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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am heading home after a great weekend in Wichita, Kansas. God was present with us on Saturday at a men’s gathering from ChristLife and Eagle’s Nest churches. I was very encouraged as God touched the hearts of these men. Yesterday we had a wonderful time at ChristLife in the presence of Holy Spirit and the ministry of God’s word. It was good to be with close friends.

The cry of every human heart is for God. The basic need of all of humanity is a need for ‘God’ in their lives. The problem is the eyes of the understanding of the world have been darkened and they cannot see this truth. God has initiated a major ‘assault’ of life upon the nations.

Just as true as the Devil has propagated his degenerate plans of death to all men, God has released an overflowing scourge of life to the nations. God has put the key to finding Him within the heart of all of humanity. The desire of the nations is life and God is life!

Psalms 84:1 How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

We see in this Scripture that the psalmist understood that the cry of his soul and his flesh was for the living God. I don’t believe that this cry is something that has to be planted within the hearts of men. I believe that the souls and the flesh of men are all crying out for the living God. God put that cry within them. They are looking for life! They are simply confused as to what the desire within them is all about. The psalmist is simply stating that he had found the answer to the desire that had been locked up within his very being.

The secret to finding the answer to the cry of the human heart is only found when one finds himself or herself in the place where the answer to that cry is found. We can be asking the right questions, but if we are not living in the place of ‘right answers’ we may never find the answer to our questions asked. Death can be found in the pits of darkness. Death can be found in the caves of despair. Death can be found within the deserted valleys of loneliness, but life is only found in ‘life’s nest’.

Psalms 84:3 Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young–even Your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they will still be praising You. Selah

The fulfillment of the sparrow’s destiny is found in the place of the sparrow’s dwelling. Her destiny to be fruitful and multiply is found within the environment of her nest. When birds build their nests, it is only natural for them to lay their eggs and hatch their young. They don’t have to attend ‘bird schools’ concerning proper habitation of birds. It is in them to know what to do when they find the place of their nesting. When birds find their proper environment, they naturally fulfill their destiny as birds. There is a place where man can find the fulfillment of His destiny as well. It is within the ‘nest’ known as ‘the abiding presence of God’. The altar of the Lord of hosts is the place God intended man to dwell. It is in that place of dwelling in the abiding presence of God that the destiny of mankind will be fulfilled. The altar of the Lord is an open heart before Him. The place of His dwelling is the heart that has asked for, and received, His presence within them. This Scripture refers to the place of God’s dwelling in the plural context. It is the place of His ‘altars’. This tells me that the place of fulfilling our own destiny in Him is connected to our relationship with others in His house. His body is one body but has many members. His house is made of many rooms, but it is one house. I must find my relationship with Him and His family in order to fulfill my destiny. It is only in that context that I can lay hold of that for which He has laid hold of me.

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,

Well, we are now into 2023 and we are discovering the greatness, goodness, and mercy of God in new ways. We had a great day yesterday at Everyone’s church and a great zoom meeting over the weekend with the House of Bread Network.

This is a year of fresh appointments in Christ. It is a season of knowing who God is and knowing who we are in Christ. I am anticipating that another measure of our friendship with God is going to be made known to us in this new year.

This is also a year of partnership with God. That partnership is a partnership of knowing Him and Him knowing us, and then revealing who He is and who we are together to our world. We are not responsible to change the world, but we are responsible to be the light of Christ to our world. We have been sent to be light and salt in our world.

I recently published a new book, Friendship With God – The Empowerment of Honor and Grace. When we know that God is our friend, we become empowered to honor Him and to honor one another. When we know God as our friend, we become empowered by His grace – His manifest presence in our lives that changes us in life-giving ways. Today I want to post a segment from my book that challenges us to embrace being who we are meant to be in Christ for the sake of our world.

