Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I have just finished a weekend in the Netherlands with HOPE church in Ede and the Meeting Place church in Holten. We had great meetings with a wonderful presence of God and the members of His family. We began with a Friday night meeting in Ede, did leadership teaching on Saturday in Ede, and ended with a time of ministry in Holten on Sunday. It was a blessed weekend.
We are in a season of becoming authentic in our identity in Christ. God wants us to be the people of God who find our identity in Him so we can be expressions of who He is to our world. I believe that people in the world are crying out to find their identity. Our true identity is found in the likeness and image of God our Father. God is a giver of life, and our true identity will give life to others in our world.
We have liberty in Christ, and we are no longer bound to live under the law. We are free to be sons and daughters of God with the desires of God written in our hearts and in our minds. True liberty will bring life to others. Self-seeking motives and self-gratifying agendas will only give us false identities. Finding the desires of our hearts is finding the God-given desires that come by a supernatural connection to God in our hearts. True liberty is not simply living for our own desires, it is living with the desires of God reining in our hearts.
1 Corinthians 10:23-24 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.
Paul wrote in these verses that the testimony of true liberty is to live for the well-being of another. This is the nature of God our Father. This is the nature of God as our friend. There is freedom in knowing that the boundaries of our lives are defined by our willingness to live for the betterment of someone else. Jesus demonstrated such a nature when He gave His life for us that we might find life in Him.
Philippians 2:3-8 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
When we find our identity in Christ, we no longer seek to do things so we will know who we are. We do things because we know who we are. We are secure in our identity, and we know that we were born to give life to our world. We are sons and daughters of God born to be loved by God and to in turn love others, even as He loves us. We can humble ourselves even as Jesus did and live to give life to others. In this, we are willing to lose our lives that others might find their life in God. Our need to get something from others diminishes when we find our needs met in Christ. It is then that we can be givers of life to others.
When we know who we are, we can give identity to our surroundings. We can give identity to our world. This was the case with Adam in his creation. We gave identity to the animals in his world. Whatever he called them is what God said they were to be. God didn’t tell Adam what to call them. God simply gave identity to Adam so Adam could define his world.
So many people in the world find their identity in their world. They don’t define their surroundings, they let their external environment define the internal definitions of their hearts and minds. God wants us to know His presence and love within our hearts and minds so we will manifest as sons and daughters of God in our world. In this, we will bring life to our world, and we will define our external environments by the internal environment of God’s love in our hearts.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
