Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
It is great to be back home in Bellingham after several weeks out. It has felt like summer here and the signs of life are in the yard, in the garden, and in the neighborhood. Life is happening in the world. Lessons can be learned from creation as to the nature of God at work in our lives.
What is God doing in the nations? I am not interested in what the world is doing in the nations. I am interested in knowing what God is doing in the nations. What God is doing leads to eternal realities. What the world is doing only leads to death. When things shake in the world, we can become distracted from eternal realities. When we look to God, we see the increase of His glory and love.
Isaiah 2:2 (also Micah 4:1,2) Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Mountains are high places. There are many obstacles in our path of life. They present themselves as higher than us. These are things we must overcome. They are things that are challenges to our natural abilities. The mountains of the world are made of stones that seek to kill us in some way. They can cause us harm that leads to death. God’s mountain is not like the mountains of the world. We must know that God’s love cannot be shaken by the high things in this world. God’s love is above everything that we face in life.
God’s mountain is made of the unshakeable stone of His love. The prophets Isaiah and Micah proclaimed that in the later days the mountain of the Lord’s house would be higher than the mountains or the hills of the world. What does this mean for us in our lives? What does that mean for us as we grow older in Christ. We should expect our latter days to be greater than our former days. Our days should be filled with the increase of God’s overcoming power of love in every season of our lives.
The principles of the kingdom of God are true at every level in our lives. What is true for us as individuals, is true for us together as the church. What is true in a first fruit, is true in the fullest of fruit. If you believe that God began a good work in your life and He is faithful to complete it, you must also believe that God began a good work in the earth, and He is faithful to complete it. God’s glory is always an increasing glory. If God is changing us from glory to glory, there must also be an increasing testimony of God’s glory in this world. Darkness may be in the peoples of the nations, but we are not the people of the world. We are the family of God!
Isaiah 60:2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the LORD will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. 3 The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
The mountain of God is rising in the earth. That mountain is made of testimonies of God’s love at work in human lives. The mountain of God is rising in our lives. It is made by our connection to God in the Spirit. His presence in our lives reveals His glory in our lives. God is aways speaking and His words are words of life. His voice is always a voice of faith, hope, and love. These are eternal attributes that reveal that God is great, God is good, and His mercy endures forever.
How can we experience the mountain of God in our lives. Mountains are made of stones and God’s Mountain is made of the unshakeable testimonies of His love. We must be connected to Him to receive the testimony of Him in our lives. God is speaking and we must respond to His voice in all things. Our response to God increases His presence in our lives and in our world.
Luke 6:47 “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 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. 49 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.”
Our response to the voice of God draws us close to Him. He is the rock, and that rock is the unshakeable reality of His love. The testimony of this story told by Jesus is not about building a strong house. It is about connecting our house to the rock. We do this by always trusting God’s voice and responding to all that He says to us. Responding to the voice of God is responding to the sound of God’s voice, the sound of faith, hope, and love.
God is great, God is good, His mercy endures forever. The sound of God draws us to be loved by Him and to love Him and love one another. It is a sound of His mercy and grace. His mercy triumphs over every judgment and His grace gives us the power to overcome 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
