Allegiance Encounter
Allegiance Encounters Focus on Relationships
Allegiance and relationship are primarily a function of our will.
The Allegiance Encounter is the process of entering into covenant with God and making choices to or choosing to maintain our covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
What is the Closest Biblical Word for Allegiance?
Covenant.
Covenants in the Bible
To understand the old and new covenants, we need to first understand what the word covenant means. In simple terms, it is a formal agreement. It may be an agreement between two people, a treaty between nations, or a relationship between God and a human individual or nation. A covenant is more personal than a contract — it involves loyalty and allegiance, not just a financial exchange.
Grace Communion International, "Covenants in the Bible", https://www.gci.org/law/covenants
Allegiance encounters, involving the exercise of the will in commitment and obedience to the Lord, are the most important of the encounters. For without commitment and obedience to Jesus, there is no spiritual life.
The initial allegiance encounter leads a person into a relationship with God. [see Covenant] Through successive encounters between our will and God's, we grow in intimacy with and likeness to him, as we submit to his will and practice intimate association with him. Initial allegiance and the relationship that proceeds from it are tightly linked to truth, both because they are developed within the truth encounter and because a relationship with God is the true reason for human existence.
Implied in the allegiance encounter is the cultivation of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, especially love toward God and man. We are to turn from love of (or, commitment to) the world that is under the control of the evil one (1 Jn 5:19) to God who loved the world and gave himself for it. As we grow in our relationship with him, we become more like him, conforming to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29).Charles H. Kraft, “Three Encounters in Christian Witness” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement : a Reader, edited by Ralph D. Winter, Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, Calif. : William Carey Library, 2009), 447-448. [emphasis added by webmaster]