Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am in Deming, New Mexico. I had a wonderful weekend with the church family of CitiLife. It was great to be with them again. I believe this is going to be a good year of moving forward in Christ in partnership with Jesus as the Body of Christ bringing His life to our world.
As believers in Christ we are a temple of His Holy Spirit. Jesus came so that we would be a dwelling place of His Spirit in the earth. We are to be a habitation for God’s presence. It isn’t merely about doing what Jesus would do, it is about being the place where Jesus lives. The word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood as a man so that every man and woman in each and every neighborhood can be an expression of the word. This happens when be become the place of His habitation in the earth.
Luke 9:57 As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
In this story, Jesus was the only New Covenant man on the earth. He was the only man that was a dwelling place of God’s Spirit. He was the only man full of grace and truth. He came so that all people could become like Him as men and women who are sons and daughters of God. He came to make Old Covenant people New Covenant sons and daughter of their Father in heaven.
In this story, an Old Covenant man wanted to follow Jesus, but to follow Jesus was not an act of the human will. Following Jesus is the fruit of a supernatural connection and a supernatural habitation. The Old Covenant was centered around information in regard to how to act and how to live. The focus of human life becomes something of doing when we embrace an Old Covenant administration in our lives. To truly follow Jesus takes an empowerment of the Spirit of God within the follower. The criterion for following Jesus is made known through being a place of the presence of Christ within. Jesus’ response to the man’s statement was one of ‘being’ and not one of ‘doing’. He wasn’t saying that the man would have to take a poverty vow in order to follow Him. He wasn’t saying that the man would never know what he was doing if he followed Him. He wasn’t saying that life would become a day-to-day journey of never knowing where you are going or what you are doing. He was simply making a statement in regard to what He really wanted from the man. He stated that foxes have holes and birds have nests.
A fox doesn’t look for a hole to sleep in. He isn’t dependent upon others to build him a fox motel or a bed and breakfast for foxes. A fox finds an environment of dirt, digs a hole, finds another fox, lives together, raises a family of foxes, lives a great fox life, and influences the world with fox activity. A bird doesn’t look for a nest to sleep in. A bird finds a stick, picks up another stick, and gathers many sticks to build a nest to live from. The bird is not dependent upon the local bird society or the local government to provide a place for sleeping. The bird is simply born to seek out the environment of a bird habitation, where he can find a bird partner, raise a bird family, live a great bird life, and influence the world with bird activity. Jesus was looking for a place to rest His head. He needed a body; like the fox needs a den and the bird needs a nest. He was looking for a place to rest His headship and He wanted to know if the man was it.
This is the power of New Covenant. We are a place of God’s habitation in the earth so that God can have His family, live a great life, and influence the world with the life of heaven. When we become a dwelling place of God’s presence, we hear God. This empowers us to be who we are meant to be. We become sons and daughters of God. We manifest as the body of Christ and we do life-giving things in our world. It is not what we do that makes us who we are. It is who we are that empowers us to do all things!
When we live for and from being a temple of Christ, we will grow in being a community of Christ. As we increasingly become the community of Christ, we will see the purpose of Christ in our lives. We will respond to what God says to us with faith towards Him. This will empower us to walk according to His purpose. When we embrace the purpose of Christ, we will see His destiny fulfilled through our lives to our world.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
