Responding to Holy Spirit

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

I hope everyone is well. I am continuing to enjoy my time at home in Bellingham. I am finishing a few projects at home and enjoying my summer. I am working on a few video projects and also working around home a bit.

Holy Spirit is not merely a power of God. Holy Spirit is God. Our daily fellowship with Holy Spirit increases our daily connection with Jesus the Son. Our internal connection to Holy Spirit empowers our spirits to know that we are God’s sons and daughters. It is by this that we know God as our Father and our spirts cry out, “Abba, Father”. To develop this relationship, we must practice responding to Holy Spirit within us as our daily way of life.

John 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Jesus has now been glorified and He has given us Holy Spirit. If we seek to know God as Holy Spirit joined to our spirits from within, we must also partner with Holy Spirit to allow rivers of living (life-giving) water to flow from within us to our world. Life-giving water is the ability to give life to others. This is love. It is not a matter of releasing power. It is a matter of living in an intimate fellowship with Holy Spirit, and this is manifested through the fruit of life that comes to us and through us for the sake of our world. It is supernaturally powerful because Holy Spirit is God. It is a testimony of love by being loved by God from within. That testimony of being loved will empower us to love others in our world. The living water that flows from within us is experienced in the words, expressions, and actions of our lives. We are new creations in Christ, and it is the life of Holy Spirit within us that empowers our testimony to our world.

Ezekiel 1:24 When they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a tumult like the noise of an army; and when they stood still, they let down their wings.

Jesus is in our lives by the testimony of Holy Spirit. He stands in the midst of our lives as both Lord and Christ. He is the Word, but we are His voice. His voice is the sound of many waters. That water is the life of Christ flowing from within each of us. He is in us, but we must make expressions that are responses to His presence within us. By this we see His presence upon us to our world. We become witnesses of Him, not merely witnesses for Him.

Revelation 1:13 …and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters…

When we know someone and we love them, we value who they are, and we respond to who they are. We invite them into our world, and we share our world with them.  Holy Spirit is God in our lives, and we respond to Him because we are loved by Him. We find our identity in our Father, God. Because of this, we live to be expressions of Christ as part of the body of Christ joined to Jesus in every aspect of our lives through an intimate fellowship with Holy Spirit.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson



Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

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Knowing God as Precious

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

We had a wonderful day yesterday at Alife. Pastor Jonathan invited us all to have a prophetic encounter with God. It was rich and full to hear the response of people as God spoke to them and through them. Everyone in the room was participating in some way. Life happened! Most people stayed at the end for a long time. They didn’t seem to want to leave. God was in the house. God was in His family and His family was in Him.

God wants us to know Him in a deep and intimate way. When we approach God as a power, we often miss God as a person.  When we look to Him as our savior, our healer, our deliverer, our promiser, or any other attribute of His power, we tend to miss discovering Him in a more intimate way. Without realizing it, we exchange a relationship with Him for a relationship with what He can do.

Our journey in life is about growing in knowing God. Life is not measured in what we can accomplish in life. It is measured by our relationship with God. Our relationship with God is testified by the life that we bring to our world for knowing Him. We must grow in knowing God.

Knowing God comes by our desire to know Him. He is not far from any of us, and He desires to be found in every day and every aspect of our lives. How do we cultivate our desire to know God? How do we position ourselves to experience God in our lives? What is the secret to seeking for and finding God in a greater fullness in our lives? I believe the answer to these questions is seen in the focus of our hearts. Whatever we set our hearts to find, we will find. We set our hearts to find what we consider to be valuable in our lives.

1 Peter 2:7 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.”

The apostle Peter declared in these verses that Jesus is precious to those who believe, but He is a chief cornerstone to those who don’t believe. Those who don’t see Him as precious can only see Him for what He is and their preconceived ideas of what that should be trips them up to be offended by what He appears to be. God is a person and as a person, we must know how precious our relationship is with Him. This same principle is meant to be true in our human relationships in life but even that is first of all dependent upon our relationship with God.

