Ted J. Hanson's Weekly Blog – ted4you.com

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

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

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

It is great to be back home in Bellingham after several weeks out. It has felt like summer here and the signs of life are in the yard, in the garden, and in the neighborhood. Life is happening in the world. Lessons can be learned from creation as to the nature of God at work in our lives.

What is God doing in the nations? I am not interested in what the world is doing in the nations. I am interested in knowing what God is doing in the nations. What God is doing leads to eternal realities. What the world is doing only leads to death. When things shake in the world, we can become distracted from eternal realities. When we look to God, we see the increase of His glory and love.

Isaiah 2:2 (also Micah 4:1,2) Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Mountains are high places. There are many obstacles in our path of life. They present themselves as higher than us. These are things we must overcome. They are things that are challenges to our natural abilities. The mountains of the world are made of stones that seek to kill us in some way. They can cause us harm that leads to death. God’s mountain is not like the mountains of the world. We must know that God’s love cannot be shaken by the high things in this world. God’s love is above everything that we face in life.

God’s mountain is made of the unshakeable stone of His love. The prophets Isaiah and Micah proclaimed that in the later days the mountain of the Lord’s house would be higher than the mountains or the hills of the world. What does this mean for us in our lives? What does that mean for us as we grow older in Christ. We should expect our latter days to be greater than our former days. Our days should be filled with the increase of God’s overcoming power of love in every season of our lives.

The principles of the kingdom of God are true at every level in our lives. What is true for us as individuals, is true for us together as the church. What is true in a first fruit, is true in the fullest of fruit. If you believe that God began a good work in your life and He is faithful to complete it, you must also believe that God began a good work in the earth, and He is faithful to complete it. God’s glory is always an increasing glory. If God is changing us from glory to glory, there must also be an increasing testimony of God’s glory in this world. Darkness may be in the peoples of the nations, but we are not the people of the world. We are the family of God!

Isaiah 60:2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the LORD will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. 3 The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

The mountain of God is rising in the earth. That mountain is made of testimonies of God’s love at work in human lives. The mountain of God is rising in our lives. It is made by our connection to God in the Spirit. His presence in our lives reveals His glory in our lives. God is aways speaking and His words are words of life. His voice is always a voice of faith, hope, and love. These are eternal attributes that reveal that God is great, God is good, and His mercy endures forever.

How can we experience the mountain of God in our lives. Mountains are made of stones and God’s Mountain is made of the unshakeable testimonies of His love. We must be connected to Him to receive the testimony of Him in our lives. God is speaking and we must respond to His voice in all things. Our response to God increases His presence in our lives and in our world.

Luke 6:47 “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”

Our response to the voice of God draws us close to Him. He is the rock, and that rock is the unshakeable reality of His love. The testimony of this story told by Jesus is not about building a strong house. It is about connecting our house to the rock. We do this by always trusting God’s voice and responding to all that He says to us. Responding to the voice of God is responding to the sound of God’s voice, the sound of faith, hope, and love.

God is great, God is good, His mercy endures forever. The sound of God draws us to be loved by Him and to love Him and love one another. It is a sound of His mercy and grace. His mercy triumphs over every judgment and His grace gives us the power to overcome all things.

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in Portugal and will be heading home tomorrow after more than three weeks on the road. God has been wonderful in South Africa, Angola, and Portugal. I am blessed with the many lives that have been touched by our Father’s love. I am looking forward to going home to my family now.

A key to living in the presence of God in our lives is to allow Him to transform the dry places of our hearts to a watered garden of God’s presence.

The first curse of the fall was that of spiritual warfare for mankind in the earth. The enemy has been bound to the realm of natural dust. As a result, we are in a continual conflict of spiritual warfare with the Devil and spiritual powers of darkness. Spiritual warfare can be defined as a temptation of other life sources. Life is a journey. Without the reality of a relationship with God, we are bound to a journey going from one thing to another thing in search of life. In this perpetual process of searching, we soon find that everything we cling to for life fails to provide us true life. It quickly proves to be a false source of life that cannot satisfy the cry of eternity within our hearts (Eccl. 3:11).

