Greetings,
Today I am writing from Castlegar, B.C., Canada. I have been ministering here over the weekend with my good friend Henry Schmidt. God has been wonderful and the people have been hungry for all that He was doing. We are believing for the fruit of the Tree of Life in the Kootenays!
We are living in a time when the influence of the community of God will overpower the influence of the communities of the world. This does not happen by an external force. It is an internal force that transforms the human heart. Our hope is not Christ to the nations, but Christ in each of us. This is our hope of glory; it is our hope of being made fully alive in Christ. The revolution of the kingdom of God is not by natural means, but by the supernatural transformation of human hearts. It is only when the beliefs of the human heart become supernaturally transformed that the actions of our lives can be changed for the glory of God’s name. Our actions are determined by the beliefs of our hearts and the beliefs of our hearts are only changed by the influence of word and spirit. When we lived by the external influence of the knowledge of good and evil our hearts were left vulnerable to lies and deceptions that influenced our hearts to be left twisted in our beliefs in a defensive and self-preserving way. Our justice system was based upon what we deemed to be fair o r unfair, good or evil, right or wrong. Our perceived realities were not the same as God’s realties that only come from love and the tree of life. Only when the testimony of God’s Truth and God’s Spirit come together in the human heart can there be a transformation in our beliefs that causes the rule of God’s kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit to influence the actions of our lives. Those actions are then a testimony of the rule of the kingdom of heaven within our lives. This is the true testimony of Zion.
Hebrews 12:18-24 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
God’s relationship with the children of Israel in the Old Testament was a type and shadow testifying of a great truth hidden in Christ for all men (Heb. 10:1). God has always desired to transform the testimony of all people to that of being one with Him and He with them. When King David became the king of Israel he knew that God’s favor and testimony was paramount to his rule in the one and only kingdom of the earth that testified of the true God of heaven. When David began his rule his first act was to secure the presence of God into the city of his rule (2 Sam. 6). The ark of God’s presence had been missing for 20 years and David knew that there could be no testimony of God’s rule in Israel without the presence of God in Israel. David sought the ark and brought it to a little hill in Jerusalem. That hill became known as Zion, the place of David’s tent and the ark of the presence of God. Zion was formerly a stronghold of the Jebusites, but David made it his base of rule in Israel.
The name Jebusite means, to trample or to trod under. I believe that this little hill in Jerusalem was symbolic of the strongholds of the human heart. The rule and reign of God in our lives is only found by the testimony of Christ within us. Christ in our hearts is the redemption to the formerly trampled and trodden strongholds of sin. Without Christ in our hearts there is to source of grace (manifested favor) in our lives. When we have Christ within we are guaranteed the testimony of God’s peace.
The city of Jerusalem was the testimony of David’s capture of Zion. The name Jerusalem means, vision of peace, or city of peace. The house of God was established in the heart of this city of peace. The true city of peace is one where there is not gap of separation between God and man. It is a place of right relationship with God and with one another. The true city of peace is a testimony to the community influence of God’s eternal life. It is a testament to the goodness of God overtaking the strongholds of our former lives of sin. It is the testimony of the internal influence of the kingdom of God upon the human heart.
Isaiah 62:1-2 For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns. The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD will name.
There is a grassroots revolution in the earth and it is a revolution of the internal transformation of human hearts. God is calling for all the peoples of the world to receive a true vision of peace and to become a place of God’s righteous rule from within their hearts. This is the righteousness of being dependent upon God! The character, nature, way, power, and authority of our lives is being changed by a personal relationship with God in our hearts. It is the voice of God to each heart that empowers this revolution of life in the earth. It is a testimony of God’s love and the tree of life.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
