The Father's Heart Church -- Confidence Through Covenant

Confidence Through Covenant by Steve Montag

“So It was, when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted; and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel. At that time the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.’ So Joshua made flint knives for himself and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: All the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way, after they had come out of Egypt. For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness on they way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people who were men of war, who came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord—to whom the Lord swore that He would not show them the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers that He would give us, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’ So Joshua circumcised their sons whom He raised up in their place; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way. So it was, when they had finished circumcising all the people, that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were all healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.’”

At this point, Israel had finished their wanderings in the wilderness, crossed the Jordan River and were in an in-between place. They crossed the Jordan and entered the land but they did not yet possess the land. Possessing the land meant of course, dispossessing the people who already lived in the land. What we find here after their entering the land but before they could enter into their first battle with Jericho to conquer it, is there had to be a circumcision. Why? 1) Circumcision was the physical sign to Israel of being in covenant with God and covenant has to be kept and sometimes renewed if we want God’s results in our lives, 2) Circumcision symbolizes the cleansing of the conscience, 3) Cleansing of the conscience is necessary in order to stand before God with confidence, without this confidence before God there will be no confidence when you have to stand before your enemy and 4) Confidence with God brings the assurance that all of the reproach of the past (of Egypt or the world system) has been removed from us.

This is exactly the place where we are as a Body today. We are in a parallel with the people of Israel in this story. On New Year’s Eve God poured out His Spirit in an incredible way in this house in order to bring us as individuals and as a Body into our destiny in Him. This is a year of destiny and harvest. Our warfare is ended and God is about to give us “double for our trouble.” Recompense is on its way. God says the year of vengeance is in my heart; the year of my redeemed has come. God is ready to dispossess our enemies and give us the land.

In Jeremiah 1 God shows Jeremiah and almond branch and asks him, “What do you see?,” Jeremiah responds that he sees an almond branch bearing fruit. God says, “You have seen well because I am watching over my word to perform it.” God is ready to give us the land and cause us to take possession of it and bring in the harvest. But before we can face Jericho with confidence that the walls will fall, there needs to take place a circumcision in our lives. I’m not talking about a physical circumcision but a spiritual circumcision of our hearts. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 10:12.

“And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? In deed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. For the Lord your God is God of all gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen [especially here at The Father’s Heart, in the last two months… emphasis, added]. Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the starts of heaven in multitude.”

Colossians 2:11, “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed the principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

I want to suggest to you that for all the same reasons that Israel had needed to be circumcised because of covenant relationship with God, you and I need to be circumcised. We need to allow God to remove any and all possible residue that’s left inside. We want to make sure there is no hint of anything in us because God is about to do amazing things in us. If we want to start conquering the enemy, cities, and strongholds, we need to have confidence with God. Satan has held this city and it’s streets captive more years than any one of us has been alive and he’s not about to hand it over to us. He’s not going to say, “oh, you’re having revival, here’s the city, please take it.” No, he’s not going to do that but God is going to dispossess him. God is going to take back the streets of this city. This is the hour of harvest and destiny! We are the end-time church, the last days Body of the Messiah. Jericho’s walls are going to fall flat in front of us and we need to be battle-ready. You get battle-ready in the kingdom of God by being in covenant relationship with Him through the circumcision of the heart.

Turn to 1 John 3:20: “Beloved, if our heart does not condemns us, we have confidence toward God.” We can also say that if our conscience is clean and clear, not seared, we have confidence toward God. You see we have to have a clear conscience before God if we are going to face the enemy and bring his kingdom down, not falling back in fear. In order for our consciences to be clear it stands to reason that any condemnation you might feel in your heart, whether valid or not, real or imagined, must be cut out. This is the flint-knife God uses to circumcise our hearts, the Word of God. It is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, sharper than any surgeon’s scalpel. It is able to pierce to the dividing asunder between the soul and spirit and the joints and marrow. God is a master surgeon and when you present yourself to Him to cut out the garbage that’s in your heart, He makes sure that the only thing the knife touches is the garbage that he cuts out cleanly.

If the condemnation is real, if it’s valid, that is, if you have unconfessed sin in your life, an area God has been dealing with that you haven’t surrendered in your life, you are giving the enemy a legal right to use that against you. He will throw it in your face and in God’s face. He’ll do it at the most strategic point in your life, right when you’re about to shout because you think you have power with God to see Jericho tumble, that’s when he’ll throw it in your face. He will devastate you, fear will grip your heart and Satan will throw your sin in your face to demoralize and devastate any confidence you think you have with God. You will need to surrender that to God and allow God to cut that from your heart in order to face Jericho.

If the condemnation is false or imagined, that is, if the enemy starts bringing up garbage from your past, that is not something Satan can legally do but it does work because we allow it to. If you have already confessed your sin and are struggling to forgive yourself for that, trust me, the enemy knows about that. Allow God to cut that from your heart and give you the assurance that it’s taken care of. Don’t allow Satan to erode your confidence based on that. God’s forgiveness has nothing to do with your performance but everything to do with Jesus’ performance when He died on the cross. John said if you confess your sin, no matter how messed up we are, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness… you can take that to the bank!

There used to be a saying that went around that said: “If Jesus said, I believe, that settles it.” Well that’s not completely true. If Jesus said it that settles it, whether you believe it or not! He said, if you confess it, I’ll forgive. If you repent, I’ll forgive. If you present it to me, I’ll cut it from your heart.

The Lord will fight for you, in either case, real or imagined, true or false, valid or invalid, that area of condemnation needs to be cut out before you come face to face with the adversary. If you will do that and present yourself to God, to cut away your flesh and sin nature, the unconfessed sin in your life, He will remove the reproach of your sin from you. Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

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