When something is precious, we value it above other things. When something is precious to us, we know we cannot live without it. Air is precious to me. I can hold my breath for a bit, but by body will gasp for air if it is not allowed air for long. Water is precious to me. I can go for a while without water, but even in one day my body will start to cry out for water. In just a few days my body will shut down for lack of water. A secret to growing in knowing God is to get a revelation of how precious He is to, and in, our lives. We cannot live without Him!

God is not a power. His power simply testifies of Him. God is a person. He is our Father, He revealed His love to us through His only begotten Son, and He comes to us by His ever-present Holy Spirit. God is a trinity, but He is revealed to us through three distinct persons in His being. Without Jesus, we cannot fully know God as our Father, because it is only through the embodiment of a son that we can grow in knowing God as our Father. Without Holy Spirit, we cannot know the Father or the Son, because no one can come to God but by the Spirit of God. To be spiritual people we must embrace a relationship with God as the Spirit, God as the Son, and God as our Father. To know Jesus the Son, we must also embrace knowing God our Father. To know God our Father we must embrace knowing Jesus the Son. To Know God the Son and God the Father, we must know God the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is God and He has been sent to us by God our Father in the name of Jesus, God’s Son. To fellowship with Holy Spirit is a fellowship with the Son.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

Holy Spirit in us, and with us is precious. We need to grow in knowing how much we need Him, not just for what He can do but for who He is. Partnership with Holy Spirit is a partnership with our heavenly Father. It is a partnership with Jesus God’s Son. Our connection to Holy Spirit in our own spirit is the key to growing in knowing God in our lives. We must have a revelation of how precious our connection to Holy Spirit in our hearts is.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson



Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

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A Temple of Holy Spirit

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in Bellingham. We are continuing to have wonderful weather with the blessings of summer. I was blessed yesterday to minister at Alife Church in the theme of Growing in Knowing God. God wants us to know that we are part of His eternal family of life.

What is the gospel? What is the good news in the simplest form? God made a way for us to be a temple of Holy Spirit. He made a way for us to abide in God and for God to abide in us. This is true for us individually and true for us as the corporate body of Christ. Being a temple of Holy Spirit is what empowers us to become expressions of God in our world.

In the Old Testament King Cyrus made a decree to build the temple of God and that decree was in reality a decree to build the city of God (Ezra 1:2; Dan. 9:25). Although King Cyrus did not say the words, ‘build the city’; his word to build the temple became the word to build the city once the temple was restored. The word to build the city was the manifest completion of the temple of God. The city of God had to be built because the temple was built (including the law and proper offerings). The temple was the word gone forth. Build a temple and there will be a city.

We must be a house of God’s presence before we can be a community of His testimony. We must be a community of His testimony before we can be a people of His purpose. The community of God is dependent upon being the temple of God’s Holy Spirit. The temple is not dependent upon the community. The community is dependent upon the temple. The temple of Holy Spirit will activate, facilitate, and release the community of Christ. Build a temple and you will build the city. Build the city and you may never build the temple.

This is also true in our Christian walk. If Jesus is in our heart, if there is a temple, then the work of the city (Christian community life) can be completed. Once Jesus is in our heart, we are new creations, but it is yet to be further manifested in our lives. God spoke the word to call us, but it didn’t become ‘the word sent forth’ until we received Jesus into our hearts. We had to become a house for His Spirit to dwell in and we had to receive His Spirit to dwell in us to write His law of love upon our hearts and minds. We had to be able to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God in Christ (Rom. 12:1). Christian community doesn’t make us the testimony of Christ. Christ in us empowers us to become the testimony of a Christ-like community. We must embrace Christ in us to become part of a culture of Christ in our world.

Holy Spirit in our lives is an awe-inspiring reality. We can grow in knowing God as our Father and ourselves as sons and daughters of God. We know Jesus the Son and in knowing Jesus the Son we grow in understanding our own identity as sons and daughters of God. We grow in becoming a testimony of His character, nature, way, power, and authority. In this we also grow in a partnership in the purposes of God as our Father for the glory of His name in all things.

