Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I have been blessed to spend the week with my son Aaron, his wife Amani, and my grandson Kaden and granddaughter Zaria. We have been working on their new home purchase in California. It was a great week. It is always very sad to say goodbye, but I look forward to the continued stories of life and love of our family. Today I am in Cleveland, Georgia for a week of training with the G42 students. I just arrived after a long day and night of travel due to airplane issues. I am here and I am ready to go! I will be activating, facilitating, and releasing prophetic ministry in the lives of these hungry sons and daughters of God.
God is inviting us to be the people of God in the earth. To be the people of God in the earth, we must know who God is in heaven. Is He defined by what He does or what He can do? Or is He defined by who He is? He is a giver of life, therefore, all that He does is a testimony of life. Are we defined by what we can or will do? Or are we defined by who we are in Christ? A life-giving, loving Father is who God is. Some define Him by His sovereign abilities, but that is what He can do and not who He is.
God can be all knowing, but He chooses to know all things according to His love. Certain things He chooses not to know for the sake of love. He chooses not to remember our sins and lawless deeds when we come to Him and freely receive His mercy. He chooses not to know some things for the sake of us being able to participate with Him in a character of goodness, thus the element of surprise is a key part of our relationship with Him and He with us. He chooses not to know some things for the sake of us being creative with His love. As He is a creator I believe He freely gives us the liberty to be creative to His surprise. God can be everywhere present, but I believe He chooses not to be some places for the sake of us freely choosing to live where He lives in the freedom of His character, nature, way, power and authority. He also chooses to be some places He wouldn’t choose to go for the sake of demonstrating that nothing can separate us from His love. God is all powerful according to His love. Though He can do anything, since nothing is impossible for Him, He chooses not to do some things for the sake of love.
Mark 7:9 He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ 11 But you say, “If a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, 13 making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Though God can be all powerful, He has made it so our own traditions can be more powerful than His will and we can thus choose something less than the life that He has for us. He desires us to draw near to Him, but until we draw near to Him He is bound from being seen by our natural perceptions. Like the father and the prodigal son, the moment we turn towards Him, He runs to us to give us His restoration and love.
James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
God desires that all be saved, but are they? Though it is His will that all would be saved, we must choose to believe. His mercy has reconciled our accounts and we are justified to live, but we must choose Him to receive the life that He gives.
1 Timothy 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
God is a loving Father. He changes His mind because He cannot change His character. He will change His mind concerning what He will do because He cannot change who He is. He is love. As the people of God, we must also grow in maturity to be known as people of love. We must be people who make judgments of mercy, but also people who seek to be empowered and to empower others to overcome in all things. Love can only win when love can transform our lives.
Is it God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence that define His love; or does His love define His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence? Do His abilities define Him or does who He is define His abilities?
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
