Greetings;
Today I am in Portugal. I am recording teachings in Portuguese for leaders in various Portuguese speaking communities in various countries. I am excited to see the project of training progress to subject number seven. Yesterday I was in two new church communities, new to me. God was wonderful, and it was great to connect to further expressions of the amazing body of Christ in Portugal.
Do you think it is important to dedicate your life to letting God love you and to love Him? Paul’s plea to believers was that they would understand that the mercy of God allows and inspires us all to present our lives to God without any shame. He appealed to believers to see their lives as a living sacrifice to God and not to think like the world. Whereas the world lives to satisfy and gratify themselves, believers in Christ should live for the purpose and will of God in their lives.
Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Do you think it is important to live a life of works that testify of our faith towards God? The apostle John said that faith without works is dead. Our works are a testimony of our faith towards God. This is true sacrifice, a sacrifice that comes by faith. It is the evidence of hearing God in our hearts. Faith inspires our works in life and these are meant to be sacrifices that testify of our love for God. They are a demonstration of the wisdom of God to our future as the body of Christ. We are to live a life of faith towards God in all things.
Do you think it is important to respond to God, the giver of bread and wine in our lives? When God gives us anything, natural or spiritual, our response to Him testifies of our dependence upon Him and our desire to receive all that He has. Our responses to God in attitude and in action testify of our recognition of who He is in the destiny of our lives. Our testimony in life is fully dependent upon all that He possesses, and it is not something we can create by any resources of our own. All that we receive for internal or external realities of our lives are a gift from Him. How we respond to Him with what we possess determines our ability to receive all that He gives from heaven. Rain does not come from heaven, it comes when vapors ascend and meet the atmosphere of rain in heaven. Then the blessing returns in greater measure to the earth. Angels do not come from heaven. They come from the place of God’s habitation upon the earth. It is from that place that they ascend and descend to bring all that is needed in the earth from heaven. Our responses to God in this earth determine the release of the full blessings of God in our lives.
Do you think it is good idea to submit to those who have been sent to give you life in some way? It is important that you tip in the direction of those God sends you to in order to give them the life that God desires for you to give? Paul said we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to seek to give life to one another by submitting to one another as unto the Lord. The early church submitted to the apostle’s way of life in all things. He received life to give life to all in their worlds.
Do you think it is important to discover who you are in the Christ for the sake of others? The apostle Paul wrote that each member of the body of Christ is to live to contribute to other members so that each one does their part in the ministry of Christ. Our God-given motivational gifts, Spirit anointed ministries of Christ, and our purposes together as the testimony of Christ are dependent upon each one of us doing our share for the sake of the calling, the inheritance, and the working of the power of Christ in all things.
Do you think that community is part of God’s plan? Is communion with the Holy Spirit and with one another a reality for today as the community of God in the earth? Should we live to be a place that God lives, and should we embrace an intimate love for God and for one another? The writer of Hebrews said that believers should never forsake coming together. We should seek to stimulateone another with love and to love. We should see coming together as of the most important thing in our lives for the sake of encouraging one another and for the sake of the testimony of the communion of believers.
Do you think it is a good idea to partner with God and to allow Him to partner with you in all things in life? Should you seek Him in order to reign in life. When we put God first, He has access to all that is in our lives. When we make Him first in our lives, He has access to the future of our lives. Our children and our children’s children will benefit from our face to face relationship with God in all things.
If you believe in these things and you put them into practice in your lives, you are living in the reality of sacrifice and offers written in the law for the place that God chooses His name to abide (Deut. 12:5-7). The Law is fulfilled, but the realities that the Law foreshadowed are real in practical application of our lives. These are the testimony of burnt offering, sacrifices, tithes, heave offerings, vowed offerings, freewill offerings, and the first offerings of our flocks and herds. They exist, but they don’t exist in the Law. They exist in the character, nature, way, power, and authority of our lives as believers in Christ. You cannot say you are no longer under the Law if you don’t embrace becoming part of the reality of these things by His administration of grace.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
Please consider helping me reach the nations with the message of New Covenant Life and Grace. Prayer and finances are needed for the task to be accomplished that is before us.
Thank you to all of you who have partnered with me in prayer and support. More resources are being developed and we are moving forward with reaching the nations with the message of New Covenant Life and Grace. Many doors of influence have opened for House of Bread Ministry. I need your help to do all that is before me.
Donations can be made at the above right link or mail your donation to House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, Wa. 98225.
