Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I am busy closing the year with several new projects. I am in the process of recording audio books and expect to have them ready in the new year. I am also publishing a new book soon, of which I will have it in print, eBook, and audio book. I am expectant for the new season. It was good to be in my home church again. Pastors Jonathan and Danie did a great job of giving us more perspectives of Christ’s coming in our present day. The presence of God was with us, and the feeling of family was in the house. I am looking forward to a week of Christmas celebrations and family connections.
How far does God’s mercy extend? How far does the life of God go? We live in a time where the New Covenant is a reality to anyone who seeks to find a relationship with God in Christ. It is a New Covenant because it is a NOW relationship with God from within our hearts. The New Covenant is a testimony of always living in a place called TODAY in an authentic and intimate relationship that births faith towards God from our hearts. Jesus made it possible for us to come near to God, though He was never far from anyone. Jesus made it possible for those of law and those who were lawless to find the love of God in Christ that transforms hearts and minds to be and live as children of God in this world and into all that is to come. One day, Jesus told a parable about workers in the field where the reward of wages at the end of the day was the same for every worker. It didn’t matter if they labored from the beginning of the day, from midday, or even only the final hours of the day. All the workers received a full provision because the master desired to give them all the same. The story is recorded in Matthew chapter twenty. I believe that the story applies to the destiny of humanity from the time of Old Covenant limitations to the abundance of an administration of grace given to us in Christ. The story is not merely about our physical provisions in this world. It is a story of a loving God who has always desired to give to all men an abundance of life. The wages of being disconnected from God is death, but the wages of connection to God is life and that life is eternal. The New Covenant gift of grace given to us by God in Christ gave a free entrance to life for those who had labored in the limitations of the Old Covenant administrations of conscience and law.
God’s love has always been seen in His desire to gather His people to Him and in His desire for anyone to find Him who knows He is life. The woman with the twelve-year flow of blood reached out in her unclean state to touch the robe of Jesus to receive her healing. The goodness of God flowed to her because God’s mercy and grace don’t consider the qualification of the person. They only consider the qualification of the love of God as a heavenly Father. It is the willingness of anyone to come to Him that qualifies them for receiving His acts of love. The apostle Paul presented this truth to the people of Athens who had been bound by thousands of misguided concepts of God through their mythological connection to Him through carved memorials to spiritual sources to their human needs.
Acts 17:24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
The assurance of life is for those who sought for life in the limitations of conscience and law, but it is even more for us now as we can finally find the life of God in Christ in this world. The administration available to us now is one of grace. The mercy of God has triumphed over the judgment of death and the substance of God’s grace can be found to give us a relationship with God who is life in our world today. This is the repentance that He commands all men to find. It is not a repentance from evil. It is a repentance from being dead. It is a gift of God, and it is a gift from God to us. Eternal life is to know God our Father and to know Jesus the Son through an internal connection with His Holy Spirit. God overlooked the ignorance of men towards Himself when they could not see how near He was to them, but now He has removed the veil to seeing His presence in our lives. Jesus has reconciled men to God as their Father and God can be found by those who seek Him. We can boldly come to His throne of grace! We can reach out and take hold of His gift of mercy! The qualifier is the Father’s love, and the condition is simply us reaching out to receive His love. We can find grace to overcome all distractions of death. We can find the manifest presence of God in our lives that gives us life in all things!
Isaiah 55:6 Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
The mercy of God through Jesus Christ is enough for all of mankind to come near to God. Those who were near by the covenant of God through the reality of the Torah/temple system, and those who were far away and bound by the deceptions of the world, have both been brought near by the blood of the Lamb. We can call upon God and He hears. We can seek Him and find Him! The nature of God is to show mercy. His nature is to abundantly pardon. We live in a day where He can easily be found by those who seek Him. Seek Him today! Find Him today! Taste and see that He is good! Consider Him today and boldly seek His presence and eagerly receive His love. Expect to find Him! Expect to be surprised by His goodness in your life.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
So good, instead of man taking gold and shaping it into a form to be worshipped, God takes a man and turns the man into gold, pure gold, as the man worships God.