Greetings,
Today I am home after a great weekend with our ALife Community family. It is great being home. Thank you to everyone who wished me birthday blessings, I had a great time with my family. Life is good at 63.
How do we approach the tough questions in the church today? What do we say to people who come from the cultures of the world into the culture of the church? Does God expect them to understand His ways and does He judge them according to His law in spite of their ignorance? Many questions would be very easy to answer if we were under the law, but the law didn’t work in transforming the hearts and minds of men. It controlled the external actions, but it could not transform the inner beliefs of the heart. The law did not fail because it could have worked. The purpose of the law was merely to inform men of their need for the supernatural power of God’s love at work in their hearts and minds. It seems that the law was enough to get people to heaven after Jesus fulfilled it as a man, went He went to Sheol and freed mankind from their captivity. However, the law was not powerful enough to bring heaven into the hearts and minds of men. God is not interested in putting people under some controlling law to merely restrain their actions in some way. If we were just in the business of controlling people’s actions, we could come up with some very simple answers and solutions to the complicated ways of fatherless societies. God’s does not measure the world by their failures, He measures their true potential by a Father’s love. God loved the world so much, He sent His only Son to become flesh and moved into the neighborhood of humanity. He is not interested in just controlling the actions of our lives, He wants to change hearts and minds. As pastors, leaders, or believers in the church we have to depend upon and believe upon a supernatural God who can change anyone by the power of His love. We don’t want to just fix people on the surface. We want to invite them into a world where they can be transformed.
Romans 5:8-10 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
The blood of Jesus Christ justifies us to live. It doesn’t just justify Christian believers to live, but all human beings. The crucifixion of Jesus for the sins of men justifies all men to live. This is the power of God’s mercy. Mercy is the end of our old lives ruled by conscience and law. Mercy is also the entrance to a new life in Christ, but God’s grace is the power of God working in us in life. It is the life of Jesus that empowers us to live and reign in life. We are people from all kinds of cultures and fatherless societies. As communities, congregations, and people who believe in Jesus, our first responsibility is to create and atmosphere and live in a reality of mercy that invites all men. There are a lot of things that the world does that are not true to the way God wants things to be. Why doesn’t God those things? Because they produce the fruit of death and destroy people’s lives. It doesn’t merely make God look bad. It doesn’t just make God feel bad because it is wrong. God is a Father who loves His children even though those children do not know that He is their Father. There are certain things that people in the world do that create disfunction and death. It destroys their lives. God wants to help them with that. Where is the best place for them to be for that to happen? I propose that the best place should be among believers, in the church, with the community of God, as a family that knows the power of God’s mercy and grace. I believe that our first responsibility t to create an environment where they are welcome.
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
We must create an environment where people from the world can see people who know Jesus that communicate a message of life that tells them they too belong. They don’t have to believe to belong, they belong because God loves them. It is not our primary responsibility to judge them as to whether they are doing everything right or not. Should they be living together? Are they homosexuals? Are they adulterers? or What are they doing in their lives that is not true to the character of God in some way? These are ways of the world. These are things that people in the world do. Obviously, as we grow in maturity in our relationship with God our lives should change. I am not talking about creating an environment where no one changes. I am talking about creating a place where people can be welcome, and they can find a community with an environment where God can transform their hearts and minds by His supernatural grace. I think we have to change the tree that we look through in measuring others. We must change the administration we look through as a lense for measuring ourselves and others in life.
2 Corinthians 5:14-16 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
Humanity without God is a family tree rooted in the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil. That knowledge defines good and evil by their own perceptions and ideas in life. Jesus made a way for all human beings to become part of a new family tree. He made a way for them to become part of the family tree of life. This is a different administration. This means that we as believers cannot look through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and make judgments of others according to the flesh. Is there good and is there evil? Absolutely! Certain things are good and certain things are evil. What makes something evil is it destroys life. What makes something good is that it promotes life. It is not our job to judge them whether they are right or wrong. We are responsible to invite them into the place where they can come to faith; a place where they can know God and be changed.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.
House of Bread Ministry –
Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.
We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org
