Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am in Wisconsin. I have had a wonderful few days with a very close friend, a blessed family reunion on Saturday, and a privilege to speak to a precious community of church believers yesterday. God is truly good!
Jesus made a way for us to live in and from the manifest presence of God in our lives as a dwelling place of God’s Spirit. The throne room of God is in heaven and in our hearts. Our access to heaven is not just when we die. It is a daily access from within our hearts. Whether we are Jews or Gentiles, we have been brought near to God through the sacrificed blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave the full life of His flesh so that we could receive the full life of His Spirit. We are no longer bound to being individuals of the flesh. We are welcomed by our heavenly Father to be members of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is the dwelling place of God’s Spirit in heaven and upon the earth. As sons and daughters of God we are in this world, but we are no longer bound to the strongholds and limitations of this world.
Ephesians 2:19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
The prophets in these verses are the prophets of the Old Covenant. The apostles are the firstfruit sending authority of the New Covenant. The one body of Christ made of Jews and Gentiles is the testimony of God’s plan for the generations of humanity. This is the really good news given to us by God through the sacrifice of God’s Son, Jesus the Christ.
We are a holy temple in the Lord. We are part of something that is being built by God. God is the builder and maker of a heavenly city. He is the one who builds a heavenly community in the midst of the nations of the world. As sons and daughters of God we live daily as the body of Christ by the authority of God’s eternal plan established in heaven.
Revelation 4:4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads.
The church is built on the foundation of these twenty-four elders, and they’re clothed in white robes. They’re clothed in Christ. They’re clothed in the testimony of Christ, and they have crowns on their heads.
I have a personal experience with this, because in October of 1999, I was sitting in my office, and I had a personal experience concerning my great grandfather. I didn’t really know anything about my great-grandfather. I was just sitting in my office doing some studying, and I had an open-eyed vision of my great-grandfather. I knew in my heart that I was experiencing something of him. I saw him in heaven, and he was getting credit for everything I was doing in Christ. He was crying, he was weeping, he was saying, no, no, it’s not me, it’s you, Jesus! I saw a crown on his head, and he threw it to Jesus, and he said, it’s not me, it’s You Jesus! My feeling was that my great-grandfather was receiving a gift, an offering of love to Jesus, because I just loved Jesus. One of his descendants just loved Jesus, and he got credit for it, and he was able to give the honor of that love to Jesus. I thought, oh, God, you’re kidding me! Heaven is like that! It seemed like, it gets better, because it’s not disconnected from what’s happening still. So, I had this open-eyed vision and then I received a book in the mail from my sister. The title of the book was, Fifty Years in America, Men Who Count. In the book was a story of my great-grandfather’s conversion to Christ in 1861. My great-grandfather led a movement called the Haugean movement. They were called the Praying Lutherans, the Awakened. My great grandfather was saved in a tent meeting. He went into a tent, and the women in the tent began to pray. They said, if Osten Hansen can become holy, anyone can. They began to pray. He stood up in the middle of the tent meeting. He said, I’ve been a man of wild character, but I want to become a Christian.
He came to Christ. He was 19 years old. He was a farmer. He continued to farm until he was 26. He had so many people coming to him with questions about Christ that he ended up going into full-time ministry. He started a training school that lasted 72 years, which became a seminary with the Lutheran church. He led the Haugeans, a group of Norwegian Lutherans inspired by a man known as the Martin Luther of Norway (Hans Nielsen from the village of Houge).
I have another novel that I’ve received since called, All of Julia’s Children. It’s about a Norwegian immigrant family in Minnesota, and their pastor was my great-grandfather. They said, the Hougeans were very serious people, but not so Pastor Hanson. He was always the life of the party. He was always laughing. He would be preaching, and then he’d break into song. Then he would preach, and he’d break into song. I thought, I received free stuff!
So I believe that this experience of the elders around the throne is right now. What is in heaven is not disconnected from that which is in the earth. We can expect this same testimony for our children and our children’s children because we live in and from the presence of God in the throne room of His grace.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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