Jesus came to reestablish God’s name in our lives, so we will no longer take it in vain. His kingdom is a testimony of His character, nature, way, power, and authority manifest in all that we are and do. When we speak badly of ourselves or others, we are speaking badly of Him. When I speak badly of myself, I speak badly of you; and when I speak badly of you, I speak badly of me. I don’t possess my kingdom for my purposes in life and neither do you. Our kingdoms are kingdoms of our Lord and Christ because of the kingdom of heaven that is within our hearts.

God doesn’t want to tell us what to do or how to act. He doesn’t want to train us like parrots to simply say what He wants us to say or do what He tells us to do. He wants us to be like Him because we are of Him. He is our Father, and we are His children! Intimate friendship with God is at the core of our very being as members of His family. God’s name is our family name! He wants us to know that we are His praise! We are the excellence of His name in all that we are and do.  

Praising God is not using the words, as we often say, “Praise God”. True praise is becoming the excellence of who we are meant to be for His glory. We are not just the worship of God; we are His purpose in the earth. We are His word. We are His name. We are His inheritance. We must not take it in vain. We must not forget who we are.

We must never do something that would be out of character for God and then blame Him. He is a covenant keeper, so we can’t break covenant and then tell people He told us to do it. We can’t do something that is not true to His character or exhibit something in our attitude or actions that is contrary to the way He is, and then blame the voice that motivates us as something inspired by God.

When believers do something that is not true to God’s character, they will often hear a voice and be convinced that it was God, but expressions of God are true to the character of who God is. We cannot ask illegitimate questions and expect to get legitimate answers. If we ask God a question that is not true to the character of who He is, we will hear an illegitimate answer. Illegitimate questions sound like: “God, do you want me to be unfaithful? God, do you want me to let a hater of the brothers into my house? God, do you want me to break covenant with my wife?”

Sometimes the questions are cloaked in a more deceptive way, but these kinds of questions are not questions that can be asked. They are not questions to ask, because these are not questions that God will answer. When we ask these kinds of questions, we will hear a voice, we will believe that we are justified, we will believe we are right and they are wrong, and we will believe that we deserve a break from our commitments and connections. The thought process for the answers we position ourselves to hear sounds like: “They’re not meeting my needs anyway”. What is God doing? These kinds of questions present the truth that we are willing to take God’s name in vain.

Knowing God as our friend, will inspire us to want to be like Him in our world. My two, soon to be three, year old granddaughter was at my house the other day. I said out loud as she was joyfully being herself in the living room, “What was the world without you in it?” She immediately responded with, “What was the world without me in it?” I want to propose to all of us today to embrace this attitude and then to embrace God as your friend and be empowered to shine to your world in the character, nature, way, power, and authority of who He 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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

What a wonderful start to our new year! Last week my children and grandchildren from California were home. The whole family was together, and we did another round of Christmas to celebrate. It was wonderful to be together as a family and to enjoy the sounds of laughter and life that testify of our love for one another.

2023 is a year of fresh appointments from God. It is a year of ‘new strength’. It will be a year of hurdles. What is a hurdle? A hurdle is an obstacle that you are expected to overcome. It is not a place that you cannot get over. It is a place that you are expected to get over, but you are going to have to find the strength to do so. That strength comes from within

Our dependency upon God is not going to be a dependency out of need. It is going to be a dependency inspired by love. An understanding of who God is will give a greater understanding to who we are. An understanding of who we and God are together will give us a greater testimony of purpose. I believe that we will see a measure of the zeal of the House of God restored. It is a season of fresh appointments. It is a season to know that God’s mercy is new every morning. It is a season to know that God’s grace is more than sufficient for every situation in our lives.

At the beginning of 2022, I heard God say that it would not be a year of ministries (ships), but it would be a year of the rudder. We would find ourselves submerged in God’s peace, submerged in God’s presence, and submerged in God’s purpose. It would be a year of becoming the substance of an expression of God. I believe that this is the place of our true identity in Christ. Finding our identity in Christ would be revealed through knowing God in a deeper way and even knowing that He knows us. God would shape us to be a rudder for His direction and His plan. This is a deeper submersion in God. It would not be about knowing where you were going or what you are doing. It would be about who you are and who He is in your life.