We must not be ignorant of Holy Spirit in our lives. We must cultivate our desire to know God in us, with us, and even in the power of His presence upon us. We need to embrace being clothed in the testimony of Holy Spirit in our lives. Knowing Holy Spirit is a seven day per week, twenty-four hour per day reality. Although we don’t see Holy Spirit, we must practice responding to His presence in, with, and upon our lives. We need to practice recognizing the thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, emotions, and desires that are inspired by Holy Spirit from within us. Our spirits are being inspired by Holy Spirit and we must recognize that Holy Spirit is the person of God abiding in us. We are not merely people in our world. We are sons and daughters of God in our world as expressions to those who know the love, presence, and purpose of God in our lives. When we know that we are a temple of Holy Spirit we become blessings in and to our world. We live to multiply the blessings of God in the lives of others. We empower others in a multigenerational way that influences the future in a life-giving and life-changing way. The influence of God’s kingdom brings blessings to the world, even beyond our earthly journey.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

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What Governs Our Lives?

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in Wisconsin. I have had some wonderful days here with a very close friend, a family reunion, a connection with some classmates from fifty years ago, and a great time with a church family here yesterday. God has been in many connected moments. Tomorrow I will head home, and I am looking forward to some summer time with my family and friends there. God is good!

When we lived our lives apart from a personal relationship with God in Christ, the focus of our lives was one of self-interests and self-purposed vision. We lived for our own wills because we were disconnected from God and His desires. Jesus made it possible for us to be reconnected to God as our Father and to find an internal administration of life. When our lives are summed up in Christ, our lives bring the life of Christ to our world.

Ephesians 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation (administration – NAS) of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.

What is it that governs our lives? Everyone is governed by something. Whatever governs our lives determines how we live our lives. How we live our lives determines how we influence our world. As believers in Christ, we are to live our lives by the influence of the government of God’s kingdom. Jesus is the headship of our lives, and His headship is administrated by the voice of Holy Spirit to our spirits. Holy Spirit inspires our spirits to influence our souls with thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, emotions, and desires that agree with God’s will. This is the empowerment of our beliefs. Our beliefs determine our actions, our actions determine how we view our future, and how we view our future determines how we influence our world.

The kingdoms of the word operate with a different government than the kingdom of God. What is it that governs your life? The cultures of the world, and people in the world, are governed by the internal voice of their own conscience or by some external forms of law. These two things are informational administrators. They are governments of individual lives, with self-focused interests, opinions, and views determined by a knowledge of good and a knowledge of evil.

Sons and daughters of God are to be governed by the kingdom of God. It is an internal reality of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is a government of grace and truth. It is a government of a corporate body with a corporate purpose – the body of Christ. This is an administration of grace and truth. A government of grace and truth puts God at the center of our world. A government of conscience or law puts man at the center of our world.

The Old Covenant was governed by an obedience to the law. The New Covenant is about being obedient to faith. Faith comes by hearing God. Faith happens when we hear God speak to our hearts. Faith works through love, and it is always toward the one who spoke. Faith towards God comes by hearing God in our hearts. It results in actions on our part, but those actions are inspired by a revelation of God’s love in our hearts. We know that God loves us and thus we hear Him in our hearts. We respond with actions of love towards Him and towards who and what He loves. This is the New Covenant testimony of intimacy with God in our hearts. This is grace! Grace is the manifest presence of God in our hearts. This is what empowers our beliefs, and this is what will change our actions. Our minds will be renewed to see what God sees and to live for what God desires in our lives. This is the administration of the kingdom of God from within us.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

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His Presence in Clouds

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

I hope you had a great weekend. It continues to be sunny in Bellingham. The garden is bearing fruit, and it is good to be home. Pastors Jonathan and Danie gave a great word yesterday at Alife. It is time to let go of some things to embrace what God desires to do in our lives today. God’s way is better than ours and we can always trust Him.

God’s gifts of peace and grace have come to us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. God’s peace is our access to our heavenly Father and all of His heavenly blessings in our lives. Grace is the testimony of God’s access to our earthly house. Christ in us is the hope of glory and Christ in us is the manifested presence of God that changes us to become all that we are intended to be in life. We have something greater than the disciples of Jesus had while Jesus walked this earth. The reality of this greater testimony was given to His disciples after His ascension to heaven. That testimony grew in the church of the first century after Jesus ascended into heaven and then clothed the body of Christ in the manifest presence of Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus had risen in bodily form into the clouds, ten days later the cloud of Holy Spirit’s presence clothed the body of Christ in the testimony of a greater glory. This was a further coming of Jesus as Holy Spirit was sent by the Father in Jesus’ name. The outpouring of Holy Spirit upon those on the day of Pentecost was just the beginning of a continual coming of Christ in greater measures of His Spirit in the generations to come. Like the river described in Ezekiel chapter 47, the presence and purpose of God increases from glory to glory in the generations of Christ’s unfolding story in the earth.

