Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I have enjoyed being home after being several weeks on mission. It was good to be in the home church yesterday. I will be heading to the Netherlands at the end of the week after a brief break at home. I am looking forward to being with some wonderful people across the pond and seeing what God will do.
It is great to be the place where God lives. Not just a place where God visits, but a place where God lives. God has always wanted a place of dwelling in the earth. That is His family. The family of God lives with a culture of grace. The power of God’s grace is found within our hearts as we live as a dwelling place of God by His Spirit.
Grace is the power of Holy Spirit working within our hearts. Our willingness to respond to Holy Spirit enables us to receive the testimony of God’s grace working in us. The result will be change. God doesn’t just change us. The change comes by our response to Holy Spirit. Sometimes the change is sudden and even instant, but many times the testimony of God’s grace working in our lives comes through a process of testing. Holy Spirit brings about the change, but we must stand fast to consistently and continually respond to God’s word and presence in our lives.
Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
God’s mercy justifies us and gives us peace. When we receive God’s mercy, we enter into an experience and testimony of His grace. We enter that grace by faith. God speaks to our hearts, and we respond to His word and presence working in us. Grace is an empowerment that transforms our lives. The process of being transformed by God’s grace includes a resistance to that grace. The resistance is not a sign that grace is not working. It is the very thing that causes grace to overcome. Grace is God’s manifest presence in us empowering us to overcome all things.
Tribulations are the pressures of life. The pressures of life lead to the perseverance of our faith. I believe that the tribulation in our lives can also include our own human failures. When we fail, we must find God’s grace to overcome. It is a matter of hearing God in our hearts and continually responding to God’s word and presence in us. When our minds tell us we cannot stand, we hold on to God’s word to us, and we embrace His manifest presence in us for the victory. It’s God’s love that qualifies us and not our strength in the flesh. The testimony of God’s grace doesn’t come by our power or might, but by God’s Spirit within us. For this to happen, we must persevere in the midst of every tribulation that we face in life.
God wants us to learn to persevere. The Greek word used here, implies two ingredients. It contains the ingredient of endurance, and it also contains an ingredient of cheerfulness. It is cheerful endurance. Cheerful endurance is the key to activating the character of Christ within us. If we decide to be miserable while in the midst of our circumstances we appeal to the old nature of the flesh, but if we stand with cheerful endurance, we draw on the life of Christ within us, then the life of Christ within us can manifest. This manifests the character attributes of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22, 23). These are the substance of the fruit of the Spirit within us. When this happens, we manifest the testimony of Christ in a measure of His glory. This is the testimony of hope. Christ in us is the hope of glory.
God’s grace enables us to manifest as sons and daughters of God with an internal change that can be seen as an external testimony that testifies of the goodness and power of God working in our lives.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