A single word of significance for the year would be ‘peace’. Peace was a big word for me and was my message to the church at the beginning of the year. God revealed that doing and being the will of God is connected to peace. The Old Covenant peace offering was a meat offering to be shared with the community. Jesus told His disciples that eating meat was to be and do the will of God.

John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.

To eat meat; to do the will of God, or to be the will of God, involves a connection to God’s community. The peace offering of the Old Covenant was a corporate offering celebrating peace with God that reveals His presence and blessing in the life of each member of His community. To eat meat (to do or be the will of God), requires a connection to the community of God. The community of God is seen in the testimony of Jerusalem. Jerusalem means, vision of peace.

Jerusalem is the heavenly community of God. It is the testimony of being joined to God in heaven, and it reveals heavenly things in our lives. It is a place of worship, a response to God’s love. It was in Jerusalem that King David put the tabernacle of God’s presence on the hill of Zion. It is there that David found wisdom from God to be King in Israel.

Zion is the place of God’s influence to the earth. It is a place where the manifest presence of God and His spoken word becomes the influence of our lives by which we can influence our world. I believe that Jerusalem speaks of a vision of peace, whereby we worship God. I believe that Zion is a testimony of God’s influence to our world through our lives because of God’s peace. We rule and reign with Christ in this world. It’s not just God doing something for us. It is us partnering with God and God partnering with us. We are kings and priests in this world to bring God’s heavenly influence to our world.

My year of knowing God‘s peace culminated with me knowing a deeper level of God as my friend. Because there is no separation between me and God and God and me, I can know that He is my friend, and I can be His friend. He’s not my friend because He needs something from me. He’s my friend because he wants to give me life, breath, and all things. I’m not His friend because He needs me to give Him anything. I am His friend because I give all that I am not because He needs me to do so, but because I love Him. I believe that friendship is the empowerment of honor to God and to one another, and that friendship is also the power of God’s grace working in our lives. The more we understand friendship with God, the more we become empowered to honor God and to honor others. The more we understand friendship with God, the more we become empowered by God‘s grace. God’s grace transforms us to become a testimony of Him in our world

Living our lives as a testimony of God’s peace requires us to live from the inside out. The things of the world are not what shape us. Christ in us is the hope of glory. Christ in us is the power of the kingdom of God working to make our personal kingdoms ones of our Lord and Christ.

God is inviting us to live in a place of partnership with Him and with one another in Christ. Why does God want us to know partnership? Partnership is not merely about purpose; it is about love. But love is always filled with purpose. That purpose is a furtherance of God’s love that changes the world in which we live.

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,

Welcome to the year 2023. We had a great day yesterday at Alife. Pastors Jonathan and Dannie cast vision for the new year and we had a wonderful time having a meal together as a church family. There was a release of thoughts from God and some prophetic declarations. I gave the following word:

I just hear the Lord saying that, Many of you have been looking for Me to redeem your situation, to redeem your past, to redeem your circumstance, but I say, I have redeemed you. Because I’ve redeemed you, all things are new. This is not a season of do overs, this is not a season of fixing what has been broken, this is a season of rising to what you have never seen before. Because I’ve redeemed you, this is a season of fresh appointments. Fresh appointments: to understand in your heart and let what’s in your heart flood your mind. That you would know that you are about to find the treasures of My glory. Do not end the year with conclusions but begin your year with expectations.

Now in that, I want to share something I sense – this is almost a ‘thus says God’. Sometimes God has me say a story that connects to what He is saying prophetically. Last year I wrote a new book, Friendship With God – The Empowerment of Honor and Grace, and I anticipated that the print copy would be done before the end of the year. The e-book copy was up but the print copy was waiting upon the final draft, but the US mail didn’t get it to me on time. So, yesterday was the final day for it to be ready by the end of the year. It said it was out for delivery, but It’s stuck in the post office – so, it’s probably coming Tuesday.

