Greetings,
Today I am in Bellingham. It has been good to be home with family and friends in my local community of Bellingham. I was blessed to hear my daughter minister the word in church yesterday and God has proven again to release the blessing of inheritance in the lives of my family. Life is good.
I have been addressing a culture of grace. What does it mean to be people in a community of grace? Last week I revealed that grace empowers us to overcome for the sake of others. That overcoming process includes the ability to go through things of suffering. The work of God’s grace amid our suffering releases blessings in the earth that are measures of inheritance for the generations that follow. The overcoming grace of God in our lives empowers us to release various blessings and breakthroughs for others in the world we live in. What we bring into this world even becomes material for the next generation in various aspects of life and inheritance. When children of God embrace being sons and daughters of God they mature to become sources of inheritance to the world they live in. When we reveal the Father in our lives, the world changes. There is no need to pray for the world generically, when we have been sent to reveal Christ to the world specifically. We are in this world for the sake of others. Like Jesus, we must be faithful for the sake of those God has given us. It is for the sake of Bill, for the sake of Mary, For the sake of Susan, and this is not just for the sake of the world that we live in and overcome. It is for specific people that we touch. Paul lived for the sake of Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. He lived for individuals and even in bigger picture, he lived for the church of Colossi, Ephesus, Galatia, Corinth, Philippi, Rome, and Thessalonians. He didn’t live for all the church, but in living for some of the church his life ended up impacting all the church. When Jesus gave His life to 12 men, He was also able to give His life for the world. He came to get Christ in us and he has sent us to live in the same way that He did. We have been sent to this world for the sake of specific individuals in the path of our journey.
Paul suffered for what was lacking in the affliction of Christ. He endured suffering for what was being completed for the sake of the body of Christ, for the sake of the church. Grace is what gives each of us the ability to overcome. We overcome wickedness for the sake of the church, for the sake of our friends, for the sake of our children, and our children’s children. God’s grace empowers us to endure things that oppose us and the fruit of our overcoming is for sake of the body of Christ.
My own natural son, my oldest son, is my pastor. He pastor’s the church that I pioneered 27 years ago. In the local church, he is my pastor. I am a spiritual father in his life, but he is my pastor. I receive him as my pastor. This means that I expect him to hear God and I expect to need to hear what he is hearing. I talk with him as a dad, I talk with his children as a grandpa, I talk to him as a spiritual father in kingdom business, and sometimes he challenges me because I hear the voice of my pastor. I challenge him when I am the voice of a spiritual father and he challenges me when he is the voice of my God-sent pastor. It is a spiritual dance that requires the manifest presence of God. It requires God’s grace. I am listening for Gods voice and so is he. It requires each of us to find God’s grace.
I would rather that everyone just thinks like me and then it would be easy. I would rather everyone believe me and trust what I say. I would rather that everything was the same and thus it would be easy to relate to and understand them, but that is not the way it works in a culture of grace. I would rather be the father in my home that always knows what I am doing. I would rather be the man of God that never makes mistakes, but I am not. I am a child, a young man, and I am a father. Every day I must know that I have a Father who loves me. I am a young man because there is still a wicked one to overcome for the sake of the world. I suffer some things so I can give breakthroughs to others.
My son and I we have an understanding. He says my ceiling is his floor. He believes that what I have established becomes his foundation to establish more things. I must also believe that my ceiling is his floor, which means there is always more. I must be willing to embrace what is beyond the highest level of my life. I embrace life fresh and new to believe to overcome again. What established the ceiling that is his floor is the fruit of the overcoming that I did in the past. But the grace of God is at work now. We are overcoming even to new levels. This means that I must be a young man again. I must change my vision to dream and say there is more to overcome for the sake of others.
Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Paul described how he was a light to the Gentiles. The mystery of God included those who did not know God and it was the testimony of Christ in them. He said Christ in each person is the hope of glory. Christ in each person is the hope of transformation. Christ in each person is the hope of something coming into this world that has never been seen before. This is the hope of heavenly things and new realities in the families of humanity. Christ in each of us is the hope of gory. Grace is the power of Christ in each one. That grace is not just for us. It is for the world we live in. It involves overcoming for the sake of others.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
