Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am in Bellingham. We had a blessed day at church yesterday. Pastor Jonathan spoke on the peace of God and there were many responses to God’s word and presence. We had an activation of God’s peace at the end of the service and God’s presence was real.
As sons and daughters of God, we bear the mark of God. That mark is in our thinking and in our way of doing things in life. Our thoughts are motivated by the Spirit of the Lord within us. God’s voice to our hearts empowers us to believe Him. This is the miracle of faith. Because of this, we live for the will of our heavenly Father and that inspires us to live for the wellbeing of others. We live to give life to others in our world and we live for the future generations of God’s family in this world. This is the heart and mind of our heavenly Father. He is a giver of life because He is secure in who He is as the source of life for all of mankind. He gives life, breath, and all things to those who eagerly embrace a relationship with Him in life.
People who embrace the way of the world live for themselves. They are marked in their thinking to seek to live for themselves in their world. This is in their thinking and in their way of doing things. They live in themselves and for themselves in life. It is in themselves that they live, move, and have their being. Because of this, they are insecure in their identity, and they seek to take life wherever they think it is found. Their motivation is self-seeking, self-willed, and self-serving in their world.
Those in the world live by the standards of the tree of a knowledge of good and a knowledge of evil. When our motivation is inspired by a knowledge of good and evil, we become judges of ourselves and others in regard to what we believe to be good and what we believe to be evil. Even when it comes to believing in God, when the foundation of our belief is based upon a knowledge of good and evil, we twist God’s words to become tools by which we invoke death upon ourselves or others.
The Scripture only talks about the mark of the beast in one chapter of our Bible, but the mark of God is talked about in many places in Scripture. The mark of the beast in Scripture is simply the way of the world (a beast of the sea), and a way of dead religion (a beast of the land). It is a carnal way of thinking and a carnal motivation for all that they do in life. This is the mark of the beast, but the mark of God is the call of eternity that is in every heart. It is the place of finding one’s true identity, testimony, and purpose in this world.
We have righteousness in the Holy Spirit. This is the power of the kingdom of God within our hearts. Our righteousness is found in a relationship with God as our Father whereby we grow in knowing His love for us and we are transformed in our hearts and minds to love Him and others. This is the gift given to us through Jesus. He was the fulfillment of the law for us so that we could live our lives empowered by God’s grace. This is the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham, the father of our faith.
Romans 4:13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all 17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
Faith works through love, and when we know the love of God in our hearts, we are inspired to love Him and to love others. This is the testimony of our faith. We are empowered from within to leave our old way and pursue a life of following God. We respond to His voice to become all that He says we are. It is evident in the way we live life. Our thinking is that of being loved by God, so we live our lives to love Him. We live our lives to be givers of life to our world because Christ in us makes us come alive. This is the faith of Abraham – a Chaldean who became a Hebrew by a righteousness imputed to him by faith. We are new creations in Christ by a righteousness imputed to us by faith in Jesus Christ.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