As I was hearing God say what He just said about, He has redeemed us. I heard God say, You expected to close your year knowing that I am Your friend. But I am making so that you begin your new year knowing that I’m your friend.  

So, He purposely is saying that what looked like it was delayed was only delayed so that it could be said in a different way. I want you to begin this season, God says, as a new season in your life. I want you to begin this season as something you have never seen before because I have redeemed you. And because I have redeemed you, the words of your life are always future. The words of your life are always hope. And this is a season of you arising, rising above what has been because you’re not looking to fix what was. You’re not looking to do a do over concerning something that didn’t work. You’re stepping into something fresh because you know – “I am the redeemed of the Lord.’”

And because ‘I’m the redeemed of the Lord’, the price has been paid for the treasures of heaven to invade my earth. And the goodness of God will be seen. And the sound of God will be heard that God is great, God is good, and His mercy endures forever.

On Sunday, Jonathan and Danie shared that they had heard a phrase for Alife Church this year is to “Rise Above”. Pastors Jonathan and Danie cast vision for the year, and they challenged us to plot our own course to ‘Rise Above’ in the new season. As in past years, they challenged us to hear some personal words.

In the past couple of weeks, I have heard God say that 2023 is a year of ‘new strength’. There will be hurdles to overcome, but those hurdles are not meant to stop us. They are meant to draw our fullest potential from within us. Yesterday I heard the phrase “fresh appointment”. It is in the place of fresh appointments that we will find new strength, and we will face hurdles that will draw out a fuller testimony of who we are in Christ. We will find unexpected turns that will reveal the greatness, goodness, and mercy of God in a fresh new way.

The hurdles that we will face and the turns that we will have to make are not a negative thing, but a positive thing. I believe that God is going to do things that are beyond our expectations. New doors of effectiveness are going to open. Those doors of effectiveness are not doors of opportunity, but doors of destiny. They are doors that will reveal the goodness of God‘s love in our lives.

I believe that 2023 is going to reveal the sound of God in a greater way. That sound is a sound that declares that God is great, God is good, and his mercy endures forever!

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,

Merry Christmas! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and that you experienced God’s presence in some way.  For some, this is a joyful time of celebration. For those with loss, it can be a difficult time of reminders, but God’s presence brings life in every situation of our lives.

As the Bible describes the creation of man, there appears to be two significant dichotomies. One was a world of paradise and the other was a world of barrenness. 

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

Man wasn’t formed from the earth of paradise. He was formed from the dust of barrenness. God then took some time to plant a garden in the midst of the barrenness of the field.  It was there that He put the man he had formed from the dust. It was in a place called Eden. Eden means desirable place. The place of desire. It was eastward of the place of man’s formation.

When we wake up in the morning, we see the sun and the sun gives us a testimony of a new day. It is full of promise and expectation. I believe that the eastward place signifies a place of hope and a new day. On a clear morning, we can see the sun rising in the east. In reality the earth turns towards the sun, but the experience is a sunrise and a new day. The experience is more powerful than the scientific knowledge of the turning of the earth. The light of the sun is what touches us. When we turn in the direction of the light, the light shines upon us and our day begins.

I believe that every person is faced with two worlds as an option to live from. One is a world that appears to be absent of the presence of God and the other is a world that is filled with presence of God and a paradise experience with Him every day. One is a place where our desires are inspired by the barrenness of the world. The other is a place where our desires are stirred by knowing God as our friend in life.

Genesis 3:8-10 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. Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”  So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

Even at the failure of Adam and Eve, God showed up in His usual way to walk with them in the cool of the day. It appears that God’s greatest desire was to have a friendship connection of conversation and intimacy with man. This was paramount to their destiny as His likeness and image in the earth. I believe Adam and Eve’s testimony was seen as a walk of friendship and love with God.

