We are going to continue with engaging God today and looking at katubah. So, everything about this is about relationship. God wants to have relationship with us, and he wants that relationship to go deeper. Because he wants to engage the earth from heaven through us as a gateway. So that in our relationship we can help others establish that relationship themselves bring restoration back from the whole of the created order which is groaning waiting for sons of God to be revealed so that we can bring order and God’s purpose back into it. So, we been looking at the gateways of our spirit soul and body looking at various aspects of that and were now on to the stage where we are looking at four areas of those four chambers of the heart as we dealt with familiar spirits and the blockages within our spirit and soul or outside of our spirit and soul. We now looking at the garden of the heart, a dance floor, soaking room, bridal chamber which is all to do with intimacy and within ourselves engaging God in deeper levels of intimacy so we can understand him know him and know ourselves to enable us to outwork that. And we’re looking at Ketubah which is going to be another session.
So, the whole purpose of this is so the river of life flowing out of our first love gate as we surrender our spirit to God engage in the only Jesus, see God on the throne in our spirit seat of rest and government that everything flows out and the river of life flows out to engage the world around us. Ezekiel 47 describes that trickle ankle deep knee-deep waist deep until it is completely overflowing and bringing life wherever it goes the life of God’s kingdom.
So God’s desire is a marriage relationship with us as people. Everyone he has created he wants to have a relationship with. so the ketubah is a marriage contract made under a hupah or a covering cloud of God’s presence. Jesus went to the cross to prepare a place for us in him and as a marriage chamber in us so that he could live in us. So, we have these two levels of intimacy where we’re in him and he’s in us. So, he was resurrected and came back for us so that we can have a wedding. You can’t have a wedding without bride and bridegroom. So, Jesus did not stay in the grave he came back so that he could facilitate for us engaging in this relationship. So, at the wedding there was step 5 we have looked at the four previous steps. The Hupa and that represents what happened at Pentecost which again was a representation of what happened with Israel and the church.
So, the whole point of Pentecost was that the oil of the Holy Spirit flows through the leavened bread and that was the only time leavened bread was used and they broke the bread open and poured the oil into it. So, God uses leavened or weak imperfect people but a people he loves and died for so even though we may have messed up our whole lives. Jesus died for us while we were messed up. He didn’t wait for us to get better so that he could except us because we can’t. If the pass mark for engaging God is 100% we may have 99 1/2% but it’s not ever going to be 100 so we have to admit that we can never be perfect enough for God. And he receives imperfect people but then when he receives them, he helps us to become like him. So, God wants to marry us leaven and all, which is really great. So, God wants an intimate relationship with a group of people who were slaves to something. Because we’ve all been in slavery to sin and death fear something in our lives God wants to reconcile and restore a broken relationship. In a marriage relationship he can then set everyone free from the restrictions and bondages that hinder and limit us. It is only in the relationship that those things can be set free because we have to know the truth so that the truth can set us free. Knowing the truth comes in intimacy and relationship. So, what are you a slave to, what’s your slave driver? What freedom do you need in your life right now? Whatever it is, the solution to that can be found in a relationship with Jesus, a personal relationship with Jesus. The truth and Jesus is the, that perfect reality that Jesus has created for us and he wants us to experience that perfect reality and know the truth so we can be set free to live in the benefit of that truth. So when we read John 14 read it again in the context of God’s desire for an intimate marriage relationship. because the way John 14 and John 14 is probably my favorite chapter in the whole bible, and it’s fallen out a number times of my Bible, stuck it back in because I read it over and over again. And every time I engage it I find deeper truth when you read John 14 you get that context and read it in that context. So, John 14:3 if I go and prepare a place for you, where was he going to the cross, I will come again in resurrection and receive you to myself so he is now brought us into relationship that where I am you may be also.
