen in the seen!
A lot of times people want to be able to see things without operating in the unseen realm of faith. Remember the Bible tells us that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"! Many times, things have to happen in the unseen, spiritual realm before they happen in the natural. But sometimes what happens is that we pray and then expect the answer to happen on fast-food society pace.
We want it now! And when it doesn't happen immediately, we give up and lose our confidence in our covenant with God. Peter was a good example of this. Did Peter walk on the water? Yes, he did! He walked on the water when he operated in the unseen realm, keeping his eyes on Jesus…but when he looked at the natural, he started to fall!
We have to learn as children of God to hold fast to our covenant with God and answer our situations just like Noah did, who, being warned of the things not seen, obeyed and built the ark. You talk about standing on your covenant with God. Noah did not see a sign of rain for years, but he kept building the ark anyway. In fact, people had never heard of rain before. Most of us would have gone two days and said, "Well, this isn't working!" Then we would have drowned!
No more, champions! We have to stop wavering from our covenant. If you don't know your covenant, then study the Word of God—it is full of our covenant rights. Once you know your covenant then hold fast to it through every situation—without wavering.
We must develop that champion mentality that we are going to not give up! We are going to stand on our covenant with God and things are going to happen in the unseen realm and in the natural. True and total victory is ours.
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"Now it's time!" said the Lord to Chip Brim in 1998. "It is time to train Champions for Christ. I have taught you to train champions in baseball; now it is time to train Champions for Christ. I desire for my people to be champions-people who always prevail in the Last Days!"