Revelation 1:7 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.

There are many references in the Scripture to God coming in clouds. It is a metaphor for God’s manifest presence. For those who seek God with a desire to know Him, it is a metaphor of good news of God’s presence. For those who do not desire to know God, the coming of the cloud is a metaphor of destruction. For anything in us that does not desire God, the term coming in clouds is good news in the sense that God’s presence will remove what can be removed from our lives so that we will know the eternal testimony of life given to us by God from heaven.

The Revelation was being given to John because it was to “shortly take place” (Rev. 1:1). The Revelation was given to John in a form of ‘signs’ since the greater value of its content was in its prophetic application for all time, not merely the exegetical fulfillment in John’s day. In the first chapter of Revelation Jesus is seen as the King, the High Priest, and as the Prophetic Judge, standing in the midst of His true Church. The glory of His presence is seen as Him “coming with clouds”. Jesus is standing in the midst of His Church as a witness of the New Covenant and against those who hold to the lifeless testimony of the fulfilled past. Jesus was being revealed as the One who fulfills all things and through whom all things exist. He stands in our lives to empower us by grace that is brought to us by faith. Faith comes when we hear God in our hearts and when we hear God, we turn to see Him. Every revelation from God is an invitation to have an encounter with God, so that we can become transformed by Him and become something of that revelation. His presence in our lives continually reveals His glory as we are changed as we turn to Him in His coming in our lives.

2 Corinthians 3:16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

It is a continual encounter with Christ in us that empowers us to rule and reign in life. We are empowered by God’s manifest presence in our lives. In Christ we have been given an administration of grace.

Revelation 1:12 Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters…

Think about your own life in Christ. When you experience Jesus, He inspires faith in your heart. When you hear Him, you grow in knowing Him! When you hear His voice, you can see His presence in your life. Jesus Christ is standing in the midst of your life! He is standing in the midst of His Church! He is who He is, and because HE IS we are forever changed. He is the King, Priest, Prophet, and Transformer of our lives!

Blessings,

 

Ted J. Hanson




Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

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A Grace Empowered Life

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

I had a great weekend at Alife Church in Bellingham and at Everyone’s Church in Mt. Vernon, Washington. Saturday was a full day of prophetic activation with prophetic ministry in an evening of worship of God in His manifest presence. Sunday was a day of releasing a word of being priests and kings to our God by the power His peace and grace.

God wants us to live a grace empowered life. Only by living a grace empowered life can we become authentic in who God created us to be. What does it mean to live a grace empowered life? I believe that grace is the manifest presence of Holy Spirit working in and through our lives. He transforms us to become all that we are meant to be in this world. Jesus came to reconnect us to God our Father through an intimate and powerful relationship with Holy Spirit. That relationship is not one that merely invites visitations of God’s presence into our lives. It is a testimony of being a temple of God’s presence in all things and at all times. Holy Spirit living in us empowers our lives to be transformed by His perfecting grace by being the Lord, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Might, Knowledge, and empowerment by an Awe of God from within our hearts. This is God’s grace that empowers us to become a testimony of God’s truth in our world.

A government of grace is an administration of the kingdom of God working in and through our lives. The kingdom of God is a matter of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit from within our hearts. It is the empowerment of our identity, testimony, and purpose in life. The apostle John wrote of this divine empowerment in his revelation of Jesus Christ. What was previously hidden in the law, has become revealed as a living reality in our lives.

Revelation 1:4 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne…

A revelation of Jesus Christ in our lives grants us an understanding of the gifts given to us in Christ. The gift of peace has been granted to every one of us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Peace is access to God’s house. We have been granted access to all that is in heaven. Through the blood of Jesus we have been brought near to God in all things. Every provision of heavenly blessing has been granted to us by our access to heaven.

