Blog In Audio:
Greetings;
I hope you are well. We are continuing to move on in the midst of world restraints. God is good and His presence is in our lives. Yesterday was another day of church deployed in small home gatherings, but we are preparing the building for coming together again in a fresh, new and focused way. A new church, a new form, and a fresh focus of purpose is stirring in the atmosphere.
We are living in a time of being the people of God. We can expect weapons to be formed against us in this since it is the power of God’s grace and grace alone that will empower us to be who we should be in such a time as this. Our being real in who we are is for the sake of who we are together. This is a supernatural reality. We are called to be the community of God, not the community of self or some community of humanly created form. If we had the same speech and the same language we would seek to build a city unto ourselves, but God has called us to be part of something greater. We are to be a community of God’s grace that is empowered by the unity of God’s Spirit. God doesn’t want us to build a heavenly tower, He wants to invade our earth with heaven’s grace.
In a time of separation, we must willfully choose to connect to our corporate purpose as the body of Christ. God is opening legitimate doors and closing illegitimate ones. The thought came to be yesterday, maybe we are wearing masks so we will get tired of wearing masks. Maybe we have been wearing masks for years, not revealing who we really are? Maybe we have been wearing masks for fear that others will see us for who we relay are? Maybe we have been wearing masks to prevent others from entering into our space of living? Maybe God wants us to be tired of wearing masks so we can be grateful to come together in the diversity of identities, testimonies, and purpose in life? Perhaps God is laughing in heaven at our frustration over masks and control only to wake us up to truly be free. To be free is to be a giver of life to our world. This is a season of fruit, not a season of thorns and thistles. This is not a time to be distracted by things that poke the flesh. It is a season of fruit that brings life to the world. This is the testimony of being people of God. It is by the mercy of God that each and everyone of us are justified to live and it is by God’s grace that can be empowered to be who we are meant to be for the sake of our world.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The presenting of our bodies is not for our own dreams, visions, and self-focused agendas in life. The presenting of our bodies is for the corporate identity, testimony, and purpose of God in the earth. It is good to be loved, it is acceptable to overcome every wicked thing by the power of God’s grace, but it is perfect to become givers of life to others, even as God gives life to us. It is righteous to be loved by God and to know the goodness of His life in our lives. The only thing acceptable is to be one with God to be empowered to take on the testimony of holiness, even as our heavenly Father is holy. The power and the fruit of God’s Spirit is the true testimony of life in and through each of us in our world. The true joy of life is to know the partnership of God in all things for the glory of our Father’s purpose in the generations of humanity. This is good, acceptable, and perfect in the journey of our life in Christ. We are part of the body of Christ for the identity, testimony, and purpose of God in our world. We each make a great son or daughter of God for the contribution of life to the community of God in the earth. We are each enough and to think beyond the boundaries of who we really are is to think more highly than we ought. Who we each are is good, acceptable, and perfect to contribute our part to the glory of the community of God in the earth.
Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
To think of ourselves more highly than we ought is to think outside of the metron or sphere of who God has made us to be. We don’t need to become smaller so that others can be bigger. We need to be true to who we are so that who we are will bring life to those who are what we are. We each supply life to one another. We cannot live in false humility thinking we are nothing; we must embrace true humility simply living for the sake of others within the boundaries of our own authority. We are all part of a corporate plan of life. Faith comes by hearing God and it is in hearing God that we come to know who we are. We cannot do anything or be anything we want to be in life.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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