Genesis 3:14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

Wherever there is dust, a spiritual power of Satan must be there. That spirit is one of deception, conflict, and destruction. Dust is a dry place in our lives. What does a dry place look like? A dry place is a place that seeks to fill eternity in our hearts with something less than God. It is bitter and self-seeking in its desire.

James 3:14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

When we seek the fulfillment of our hearts in something other than God it proves to be earthly, sensual, and even a place of demonic inspiration. The apostle Paul was aware of this when he wrote to the church of Corinth that was looking for life in other sources than Christ.

Is it possible to be a Christian yet be influenced by the deceptions of the enemy? Christ in us is the hope of glory. The life of God comes from within us. The Holy Spirit empowers our spirit to bring life to our soul. To avail the life of the Spirit we must draw upon that life to our soul. It comes by our spirit made one with Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit sanctifies our spirit that we might be holy as our Father is holy.

2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!

In these verses Paul was writing that the believes should be in relationship with Jesus and not other things. He was concerned that they could be deceived as Eve was deceived. The context was one of being deceived, not sin unto death. Does one know how they have been deceived? They don’t! It is deceptive! That is why it is called ‘deception’. The criteria for being deceived is receiving a different Jesus, a different spirit than the life-giving Spirit of God, and a different good news. Preaching another Jesus is another God saves – another salvation. It is receiving another means by which to be saved or receiving a different spirit which we did not receive that brought us the life of God. Deception involves a different means of salvation, a different spirit, and a different good news. If something other than a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit becomes a source of salvation, a motivation of our hearts, and a testimony of good news to our lives – it will result in deception. We will end up with a demonic influence that we find ourselves having to put up with.

The victory in spiritual warfare is to be a resting place of dwelling for the Spirit of God. Our primary responsibility in life is to be a dwelling place for God by His Spirit. This is the power over deceptions, conflicts, and the devouring agendas of every enemy.

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am finishing my time in Angola, Africa. We have had a wonderful weekend with the CCVA churches and others in Luanda. God is good! I believe the future of the family of God is for sure hope and life. I am looking forward to being back in Angola in October.

Each of us has internal weaknesses that make us vulnerable to seek life from other sources than the true source of life – God our Father. We sometimes rebel to the life of God’s Spirit by embracing the influence of our own fleshly desires. Those desires are often inspired by external spiritual forces that tempt our souls to live for ourselves instead of living as those who give life to others as our heavenly Father gives life to us. This is transgression, an internal rebellion to God’s way in pursuit of our own. The result is sin, a disconnect from the true life that only comes by the Spirit of God in our hearts.

Jesus gave His life for our sakes so we could be made free from our iniquities, transgressions, and sins. He gave His life for us so that we could receive the life-transforming way of God in our lives. He came so that we could be changed in our character, nature, way, power, and authority in this world.

Isaiah 53:5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. 11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. 12 He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus made intercession for the transgressor. He made intercession for each of us and has reconciled us to God our Father. We were held captive to the ways of our own carnal desires and to the ways of deceiving spirits at work in the atmosphere of the world. God’s judgment of love on our behalf was a judgment of mercy. Mercy has triumphed over all judgments of our enemies (Jam. 2:12).

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

Satan was the strong man that held us bound to sin. Spiritual powers of darkness held us captive to death, but the Word of God became Jesus, the Son of Man, to free us from every power of darkness. The strong man has been bound by the Stronger Man of Love.

Luke 11:14 And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. So it was, when the demon had gone out, that the mute spoke; and the multitudes marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” 16 Others, testing Him, sought from Him a sign from heaven. 17 But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. 22 But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.

I believe that mute man in this story represents every tongue, tribe, nation, and people of this world. We were bound from finding our true voice in Christ, but Jesus cast out the mute spirit. Jesus knew our real problem. The true issue of life was to release the life of the Holy Spirit from within the hearts of men (Jn. 7:37-39). When the Holy Spirit is released in a flow from the hearts of men, there is a testimony of life. Jesus knew that the real problem among the nations was a ‘mute spirit’. A prophetic declaration concerning the life of God through the nations was being made through this miraculous act of Jesus. At the time of Jesus coming, all of the nations except Israel were ‘bound’ from making a confession of the name of God. They were all bound to deception. They could not be saved as their tribe, their tongue, or their nation. Their tongue was ‘mute’. Salvation was only found in the one nation, Israel. It was only by coming to Israel and becoming a proselyte that they could confess God in the tongue of Israel. They could only magnify God in Israel’s tongue. They could not magnify God in their native tongue. They were ‘bound’ mute. Jesus came to cast the ‘mute spirit’ out! God wants us to walk in the freedom of a full confession of His life and liberty from within our hearts.