The gift of grace is given to us so that we can know God’s manifest presence in our lives that transforms us to become like him in the character, nature, way, power, and authority of who we are. Grace is God’s access into our house. It is His access into our lives. Holy Spirit in our lives is a sevenfold reality of His presence working in and through our lives (Isa. 11:1, 2). He is our Lord, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Might, Intimacy Knowledge, and an empowerment by an Awe of all that God is – the Fear of the Lord. It is the sevenfold Holy Spirit that perfects us to become all that we are meant to be in Christ.

Faith gives us access to God’s peace and God’s grace in our lives. Faith and peace are testimonies of a relationship with God. Everything in life is a matter of relationship. Faith comes by hearing God in our hearts. It works through love. It is through a relationship with God that we know God’s mercy that gives us peace with God.

Revelation 1:5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen

We have been washed from our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ because of His love for us. His gift of love to us is His means of restoring us to our true identity, testimony, and purpose in life. We are kings and priests to our God. As priests we experience the blessings of our access to all that God is and has in heaven. As kings we become empowered by all that is heavenly in our lives to bring the influence of heaven into our world. We are not kings like the kings of the world. We are kings that give the life of God to the people and the environments of our world because we are priests that receive the life that comes to us from heaven. We offer up the spiritual sacrifices of life to heaven by being givers of life to our world.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | Comments Off on A Grace Empowered Life

Responding to Holy Spirit

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

I am posting this blog a day late since I was traveling home from the UK yesterday. I had an amazing trip with lots of old connections, new connections, and most of all – God appointments filled with God’s presence. I am home renewed and refreshed by all that God did.

When we know someone and we love them, we value who they are, and we respond to who they are. We invite them into our world, and we share our world with them. Our relationship with God is the same. We find our identity in our Father God. We live to be expressions of Christ as part of the body of Christ joined to Jesus is every aspect of our lives. Jesus is our Lord. He is our desire. He is the motivator of the will of our hearts. Holy Spirit is God in us, with us, and upon us to reveal that we live with God for His purpose in all things. Our source of being is our heavenly Father. The very expression of our being reveals a prophetic testimony of Jesus as the Lord of our lives. The posterity of our being is empowered by Holy Spirit working in us and with us for the glory of God in all that we do. God doesn’t just reveal these things in our lives. They are revealed as we willingly respond to God.

Mark 16:17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

The signs that follow those who believe are within them, but those who believe live a lifestyle of responding to Holy Spirit within them to reveal a testimony of being clothed in the power of Christ. Holy Spirit empowers the casting out of demons, but we cast them out by releasing that anointing and speaking words of delivering life. Holy Spirit empowers new tongues from within us, but we respond to new sounds brought to our souls from within by a motivation of Holy Spirit and we speak them with our mouths. Holy Spirit gives us power over deceiving spirits (serpents), but we take them up. We respond to the discerning of Holy Spirit, and we exercise power over the things that seek to deceive us. Holy Spirit gives us immunity to deadly things, but we must respond to His inspiration of life to walk in the protection of that life. Holy Spirit’s anointing heals the sick, but we lay our hands upon them to release that healing. Our relationship with Holy Spirit is that of a relationship with the One who loves us, and we practice responding to Him in our lives to release His life-giving power in and through us to our world.

Mark 16:19 So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.

Holy Spirit has come to us in Jesus’ name. He is the Spirit of the Lord working within us that testifies of the authority of Jesus who sits at the right hand of God. We can expect supernatural signs of Christ’s authority to accompany us when respond to a partnership with Holy Spirit in our lives. We must choose to give the utmost importance to a living relationship with Holy Spirit each and every day. We cannot ignore Holy Spirit and expect to see God results in our lives. We must choose to be spiritual. We choose to be empowered by Holy Spirit through the natural expressions of our lives. This makes us spiritual (spirit-natural) in all that we are and do.

1 Corinthians 12:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: 2 You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.

