Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I hope you all had a great Christmas! Bonnie and I spend the day and weekend alone together, but the kids and grandkids will be with us in the week. We have lots of snow here! It is beautiful, very cold, and it looks like winter all around us. Winter arrived, and winter came!
As we leave 2021 and enter the new year of 2022; what can we expect in the present season of our lives as the church, the body of Christ? Our future is not determined by the events or circumstances of the world. Our future is determined by the will of our heavenly Father and His purposes in the earth. We are part of an ancient plan in Christ. We are part of an eternal destiny. The ceiling of the Old Covenant was the foundation of the New Covenant, because the New Covenant existed in heaven before it cast the shadow of what was seen as an Old Covenant upon the earth.
Ephesians 2:19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
The prophets in these verses are the prophets of the Old Covenant. The apostles are the firstfruit sending authority of the New Covenant. The one body of Christ made of Jews and Gentiles is the testimony of God’s plan for the generations of humanity. There is not a second plan, but only one eternal plan of God in the earth. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of His glory and that glory will be made known in and through the place of God’s indwelling presence in the earth. We are part of a plan that involves an increase of God’s glory in the earth. We can expect to see God’s glory if His glory is what we set our faces to see!
We are a holy temple in the Lord. We are part of something that is being built by God. God is the builder and maker of a heavenly city. He is the one who builds a heavenly community in the midst of the nations of the world. This is not something that just happens. We are being fitted together by the work and presence of God’s Spirit in our lives. I believe that we can expect to be fitted together in this season as the people of God. I believe that we can expect to become the building of God and that is the place of God’s dwelling presence. If circumstances can change these things, then we have not yet become true.
My word for this coming year is ‘peace’. When God spoke this to my spirit, I have to admit it jolted me. I realize that I have some negative thoughts in regard to peace. I know that peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the place where there is not gap between us and God. It works on good days and on bad days. It works in situations of freedom, and it works to bring freedom in the midst of situations of captivity. I am not saying that 2022 is going to be hard, nor am I saying it is going to be easy. Perhaps my negative reaction is to the thought that it might be a hard year. In any case, peace is knowing God’s presence and it is our access to Him and His access to us. This is good news in any case!
Something is being birthed in this time. It is being birthed in our hearts and minds. It is being birthed in our lives. It is being birthed in us as the corporate building and dwelling place of God in the earth. What is being birthed is sure footed. What is being birthed is something rooted and planted. Out of pain comes great joy!
Psalms 29:9 The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everyone says, “Glory!” (NKJ)
Some translations of the Bible imply that the words, ‘makes the deer give birth’, can be expressed as ‘pains the oak’, or ‘twists the mighty oak’ (NIV, NLT, YNG). The thought is that something old is birthing something new. Something in pain births something new. Something hidden in the forest is birthing something new for the glory of God. It is about being the temple of God’s presence. It is a place of being able to say, ‘Glory.’
God wants us to become the people of God. He doesn’t just want to provide for us. He wants to fit us together with Him and with one another. He wants us to be sure footed. He wants us to be planted. The tree is generational. It births new shoots from its place of planting. The deer is sure footed. It can manage the various seasons of the forest and still births the offspring of the future. I believe that we can expect the future and the future is filled with the glory of God in our midst. Peace is the place where there is no gap between God and us. It is the place of no gap between heaven and that which is upon the earth. It is the place of being brought near to God. The future will be birthed in our hearts and minds from our nearness with God. The future will be birthed from the house of God from His nearness to us and our nearness to Him in all things.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