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in South Africa. I have had a great time here with some wonderful new friends. I had an excellent day yesterday ministering in two church communities. I am looking forward to the next few days in this country with my newfound friends.

Our true identity is found in being a son or daughter of God. Each of us was created to reveal the likeness and image of our heavenly Father to our world. Our Father gives life and when we discover who we really are, we give life to our world. For this reason Jesus came to reconcile us to our heavenly Father and give us back our true identities in Christ.

Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, 3 to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

As human beings we often fall for the deceptive ways of the enemy, and we trade our riches for poverty. We sacrifice our hearts for brokenness within. We give up our liberty in exchange for some form of captivity. Our freedom yields to a prison of bondage. Our inheritances become relinquished, and we need deliverance from our slavery. Our way of life yields to some way of death. Our hope is sacrificed for hopelessness. We throw away our beauty and find ourselves in a pile of shameful ashes. Our joy is lost, and we are bound to grief and mourning. The praise of who we are is suppressed by a spirit of heaviness. We fail to be expressions of God’s love and we lose our ability to live for the testimony and purpose of God as life-giving sons and daughters in our world. The Spirit of the Lord God is power of the name of Jesus that restores our true identity. That identity is that of being life-giving sons and daughters of God in our world. He delivers us from all evil and conveys us into the kingdom of His love.

Jesus made it possible for us to be born again into a reality of seeing God’s kingdom and embracing an intimate connection to God in our inner man that empowers our outer selves to bring life to our world. The secret is a connection of our spirit to the Spirit of God. That connection empowers our spirit to bring life to our soul and our soul then inspires the actions of our lives to be those that carry the life-giving attributes of our Father in heaven. Demonic forces attempt to resist us and to distract us to live our lives from the outside in rather than an inside out reality of the kingdom of God.

James 4:1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?

Romans 8:12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Galatians 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

Living according to the Spirit of Christ within us will put to death the lust of our own fleshly desires. Giving our attention to defeat the lusts of the flesh will only inspire those desires to flourish and grow. It is only when we passionately embrace the life of God’s Spirit within that we become passionate for the ways of God, and we destroy the influence of carnal desires. This is the secret to walking in the power and testimony of God’s 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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

I hope you are all well. Today I am headed to South Africa for ministry there. I will be there for several days and I am looking forward to what God is going to do. I had a great day yesterday at Everyone’s Church in Mt. Vernon, Washington. God’s loving power of deliverance and freedom was in the house.

God determines who each of us are. Our true destiny is to be an expression of God’s likeness and image. This includes His thoughts, reasoning, imagination, emotions, and desires. Our spirit, soul, and body are meant to work as one to bring glory to God as His manifested sons and daughters in this world. This is the design of our creation.

Satan is a perversion of His original creation. God created him to be a creature of beauty, but he desired to be something beyond who God made him to be. He didn’t like who he was created to be and traded his true identity for a lie. I believe that his sense of the future caused him to see us in the heart of God when he saw the stars of God. He didn’t understand what he could see because he was somehow unsatisfied with who he was. He decided that the stars of God (sons of God) were what he desired to be (Isa. 14:12-15). His motivation was jealousy, envy, shame, discontentment, and pride. Although he was perfect in his beauty and he was full of wisdom given to him by God, he somehow didn’t like himself.

He was not created to be a devil. He was not created to be Satan. These are attributes of his perversion. These are the fruit of embracing and acting upon his internal iniquity. He embraced a lie and has become the father of lies. In his creation he was a seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. He was a refraction of God’s light, God’s sound, and God’s rhythm. He magnified the expressions of God in a wonderful way. He was perfect in his creation until he acted upon a weakness of iniquity within himself. He traded his true identity for a lie, and he was devoured by the fire of his own way. That fire was a personal desire and agenda that perverted his true identity – Ezekiel 28:12-19.  