The way of the world is to be led by the things of the world. This is to be motivated by created things. When we are motivated by created things, we become expressions of something less than who God intends us to be. This is idolatry, and it diminishes the life-giving likeness and image of God in our lives. When we are motivated by Holy Spirit, we become expressions of God that reveal the ministry of Jesus for the work of our heavenly Father by the giftedness and power of Holy Spirit. This involves a constant responding to Holy Spirit in and through our lives. It is a connection of our spirits to Holy Spirit that empowers our souls to motivate the works of our lives to bring God’s supernatural life to our world.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

 



Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | Comments Off on Responding to Holy Spirit

Growing In Knowing God

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in England. I have had a great weekend here in Clay Cross and in Shirebrook. It is wonderful to see hungry people desiring to be empowered to live as sons and daughters of God. I am looking forward to this next week in Wales and England with old friends and new ones. God is surely good!

How do we cultivate our desire to know God? How do we position ourselves to experience God in our lives? What is the secret to seeking for and finding God in a greater fullness in our lives?

In the past few years, I have been growing in knowing God in a deeper and more intimate way. I am growing in knowing God’s presence resting in my life, and thus I find myself resting in God in a greater way. I used to approach God as the supernatural One who reveals His power in us, through us, and to us in life. When we approach God as a power, we often miss God as a person. When we look to Him as our Savior, our Healer, our Deliverer, our Promiser, or any other attribute of His power, we tend to miss discovering Him in a more intimate way. Without realizing it, we exchange a relationship with Him for a relationship with what He can do.

God is not a power. His power simply testifies of Him. God is a person. He is our Father, He revealed His love to us through His only begotten Son, and He comes to us by His ever-present Holy Spirit. God is a trinity, but He is revealed to us through three distinct persons in His being. To know the fullness of who He is in His trinity requires us to embrace Him fully in His individual uniqueness of identity.

Without Jesus, we cannot fully know God as our Father, because it is only through the embodiment of a son that we can grow in knowing God as our Father. Without Holy Spirit, we cannot know the Father or the Son, because no one can come to God but by the Spirit of God. To be spiritual people we must embrace a relationship with God as the Spirit, God as the Son, and God as our Father. To know Jesus the Son, we must also embrace knowing God our Father. To know God our Father we must embrace knowing Jesus the Son. To Know God the Son and God the Father, we must know God the Holy Spirit.

Our fellowship with one another in and as the body of Christ is empowered by our fellowship with God. It is a fellowship of the Spirit (Phil. 2:1). Holy Spirit is God and He has been sent to us by God our Father in the name of Jesus, God’s Son. To fellowship with Holy Spirit is a fellowship with the Son. What Jesus told His disciples is true for us today. Even though Jesus had walked with His disciples in human form for more than three years, there true intimacy with Him could only come to them after His resurrection from the dead and their joining to Him by the Holy Spirit in them.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

Holy Spirit is not merely a power of God. Holy Spirit is God. Our daily fellowship with Holy Spirit increases our daily connection with Jesus the Son. Our internal connection to Holy Spirit  empowers our spirits to know that we are God’s sons and daughters. To develop that relationship, we must practice responding to Holy Spirit within us.

John 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

If we seek to know God as Holy Spirit joined to our spirits from within, we must also partner with Holy Spirit to allow rivers of living (life-giving) water to flow from within us to our world. It is not a matter of releasing power. It is a matter of living in an intimate fellowship with Holy Spirit, and this is manifested through the fruit of life that comes to us and through us for the sake of our world. It is a testimony of love by being loved by God from within.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | Comments Off on Growing In Knowing God

A Prophetic Voice of Life

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am back in Bellingham. It has been a great weekend with lots of sunshine and connection with family. It was good to be home in my local church community. Pastors Jonathan and Danie challenged us to stand believing for the testimony of fruit in our lives and for our victory over everything that opposes us in our path of harvest.

We were born into this world to bring life to our generation for the sake of the generations to follow. The impact of our lives upon our world is directly connected to our personal connection to God as our Father. Holy Spirit in our lives is the power of the presence of God to change our world. He is God, and His anointing in our life is a prophetic testimony of life. I define prophecy simply by saying, ‘God speaks, life happens!’ God speaks through our lives in the frequency of sight, sound, and experience. Our prophetic voice to our world proclaims life to our world through the way we live. It is heard in our world by the truth that we live. It is experienced in our world by the life that we express life-giving works in our places of dwelling in the spaces given to us to influence.

