Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Blessings to you from my house in Bellingham, Washington. Last week I completed video recording another course of training that I will be offering in the next couple of weeks as another resource through House of Bread and Christ Life Training. I will begin another course this week. My hope is to create some key and essential training resources for the body of Christ during this time of being based at home. We had church in our house again yesterday and we were blessed with a great message from Pastors Jonathan and Danie as well as a touch of God’s love and life as the Church Deployed.
God is up to something good. We are in a grassroots revolution, but not as the world would perceive it to be nor would those holding on to the monuments of the past perceive it to be. There is a counterfeit expression of what God is doing in the cloak of law and in the cloak of lawlessness, but God is doing something good. God wants for each of us to discover the authority of being who we are meant to be as expressions of Christ in the expressions of God’s community in the earth. Power takes, but authority gives life. Authority is neither control nor manipulation. It is an attribute of giving life to others. It is the testimony of a measure given to each of us to provide life to the world we live in. The people of God are called to be people of true authority. That authority is the ability to be real in the substance of who each are for the sake of others. True authority is not found in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is an attribute of the tree of life. Without Christ in us, we lack the ability to walk in true authority. We seek to subdue and exercise dominion through force and manipulation. We impose our will upon others. God wants His will to be the flow of life that comes from within our hearts. God’s will always empower us to be a blessing to others, to give greater value to others, to transform hearts and minds in a generational way that becomes a force of influence for life in our world. The external expressions of our lives are directly connected to the revolution of our own hearts. The kingdom of God is an internal kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is time that we as the people of God shine as people who bring form, fullness, and light to the world around us. We need God’s manifest presence and supernatural wisdom for such a time as this.
As members of the body of Christ our heritage and inheritance come from a different tree than the family tree of the world. We were once people of the world and of the world system, but now we have become the children of God. As children of God we must grow in maturity to see our lives led by the Spirit of God and not the wisdom of our own hearts and minds. When we are led by God’s Spirit we take on the testimony of being sons of God. What we believe, how we act, how we respond to others, how we receive from others, how we contribute to others, how we relate to others, and how we stand with others in this life is motivated by the Holy Spirit of God in our lives.
Romans 8:14-17 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
The old administration of our lives was one of the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil. The decisions of our lives were governed by the informative input of knowledge of good and knowledge of evil in the world in which we found ourselves. We were trying to be good people, making good decisions, and living a good life as we determined it to be. Our family tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thus the decisions of our lives were determined by our own assessment of what was good and what was evil. In truth, we sought to govern our own affairs, make our own decisions, and create our own worlds. We lived with others with an independent will, an independent attitude, independent actions, and we sought independent results in life. We were expressions of a kingdom unto ourselves – a kingdom of the world.
The revolutions of the world seek to take life from others to propagate their own personal agendas and wills to form a world according to their own perceptions of what they deem as right or wrong. A revolution of the kingdom of God is an internal revolution that transforms us to become people who seek to give life to the world in order to see the kingdom of God rise up in the hearts of those who are touched by God’s love. Human love will inspire us to seek to be loved, but God’s love will inspire us to seek to love others. True love empowers us and others to overcome everything that prevents us from being life-giving people of faith, hope, and love. Love is not an entitlement, it is an empowerment to be alive, be an expression of life for the life of others, and a partner with God in brining life to our world in all things.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
