Greetings,
Yesterday was a great day at Everyone’s Church in Mt. Vernaon, Washington. Bonnie and were honored to participate in Pastor Brice’s ordination and Pastor Tim’s licensing to ministry. It was a blessing to minister in worship, the word, and in ministry. Thanks to all who came with hungry hearts and loving lives.
I have been addressing the subject of how we deal with people who come from cultures of the world and don’t act like believers. When people come from the world into the church, they don’t believe the Bible. How can they believe the Bible? It is not their book. The Bible is a testimony of God’s ways for those who believe. The cultures that they come from have little or no understanding of the ways of God as they are revealed in the Bible. If we immediately push the Bible upon them, we will push them right out of the church – right out of the community of God. They will only receive the values of God when they know the true value of His ways. They must desire them in order to willingly receive them. How do we get them to value the ways of God as they are revealed in the Bible?
Those who have grown in their relationship with God are the Bible to those who do not know yet. They are the letter or the book that others can see. The community of God should be filled with people who are new, old, and in between. Those who experience God in their lives are a valid part of the community for the sake of those who have yet to discover the need to become strong in God’s word and strong in His presence. A healthy, growing community of life needs visible evidence of the internal change that comes through an overcoming relationship with God in Christ. Those who can testify are those who know their sins are forgiven and they have a Father who loves them. They have begun to experience His word and His Spirit in their hearts. They are overcoming things of dysfunction and death by a testimony of God’s Spirit and word working within them. We need more encouraging, inspiring testimonies than we do the preaching of law. I am not saying that we don’t preach the word. I am just saying that when we preach the word we must not preach it in an Old Covenant way. The letter of the word kills, but the Spirit gives life.
What is an example of a testimony? Things like: I am so blessed to be a part of this family. I started coming here a year ago. I didn’t know anything when I came. All I knew is that it felt really good here. No one judged me. No one measured me by what I wasn’t. You guys might not know this, but I had some things in my life that weren’t really right. When I got my pay check, I would go and gamble and lose my money. It was not only affecting my life, but also the life of my family. I started watching everyone around me and I saw how much freedom they were finding in God. I felt God’s presence in my heart and He told me my love was in the wrong place. He told me that I was actually going to gambling as a comfort and a hope. I felt the touch of God and I started crying. I felt overwhelmed by His love in my heart. I have to tell you folks today, God is real. Since this happen in my heart, I found out that God talks about this kind of stuff in His word. But I am so glad He doesn’t just talk to us in His word, He talks to us in our hearts. I’m just feeling free! I am feeling the freedom! God changed my heart! I’ve got such a hunger for God now. I can’t stop reading His word. I want to know his heart more and more, because His was bring such freedom! That testimony is more powerful than merely preaching that the word of God says you must not gamble.
We need to create environments of welcome and overcoming. I think sometimes we think if we don’t make the church perfectly clean before God we are in trouble. Now people in the world would say, I am not sure about God. He just wants to control everything and take away every freedom I have.The truth is, God doesn’t want to take away anyone’s freedom. But there are freedoms that people have that are not really freedoms. Alcoholism is not really a freedom, but something that puts you in bondage. Being critical is not a freedom, but something that puts you in bondage. A lifestyle of not being able to make commitments and using people to satisfy some need of your flesh is not really a freedom, but a means of creating bondage for you and for others. In the thinking of the world, people think these are my rights, this is my life. These are my freedoms. It is my life I can do what I want.The truth in what they say is that everyone should be able to do what they want. That is truth, but the problem is we want the wrong things. All people want the wrong things at times. King David said that if you don’t depend upon your own way, but acknowledge God in your heart, God will put new desires in your heart.
Psalms 37:3-4 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
I am more than forty-five years old in Christ. My heart is bigger today than it was forty-five years ago. It is bigger than it was ten years ago, five years ago, or even one year ago. I have learned that God doesn’t expect me to love Him beyond all of my heart, but all of my heart becomes a bigger measure every year. When I first came to Jesus forty-five years ago my love for God was pretty small. It was huge for me, but pretty small in the big picture of things. I love Him more today. I have been able to walk through some things I could not have walked through when I first came to Him. I have been betrayed by friends. I have been betrayed by spiritual children and I actually came through those things loving God and others more and not less. It was a miracle given to me by God in my heart because I allowed Him to give me His desires.
Loving God with all your heart is loving God with all your heart today. When you commit your way to God with all your heart that you have today you find that your heart is even bigger tomorrow because of His grace working in you. God gives you desires. He doesn’t just give you what you want. He gives you desires that are something you want. You are good at doing what you want. I have raised three children and I have four grandchildren. Children generally want candy every day, but if we give them all the candy they want they will become tremendously hyper. We would have huge dental bills, or they won’t have any teeth. We can implement a law that says,you shall not have candy. That boundary can work to a certain measure, but it by itself is merely a law that will control them. It would be better if they had a different desire where they want healthy food. This takes a process of parenting to bring them to that place. It is through a love relationship with a dad and mom that they can grow in maturity and in life-giving desires. The community of God should be the same. Everyone must grow in maturity, but the means in which we do this is essential to life or death.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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