Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am in Bellingham. We are continuing to have wonderful weather with the blessings of summer. I was blessed yesterday to minister at Alife Church in the theme of Growing in Knowing God. God wants us to know that we are part of His eternal family of life.
What is the gospel? What is the good news in the simplest form? God made a way for us to be a temple of Holy Spirit. He made a way for us to abide in God and for God to abide in us. This is true for us individually and true for us as the corporate body of Christ. Being a temple of Holy Spirit is what empowers us to become expressions of God in our world.
In the Old Testament King Cyrus made a decree to build the temple of God and that decree was in reality a decree to build the city of God (Ezra 1:2; Dan. 9:25). Although King Cyrus did not say the words, ‘build the city’; his word to build the temple became the word to build the city once the temple was restored. The word to build the city was the manifest completion of the temple of God. The city of God had to be built because the temple was built (including the law and proper offerings). The temple was the word gone forth. Build a temple and there will be a city.
We must be a house of God’s presence before we can be a community of His testimony. We must be a community of His testimony before we can be a people of His purpose. The community of God is dependent upon being the temple of God’s Holy Spirit. The temple is not dependent upon the community. The community is dependent upon the temple. The temple of Holy Spirit will activate, facilitate, and release the community of Christ. Build a temple and you will build the city. Build the city and you may never build the temple.
This is also true in our Christian walk. If Jesus is in our heart, if there is a temple, then the work of the city (Christian community life) can be completed. Once Jesus is in our heart, we are new creations, but it is yet to be further manifested in our lives. God spoke the word to call us, but it didn’t become ‘the word sent forth’ until we received Jesus into our hearts. We had to become a house for His Spirit to dwell in and we had to receive His Spirit to dwell in us to write His law of love upon our hearts and minds. We had to be able to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God in Christ (Rom. 12:1). Christian community doesn’t make us the testimony of Christ. Christ in us empowers us to become the testimony of a Christ-like community. We must embrace Christ in us to become part of a culture of Christ in our world.
Holy Spirit in our lives is an awe-inspiring reality. We can grow in knowing God as our Father and ourselves as sons and daughters of God. We know Jesus the Son and in knowing Jesus the Son we grow in understanding our own identity as sons and daughters of God. We grow in becoming a testimony of His character, nature, way, power, and authority. In this we also grow in a partnership in the purposes of God as our Father for the glory of His name in all things.
We must not be ignorant of Holy Spirit in our lives. We must cultivate our desire to know God in us, with us, and even in the power of His presence upon us. We need to embrace being clothed in the testimony of Holy Spirit in our lives. Knowing Holy Spirit is a seven day per week, twenty-four hour per day reality. Although we don’t see Holy Spirit, we must practice responding to His presence in, with, and upon our lives. We need to practice recognizing the thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, emotions, and desires that are inspired by Holy Spirit from within us. Our spirits are being inspired by Holy Spirit and we must recognize that Holy Spirit is the person of God abiding in us. We are not merely people in our world. We are sons and daughters of God in our world as expressions to those who know the love, presence, and purpose of God in our lives. When we know that we are a temple of Holy Spirit we become blessings in and to our world. We live to multiply the blessings of God in the lives of others. We empower others in a multigenerational way that influences the future in a life-giving and life-changing way. The influence of God’s kingdom brings blessings to the world, even beyond our earthly journey.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
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Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
