Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I hope you are well. We had a wonderful celebration this past weekend of both the death and the resurrection of Jesus! It was great to be together as a church family yesterday for time with Holy Spirit and one another in a full meal – spirit, soul, and body. Bonnie was able to be with me as well. Bonnie and I are traveling to California today to be with our family there for several days. We have another birthday girl to celebrate there as well.
We have just celebrated the Easter weekend. In our celebration, we are really celebrating two things. Those two things are the end of our old life and the beginning of an eternal life of knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son by the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (Jn. 17:3). This would be to end our age of self and an entrance to an eternal Day of being the body of Christ – a dwelling place of God by His Spirit.
The ultimate gift given to us by God is a new life in Christ. The strength of our lives is found in the renewal of our inner man. This is the renewal of our human spirit that is made one with God’s Holy Spirit. When our life is empowered by a connection to God’s Holy Spirit from within, we discover a life of God’s kingdom purpose and destiny. This comes by knowing Jesus in His first coming and in an increasing glory of His coming again to us through a connection with His Spirit from within. His first coming was as the Son of Man, a perfect man for the lives of imperfect sinners. His coming again into our lives is by the presence of His life-giving Spirit within us.
1 Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Jesus came as the Son of Man in His first coming to fulfill the requirements of the first Adam and give us the benefits of being born again into the family of the last and eternal Adam. He freed us from the curse of death and restored us to our destiny as sons and daughters of God in this world. Christ in us is the hope of glory! This is revealed by His salvation of our lives upon the earth and into the incorruption of heaven. Jesus lived on this earth as a life-giving man empowered by the life-giving Spirit of God within Him and He came to empower us to live our lives in the same way. It is by His life-giving Spirit within us that we too become life-giving men and women in and to our world. It is not enough to know Jesus in His first coming. We must personally know Him in His coming again into our lives as a life-giving spirit. This is not merely an event but a way of living.
To know Jesus in is first coming is to know the power of His life laid down upon our cross to reveal a new shoot from the stump of our old way of living (Isa. 11:1). The tree of life willingly laid His life down upon our family tree of the knowledge of good and evil and our old way of thinking could not destroy the love of God sacrificed for us on that tree of Calvary. His death upon our tree of death enabled us all to find our death in Him and receive His judgment of mercy that justifies each of us to live by His eternal life given as the gift of His Spirit within us. His death frees us from our old life, but His resurrection from the dead grants us the grace of His eternal Spirit that is our salvation in this world and in all that is to come. Embracing His love for what He has done grants us His gift of mercy and eagerly calling for His presence in our lives grants us the grace of His salvation. His mercy we freely receive because He grants us an end to a life of disconnection from our heavenly Father. His grace is His manifest presence that changes our hearts and minds from within. We find His grace when we eagerly seek to find His presence in our lives as a life-giving Spirit to our spirit from within. His death justifies us to live, but His life empowers us to live and to reign in life. We must receive these two realities in our lives to know both His judgment of mercy and His power of grace that grants us salvation now and into eternity.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
