Booting out Hagar and her son Ishmael

Yesterday's sermon was so good and I had received so much good stuffs after listening to the Word of God. Pastor Aage from Norway is truly another man of God who preached good sermons of the grace of God. He was sharing with us about the two covenants (Galatians 4:21 - 5:1). When we are in the old covenant, that is to bring the law into our lives, we are putting ourselves into bondage. That is having Hagar and Ishmael under the same roof as Abraham, Sarah and Isaac.

Over here the bible is making the symbolical comparison between Hagar and Sarah (meaning Hagar is of the old covenant which is from the Mount Sinai where the 10 Commandments came from and Sarah being the symbolical representation of Grace which is of the new covenant that God had set upon Himself to us). I love v28 where it says that "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise". This means that we are of the freewoman which is of Sarah, which is the symbolical representation of Grace which is of God and we are the children of promise! Hallelujah!

So, next is in v30 where it says "Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." This simply means that we are to cast out the law from our lives and when we cast out the law, we are in grace. Now we are in the New Covenant which is the grace covenant.

Many Christians are still in the state of confusion when they mix law and grace together. In Genesis 21, when Isaac was weaned out of his milk (symbolical meaning that we also weaned out of the law and smack ourselves right into knowing that we are the Righteousness of God in Christ), that was the time when Sarah told Abraham to cast out Hagar and her son from the house. God also told Abraham to listen to Sarah when Abraham was sorta "pissed off" by Sarah's remarks to cast Hagar out of the house.

So, what does that mean to us?? It means that God wants us to also cast out the bondwoman and her son out of our lives and live knowing that we are like Isaac who is heir of everything. Another thing that was shared also that Pharaoh wanted Sarah coz she's beautiful. However, God didn't allow that to happen. Pharaoh represents the devil, Sarah represents grace and Abraham represents faith coz he has faith in God for everything in his life (Romans 4:1-4). So, in this context, the devil is trying to pull grace away from faith and faith away from grace. Why is it that the devil is so into putting the law into us?? well.. Luke 8:12 says it all.. "Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved."

Cool!! And to add on, Romans 10:4 "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." So, who are righteous?? We believers are the righteousness of God in Christ. And Christ is the end of the law which He had already fulfilled for all of us. He died on our behalf, He fulfilled the law on our behalf and that is His Love for us!

Knowing that how much He loved us, do you think u will still want to commit any sins?? Esp for those who still want to dispute this that "oh.. since there's grace, that means we can continue in our sins". Well, Paul disputed that with the people.. Anyway, I'll not go into it too much detail yet.. This is another thing which people always like to dispute..

Well, after worshipping the Lord in the Hokkien service today, the Lord showed me something that touched my heart so much.. He was showing me that for every stroke of beating that He took unto His own Body, He said this to me "Sharon, this is the beating that I'm willing to bear for you. Every stripe taken is My Love extended out to you. I want you to know how much I love you." Each time I see Jesus taking a stroke, He took it for me on my behalf. The same also when He was hung on the cross. It was His Love for me that He willingly bore it for me. It was His Love for me that He willingly became poor for my sake, so that I don't have to go through any single curses, poverty or sicknesses and diseases. None of these will come to me coz Jesus bore them all for me on the cross..

Like what Pastor Aage was saying, all of us must move from Mount Sinai to Calvary. Well, we must not move back from Calvary to Mount Sinai, lest the works of our Lord Jesus Christ became of no effect in our lives.

Well, this is my personal understanding of what the sermon is about and I'm not sure about others. But I do hope that this will help release whatever burden you have in your heart.

I was also having another heart-to-heart talk with Jesus and He asked me what am I going to do about my enemies? Well, it's a very hard thing to do and say, I told the Lord that I will still want to love them because You also love them like You love me. Not by my efforts but by Him, through Him and with Him, He will bring my heart to love people rather than fulfilling for my own selfishness. Well.. I will not be able to love my enemies, frankly speaking. But I'm going to ask the Lord to help me.

Hallelujah! All Praises due to Jesus!! Amen!!