The weakness of this created being was that he was willing to trade his true identity for a lie. The enemy uses the environment of our world to tempt us to trade for something less than who we really are. Who each of us are will always bring life to our world and any devil is out to destroy who we really are. We are all called to be sons and daughters of God, and like our Father we should give life to our world. The enemy comes in the form of outside sources in an attempt to make you and I trade our true identity for a lie. Our true identity is only found though the connection of our spirit to the life-giving, life-defining, Spirit of God.

The strategy of the enemy is to war against your true identity with his own destructive ways and personality. A spirit of fear attempts to make you afraid. A spirit of rejection tries to crack your soul, so you receive a character of rejection. A spirit of intimidation attempts to make you accept a personality of being easily intimidated. The enemy is out to get your ‘I am’. It’s ok to feel afraid at times, but the enemy wants you to confess an, ‘I am afraid’. When we say, “I am afraid”, we are confessing a personality and character of fear.

A devil strikes the souls of others to destroy their personalities and identities. He seeks to crack the souls of men to tempt them to trade the truth of who they are for the personality of his perversion. A devil of fear strikes the human soul with his personality of fear to tempt them to trade their understanding of love for a lie of fear in their own identity. They trade their trust of love for a personality of fear, and they become fearful. They open their soul to an external spiritual influence that becomes stronger than the internal power of their own spirit that was created to be inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.

1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, 12 having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Spiritual forces of darkness lure the desires of our flesh so that our flesh becomes the motivation of our soul. Our soul is the dimension of our being that is meant to be empowered by our spirit. Our spirit is our inner man, and it is meant to be empowered by a divine connection with God’s Holy Spirit within us. Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness that makes our spirit holy. Our spirit is created to be joined to God, and it is empowered to motivate the thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, emotions, and desires of our soul from within. The actions of our lives are meant to be a visible expression of the life of God manifesting within our soul. When this does not happen, we become vulnerable to the desires of our own flesh and to spiritual influences in the external environment of our world that war against our soul.

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Blessings to you from the Pacific Northwest of America. I have been enjoying my time at home and I am looking to the signs of spring. New life is in the air. It is a season for new life!

A few days ago I was awakened in the midst of a dream. As I awoke Holy Spirit was speaking to me in regard to a phrase commonly used by many Christian believers. The phrase was, “everything has a purpose”. This phrase is commonly connected to the thought that God is in control of all things. Believers often connect this term to the concept of God’s sovereignty. I have addressed this concept in some of my past blogs.

I used to believe that God is in control. That is what Bible teachers told me, but I have read my Bible more carefully and I have discovered that throughout the Scripture is says that God owns everything, but He did an amazing thing. He put what He owns into the hands of those that He loves, even those that don’t love Him.

Psalms 8:3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4 what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? 5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet…  

We must be intimate with the one who owns all things, so we can bring His life to the world given to us for the glory of His name. We are all little lords and kings born to be intimate with the King of kings and the Lord of lords that we might become givers of life to our worlds, even as our Father in heaven is a giver of life in all things! The kingdom of God is an internal kingdom of the human heart that changes the external expressions of our lives. The kingdom of God within our hearts reveals a testimony of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is rooted in the human spirit, and it inspires the human soul from the life of God’s Spirit inspiring our human spirit within. This is the strength of our inner man that empowers us to live our lives as an external testimony for God’s glory.

As I awoke from my dream, God continued to talk to me. He expressed to me that He is sovereign in His gifting, but relational in His character. God doesn’t need anything from us. He can do all things. He can intervene in our lives by His sovereign abilities, but His heart is always for a relationship of intimacy. God is not who He is. Our Father is who He is, and God is a description of what He can do. To say that all things happen for a purpose and consider that purpose being the will of a sovereign God is not true to the character of God. Not all things are the purpose of God, but because our Father loves us, He can turn an evil purpose to a purpose of His will. Our Father wants us to know the reality of His character in our own lives. He wants us to live as His sons and daughters with a nature that is in His likeness and image.

