Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I will finish my time in Portugal. I have a gathering tonight with many pastors from various congregations here. I believe that God is going to do good things. It has been a great journey in the Netherlands, Ireland, the Netherlands, and here in Portugal. God is releasing His life in the nations, and it is an honor and a privilege to participate in what He is doing.
God sees who we are, and He invites us to see who He is. When God sees us, He doesn’t see us according to the spots, blemishes, or wrinkles that have been placed upon us as false identities. He sees us as He has known us to be from a view of heaven. God sees the end from the beginning and thus He requires the beginning things in our lives to embrace the perfect testimony of His end work in our lives. His end work is a testimony of His unshakeable love. That testimony also includes us becoming a dwelling place of God’s unshakeable presence. Our true identity reveals the greatness, goodness, and mercy of God to our world.
When we see God, we become like Him in some way. Who He is changes who we are when we see Him for who He His. His unshakeable character makes us unshakeable in our character as His sons and daughters. We don’t see Him in His full measure, but we see Him in measures that lead to a greater glory in our lives. From glory to glory He changes us, but that glory is a testimony of turning to Him and seeing Him in our lives. He is our friend, and His presence always gives us more life.
Seeing God for who He is empowers us to believe in who He is. When we believe in Him, we also believe what He says. When we believe what He says, we respond to what He says. Responding to Him is not merely about responding to words of information. Responding to what He says empowers us to join to Him to be transformed in our hearts and minds and become expressions of who He is.
Luke 6:47-49 “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”
A house is only as secure in its standing as it is in its connection to a foundation. Christ is the foundation of our lives, and He is the life-giving Rock that empowers us to become a house that reveals the substance of who Christ is to the world around us. To be a house of God’s presence, we must embrace an authentic connection in hearing and responding to all that God says to us.
Every house that is built faces the elements of testing and the opposition of many seasons of life. In Christ the foundation of our lives is established in the Rock of Christ. The objective is to be connected to the Rock, not to see how great our house can become, but our connection to Christ causes our house to reveal a testimony of who Christ is to our world. Our connection to the Rock is a connection to LIFE. We are a house of God’s presence in all seasons of our lives. We are called to be a spiritual house. We are to be a holy temple of the Lord, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. This is not about being strong, it is being strong because of an intimate connection with God as our friend.
Ephesians 2:19-22 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
1 Peter 2:4-5 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
At the beginning of 2021, I wrote that God is revealing Himself as the unshakeable One in our lives. He wants us to be unshakeable in Him because His love for us empowers us to be unshaken in a shaking world. This is not just for us but for our ability to be a testimony of hope to those in our world.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
