Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Welcome to the new year of 2024! I hope you had a good close to 2023 and you are ready for all that God is going to do in this new year. I believe that God is going to empower us to prevail in places and ways we have not been able to before. I believe it is a year of unexpected glory.
As a temple of Holy Spirit, we grow in knowing the testimony of the fire of God in our lives. We are receiving transformed desires as we know the fire of being loved by God. The actions of our lives demonstrate a faith towards God as we know the fire of loving Him. The understanding of our hearts and minds are continually transformed as we know the fire of responding to God for a heavenly testimony inside and out. The fire of giving life to others proves that we are children of light bringing the authority of life to our world. Today I want to address a fifth fire of Holy Spirit. This is the fire of being life for others. It is all about growing in knowing who we are in Christ. This is the joy of being alive in Christ to be clothed in His resurrection life for the sake of being life for one another in the fellowship of the body of Christ.
The fifth letter of Revelation was given to the Church of Sardis. The name Sardis means “prince of joy”. This is the opposite of death. It is the opposite of the testimony of the apostate death of Israel in her captivity in Assyria and Babylon. I believe that the angel of the Church of Sardis is the Spirit of Might (Isa. 11:2; Zech. 4:10). Jesus is seen as the one who “has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars”. He is the author of life. He is the one who holds the power of His perfecting grace, and He holds the perfected destiny of the Church. The Spirit of Might empowers us to be alive to the things of God in Christ. Those in Sardus were told that they were “alive”, but they were “dead”. This is syntactic language of Israel’s time of apostasy (Isa. 1:5-23; 6:9-13; 65:8-16; Jer. 7:1-7; 8:11, 12; Ezek. 37:1-4). Exegetically, the church of Sardis had had compromised to live like the surrounding culture of their day. They were in desperate need of God’s power to wake them up. The Spirit of Might testifies that we are ‘made alive’ in Christ (Eph. 2:1, 5).
Jesus said if they did not wake up, He would come upon them “as a thief”. This was a warning of many times of imminent judgment as seen in many Scriptures (Isa. 1:24-31; 2:12-21; 26:20, 21; Jer.4:5-31; 7:12-15; 11:9-13; Mic. 1:2-7; Zeph. 1). This was not a term for a second coming of Christ alone, but His coming in history (Mt. 24:43; 1 Thes. 5:2-5; 2 Pet. 3:10). The Lord came in the Spirit of Might for the those who refused to come to faith and those of who came to faith experienced the Spirit of Might in the first century. Those of apostasy were consumed in the judgment of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, while those of faith were the firstfruits of the living of God as the Body of Christ in the earth.
He who overcomes is promised to be “given white garments”. White is a symbol of cleanliness, purity, and righteousness. White garments speak of being clothed in the New Man. We are to put on Christ now (Col. 3:5-17) and to be fully clothed in Christ in the “last day” (Col. 3:4; Jude 24). The overcoming Church has been clothed in the righteousness of Christ (Gal. 3:27; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). This is a heavenly truth that is progressively revealed in the life of every believer.
There was a blotting out of some, but an assurance of increasing eternal life for others. Some were taken, but the righteous were ‘left behind’ to fill the earth with the testimony of the righteousness of Christ. By principle of application in our own lives, the Old Adam is blotted out in Christ and the Last Adam forever lives as the new man of Christ. God blotted out the violators of His covenant in the harvest of the law, but this New Man in a living relationship with God in Christ would not be blotted out (Deut. 29:10-29; Ps. 69:1-28).
Revelation 3:5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. 6 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’
All New Covenant believers have the ability to do works of righteousness (Eph. 2:10). A confession of the Father before angels (sent ones) speaks of a sending forth by the power of His might for works of righteousness (destiny). The things of this world do not distract us, but rather we are empowered by the Spirit of Might. We know one God “above all” by the power of His resurrection life (Eph. 4:6)! We each bring a contribution of the power of His resurrection life to the mystery of His fellowship.
I pray that you will know the fire of being life for others today. I pray you grow in knowing who you are in Christ as a ‘sent one’ of Christ to reveal the testimony of being alive in Him to your world. You are a son or daughter of your heavenly Father, and you are sent to your world to be the life of Christ that brings glory to your Father’s name.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
