Rob Grindley: Ministers of the New Covenant

By Rob Grindley, Missionary to Botswana

In the last few weeks I have been looking closely into something which up until this time has been somewhat of a closed book to me, although I realize for some what I am about to write may be review. I have, in my ministry, focused much on what Jesus has accomplished through His cross, His death, burial and resurrection. This has caused me to preach on forgiveness, redemption, and Healing. With all these areas I have been blessed; being allowed by God to see wonderful fruit. I have seen the Lord Heal people of all types of maladies and pains, and I have seen and felt the joy of sins forgiven.

Yet as I searched the scriptures preparing for a bible class, I found myself taken aback by my lack of knowledge of (and the lack of preaching I had done on) the work of the Spirit in a believer’s Heart and life. As I considered 2 Cor 3:5-6 …not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also made us sufficient to be ministers of a New Covenant, not of letter, but of Spirit; for the letter doth kill, and the Spirit doth make alive.

I began to question did I even understand the New Covenant, and if I did not, how was I a proper minister of it. Was it the New Covenant I was preaching?

I would like you to consider two passages with me. In first Samuel Chapter 6 we have a story about the Philistines’ test to see whether the Ark of the Covenant had brought the plagues on them. The test was quite interesting. It involved taking cows that recently had given birth and attaching them to a cart with the ark placed on it. They knew that the cow’s natural desire would be to be with their calves. Yet if the cows were motivated to take the ark toward Israel and away from their calves they would know God was in fact involved. The Philistines seemed to understand that God’s Spirit had the ability to overcome natural desire and instinctual behavior, even in cows.

In fact, is this not what we look for in a believer’s life, motivation from God to go in the opposite direction of Natural(fleshly) desire? Yet I have found for the most part, I was trying to motivate myself away from natural and carnal desires. This has led to periods of success that would be followed again by a failure, if not in deed, at least in Heart.

As I began to study the New Covenant I found a great unexplored area for me was the New Covenant’s effects upon the Heart. Although much of what has to be said about the New Covenant or everlasting covenant appears to be for in the future for Israel, it becomes clear by God’s grace He is allowing the church to step into its benefits now.

As Eze 36:26-27 states, “a new Heart also will I give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony Heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an Heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Here, God says not only will I give you a new Heart. I will put my Spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my ways. Here, God under the New Covenant is taking responsibility for the believer’s behavior. He says, I will do it, I will motivate you from within, not from outside, to walk in my ways. If God can cause a cow to move away from natural desires how much more by putting His Spirit within can He cause us to walk before Him and toward Him.

Now God’s requirement is not simply obedience but rather faith in the New Covenant. Faith releases God to fulfill His covenant, work in the Heart and cause the obedience He has always desired. In fact, is this not the way to the highway of Holiness.

Jesus stated He came to give us life, and life more abundant. He did not intend for us to struggle under the weight of sin, and carry the burden of failure that the old covenant revealed. It was, as we remember, a ministry of death. Jesus came to give His people ZOE, the God kind of life, He accomplished this by making a way through the New Covenant for God’s Spirit to get on the inside of us, and cause us to walk in His ways.

So many Christians who have New Covenant privilege and blessing are still walking under the weight of self-effort which the old covenant revealed was simply designed to bring us to Christ. Yes, many have trusted Him for eternal life, but instead of the just living (zoe) by faith, we have started in the Spirit and sought to be made complete by the work of self-effort.

I hope brothers and sisters to leave the ranks of those who have failed to be a sufficient minister of the New Covenant. I hope this has sparked something in you, and provides a log for your inward fire.