Our view of God will influence our prophetic voice to others. What Makes God, God? What is it the defines God? If we believe that God is an angry God, we will be a prophetic voice of anger to our world. If we believe that God is an informational teacher, we will become a prophetic voice of information to our world. If we believe that God’s ultimate identity is one of judgment, we will become a prophetic voice of judgment to our world. Whatever our view of God is will determine what we can become, and it will determine what our world can become.

Religious people often define God as the One who opposes sin. They often present Him an angry God that gave the strong command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When we look at the story in Genesis, we find that God’s command was not about avoiding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was about choosing the trees that gave life. If man were to choose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that tree would give man the consequence of death. God would not kill man, man’s choice of information over intimacy and trust would result in death. God’s desire was, is, and will always be a desire of life for mankind.

Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The numerous trees in the garden were numerous choices for life and God commanded man to eat of every tree, except one. His command was to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat! His second word was to simply avoid the tree that would bring death. God is a giver of life and not a controller by law.

Even when man made his choice to be wise and independent, God didn’t put upon them shame. The same came upon man from the choice of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The focus of man shifted from being loved by God to being ashamed of their own choices.

Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

Man’s decision to be independent from God didn’t stop God from desiring an intimate relationship with man. Sin stopped man from seeing who God was, but it didn’t stop God from seeing man through the eyes of a loving Father. In the day of sin, God still wanted a walk of relationship with man.

Genesis 3:8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

God wants us to know Him in an intimate way. He is our Father and He gives life, breath, and all things. Only seeing God is a giver of life will empower us to be prophetic expressions of life to our world. The voice of God is a voice that invites us to have a relationship with Him, to walk with Him, and to know Him in His mercy and grace.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | Comments Off on A Prophetic Voice of Life

Abide in Him and He in Us

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in Trail, B.C., Canada. I have had a great weekend ministering at the Junction Covenant Church and being with many friends I haven’t been able to be with for the past few years. God did some wonderful things this weekend and many people were touched by the presence of Holy Spirit is a special way.

As sons and daughters of God we are called to be expressions of Christ in every aspect of our lives. We find our identity, testimony, and purpose in Christ. While we were still sinners, Jesus died for us to reconcile us to our heavenly Father. He was a last and eternal Adam to make a way for us to enter into His body as new creations in Christ. Jesus was a human being and as a human being He was a spacious place of His Father’s presence in this world. As He was about to die, He assured His disciples of the greater glory to come.

John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

I believe that there is a place in heaven prepared for us all, but I also believe that Jesus was referring to much more in these verses. He was making a way for the disciples to be where He would go and for Him to be with them in the world in which they would still live. He was making it possible for each of them to become a spacious place of God’s presence. In the context of this, Jesus told Thomas that He was the way, the truth, and the life to the place that He was referring to. Jesus had lived His entire life demonstrating the way, the truth, and the life as a man. He lived His entire life connected to His Father by the presence of Holy Spirit so that we through Him can be a testimony of that same way, truth, and life. What is this way, truth, and life?

As human beings, we are spirit, soul, and body. The human spirit was created to be joined to God’s Holy Spirit. The way of man is to be joined to God in the Spirit. When a person’s spirit is empowered by Holy Spirit, their spirit floods their soul with life from within. By this, every man and woman knows an intimate connection to holiness from within. This is the power of a sanctified spirit that floods the soul to be a sanctified soul that increasingly becomes an expression of the Father in the truth of who He is. A sanctified soul lives to give life to their world through the actions of their lives. They live to do the works of their heavenly Father in all things and thus they destroy the works of the devil. They destroy the works of death by doing works that bring life into their world.

John 14:8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.”

Jesus has made a way for us to live as He lived in this world. We can manifest the way, the truth, and the life of Christ to our world because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Our heavenly Father gives life, breath, and all things. We are each a spacious place of God’s presence in this world. Christ is in us, with us, and even upon us to clothe us with a testimony of heavenly things, is the glory of our Father in this world. We are kings and priests to our God, and we can live as Jesus lived because He abides in us, and we abide in Him in our everyday world.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:

House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225

To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.

Our Ministry Information Is:
House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | Comments Off on Abide in Him and He in Us