God so loved the world that He didn’t condemn the world but sent His Son to give life to all men. The world already does a good job of condemning itself. Jesus came to free all humanity from condemnation and the power of condemnation. He didn’t come to condone living in darkness. He came to give men light. In the world there is darkness, and the people in the world are in great darkness, but God has delivered us from the power of darkness, and He conveys those who receive Him into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

It seems that God’s usual pattern in the creation of man was to walk with him and to talk with him at the close of every day. We turn to God in the morning, and He becomes our light, but He comes to us every evening to see what we have done with His light. When we know God as our friend, we can be the light of our friend to the 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;

Today I am posting this blog a day late. I normally post on Monday, but I have been hunting in the woods and I wasn’t able to post yesterday. Still looking for some hunting success but had a good day in God’s presence. It was very cold with a bit of snow, but I put several layers of clothes on to manage the day.

For the past several months I have been addressing the topic of friendship with God. I have finished a new book: Friendship With God – The Empowerment of Honor and Grace. It should be available on Amazon by the close of the year. Today I am posting a segment from the chapter of the Honor in Worship. God is our friend, and He wants us to know Him as our friend and what it means to be a friend to Him and to one another.

We are not limited by the inherited iniquities of our fathers, because God is able to come into our midst and He is a jealous God. He wants to give to us the life-giving, life-transforming substance of who He is. When we recognize that He is the giver we say to Him, “Here we are. We live for you! We worship You! We like being ourselves. We have a great life. Look at what You have done! You created us in your likeness and image. We sing songs to you! We live out loud as an expression of the life of You. We don’t worship to get anything from You! We worship You because we love You!”

When we love God like this in spirit and truth, God in His jealousy says, “Wow! I love being Myself with you. I like it when I can be Myself! I love being able to walk into the room and not be resisted in My giving. I love environments where the things coming off of Me are not being thrown back at Me. I love being able to walk into a room where My gifts are not being rejected. I love walking into the room where your cheeks are not turning to avoid My kisses. I love walking into My family where your arms are open to receive My hugs and when I hug you the aroma of My perfume sticks on you. The marks of My kisses remain upon you. The gifts that I give become packages to be opened in your midst and heavenly things become discovered in your earthly territory. That is what happens in this worship environment upon the earth. I am not lacking! I don’t lack anything. I am not formless, void, and dark. I have no emptiness in Me. You can’t give me anything that fills some place in My life. There is nothing missing in Me. You can’t give Me anything that will fill something missing in Me. There is nothing missing in Me! Would you get a revelation? There is nothing missing in you! I like you! I am your friend! Would you look to see what I see, and freely give of yourself from security, not from insecurity? Would you be my friends? Worship is about security. It is not about a need. It is a matter of abundance. You lack nothing!”

In worship our hearts become open to God. The fullness of our hearts and minds testify that we don’t lack approval. We don’t lack identity. Here we are! We have been carved in the likeness and image of God. “We worship You God! We give all we are to You! We feel good about ourselves, but we feel better about You! You make us feel so good! You move our hearts!”

Worship is not coming to God from a place of lack; it is coming to God from abundance so God can come to us in the abundance of who He is. What happens when a family becomes a family of abundance and begins to live in a value of who they are for the sake of who He is?  We are a family that should value who we are and realize we don’t come to God because we need anything from Him. We are not in this family because we need anything. We are in this family because we have been born into this community, and we have come to give of who we are in the testimony of who we all are for the glory of God! 

When this happens, God the Father says, “Wow! Yes! Let me walk among you. Let Me be the giver, the jealous One, the One who has treasures, rivers, and light streaming from Me. Let me walk in your midst and let me take what you think is good and make it amazing! Let Me take what you think is wonderful and make it phenomenal!”

I hope you have enjoyed this excerpt from my new book, Friendship With God. May you find your week filled with God’s presence and life. Blessings to you for this Christmas holiday and my you experience Christ in Christmas. Worship Him from His love for you!

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

IN Process – Available on Amazon before the close of the year

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 home after a great time with family in California. We will be blessed to see our California family home with us all here in Bellingham for a few days at the start of the new year. It was good to be in my home church yesterday and I was blessed to minister on God as our friend.

