Greetings,
Today I am heading home after a week in Portugal and a weekend in the Netherlands. I accomplished a lot in Portugal with more video training completed and video spots for addressing some of the tough questions in the church. The people in Utrecht were wonderful. It was a full house yesterday and the Spirit of Life was in the house. Thank you to all who participated in various connections through the weekend.
Every mountain is made of stones. The Mountain of the Old Covenant was the mountain of Sanai. It was a mountain of law and judgment. One man’s experience with God proved to be a law unto those who dared not seek a personal experience with God in their own lives. Independence from God left men dependent upon information and disconnected from the place of a personal transformation by God in their lives. That mountain created the religious stones of Pharisaism. That is a mountain of knowing God’s words according to natural sight and natural understanding. It lacked the supernatural power of faith. It lacked the ability to hear the Spirit of God in the human heart. The word of God was presented to the human soul as an instruction to live by, but it did not speak to the human spirit with the power to put the desire of God in men’s hearts. Faith comes by hearing God in our hearts. It is a supernatural response to the manifested voice of God from within. Jesus said that the smallest measure of faith in our lives is more powerful than any stone in the mountain of law. The mountain of the New Covenant is the rising mountain of Christ, as we are transformed from within to increasingly become the stature of Christ in our lives.
Matthew 21:21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. 22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
A mountain of life is filled with living, life-giving stones. Those stones each have a revelation of God’s love and they hear God’s voice through an intimate relationship of life. They are not easily offended because they have a revelation of God’s love. They are of high value and they reveal the personal testimonies of God working in their lives. They are stones that are being transformed to fit with other stones in the mountain of God.
The Old Covenant could only offer a shadow of the good things we find in Christ. People in the Old Covenant could never really experience what can only be found in Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. 6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. 7 And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” 8 Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; 9 nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
The Old Covenant journey of God’s people is an example to us. They had the rock of Christ in the wilderness, but they could not become one with Him. We have been given the gift of Christ within our hearts It is the rock of Christ within us that empowers us to be a testimony of the mountain of God in life.
1 Corinthians 10:12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. 14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 17 For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.
The place of transformation is not in knowing what to do. It is in knowing Christ. We are blessed to drink the cup of the New Covenant life of the Holy Spirit. We are blessed to be the bread of the body of Christ. We need to depend upon Christ within us and upon Christ in one another. The body of Christ is the rising mountain of God in the earth. No stone by itself can be the mountain of God, but when we embrace one another in the life of Christ that is in each of us we experience a greater fullness of Christ in our lives.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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