Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am in Wisconsin. I have had some wonderful days here with a very close friend, a family reunion, a connection with some classmates from fifty years ago, and a great time with a church family here yesterday. God has been in many connected moments. Tomorrow I will head home, and I am looking forward to some summer time with my family and friends there. God is good!
When we lived our lives apart from a personal relationship with God in Christ, the focus of our lives was one of self-interests and self-purposed vision. We lived for our own wills because we were disconnected from God and His desires. Jesus made it possible for us to be reconnected to God as our Father and to find an internal administration of life. When our lives are summed up in Christ, our lives bring the life of Christ to our world.
Ephesians 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation (administration – NAS) of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.
What is it that governs our lives? Everyone is governed by something. Whatever governs our lives determines how we live our lives. How we live our lives determines how we influence our world. As believers in Christ, we are to live our lives by the influence of the government of God’s kingdom. Jesus is the headship of our lives, and His headship is administrated by the voice of Holy Spirit to our spirits. Holy Spirit inspires our spirits to influence our souls with thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, emotions, and desires that agree with God’s will. This is the empowerment of our beliefs. Our beliefs determine our actions, our actions determine how we view our future, and how we view our future determines how we influence our world.
The kingdoms of the word operate with a different government than the kingdom of God. What is it that governs your life? The cultures of the world, and people in the world, are governed by the internal voice of their own conscience or by some external forms of law. These two things are informational administrators. They are governments of individual lives, with self-focused interests, opinions, and views determined by a knowledge of good and a knowledge of evil.
Sons and daughters of God are to be governed by the kingdom of God. It is an internal reality of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is a government of grace and truth. It is a government of a corporate body with a corporate purpose – the body of Christ. This is an administration of grace and truth. A government of grace and truth puts God at the center of our world. A government of conscience or law puts man at the center of our world.
The Old Covenant was governed by an obedience to the law. The New Covenant is about being obedient to faith. Faith comes by hearing God. Faith happens when we hear God speak to our hearts. Faith works through love, and it is always toward the one who spoke. Faith towards God comes by hearing God in our hearts. It results in actions on our part, but those actions are inspired by a revelation of God’s love in our hearts. We know that God loves us and thus we hear Him in our hearts. We respond with actions of love towards Him and towards who and what He loves. This is the New Covenant testimony of intimacy with God in our hearts. This is grace! Grace is the manifest presence of God in our hearts. This is what empowers our beliefs, and this is what will change our actions. Our minds will be renewed to see what God sees and to live for what God desires in our lives. This is the administration of the kingdom of God from within us.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
