Greetings,
Today I have arrived in Mijas, Spain for a RIM gathering with good friends. I had a great weekend in Portugal with great people who were hungry for God’s presence and word. The journey is beginning for a few locations to come.
I have been writing about what we do with people who come to the church from the world. What do we expect of them? We must first create an environment where all people are welcome, and all people belong. All people have been reconciled, because God has reconciled them already even as sinners. This is how God sees them. They have to come to the throne of grace to receive the mercy of reconciliation, but that is between them and God. As a community of God’s life and love, we must create an environment where that can happen. We are loved because of God’s mercy, but we are also being changed by the power of His grace. Therefore, we must also be a community of Christ that demonstrates lives that are being changed by God’s grace. We must create an environment where we overcome every wicked thing and they overcome too. This happens because God changes the desires of our hearts. As the psalmist David wrote, when we commit our way to God, He gives us desires in our hearts.
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.
The internal change in our hearts and minds is up to God and it is a miracle of God in our lives for each of us to become expressions of Him. We don’t just want to be a community that accepts everyone exactly as they are, and no one needs to change. No one has to change to be loved, but because they are loved God gives the power for change in their lives. God doesn’t just want us to be loved. He wants us to become like Him. He wants us to become givers of life.
Let’s say that a couple comes into the church and they have been living together, but they are not married. What should we expect of them? Let’s say they have no children, or they do have children. I have some clear understanding of what marriage should be and what that covenant should look like. In raising my own children, my wife and I gave them clear values and we set good foundations for life in marriage. My own sons and daughter walked those paths to find covenant partners for the covenant of marriage. They were blessed to have a path set before them that showed them the way that they could walk in, but people coming from the world don’t know what that is. They have no concept of the values of covenant. They have naturally observed failures around them. They are not trying to make mistakes, they simply don’t know the path to walk in. Some of them may be living together and they understand some things that are godly, that even married Christians don’t know. They may have discovered some things of God without realizing it. The way of the world is, we are not sure where this is going to go so we are going to leave the end open in case it fails. God has a better way. His ways are, I have put you together, no weapon formed against you shall prosper, until death do you part. That doesn’t mean, exist, just get by, or be miserable. It means, flourish, figure it out, grow in relationship in love with one another.I can’t take a couple that has been living together and give it to them through some law of marriage. I can treat them as though they are in a covenant. I know God wants them to make a higher level of covenant. So, I am going to teach on marriage to the whole church community in a covenant way. I’m going to talk about my own marriage, how God joined my wife and I together in covenant. I am going to share testimonies, like, I will never say to my wife, if God is willing I will still be with you in five years.I plan to be with her for five years or even fifty years. Now, if that changes because one of us dies, my attitude is still going to be permanence until that day. I am going to share those values and that testimony. I am going to talk about what are the ingredients of a covenant marriage. I am going to share how commitments are a revelation of love. And when we say, here I am, I love you, I pick you, it empowers us to have faith towards one another and to do things for one another. It empowers us to respond to one another and appreciate what one another has. It envisions us to want to give to one another and live for one another. To celebrate how different we are but how wonderful we are together. To testify how we freely love each other, not because either of us are right, but because we were each born to be loved. We are going to talk about our purpose together – about our children and our children’s children. We are going to talk about our family’s destiny. Now, if that is my way of life in the church and as the church every day, this couple that is living together, at some point they will likely feel a conviction and will want to make a greater commitment. They may come and say; Pastor, we have been thinking about getting married with an official wedding. God has been talking to us. We believe that although we have been living together and it is though we are married, we have been leaving an open end as though there is a possibility of failure. We want to make this official. We want to get married in the sight of God. We want to confess that God is in our relationship.Now, that gives them a foundation of faith. Law alone cannot change them but hearing God in their hearts will testify of the law that has truly been fulfilled in Christ. I believe this is a true environment for love, life, and change in and as the church. It is a journey, not merely a goal or destination. It is unique to the path of each one.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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