So! I received my first hate comment. It came in the form of a text. It read, “You are satan’s gatekeeper and you don’t even know it.” Everything I share here is Bible. Christians overwhelmingly don’t read the Bible (check her for the stats)  (and here) for themselves. The numbers are so bleak that we can be sitting under pastors that don’t spend time reading the Bible. I spent a few years listening to a morning devotional that was lightweight Bible Academy. It was there that I learned how to show-up and fellowship with God in a way that has changed my life. I am in Dr Dharius Daniel’s Bible U Academy. Understand that for every one hour I spend writing the blog posts, it is ten hours of learning and fellowship with God. Here in this space, I offer you the same thing that was made available to me; a way to unleash the power of God on your life.

Our culture is plagued with diseases of disparity. Anxiety, depression, fear, trauma, low self-worth, suicide, and suicidal ideation. And at the same time, we are raising a generation of kids that will grow up and never go to church. Jesus on Sunday and rules and regulation of religion is not enough to unleash the Holy Spirit’s power on your life. The Holy Spirit that is waiting to heal your life and give you a level of living you could never accomplish on your own.

I am going to be covering Hebrews; it is chapters 8, 9, and 10. This is where God is spelling out that the rules and regulations of the Old Covenant is being replaced by the New Covenant we get under Jesus. Where we realize that God is waiting for us to hook in, so that he can pour out the Holy Spirit on your life. The real and felt presence of God is available for you right as you are.

Hang tight! This is going to be a really long post!!

“Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the Sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.”
Hebrews 8:1-2 NIV

Jesus is mirroring Moses. Moses took the people of Israel into the wilderness after they escaped from Egypt. Moses went up on Mount Sinai and communed with God, he got the exact specifications and they built the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. This was the establishment of the Old Covenant and the rules of living and sacrificing and atoning for sin. How do we recognize Jesus? God kept the same rules. Jesus is literally mirroring the Old Covenant to establish the New Covenant.

“Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were here on earth, he would not be a priest, for their are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.”
8:3-5 NIV

Under the Old Covenant, the priests had to constantly offer sacrifices and offerings, to atone for the people’s sin. Guess what? Jesus is that same system for us in Heaven.

“This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown on the mountain.’ But in fact the ministry of Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.”
8:5-6 NIV

The old covenant was established with the shedding of animal blood. The new covenant had the same rules, except it is superior, because it was established with the shedding of God’s blood.

“For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: ‘The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.'”
8:7-10 NIV

The first covenant was written down as God lead them out of Egypt, but that covenant failed (the people failed).

“This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.'”
8:10-12 NIV

Do you get what God is saying?? The first covenant is inferior and Israel had to listen to Moses to get it. The NEW COVENANT, God wants to establish that covenant directly with you. This is why you can’t listen to man. The new covenant is where you link with God and he begins to give you customized standards that He writes on your heart and mind. The purpose of this blog is so that you link with God in a way that you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit guiding you towards the Level 10 existence he has in mind for you.

“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”
8:13 NIV

The Old Testament is where we learn that God does His best work with imperfect people; we also learn the character of God. The New Testament is where we get our life and assignment from God.

“Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand and the table of consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.
When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered himself and for the sins the people committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings- external regulations applying until the time of the new order.”
Hebrews 9:1-10 NIV

The priests were the only ones that could enter the tabernacle. And the Holy of Holies, where the Spirit of God resides, the only person that could enter was the high priest and that could only happen once a year. The old covenant was the outward display of rules and regulations that wasn’t changing the people’s heart posture. The new covenant was established so that we now have direct access to God.

“But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not part of his creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”
9:11-12 NIV

Again, He is mirroring Moses system that he got from God. Jesus came as the Holy Priest through the tabernacle in Heaven. And God required the same sacrifice, the shedding of blood, to redeem the people from sin. But this time, Jesus offered eternal redemption.

“The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean to sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”
9:13-14 NIV

The new covenant left us free of the true consequences of sin. Which is death. Though this is not a license to live reckless. We are still under “you reap what you sow.” This new covenant also comes with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our very own inner spiritual dwelling. The felt and real presence of God.

“For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance- now that he died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
9:15 NIV

The work Jesus done on the cross covers the sins of ancient Israel too.

“In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living.”
9:16-17 NIV

Jesus left us a will; that we learn what we receive when He died.

“This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood, When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep. In the same way, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
9:18-22 NIV

Jesus, is God’s way of delivering us from sin.

“It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven himself; now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once and after that to face judgement, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting on him.”
9:23-28 NIV

Jesus is our mediator. He is our forever access to God.

“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming- not the realities themselves.
Hebrews 10:1