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The Covenant of Healing
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somebody take a good scripture out of the Old Testament and say, “Well, that’s just for the
Jews.” You just shout and say, “Yes, that’s right, it’s for me! It’s for me! I am the seed of
Abraham! I am! I am the Israel of God! I’m a new creature! I’m born again! I am a Jew inwardly
circumcised in the heart.” Right? It belongs to us. What belongs to me? Jehovah-Rapha, I Am
the Lord that heals you. It belonged to Abraham’s descendants, and I am one.
Not only am I an heir of the promise, an heir of the blessing of Abraham, but I am in a new
covenant. Hebrews 8:6-11 says, “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how
much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the
second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out
of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant,” they broke the covenant, “and
I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel after those days saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their
hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” Don’t we receive this for
ourselves? Aren’t we the ones who have had changes in our heart? This applies to you whether
you’re of a Jewish heritage or Gentile, no matter what color, tribe, or nation. It doesn’t make any
difference. “And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”
Are we living in this covenant, where we don’t have to go to somebody and say, “Tell me about
the Lord”? You can have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of you, the Great Teacher of all
teachers. If you know the Lord for yourself, then you’re in this covenant that God was going to
make with Israel. You are, and it’s a better covenant.
Now what does “better” mean? Some say, “Well, now, that means all that has passed away.” No,
no, no. If I have a $50 bill in one hand and a $100 bill in my other hand, and I say, “Which one is
better?” Do you know? Don’t get religiously confused and say, “Well…it just depends…” It just
depends on nothing. Anybody knows that the $100 bill is better any time of the day, any day of
the week, than the $50 bill. Why? Because the $100 bill has got the $50 in it, plus!
What kind of covenant do we have? Oh, glory to God! It’s a better covenant. Why? It has
everything they had, plus! Plus! We didn’t lose anything by the coming of Jesus. We got
everything, everything they had, plus…! Our name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Plus
we have the Name and the authority of Jesus. Plus we have the Holy Spirit living on the inside.
Plus, plus, plus! It means “I Am Jehovah-Rapha” still belongs to you. It shouldn’t surprise us
when 1 Peter 2:24, in the New Covenant, says, “By His stripes you were healed.” That’s
reinforcement. In fact, Jesus came and paid the price for what God had already been doing for
those people–based on what Jesus
would
do. The reason they kept offering animal sacrifices, and
the reason they had to keep doing them year after year, was because the price was not being paid.
It was just foreshadowing that One would come and pay the price for the blessing they were
getting to enjoy
then
. Basically, He was blessing them on credit, based on what the Lord was
going to do. But, now, you and I are looking back to the Cross. It’s already been done. The price
has already been paid, and it all belongs to us.