I am, is not a physical place, is not heaven although there’s an aspect, we can engage in heaven. Actually, he is talking about relationship. John 14:6 I am the way truth and the life no one comes to the father but through me. So, Jesus was talking about establishing or reestablishing a relationship with God as our father because he created a way. John 14:10 do you not believe I am in the father and the father is in me. This is the key to understanding of it all. This is the relationship that he went to prepare us to have an be in a relationship with him as I am. John 1419 in a little while the world will no longer see me. So, Jesus was basically saying he was going to go to the cross and the world would not see him after that point, but you will see me. so after the cross he came back in resurrection only to his disciples and you will live also because I live. in that day, the day he came back and met with them you will know that I am in my father and you’re in me and I’m in you. That was the relationship he was looking to establish that was the marriage that he was looking to have, intimacy. So then John 14:21 he who has my commandments, so now you don’t have to read that as a set of rules or the traditions of men. Read it as the ketubah he who has my ketubah and keeps them is the one who loves me, of course marriage is about love and relationship.
It is not about keeping a set of rules so now we can understand that he was talking about not an old covenant aspect of law. But a relationship based on a ketubah and he says he who keeps my commandments loves me, he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him I will disclose myself to him. So here is the promise that he is going to reveal himself even more when we engage in a Ketubah relationship of marriage with him. So don’t think rules, think ketubah , relationship and that will free us up from the bondage of trying to earn and keep things good because we can never earn it, it is given to us is a free gift we just need to participate in it. So, John 1423 again read this in this context Jesus answered and said to him if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. What word? The ketubah of course. We want to keep a Ketubah that we have written, and he’s written in agreement in our relationship. So, this is not the traditional words that people think we should keep. And it is really simple basically summed up in one word love and it then goes on if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home or our abode with him. They will come and live within us, that intimate place of marriage. So, keeping his word is enjoying the power and the benefits of the ketubah. It is not being enslaved to a religious system or religious ritual; it is being free to come into the benefit of our relationship with God in freedom. Matthew 22:37 sums it up and he said to him you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind this is the great and foremost commandment and the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. So, everything that had been ritualized and traditionalized in the Old Covenant was now being reinterpreted in a new relationship of love. All we have to do is love God and love each other. That stops all the individual little things we have to try and figure out how to do, because everything will be outworked through love. And if we are operating in true love none of those other things will be a problem. So, everything under the Old Covenant, all the law, the prophets are now completed and realized in a New Covenant of love, a new agreement that has been made. So, all the covenants and promises and mandates that God gave and we read them in the Old Testament, all those things are realized in Christ. They all belong to us in a New Covenant so the agreements he made with Adam with Noah and Abraham and Moses and David are all now fulfilled in the New Covenant.
So, to make a ketubah we need to understand the New Covenant understand the relationship were now in, understanding that will become the basis of God’s promises and purpose and it will enable us to have that New Covenant perspective as the foundation for our ketubah. What will we put in it? Is not just a whim or wishful thinking or just selfish desires. It will come out on an understanding of who we are in relationship with God. So, in the Old Covenant Israel made or cut a covenant or an agreement with God and they continually broke it. They needed yearly atonement sacrifices to keep them in a place where they could be safe with God. In the new covenant Jesus makes or cuts the agreement with God. We didn’t do that he did. What Jesus did became a perpetual sacrifice not just something that happens every year but something that happened once and continues forever. So therefore, the New Covenant cannot be broken. The Old Covenant was broken continually by weak, imperfect people. So, God had to fix it and make it better and in light of looking at all of us and looking at us and seeing how we are and how unable we are to fulfill something in our own strength, he made a better way, and he made a way that cannot now be broken. Because Jesus made the covenant with God, we just have to be in relationship with him. I want to read the Scriptures around that.
Ephesians 2:11 therefore remember that you were formally Gentiles in the flesh who were called uncircumcision, by the so-called circumcision in the Old Covenant you had Jewish people who had a relationship with God based on that Old Covenant could draw other people into that relationship and you had those that were called the Gentiles those that weren’t in relationship with God. Through that Old Covenant and they were called uncircumcision or circumcision because circumcision was the sign of the covenant. Fortunately, we don’t have to be circumcised to have the sign of the covenant now. It is our hearts that get circumcised not the flesh. And then it goes on to say remember that you were at that time separate from Christ excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world.
