Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I am now back home in America. It is good to be home with family and my local community. It was a great trip out, but now I am working on catching up on things at home. I am focused and ready for all that God is going to do in this new season. I am choosing to step into the new through a partnership with God in all things.
I have been addressing our need for a partnership with God so that we can partner with one another for God’s will and glory in our lives. I am using the seventh letter of Revelation to the church of Laodicea as a foundation for understanding this partnership. Without a partnership with God we can profess a form of godliness, but we cannot see His manifest presence that empowers us to reign in life. A belief that God simply is, will not empower us to reign in life. Only His manifest presence, and believing all that He says, can empower us to be givers of God’s life to our world. Only His presence in our lives will empower us to live for the purpose and will of God in life.
Revelation 3:15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—”
Because of the Laodicean’s lukewarm condition, Jesus said He would spew them out of His mouth. This is a Jewish phrase that was part of the curse for breaking covenant with God (Lev. 18:24-28; Lk. 21:24). Israel was told that if they became like the nations of the world, the Promised Land would vomit them out. The people of Laodicea had become conditioned by the world to no longer be seekers of God, but simply lovers of themselves. They sought their own interests above the will and purpose of God. They thought themselves to be rich and in need of nothing, but God saw them to be “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked”. This same principle is true in our lives. When we seek to live our lives independent of God voice and presence, we embrace a testimony of the flesh. The end result is a state of disqualification from the blessings of God.
Revelation 3:18 “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.”
Gold refined in fire is a testimony of faithfulness. Our faithfulness to God is tested by the trials in our lives. The true purpose of every trial is that we might see the faithfulness of God and that we might be proven faithful to Him. Faith comes by hearing God in our hearts and to be faithful is to be found full of faith. We hold fast to hearing God in our hearts in every circumstance and situation of our lives. Sons and daughter of God are faithful to God in all things as He is faithful to them. This produces the salvation of our thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, emotions, and desires – the salvation of our souls! Our identity is found in faith that comes by knowing God for who He is.
1 Peter 1:6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.
White garments speak of the testimony of our lives. We are to be clothed in Christ and not simply the personal testimonies of our own desires. To be clothed in Christ is to be a testimony of His Word and His Spirit in our daily lives. We reveal Christ to the world around us. We are clothed in the testimony of Christ – inside and out!
To anoint our eyes with eye salve is to see what God sees. It is to live for His purpose and will and not our own. When we see what God sees, we live for His glory. We live for the wellbeing of others above our own, because we become givers of life to our world as our heavenly Father is a giver of life in all things.
To partner with God and to open the door of our hearts for God to partner with us bears the fruit of knowing that our identity, testimony, and purpose is for God’s will in all things. We live in His faithfulness to be faithful to Him in our world. We are clothed in His testimony of life to be givers of life to our world for the glory of God. We choose to be empowered to see what God sees above the vision of our own will and desires. When we see what God sees, we live for His will and purpose in all things.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
