Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I hope you had a great weekend. It continues to be sunny in Bellingham. The garden is bearing fruit, and it is good to be home. Pastors Jonathan and Danie gave a great word yesterday at Alife. It is time to let go of some things to embrace what God desires to do in our lives today. God’s way is better than ours and we can always trust Him.
God’s gifts of peace and grace have come to us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. God’s peace is our access to our heavenly Father and all of His heavenly blessings in our lives. Grace is the testimony of God’s access to our earthly house. Christ in us is the hope of glory and Christ in us is the manifested presence of God that changes us to become all that we are intended to be in life. We have something greater than the disciples of Jesus had while Jesus walked this earth. The reality of this greater testimony was given to His disciples after His ascension to heaven. That testimony grew in the church of the first century after Jesus ascended into heaven and then clothed the body of Christ in the manifest presence of Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus had risen in bodily form into the clouds, ten days later the cloud of Holy Spirit’s presence clothed the body of Christ in the testimony of a greater glory. This was a further coming of Jesus as Holy Spirit was sent by the Father in Jesus’ name. The outpouring of Holy Spirit upon those on the day of Pentecost was just the beginning of a continual coming of Christ in greater measures of His Spirit in the generations to come. Like the river described in Ezekiel chapter 47, the presence and purpose of God increases from glory to glory in the generations of Christ’s unfolding story in the earth.
Revelation 1:7 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
There are many references in the Scripture to God coming in clouds. It is a metaphor for God’s manifest presence. For those who seek God with a desire to know Him, it is a metaphor of good news of God’s presence. For those who do not desire to know God, the coming of the cloud is a metaphor of destruction. For anything in us that does not desire God, the term coming in clouds is good news in the sense that God’s presence will remove what can be removed from our lives so that we will know the eternal testimony of life given to us by God from heaven.
The Revelation was being given to John because it was to “shortly take place” (Rev. 1:1). The Revelation was given to John in a form of ‘signs’ since the greater value of its content was in its prophetic application for all time, not merely the exegetical fulfillment in John’s day. In the first chapter of Revelation Jesus is seen as the King, the High Priest, and as the Prophetic Judge, standing in the midst of His true Church. The glory of His presence is seen as Him “coming with clouds”. Jesus is standing in the midst of His Church as a witness of the New Covenant and against those who hold to the lifeless testimony of the fulfilled past. Jesus was being revealed as the One who fulfills all things and through whom all things exist. He stands in our lives to empower us by grace that is brought to us by faith. Faith comes when we hear God in our hearts and when we hear God, we turn to see Him. Every revelation from God is an invitation to have an encounter with God, so that we can become transformed by Him and become something of that revelation. His presence in our lives continually reveals His glory as we are changed as we turn to Him in His coming in our lives.
2 Corinthians 3:16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
It is a continual encounter with Christ in us that empowers us to rule and reign in life. We are empowered by God’s manifest presence in our lives. In Christ we have been given an administration of grace.
Revelation 1:12 Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters…
Think about your own life in Christ. When you experience Jesus, He inspires faith in your heart. When you hear Him, you grow in knowing Him! When you hear His voice, you can see His presence in your life. Jesus Christ is standing in the midst of your life! He is standing in the midst of His Church! He is who He is, and because HE IS we are forever changed. He is the King, Priest, Prophet, and Transformer of our lives!
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