That wasn’t a perspective that God was going to allow to continue, he wanted everybody to come into relationship with him. So, then there is a but now in Christ Jesus. You who formally were far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. So, we have been brought into a relationship. Verse 18 and through him we both and there is a lot of Boths here, and what it is talking about is the old and New Covenant people becoming one. So, there was a distinction in that there were Jews and Gentiles and now there’s just a both, both have access in one spirit to the father. So, then you are no longer strangers and aliens but are fellow citizens with the saints and are God’s household. So, we are all now part of Gods ecclesia in relationship together having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the capstone in whom the whole building is fitted together is growing into a holy temple for God. Because God wants to dwell amongst us, in us as individual in the sense that we are houses of God but also the household of God can be seen as a corporate thing.
In that corporately God wants to come and dwell within us when we come together. So, it is really important that we gather and understand how this functions. So, we are going to see various aspects of this. Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. You no longer have to work and dead works are trying to earn it for yourself. For this reason, he is the mediator of a New Covenant and that those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. It isn’t based on something which was just written in the Old Testament, this is based on God’s eternal perspective and desire. Hebrews 6:17 in the same way God desiring even more to show the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose God has never changed his purpose. He has always wanted a relationship with a people, with children, with sons who will establish the whole of his government in the created order, that’s his purpose. This hope, we have as an anchor of the soul. So, the fact that God doesn’t change his purpose and we are heirs of those promises is an anchor, that’s a hope. That we can put our trust in. Not a wishful thinking but a firm expectation and that becomes what a ketubah is, a firm expectation, a hope, both sure and steadfast, one which enters within the veil. Because Jesus has gone into heaven to prepare heaven for us to be able to engage. Not after we die but there now where Jesus is entered as a forerunner for us having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek not after the order of Aaron, which was the earthly priesthood but a heavenly one, a royal priest hood kings and priests which is what we been called to engage in now a royal priesthood. So, Hebrews 7:22 so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant because his blood was shed, and his blood atoned for all sin and sickness.
He’s become the guarantee of a better covenant a better agreement. Hebrews 8:6 now he is obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises. those are the things we can put into our ketubah, the better promises. So, everything is now possible because of the better new covenant established by the blood of Jesus, we only have to be in him, and he has to be in us. Now that is a free gift that comes by faith through grace.
So, if I deny myself and take up the cross and follow him everything is available to me. His grace, his mercies, love, righteousness and justice, foundation of his kingdom throne is all about me. I just have to stop trying to do it for myself. I have to stop and deny my right to follow the pathway of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Because if I keep following that pathway, I’m having to do it apart from God. So, I choose to be a living sacrifice, so I don’t have to do it myself. It frees me completely from having to fulfill the obligations of the law. Because Christ has fulfilled those obligations for me and in relationship with him of course, I am going to want to love him and do everything that pleases him. As he loves me and wants to give me the best of everything. So, I no longer have to follow that humanistic pathway, the knowledge of good and evil which was offered to mankind by Satan as a way of not needing God. We’ll it didn’t work out too well.
And we all got to a point in our lives where we see actually, we do need God, and without God everything is impossible. But with him everything becomes possible. So, now I’m on an internal pathway. Pathway of the tree of life and that contains continual fruitfulness. It never ceases to be fruitful. I can become gentle and humble in heart, yoked to Jesus in relationship, in first love as I’m in intimacy with him.
I know who I am with God’s eternal purpose and therefore I can trust him. I don’t have to try to work it out myself. A lot of us got to the point where we didn’t trust anyone else because we been hurt, damaged let down, disappointed by people. So we become hardhearted and often, we’ll I’m not trusting anybody.
Now we have to enter into a relationship with God where we have to say I trust you. We need to understand what it is that he has done to enable us to receive that trust and to have that trust. So I’m now in his name I have the power of his attorney. I am a son of God so he’s my priority and I am the apple of his eye. That’s what the Bible says I’m in his heart and he’s in my heart. The ketubah is my agreement to trust him totally.
Now if you can’t make a ketubah because you don’t trust him then you can deal with the issues of why you don’t trust him. What are the things that are causing us not to trust him.
And some of that is probably the religious ideas that have been promoted by religion rather than the relationship which has been given to us through Jesus.
So what do we put in our ketubah? Everything that will bring about the fulfillment of our eternal destiny. The expectation of the availability of all the resources that will enable us to fulfill Gods purpose in our lives. It then becomes the foundational truth and the reality from which we can live and then we can frame our lives according to it. We can actually dictate and frame the circumstances in which we live because that’s the power that he has given us within his promises.