Because man is in control of what God has created in this world, we often experience the consequence of our own actions or even the actions of others in life. My garden produces plants that benefit my life as well as weeds that require my cultivation. In the same way, the world is filled with things that are both good and bad. I don’t believe that this is because God’s will is both good and bad. I believe that God’s will is always good, but bad things happen that prove how good God really is. Bad things not only prove how good God is, but they also prove how good His people can become in the midst of bad things and bad situations.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

In these words, Paul reveals to us that all things work together for good when we love God and walk in the way of His purpose. We could say that everything happens for a purpose but not all is for the purpose of God. Because God is relational in His nature, He invites us to love Him. He invites us to know Him. When we choose to love Him and know Him in all things, God uses His sovereign abilities to work on our behalf because His nature is one of love for us. Our dependency is upon the Love of God, not merely His sovereign abilities. Love is the true power that motivates His working in our lives. God’s love motivates Him in His sovereign abilities working on our behalf. It is not His sovereignty that motivates His love.

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

I hope you had a great Resurrection Sunday! We celebrated the presence of Jesus at Alife yesterday and we enjoyed a wonderful feast together as a spiritual family. Because Jesus lives, we can life! God wants us all to live a prosperous life of knowing Him. True prosperity is not found in the things we possess, but in the life that we live.

The secret to a prosperous life is a prosperous soul. The secret to a prosperous soul is a prosperous spirit. The health of our lives comes from within. Our connection to the kingdom of God is discovered in our heart. Our soul is the seat of authority in our lives. It is with our soul that we make our choices in life. Our soul can be motivated by our own carnal desires or even by outside spiritual forces that impose their will upon us. Only God working in our heart empowers thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, desires, and emotions that bring life to our soul. Our soul determines the actions of our lives. Life-giving actions are inspired by a life-giving attitude in our soul.

3 John 1:2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

God wants us to prosper in all things. To be in health and to prosper in all things, our soul must prosper. Our soul manifests our desires, our thoughts, our reasoning, our imagination, and our emotions. The healthier our thoughts are the heathier our reasoning is, the healthier our imaginations are, the healthier our emotions are, and the healthier our desires become. When our thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, emotions, and desires are healthy our lives will be more prosperous in all that we are and do. This affects all that we are in spiritual and practical ways.

To have a healthy soul we must maintain a healthy connection to Holy Spirit in our spirit. Like the sap of a tree, our spirit is the life-source of our soul. Everything in life is dependent upon our personal relationship with God in our heart.

I am a husband to my wife. I am not a husband to the wives of the world. I am a husband to one woman. She doesn’t need me to be a husband. She needs me to be her husband. She needs me to dwell with her, to understand her, to see how valuable she is, and to treat her accordingly. She needs me to rule in life with her in all things. Bonnie Hanson needs Ted Hanson to be her husband. This means I cannot just find a recipe to being a husband. I must be empowered to be her husband.

I can be inspired by a book on marriage, but I must discover God’s grace that makes me who I am as a husband for my wife. I must constantly grow and mature. My wife doesn’t need the husband she married forty-six years ago. She needs a better husband than that. She needs the husband that has been growing in maturity for forty-six years. My wife needs to be the same, concerning me.

My son Jonathan, my son Aaron, and my daughter Joanna need me to be their dad. They don’t need a dad; they need me to be their dad. Jonathan doesn’t need me to be Aaron’s dad, he needs me to be Jonathan’s dad. Aaron needs me to be Aaron’s dad. Joanna needs me to be Joanna’s dad. In the same way, each of my grandchildren need me to be their grandpa. That means I must become who I am for each of them.

When I go as a minister to places that God has divinely joined me, those places don’t need me to be a minister. Each place needs me to be who God says I am for them. I must discover who God says I am for each one and each place that He sends me. This can only come by the power of God’s grace.

The places I go need the minister that has been growing in maturity by grace. We can only be who we are meant to be today by embracing the work of God’s grace in our lives today. How do we find God’s grace? God’s grace is the empowerment of God’s Spirit working in and through our lives.

Our personal connection to Holy Spirit within us is the secret to life today. Jesus made a way for us to be a temple of His Holy Spirit. This is the temple that He raised up when He rose from the dead. It is not just a guarantee of life after we die. It is the guarantee of life that can never die. Without the grace of God at work in our lives we are destined to the tombs of death, but Jesus rose from the tomb to make room for us to be a part of the forever living body of Christ. Christ in us is the hope of glory in all things and to eternity.

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