Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am headed home after a great weekend in Deming, New Mexico. It was good to be with Pastor Caesar and Irene and my church family here. God is continuing to raise of community connected people of God who connect others to God in the communities of the world. God bless everyone with CitiLife Church here in Deming.
What does it mean to be saved? Jesus was the Father’s gift of love to redeem humanity. Humanity often thinks they need to find a way to get to God, but He wanted us to understand that He desired to make a way to get to us. Religion alone seeks to get to God by some religious means or human effort, but the intimacy of Christ within us seeks to bring God and heaven into our world through an understanding of His mercy and grace. We were the ones preventing Him from coming near to our hearts. We did not see God as a loving Father; therefore, we saw Him as distant and far away. We thought we needed to attain to some heavenly testimony for Him to see us, but He already saw us; we simply could not truly see Him. Because we could not see Him for who He is, we rejected His presence because His presence would require us to be changed. Changing would not bring His presence, embracing His presence would bring about a thorough and increasing change. We interpreted Him though some paradigm of law or a perception of lawlessness. We often sought to create a world of strict regulations to bind us or a world that is blind to and separate from God’s world so we could create a reality to our liking. These two things created perceived realities that fall far short of understanding who God really is. God is love and He has always been love. Love is not absent of boundaries nor is it limited by them. Love will destroy anything that is not love, but it does it in the place that is real. It does it in the heart so that the thoughts of our minds become true thoughts of love. The administration of love cannot live in the atmosphere of law or promiscuity because love cannot be contained in law nor redefined in lawlessness. Love creates both the freedom and the boundaries of life, expressions of life, and the working of life in all things.
John 3:18-21 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
God does not condemn the world. The administration of the knowledge of good and evil condemns the world. True light is love. It includes mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation, and all the things of true life. We cannot hold on to a justice system that demands others pay their debts to us when the gift of God to us was one that paid the debts of us all! He paid our debts, but He is also the one who empowers us from within to not recreate the same debts that we created in the past. This is the power of grace. God’s mercy always pays our debts, because He is mercyFULL, but God’s grace transforms our lives to no longer be creators of the same debts of death. Any administration of a knowledge of good and evil acknowledges our debts, but an administration of grace and truth transforms our ways so that we can walk in new paths in life. Outside of Christ there is still a need for all to acknowledge the condemnation that they are bound to because of the administration they embrace. Only in Christ is that condemnation lifted. The New Covenant does not exist for all simply because Jesus died for all. The New Covenant is AVAILABLE to all, but it can only be attained through an exchange of administrations. Mercy is obtained by an acknowledgement of mercy given. God loves us, but we don’t deserve His love. To think we deserve His love is an injustice in the covenant of law and conscience. The justice system of grace is available for all, but one must first receive the end of the justice system of law and conscience. That requires God’s mercy and it can only be obtained through a revelation of the cross.
Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Romans 5:17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
To reign is to be empowered to rule. It is to be empowered to take responsibility for your own life by a different power. Love is a revelation and it includes God’s mercy and His grace. His mercy justifies us to live and His grace empowers us to live in life. It is a transition in the administration of our lives, and it invokes the scandalous justice of God’s love.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
If God has blessed you to bless us, we would greatly appreciate it. We have several tickets to purchase for ministry engagements in September, October, and November. Please pray with us that the provision of God will be loosed so we can do all God has called us to do in this season. If God gives you the means to help, please consider making a donation to House of Bread Ministry.
Thanks Again – Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