Genesis 128 God blessed them said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth subdue it and rule. That becomes the basis of our mandate. That is what we been commissioned to do and empowered to do. And it can form the basis of my expectations within the relationship that Gods given.
I’m blessed by God so I expect him to empower me to succeed and prosper to the highest level in everything he’s called me to do. So, the ketubah made on the basis of my destiny scroll, that which was agreed with my spirit in eternity, in God’s heart. So, we need to understand who it is that God created and what it is that he’s created us to do.
Psalm 139 16 your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were all written the days ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them. So, there was an agreement that our spirit make with God. Because of the fall we were separated in understanding and memory of that because we were separated from God and our soul was separated from our spirit. So, as we work to reintegrate everything and bring soul and spirit back into relationship, our spirit and God back into relationship, and everything then can be at work according to that which was agreed in eternity verse 17. How precious also are your thoughts to me oh God how vast is the sum of them. So, we need to understand how God thinks about us and all the wonders of every day every day he has thoughts which are in alignment with our eternal destiny we just have to engage him. The more we engage God in intimacy the more of the vast some of his thoughts about us get revealed day by day by day by day. Will probably not show you the whole of your scroll of destiny in one hit because you probably be overwhelmed and be you’ll probably then try to figure out how do I do this. But if you do it each day you only have to deal with today. A lot of you a familiar with one day at a time, one step at a time, that’s all we need to do with God one day in relationship at a time. and Jesus said don’t worry about tomorrow today has got enough stuff of its own, just deal with today seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and everything will be added to you don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry. The only reason we are worrying is because were trying to figure out how to do it, and what might happen based in fear and in the wrong pathway.
So, we can find our true identity and the blueprint that contains the scroll for our lives in relationship with him and produce our ketubah in that context. Our ketubah is about our expectations of our relationship with God and our destiny and purpose within that relationship; everything is to do with relationship.
So, in relationship we seek first his kingdom and righteousness. Righteousness in this context just means out of our first love for him. Then all God’s promises are available to us.
So, we’re in him and in his name and he’s in us so then you read John 14 again whatever you ask in my name I will do it so the father may be glorified in the son. If you asked me anything in my name, I will do it if you love me you’ll keep my commandments. This demonstrates the relationship of the commandment which is to love and if we find that love and we know who we are in him we have the power being in his name.
It is really easy to love if we don’t let our soul get in the way. We have to deal with the soul because the soul is about broken relationships and broken love. Because most of us have not had good relationships where love has been a fulfillment of how God expected it to be. It’s been imperfect people trying to love each other on the basis of brokenness and that creates huge number of problems for us. Which then we can be healed and restored and brought back into wholeness. So, we can have any promise that we find in the word of God in any personal prophecy that we have been given in our blueprint in a dream and vision God give us they all belong to us, and we can add them to our ketubah.
John 14:27 peace I leave with you my peace I give to you. We have sort of a wrong understanding of what peace is because we think it’s an absence of mental problems. We’ll I got peace of mind, so I’m cool I’m okay. it goes way, way beyond that, not as the world gives do I give to you, so the world offers a peace which is an absence of war if you like. Do not let your heart be troubled or let it be fearful. so we cannot make our ketubah out of a troubled heart and fear because you will put things in there based on fear.
I need all this stuff because I’m going to run out which will not be the correct way of producing a ketubah. Because you’ll be looking at God is holding things back from you, rather than releasing them to you, because he loves you. So, it is really important that we understand the peace the wholeness that he promises. That our whole Ketubah can be formed in that peace in the expectation of wholeness. God desires restoration of relationship and that’s the basis of our confidence in the ketubah. To make a ketubah it is all about relationship. The ketubah becomes our basis of trading or covenant exchange. God has made a covenant. we can work see in a covenant to parties came together to benefit each other. And in the Old Testament they would kill an animal walk between the blood in a figure of eight and they would change coats and they would then offer to in relationship provide for each other so if you had two tribes, I warrior tribe and one a farmer tribe when you made a covenant the farmer tribe could call on the warrior tribe when ever it needed protection. Warrior tribe could call on the farmer tribe whenever it needed food, and they had an agreement of mutual benefit so they could operate and exchange on that. I’m exchanging my food for protection. We can do that with God on the basis of our Ketubah. What we put in it we can actually exchange, and we can commit. All have to do is agree with his Ketubah for us, which is our destiny. Then we can out work that. So, we trust him by surrendering to our destiny, he provides protects empowers blesses us to prosper and succeed to that highest level. We just have to trust him now. Jesus’ ketubah, I found this really helpful as like Jesus writing a letter to us in Bible verses that explains who he is as the living word so as I read these verses out, I want to encourage you to see this is Jesus writing this as a letter to you and he signs it as his commitment into the marriage relationship with his bride. So, there’s a whole load of promises that Jesus will speak, and they are foundational truths and promises we can rely on.
