Greetings;
I have just finished a full week of video recording and ministry in Portugal. It was a very fruitful time. I was very blessed to be with the wonderful people of Aveiro yesterday. God is good and it is wonderful to see God’s love and grace working in His people.
I want to be a person of grace. When we become people of grace we look like what the law tried to do by actions, but it could not produce heart transformations. When grace empowers our lives we don’t look like the world, but we don’t look like dead religion either. Religion looks disciplined, but it doesn’t look fun. The world looks fun, but it doesn’t look disciplined. God wants us to be fun and disciplined. He wants us to be real people, which is what both religion and the world try to do in their twisted ways. The world pretends to look happy, but they are not. The world pretends to look alive, but they are not. Religion pretends to look disciplined, but there is no life in their hearts. They are the great non-movement on planet earth. They are most often dead in the issues of true love. They are the thing that doesn’t do anything. They are the least late thing. The latest thing is sin. God wants the church to be the latest thing and the oldest thing. He wants us to be fun and He wants us to be disciplined because grace changes us from within our hearts and minds.
Colossians 2:18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
A relationship with Jesus is a relationship of life. He makes us come alive. A relationship with others is a relationship that makes them and us come alive. True life gives life. Life-giving connections nourish one another. Life-giving connections become strong and increases in life-giving and life-growing attributes. This is the true testimony of grace. God’s grace empowers us to reign in life.
Ephesians 1: 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence…
Jesus justified us to have life because He gave us His life. In order for there to be a judgment of mercy in a system of law there has to be a person of grace. Jesus did not pronounce mercy upon our lives because He was under the law. He pronounced mercy upon our lives because He was a man of grace. He wants us to be like Him when we grow up. He wants us to be able to give mercy to those who are bound to a system of law or conscience. These are the ruling agents of those bound to an administration of the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil. In order for us to do that, we to become people who are under the administration of the tree of life, an administration of grace. Because Jesus was a man of grace, He gave us redemption by His blood and the forgiveness of sin. He told us we are children of God. Our sins are forgiven and we have a Father who loves us.
Ephesians 1:9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.
Jesus has given us an administration that is suitable to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on the earth. This word dispensation can also be translated administration. This is a way of governing our lives. This is not just a new season or a new time in history. It is a change of administration in the lives of people forever. It is a way of governing our lives. The governing of our lives in this administration is a governing that can sum up everything about us in Christ. It causes everything about us to become like Christ. It is an administration that works both in heaven and upon the earth. There is no need for another administration ever! There is not another administration needed for Jews or Gentiles. It is sufficient for all people! It is the power of God’s grace working in human lives. It is an administration of light where God doesn’t just inform us, He transforms us. God’s grace empowers us to become like Jesus was as a man. When we join our lives together, we become the fullness of Him. By ourselves we are each a piece of His testimony of life, but together we are the fullness of Him. We are the body of Christ that fills all in all. We are above principalities, powers, thrones, dominions and names. We are part of His inheritance and the testimony of His calling by a demonstration of His power, because grace is Holy Spirit at work in us.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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