Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am back in Bellingham. I had a great weekend, and I was blessed to share at Everyone’s Church in Mt. Vernon, Washington. We felt God’s presence and a testimony of family. I am home for a few more days and then back across the big Atlantic pond.
God is continuing to speak to me regarding knowing Him as my friend and me being a friend to others as to revealing who God is. I believe we are each to be a piece of God as a friend to others. A friend doesn’t need anything but is a giver of life to someone else. This is what makes them their friend. This is the likeness and the image of God our Father.
If our friendship with someone is based upon what they give to us, we really don’t understand friendship. That kind of friendship is based upon our own need, not upon our ability to give life to them. Our friendship is tested when they don’t meet our need in some way. This is not true to the character of God.
At the beginning of the year God told me to let go of my need to influence anyone. I felt empowered by the grace of God to do so, and I immediately felt a release in my heart and a sense of new freedom. A couple of weeks later, God told me that I didn’t need to influence anyone, but they needed me to. There was a difference in this statement than me needing to influence them. The purpose of my influence was not to give me anything. It had nothing to do with giving me identity. It had everything to do with giving life to someone else. I felt empowered by God’s grace, and I experienced a release in my heart to see it as so.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
When God looked at the earth it was formless, void, and in darkness. From His perspective as a life-giver, He spoke from the place of seeing a finished work of life. His words released the life to bring order, fullness, and light to our world. God didn’t do this because He needed anything. He is a giver of life, breath, and all things (Acts 17:24, 25). A situation that needed life, breath, and all things was the perfect environment to reveal who God truly is.
Mankind, male and female, was created from the substance of who God is when God spoke to Himself and mankind was birthed from the heart of God to be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, and bring the dominion of life into the world. To be fruitful is to be a blessing of life to the world. To multiply is to give life for someone beyond yourself. To fill is to see that life increase in others, even beyond your life, as it has also increased in you. To subdue is to destroy death with life. To have dominion is to crumble every lie of death by the truth of life. This is the nature of God. God is a life giver and mankind, male and female together, are to be givers of life to their world. This is the substance of friendship. It is not to need life, but to give life to someone else. A friend knows who they are so they can be a friend to others.
In Genesis chapter 4, we have a story of Cain killing Abel. Cain was a firstborn, but he saw himself as a one and only. Because of this, he was jealous of God giving honor to his brother Abel in His respect for Abel’s offering. Cain set it in his heart to kill his brother. You see, Cain didn’t see himself as a firstborn son, he saw himself as a one and only; therefore, he lived for himself. To be a firstborn he would have had to see Abel as a second born. He would have needed to see himself as a firstborn for the sake of Abel and all that would follow in the family. Cain should have seen himself as a friend to his brother Abel, but instead he saw his brother as his enemy.
Genesis 4:8-9 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
God is our friend. He gives life, breath, and all things to us and doesn’t seek to get anything from us. We were created in His likeness and image and Cain should have recognized this. When God asked Cain where his brother Abel was, He was speaking to Cain’s true identity. He was reminding Cain that he was a firstborn and that he was born to be a friend to his younger brother. He was born to be a friend for the sake of His brother, not an enemy. To be who he was meant to be would mean to be a giver of life to his brother. This would be the likeness and image of God.
Each of us are our brother’s keeper. Our true identity will give life to another. This is the likeness and the image of our Father. God is our friend, and we were born to be friends to one another.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
