As I took my seat on the plane, an energetic little boy came up the aisle with his dad. In my mind I thought, \u201cI sure hope he\u2019s not gonna be in the seat behind me.\u201d As a frequent flyer, I know short legs tend to kick seatbacks.<\/p>\n
As he walked past me, he smiled. Or was it a menacing grin?<\/p>\n
Sure enough, his seat was behind mine. In a matter of seconds, the kicking began. For the first hour his father repeatedly scolded him, threatening the little guy: \u201cIf you don\u2019t stop kicking that man\u2019s seat, you\u2019re going to be in big trouble. Is that what you want, big trouble?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all a matter of how we represent the character of God in our approach to people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It was all to no avail. I got the distinct impression that all the threatening dad could heap on the little rebel was only stimulating more rebellion in him. So I took the matter into my own hands. Turning around in my seat, I looked up over the seatback and said, \u201cHi, my name\u2019s Ty.\u201d I reached my hand down offering to shake his. Hesitantly, he grabbed mine. Smiling, I said, \u201cWhat\u2019s your name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cQuentin,\u201d he said, not yet trusting me.<\/p>\n
\u201cCool name. As soon as I saw you, I knew you must have a cool name,\u201d I said with a corny laugh. He laughed in response. Now we had a connection. I pulled out a piece of paper and drew a funny picture of him with his name over it. He laughed again. Now he liked me and we had relationship, or at least the beginning of one.<\/p>\n
Then I said, \u201cHey Quentin, I\u2019m gonna try to read, so don\u2019t kick my seat, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, Ty,\u201d he said with a smile. And he never kicked again.<\/p>\n
Paul had something like this in mind when he said that we are \u201cministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life\u201d (2 Corinthians 3:6).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all a matter of how we represent the character of God in our approach to people. People are responsive to relationships and resistant to pressure. We can either hand them \u201cthe letter\u201d of the law, expressing the truth in terms of requirement and forbidding, oughts and nots, in which case we can expect failed promises at best, rebellion at worst, or we can present the heart of God, as revealed in Christ, and watch them warm up and become affectionately responsive to Him.<\/p>\n
The term \u201cnew covenant\u201d is jam-packed with brilliant significance. It basically means, the Law of God internally formed by the motive power of love as opposed to externally imposed by the self-defeating cycle of guilt.<\/p>\n
Paul goes on to articulate the powerful engine that drives the new covenant:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord\u201d (2 Corinthians 3:18).<\/p>\n
Beholding the beauty of God\u2019s character in Christ is the catalyst for transformation in the new covenant. In Christ, God extended His hand and His heart to us. He knew that merely dictating rules would never change our hearts. But when we look into His face and realize He likes us, everything changes. Now we\u2019re eager to do what pleases Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I took my seat on the plane, an energetic little boy came up the aisle with his dad. In my mind…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Not_Letter_But_Spirit.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paAh8r-1mS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5262"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12034,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5262\/revisions\/12034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}