2 Corinthians 1:20 is the basis of this for as many are the promises of God in Christ or in him they are yes, they are not no, but yes therefore also through him is our amen. We have to say amen or so be it to come into all the promises he has made. Now he who establishes us with you in Christ and is anointed us is God who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge, so God has given us in our heart, the Spirit as a pledge, as a guarantee that we are going to come into all the promises of God. If we have got the best promise, then all the others are just a outworking of that relationship so read this as a promise.
I have called you by your name and you are mine, before I formed you, I knew you and before you were born, I consecrated you. You did not choose me I chose you. Beloved I wish above all things you may prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers. Because you are precious to me and honored, I love you, I love you with an everlasting love and I will continue my faithfulness to you. How can I abandon you, my love for you is too strong, I love you so much I hung on the cross of Calvary, I died for you and if you believe in me, you will have everlasting life. Can a woman forget her own baby and not love the child she bore? Yet even should she forget, I will never forget you, I cannot forget, you see I have you in the palm of my hand. For I am the Lord your God and am holding you by the right hand, I am with you always until the end of the age. Do not let your heart be troubled, trust in me. When you walk through the valley of the shadows of death do not be afraid because I am with you, my rod and my staff will comfort you. I will lead you in the path of righteousness. I will give you peace in the midst of the storm, not as the world gives. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, peace I give you which will pass all understanding and shall keep your heart and mind. When you lie down do not be afraid, your sleep shall be sweet, my love for you will keep your dwelling safe. Beloved my eyes are upon you, and I’ll give you hope for I am merciful; you will have access to my grace and rejoice in my hope. While sharing in the glory of my father, I will give to you joy and peace you may have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take the joy from you. The mountains may depart and the hills may be shaken but my steadfast love for you will never end come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Come I will lead you into solitude and there I will speak tenderly to your heart. I will be true and faithful I will show you constant love and make you mine forever. I will keep my promise and you will know me as never before. The gift of peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, I do not give you as the world gives. I am who I am I am the Lord your God- signed the bridegroom. Jesus’ question is will you sign on behalf of the bride.
Do you want to enter into a relationship where Jesus would say I have found the one in whom my soul delights and we would say I have found the one in whom my soul delights. That’s the intimacy of relationship that Jesus wants with us.
And intimacy goes way beyond anything the world can offer. Because he has a desire and he has written that letter and you can write hundreds of letters from the word of God taking scriptures that are precious to you that he has spoken to you directly.
And you can take them and you can make them the basis of the promises that he has made to you. So your Ketubah will enable you to frame your life not be subject to the circumstances around you.
So, I encourage you again in the next few weeks spend some time engaging with God about your ketubah whether you’re engaging with him about the new covenant or whether it’s about your destiny and your eternal scroll begin to formulate it.
So, when we come to present our Ketubah before him we can enter into that new covenant marriage relationship with him. Encourage you just to spend a few minutes just coming into that place of intimacy.
A place of rest, going to use Psalm 23 Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures he leads me beside quiet he restores my soul he guides me in the past of righteousness for his namesake.
Engage your imagination the eyes of your heart and invite Jesus the shepherd to lie down with you in the garden of your own home in that green pasture. Picture that green pasture, lie down and relax and enjoy his presence and share with him and talk with them and listen to him and ask him things about promises. Enter into intimacy by faith just choose maybe you’ve never engage with Jesus before maybe never entered through that door maybe you’ve never invited to come and live in. You can make that choice right just open up the door of your life, invite him into that relationship. Just to allow him to speak those words of love.