Blog In Audio:
Greetings;
I hope you are all well today. The sun is shining here and I am ready to get some things done today. It feels like hope is in the air. We had a prayer meeting at ALife Church on Friday night and this coming weekend we will have a church family outdoor gathering. I am ready to see more faces that I have missed.
As the people of God, our lives are empowered by the internal kingdom of God in our hearts. Mercy has triumphed over every judgment based upon the knowledge of good and evil and God’s grace is transforming our hearts and minds to become real as new creations in Christ for the glory of God in all things. We are new creations for the sake of being salt and light to the world. 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 the knowledge of good and the 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 creating 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. Now we are experiencing an internal revolution of God’s glory that is significant enough to affect every area of our lives. The outward decisions, actions, and influences of our lives are a testimony that our kingdom has become a kingdom of our Lord and Christ. We are the people of God.
Isaiah 11:1-3 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord, and He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears…
The old tree has been cut down and the eternal tree of life has sprung up where the old one once ruled. We are new creations in Christ and the Holy Spirit is the anointing in and upon our lives. The Spirit of the Lord, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Might, Knowing, and Fear of the Lord is the activating substance of our lives. This means, we are no longer governed as we were in the past. We are not governed as people in the world, we are governed as the people of God. It is not our job to condemn those who are governed by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we are to shine as light in the darkness as children of the light. Natural sight is not the ruling factor of our lives. What things look like, sound like, feel like or what we think they look like, sound like, or feel like does not determine the attitude, action, or attributes of our lives.
Isaiah 11:4-5 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, and faithfulness the belt of His waist.
The Rod from the stem or stump of Jesse was the greater David, Jesus the Son of God born in Bethlehem. The Branch was Christ. Jesus told His disciples that He was the vine and they were the branches; the Branch from the Rod of Jesse is both Christ the head and Christ the body. He was both the head and the body of Christ that made a way for us all to become part of His body through the blood of His mercy and the Spirit of His grace. The sevenfold Spirit upon our lives anoints us to live by a different justice system than that of the knowledge of good and evil and mere judgments of right and wrong. The Holy Spirit empowers us to delight in the awe of God and to judge things by a different standard than what can be seen or heard naturally.
Isaiah 11:3 His delight is in the fear of the LORD, and He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears…
The Holy Spirit’s administration of grace empowers us to make judgments for the poor by a righteousness of life. With the equity of who we are we can make decisions for those who do not qualify according to the standards of right and wrong. They simply qualify through a judgment of love. As people of God we must set the example of destroying evil through the power of love. When the devil strikes the earth, it is with a blow of hate and death, but the breath of God is a wind of love and the measure of His mouth is a life-giving expression that destroys the power of evil.
Isaiah 11:4, 5 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, and faithfulness the belt of His waist.
The substance of who we are in Christ is enough to give life to those who lack it. We are the substance of good news to the destitute, healing to the broken hearted, liberty to the captives, an open door to freedom for the bound, restored heritage and inheritance to the enslaved, deliverance to the controlled, comfort to the mourning, clarity to the confused, beauty to the destroyed, joy to the sorrowful, and praise to the oppressed. Who we are is a testimony to who all can become! We are the people of God and our love for another is not dependent upon them loving us – it is an anointing upon our lives given to us by our Father in heaven! We are trees of righteousness; the planting of the Lord that God might be glorified!
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
