Over the past few months, I've been looking to upgrade my phone. I currently have a Blackberry 7290, but it hasn't fit all of my needs. Years before the Blackberry, I owned an iPAQ/HP Pocket PC. I used it to write and build scripture topics that I use today. I also had several Bibles, a Bible dictionary, and commentary on the device.

With the coming of the cell phone, manufacturers have developed hybrid Pocket PC phones that combine the two capabilities. Before the Pocket PC (Windows Mobile) phones became popular, I purchased a Blackberry. The one thing I didn't like about the Pocket PC was a lack of a keyboard - which the Blackberry has. Yet, the one thing I didn't like about Blackberry was the lack of a touch screen and the roller wheel. It made my work a little more difficult.

Since my main purpose for these hybrid phones is writing, I wanted to find a phone that better suited my needs. After searching the web and some discussion online, I was pointed to the T-Mobile Wing. If some of you can remember the Reese Piece's commercial when the guy with the chocolate ran into the guy with the peanut butter (maybe I'm showing my age). The two combined...and it was beautiful! It combines everything I liked about the Blackberry and Pocket PC - it is a work of art...magnificent!

On my lunch break I went to the T-Mobile kiosk and checked it out. Of course I had to get approval from my wife before purchasing. After my creative asking (i.e. begging), she told me to stop bothering her about it and just buy it! YES! Before buying it, my co-workers and I were talking about the phone and the contracts the phone companies place upon us.

The cheaper rates for phone upgrades are provided with one-to two-year extended contracts - that's how they keep you...and if you want to buy a phone outright - it's going to cost you. Now, I will be leaving Hawaii within a year and I may be going overseas. I know for sure I will not be able to support either contract extension, but they do provide military clauses to cancel contracts in case of a move, etc. So, I planned to purchase the upgrade phone with a two-year extension and cancel before I departed.

Just as I was talking about my plans, the Lord spoke. He was telling me that I was being deceitful by entering a contract that I knew I couldn't and wouldn't fulfill. I should fulfill the contracts I agree to enter into.

Whoa!!!!

Right then, I fell under His conviction and I purchased the phone...all $538.16 of it - without any extension. I purchased the phone outright. (Now that I think about it, I'm sure it's cheaper on eBay.) Regardless of where I move next, I will be able to use the device to write - my main function anyway.

That's just half of it...

I planned on writing about this when I got home and when I did, the Lord continued:

How can you enter into a contract (or covenant) with Him and not hold up to your part of it?!

SELAH [pause, and calmly think of that]!

Whoa!!!!

I want to live with God for all eternity, receive His blessings and benefits, and other good things, but I don't always want to live His way. I am reneging on my part of the covenant (or contract). Upon my belief in Jesus Christ, I entered into the new covenant and it does come with commandments (REMEMBER: salvation is free to receive):

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NIV) - "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

This law will be placed within our minds and written on our hearts through the Holy Spirit. As Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit will be given to those who believe:

John 7:37-39 (NIV) - On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

John 16:13 (NIV) - But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

John 14:16-17 (NIV) - And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (NIV) - Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

What law will be given? The Law of Christ.

Matthew 22:34-40 (NIV) - Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV) - Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Love is the basis of the law of Christ:

Galatians 6:2 (NIV) - Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 5:16-25 (NIV) - So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

The Spirit is seeking to guide you into all truth; to help you live by the Spirit; and fulfill the law of Christ. The Spirit will only speak what is given from the Father, so you would be acting as He desires through your obedience.

In the scripture above, Paul is speaking about the Law of Moses. See, as new covenant believers, we are not under the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses increased the trespasses of sin (Romans 5:20, 7:7-12) and could not solve the judgment of death through sin - given through the disobedience of Adam (Genesis 3):

Romans 5:12-17 (NIV) - Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned- for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

This is a Word that comes to me first and goes out to others. I pray you have seen that living as a disciple of Jesus does not mean we can say, "I believe" and live how we want. We were bought with a price and He desires to be glorified among the world.

Your life is not your own. Live for Him.

Romans 8:1-17 (NIV) - Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation-but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

May this Word feed us thoroughly!