For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Covenant is very important to Me. It is a beautiful and sacred way of living where two become as one in a relationship that enhances the life of each. It is the only way that I can perform for you all I have promised. Covenant gives Me authority to bless you, protect you, empower you, and give you everything I have. It is the only way you become partakers in My divine nature. It is the only way I can legally be intimately involved in your life.
You understand this in life in the flesh as well, you know that a married person has rights and duties towards as well as authority over his or her spouse that such person does not have over someone to whom he or she is not married, i.e., not in covenant with.
Covenant makes two one. It makes family. It makes brothers and sisters out of those who were not born physically as such. It makes child and parent where biologically it was not so. It makes two nations as one in faithfulness to protect one another if an enemy should attack one of them and to not harm but to bless and help each other.
If one party to the Covenant is rich and the other poor, then the richer one shares all he has with the one with less.
There are a number of reasons people make covenant with one another but primarily it is because a relationship is desired for fellowship, partnership in an enterprise, family, protection, provision, power, but the highest purpose is for a union of perfect love where for each one all they have also belongs to the other one.
I made you in My own image and according to My likeness in perfect oneness. But Adam and Eve broke that relationship with Me and gave their lives to another. I had no authority any longer to act in their lives in an intimate way. I could generally bless and provide for them but with respect to fellowship they could reject Me or accept Me. This is like marriage, if one spouse breaks the covenant and goes with another spouse by divorce and remarriage (I hate divorce), the prior spouse has no authority with the divorced one anymore. And the divorced one loses all benefits they would have inherited if the relationship had not been broken.
Covenants require two or more joining together with mutual promises expressed in the permanence of an oath to be faithful and loyal to the relationship, blessings when kept and curses when broken, the shedding and sharing of blood, the reception of a new name, the exchange of gifts, a covenant meal with bread and wine, and a memorial or witness to remind the parties of the Covenant so it will be always before them.
Covenant in Hebrew is the word “berith (בְּרִית),” which is from the root word “to cut.” Blood covenants require a mixing of blood. When I made covenant with Abraham he cut the sacrificial animals in half and made a bloody path to walk through. Normally the two making covenant would walk that bloody path together and take mutual oaths but with Abraham I walked it (smoking firepot, like on Mt. Sinai) with Jesus (a flaming torch) and put Abraham into a trance. I swore by Myself and Abraham’s part was faith in My promises. His part was faith and loyalty and My part was to bless, multiply him and increase him, and give his descendants the land I showed him. And I gave him the gift of righteousness before Me based on his faith in My covenant promises. Later we established it again with the blood of the lamb that I supplied for the burnt offering as he in obedience had been willing to sacrifice his beloved son. I taught him the gospel ahead of time and the saw he day of Jesus as the Lamb of God, My beloved Son, and he rejoiced.
For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” Hebrews 6:13-14.
The Covenant I made with Moses and the descendants of Abraham when I redeemed them from slavery and was bringing them to the land I had promised Abraham by Covenant oath to give to his descendants was one of mutual commitment between Me and the people. I would be their God and they would be My people. I would bless them, protect them, heal them, prosper them, give them homes, lands, cities, and vineyards and a land flowing with milk and honey. I would fight their enemies and give them victory. They would be My special treasure, a light to then nations, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people set apart. I imparted to them My Words and My Statutes and Commandments. I gave them the Torah. I entrusted My Word to them to preserve, write down and continue to do so. They were to teach My Words to their children and their children’s children and keep it always before their eyes and in their mouths. And I promised to perform the Words and give them days of Heaven on earth. Their part was to obey My Words fully and never turn to other gods. They were never to make images of idols or bow down to them. They were to be loyal to Me and to My Covenant with them. If they broke it there were consequences of the curse—sickness, poverty, defeat, and death. And the Covenant was sealed in blood—the sacrifices of the burnt offering and peace offering initiated it and Moses poured the blood on the altar and sprinkled it on the people. And the sacrifices of blood continued every day. And the Passover meal was the memorial of this Covenant which began with the blood of the Passover lamb.
The New Covenant was made between Me and Jesus as your representative as Son of Man and as your great High Priest and sealed in His own blood. This began when I named Him as My Beloved Son at the Jordan River and sealed as it was finished when He shed His blood and died upon the Cross, reconciling Me and mankind in Him, the true God and Man united with no strife in One perfect man who was also perfect God.
