Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am in Bellingham. It was sure great to be home at Alife, my home church community, yesterday. I was blessed to minister the word. God’s presence was rich and full! God is calling us to a deeper level with Him to become an expression of His community in the earth. May God grant us the grace to become the people of God in our community expressions of Him. We are not just vessels of God’s presence; we are also corporate expressions of His presence for the glory of His name.
We were born to be loved by God. God does not merely want our service. He wants a personal relationship with us in life. In the story that is often referred to as The Parodical Son, it is really about a father and two sons. One son wanted to prove his independence, while the other son thought his key to destiny was to merely serve in the father’s business. Perhaps his expectation was to one day receive it fully so he too could prove his independence. Neither perspective of these two sons, was correct. The story is about a family and the business of that family. The business of that family is the calling of life, the testimony of life, and the purpose of life in all things. It is a story of relationship and the expanding influence of a world of life-filled love. God’s very nature is to give life, breath, and all things. Jesus was the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person. He was a giver of life in all His ways. He was the firstborn of a new race of humanity for the glory of our heavenly Father’s name in all things. We are a spiritual house to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We can only discover the truth of this when we know how precious Jesus is and how essential it is for us to have the presence of Holy Spirit in our lives. It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can know Jesus and it is only through Jesus that we can truly know who our Heavenly Father is. Our human spirit cries out for a relationship with God in the Spirit. We cannot live without a relationship with God in our lives. We cannot survive but minutes without air, we cannot survive but days without water, and we cannot survive but weeks without food. These things are precious to us, but nothing is more precious than the Spirit of Christ in our lives. Jesus is the foundation of our lives as a life-giving stone and it is only with Him in our lives that we can become the life-giving stones we are meant to be. Life-giving stones are unshakeable in their calling, inheritance, and purpose in giving life to the world in which they reside.
1 Peter 2:5 …you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Everyone belongs, but we must choose to believe in Jesus Christ in order to walk in our true identity in Christ, manifest our true testimony in the inheritance of Christ, and fulfill our purpose in the destiny of Christ. Our purpose is to bring life to our world. It is to influence and change the world that has been given to us by the life-giving power of God in our lives each and every day. This is the power of grace! We cannot live in our world dependent upon being right, we must live dependent upon being life for others. For this reason, we need to receive God’s mercy and find His grace working in and through our lives each and every day.
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.
Our real need is not one of self-identity, self-existence, or some purpose of self-success. Our real need is to become some measure of our Father’s glory and some measure of the expression of His image in our world. We were not only born to be loved by God; In Christ we are born again to love God and to love others. The foundation of our lives is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:9-17). We are the temple of God when the Holy Spirit dwells within us. It is only by His presence in our hearts that we can build with things that endure in our lives. Things that endure are likened unto gold, silver, and precious stones. Thing of gold are things that reveal the divine nature and destiny of God. Things of silver are things of redemptive purpose and inheritance. This of precious stones are things with a testimony of God and the character of Christ that prove the value of God’s love. These are attributes that can only live in the lives of those we influence in this world. Something of God should be in this world because of us even after we finish our course of life and find ourselves in the realm of heaven. The works that we do are merely straw, hay, or wood. They can only last for days, a lifetime, or some short span beyond our days. The works we do are not the eternal things that endure. The life of God that we implant, inspire, and behold in the lives of others are the true enduring things of life.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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Thanks Again – Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
