Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I have had a great week and weekend in Portugal. It is a blessing to be back to see this part of my spiritual family. God is revealing His presence in the body of Christ.
Our relationship with God is not a means by which we escape the world for some secluded territory apart from the world that we live in. Our relationship with God is the means by which we become a life-giving influence in and to the communities of the world around us. Jesus prayed for His disciples that God would not take them out of the world, but that He would keep them safe from the world. They were to be an influence of life to the world, not influenced by the spirit or ways of the world.
John 17:15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
The truth is not a set of laws by which we judge ourselves and others. Knowing the truth is to know God’s love and His overcoming testimony of life in all things. This doesn’t make us separate from the world, it separates us unto God. If the world rejects us for our union with God, that is on them, not us. We are not to reject the people of the world; we are to be salt and light in the world. Salt brings the preserving testimony of health and life, and light makes a way in the darkness by which men can see.
Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Salt is not meant to destroy the earth; it is meant to draw out the flavors of life, like good food to the taste buds of our mouths. Salt purifies, preserves, and enhances the diversity of flavors. To say there is one salt at the table is an idiom in some cultures that simply means that the diversity of food at the table becomes one feast by the grace of life at the table. We are to be the salt of God’s grace that enables others to come and find themselves as sons and daughters of God at the table of life.
Light is not meant to be an enclave for some, thus excluding others. It is not an enclosed territory that makes us culturally distinct from the foreign territory that surrounds us. It is a way by which all around us can find the way to true life. For this reason we shine before men. We don’t shine to be separate from the world. We shine to inspire others in the world to desire a transformed life that reveals the good works of God that come by an intimate relationship with God as our Father.
We are not meant to be a culture in the world that grows a population that is separate from the world. We are to be the family of God that inspires anyone and everyone in the world around us to receive a revelation that God is their Father and that they too are called to live as sons and daughters of God. Their disconnection from God has not disconnected God from them. Sin doesn’t stop God from seeing us all as His children, it simply blinds us from seeing Him as our loving Father. When men and women are blind to the love of God, they fail in living as His sons and daughters in our world. When we are the light, others are drawn to the light. Our light is a light that gives God’s life to others, others are drawn to the light that only comes from God. That light is not merely a copy of the kind of things that God would do. That light is the testimony of a burning relationship with God in our hearts. A relationship with love will inspire us to shine with the light of God’s love to our world.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
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