And Jesus not only made Covenant with Me but also with you as His disciples. He made promises to you, walked the bloody path to Calvary for you by Himself in the presence of witnesses (as I had walked the bloody path of Abraham’s sacrifices of old), and opened a new and living way by His blood for you to the very Holy of Holies. And He swore these to you in Himself. And He gave you His Name. And He gave you gifts: His authority, His robe of righteousness (His identity and His authority), His weapons (the armor of God), His blood, His Spirit, eternal life, healing, health, and every one of My magnificent promises as “yes” to you in Him. And it was established in the Covenant meal now referred to as “Holy Communion” and this also became the memorial by which others also enter the Covenant with Him.
And He emptied Himself of His riches and gave all He had to you. This is Covenant.
Let Me explain more of this wondrous relationship of Covenant.
First look back at the elements of Covenant I already referred to: two or more joining together with mutual promises expressed in the permanence of an oath to be faithful and loyal to the relationship, blessings when kept and curses when broken, the shedding and sharing of blood, the reception of a new name, the exchange of gifts, a covenant meal with bread and wine, and a memorial or witness to remind the parties of the Covenant so it will be always before them.
Jesus offers a Covenant relationship to each of you. If you agree to that relationship by coming to Him and receiving Him as Lord, believing that He took all your sins upon Himself and I raised Him with all those sins gone so you are justified then He promises you Covenant protection, relationship, revelation, intimacy, fellowship, healing, deliverance, blessings, and eternal life. He gives you everything He has and in My Covenant with Him I gave Him everything I have so when He gives you all He has, He gives you all I have so that you are joint heirs of all.
The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. John 3:34-35.
I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you. John 16:12-15.
In your Covenant with Jesus, He gives you His Name and the authority in that Name to cast out demons, heal the sick, and do the works He did and greater. In Covenant with you, He will come to do them with and through you. And in Him you are in Covenant with Me so I do whatever you ask based on His authority and Name for He always does My Will for He is My Word to you.
In this Covenant we give you all that pertains to life and godliness, which is every need you can have physical or spiritual. We give you exceedingly great and magnificent promises in My Covenant Names and His Covenant Names that make you partakers of the Divine Nature.
He has given you His body, which is all of Him and everything He has, and He has given you His blood, not only to take away your sins but to give you His life and nature and make you His brother and My child. Understand this that I told you of old, the life is in the blood. Leviticus 17:11.
When you give your blood to someone and it mixes with that person’s blood, you are giving your life to someone else that is also in you. And if you receive blood from someone else you are acquiring that person’s life. You are becoming partakers of each other’s natures. You become one in flesh and blood and acquire kinship.
So when in the Communion meal, which is the Covenant meal, you eat the bread of His flesh and the cup of wine of His blood you acquire His life in you and He gives you His body which is for you, meaning everything that He has. His wealth, His wisdom, His strength, His purity, His health. As He is so are you in this world when you enter the Covenant with Him. 1 John 4:17. I gave Him to you that you might live your life through Him by Covenant.
By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 1 John 4:9.
The Covenant Meal of Communion is so important to Me and to My Son that He told you to keep doing this until He returns and then you will do it in Heaven at His table. And it is so important that even though Paul was not at the Last Supper, Jesus taught it to Paul personally so he would teach it and do it with others. And one night when he was preaching he did it three times!
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.
Jesus gave His body for you. All that He is and has He has given to you who are in Covenant with Him. And your part is to keep His commandments, which are to believe in His Name and love one another as He commanded, that is, to love one another as He loves you—to serve, to heal, to preach, to teach, and go about doing good and healing all those oppressed of the devil in partnership and fellowship with Him.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:9.
Your part is to fight the good fight of faith, My part is to give you through Jesus all My magnificent promises for life and godliness and to bless you with every spiritual blessing in Heaven in Him.
And just as Jonathan made covenant with David and gave him his robe, his weapons, and his girdle. So Jesus gives you His robe (clothed in Christ) of righteousness which is His identity and authority (in Christ), by which you reign in life through Him by grace. Romans 5:17. His weapons, which is power and protection. The Sword of the Spirit as the High Priest of your profession (words of agreement with His) that comes out of His mouth as well. And My full armor. And His girdle of truth, which sanctifies and consecrates you, and signifies all His belongings and wealth.
And in Covenant with Him you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, His Spirit and Mine as your own and become My house of abode and a temple of the Holy Spirit. So glorify Me in your body, for you are the body of Christ, and offer Me your body just as Jesus offers His body to you.
All that belongs to Jesus belongs to you according to His riches in glory.
And this is living eternal life. For eternal life is in Him.
I love you. And that is why I gave you Jesus. Covenant. I promised Him to Abraham and later to David. And you have Him by faith. The Covenant of Abraham, but now the New Covenant you and I have with Jesus and you have it with Me by being in Covenant with Him. Identity. In Him all is yours.