The New Covenant, Recovering Your Center of Power

I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Hebrews 8:10-11).

When writing about old and new covenants between God and Israel, the author of Hebrews draws from the prophet Jeramiah. Though this passage clearly depicts a relationship of oneness between God and man, which is the very heart of Jesus’ message, the author of Hebrews interprets it differently. In the past, the Law of Moses was used to keep people in good standing with God. Now, this New Testament writer is saying that the acceptance of Jesus as the Christ supersedes the old covenant. The New Testament writers have transitioned away from Jesus’ message of oneness to the old belief in separation.

After the death of Jesus, a movement formed. Where Jesus taught that the individual’s center of power is God within, the evangelists that followed taught that one’s center of power is derived from belonging to the movement. Jesus encouraged building up the individual. The leaders that followed encouraged building the movement and essentially diminishing the individual.

“Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32).

It is easier to join a group (the wide gate) than it is to find and experience the presence of God within (the narrow gate). This explains how the actual message of a mystic like Jesus could be eclipsed by the message of the evangelist. Jesus proclaimed the laws of God were already written in the minds and hearts of each person. The one who persists in asking, seeking, and knocking will learn the value of this truth. This understanding was the new covenant that aligned the individual with their true center of power.

The evangelist missed this message by putting a new slant on the old covenant which maintained a distinct separation between God and man and, therefore, ensured allegiance to the movement while marginalizing the individual’s spiritual empowerment. As Jesus himself demonstrated, a strong individual is often a threat to the establishment.