God wants to partner with us in life. This is the testimony of fulfilling our purpose in Christ. God is our God, we are His people, and we live together in all things. God is our friend, we are becoming His friends, and we are to partner with Him in all things as His friends in all that we are and do.

A friend doesn’t need anything. A friend seeks to give life to those they are a friend to. This is the character, nature, and way of God. He gives life, breath, and all things. He doesn’t need anything from us but wants to partner with us to give us life. God desires to empower us to be friends to Him and to one another as He is our friend.

To see God as our friend and to be empowered to be His friend and a friend to others requires a healing in our identities. When we discover our true identity, we become givers of life to our world. This is a testimony to the likeness and image of God.

God is healing our identities. We are not merely people living in a world to fulfill the will of mankind. We are sons and daughters of God, and our destiny is to fulfill the will of God in all things. We are loved by God, sought by God, and joined to God in His purpose in our world.

I believe that the present anointing of God is seen in the testimony of the cassia oil. It is a type of cinnamon oil, testifying of a deeper level of intimacy with God in Christ. This anointing oil is restoring our breath, our ability to digest things that give us life, our ability to give life to others, and our ability to be free from things in our past. This present anointing oil empowers us to be strengthened in our joints, our relationships with others in the community of Christ. It is a healing oil to things that have affected our relationships in the past. It is a healing oil to things that have given irritations, pain, and relational difficulties in the past. It is a healing oil to give us peace and relieve us of stress and anxiety.

The enemy has fashioned weapons against us in an attempt to resist God’s plans for humanity, but God is our friend, and He cares for us, He is there for us, and He will always fight for us. He doesn’t merely rescue us from the assaults of our enemies. He empowers us to partner with Him and to know His partnership with us in the midst of every battle. The resistance of our enemy only challenges us to be empowered to overcome all things by the power of Christ in us.

God chooses to know our good. He promises to never leave us. He is strong on our behalf, and He empowers each of us to be strong in Him when we call upon His name. He empowers us to be strong in His Spirit and strong in His Word and we know the victory of overcoming all things by the power of His grace.

God doesn’t just want to deliver us from our enemies. He wants us to become strong in the midst of them. He wants us to become givers of life in our world for the sake of bringing life to our world. God has partnered with us, and we must partner with Him.

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,

Knowing God as our friend is not seeing Him as our friend because He always does what we want Him to do. It is knowing that all that He does is because He loves us, and He has our best interest in mind. Sometimes He will do His part so we can do our part. He loves to partner with us in every aspect of our lives. He doesn’t mind when we fail a bit on our part because His willingness to partner with us is not for a purpose of perfection. It is for a purpose of trust, love, and all the aspects found in friendship. God is our friend, and a friend is not defined by their willingness to do things for us. A friend is defined by their willingness to partner with us.

Church tradition has defined God as the Sovereign One, but I believe He is more accurately defined by being our Father and friend. In my book, The Now Covenant, I define who God is. I feel to blog a portion of my book today to help us understand God’s desire to partner with us as a friend and not merely act as the Sovereign One in our lives.

The Now Covenant, Chapter 9, Who Is God? – Page 96-98:

The Greeks had many gods and therefore the Christian God could only be incorporated into their thinking if He out trumped all of the other gods. By this criterion, to be God He must be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

Is God omnipotent? I believe that He can be, but He chooses not to be as often as He can. He said that the traditions of men make His word of no effect (Mk. 7:11-13). Jesus (God in flesh) couldn’t do many miracles in His hometown because of their unbelief (Mt. 13:58). If we draw near to God, He is quick to draw near to us, but He has given us a free will that we might choose Him or reject Him (Jam. 4:8). God doesn’t want puppets or slaves; He desires children with a free will that is impassioned to choose Him in all things. The Father didn’t go chasing the prodigal son but was quick to run to him when he saw him returning (Lk. 15:20). I believe that God can be all-powerful, but He has chosen not to be for the sake of being a loving Father.

