Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I have returned home to the U.S. and today I will be heading to see family in California. I am ready for Spring, and I am ready for new life in this season of new life. God is doing good things in the nations.
I believe that we are in a season of finding our true identity in Christ. The truth of God’s presence in our lives expels the lies that twisted and perverted our identities in life. God is causing the hidden things in our lives that do not produce life to be exposed and removed. God is bringing things to light that they may be made light. God does not expose darkness to shame us. He exposes darkness to the power of His light and His light gives us the power of grace that transforms the night into day. We are sons and daughters of God. We are children of light and not children of darkness. We are of the day and not the night.
Ephesians 5: 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
When we walk with the light, we become the testimony of that light. The true light of Christ is manifest as the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That fruit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22, 23). When these things don’t manifest there is something that is not good, not righteous, or not true in our lives. It is the testimony of our internal connection to the kingdom of God. The world around us is not the source of our lack of the fruit of the Spirit. It is a matter of the focus of our lives. Are we looking to the kingdoms around us, or are we looking to the kingdom of God within us? Are we dependent upon the life of Christ within us, or are we looking to find our life from created things in our world? Are we living as sons and daughters of God who live to give life to our world even as Our heavenly Father gives life in all things?
When we become distracted by created things our thoughts, words, and conversations might even sound scripturally true, but if the fruit of the Spirit is not there it is not the right spirit. The cure to being free from any darkness in our lives is to passionately embrace fellowship with light. That light is the light of Christ in us. This is the hope of glory in all things. The light of Christ transforms the darkness in us to light when we walk in the light. Walking in the light is a matter of intimacy with God by the spirit.
Sometimes the lines between good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, truth and deception get blurred. A good indicator that we are walking in the path of life is the evidence of the fruit of life. We cannot do fruit; fruit is something that happens when we live in the place where fruit grows. Fruit is something that gives life-energy to someone else and releases seeds for a future generation of life. Fruit is not a self-gratifying thing; it is a life-giving thing to others beyond your own life. Children of light shine light to the world around them! They don’t shine that light to merely expose darkness or sin. They shine light to transform darkness to light and disconnection to connection to God, who is life. Sons and daughters of God are givers of life, not those who simply complain about the darkness around them. We must be children of light!
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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I wrote a song called “Children Of Light.”
Thanks Ted, this is so encouraging and enlightening!