Is God omniscient? I believe that He can be, but He has chosen not to be. He says that our sins and our lawless deeds He remembers no more forever (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:12, 10:17). He has chosen not to know them. The first man of faith mentioned in the Bible is a man named Abel. Abel gave God the first and the best, but God never commanded him to do so. God ‘respected’ Abel’s offering. The Hebrew word for ‘respected’ is the Hebrew word hDoDv sûaœ{aœh (HSRN 8159); it means to look with favor, have regard for, pay attention to. It comes from the Hebrew word hDaDv sûaœ}aœh (HSRN 7583) meaning to watch closely, gaze at, to inspect carefully and from the Hebrew word oAtDv sûaœt◊a{ (HSRN 9283) meaning to be dismayed, nonplussed, gob-smacked. God was surprised with Abel’s offering (Gen. 4:4). When Joshua needed more time in the battlefield, he requested that God give it to him and God ‘heeded the voice of a man’ (Josh. 10:14). David’s tent was David’s idea and God liked it. The tabernacle of Moses was God’s command, but David’s idea was God’s true heart. When it says of God that He knows all of the hairs on our heads, it is a term of endearment and care, not of His sovereignty. It is not a phrase concerning knowledge, but a phrase expressing care. Paul told those on the boat that was about to sink to listen to him and trust him and not ‘a hair on their heads’ would be lost (Acts 27:34). I wonder if anyone lost a literal hair in the shipwreck?

God changes His mind, but He never changes His character. If we can appeal to His character of mercy, He will quickly change His mind concerning His actions. Religious people often refuse to change their minds concerning what they say or believe, and they are willing to compromise in their character to prove it. If God works things out for good in our lives, I think it means He has to ‘work some things out’. God is not limited to time or the dimensions of time, as we know it. He is quantum in His abilities. He told Nicodemus that He came from heaven, was going to heaven, and was in heaven right now (Jn. 3:13). Is it God’s providential will for a child to be born when a woman is raped by some wicked, self-seeking man? Is it the will of an uncaring sovereign God or is God a loving Father who goes to the place of human conception and chooses to know them in that place before they were formed in their mother’s womb and into the future. Is it a sovereign God who determines horrific acts of pain, or a loving Father who turns what was not the will of God to a testimony of His amazing grace?

Is God omnipresent? Many quote the psalmist when he said he could not go anywhere where God would not be found.

Psalms 139:7-8 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell (sheol), behold, You are there.

In these verses the psalmist says He would find God in heaven and he would find God in hell. Hell in this verse is Sheol, the realm of the dead. Does God live in the realm of the dead? If God lived there, could it be called the realm of the dead? Does God live everywhere or is He an intimate Father who promises never to leave the psalmist? The psalmist knows that wherever he goes God will be, because God never leaves the psalmist. This is why the grave cannot hold the psalmist.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I don’t believe that it is sovereignty that makes God who He is. There is something that is more powerful than His ability to be sovereign. It is His identity as Father. He gives life, breath, and all things to all people. This is an action of intimacy and endearment, not mere strength. I don’t believe that God wants to be God. He is God, but He wants us to know Him as Father. It is through a Father/son, Father/daughter relationship that we can receive His divine guidance for life. It is both specific and providential, but it is intimate and real. He loves His children and delights in their course of life in this earth. Our perception of God influences our ability to hear Him. Sons and daughters of God will hear Him more readily and clearly than mere subjects and slaves.

God as our Father is God as our Friend. He wants to partner with us in our world to reveal who we are together. We are the family of God and God as our friend wants us to partner with Him in our friendship to Him and to our world.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

– The Now Covenant – by Ted J. Hanson on many Amazon networks – Print / Ebook / Audio

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 home after returning from several weeks overseas. It is good to be home with family. We had a great Thanksgiving holiday, and I am catching up with my grandchildren. I will be heading to California tomorrow for some time with family there. I am looking forward to a month of family and holiday gatherings.

We are in the process of being manifest as the people of God in a fuller measure. It is the challenges of life that manifest the supernatural reality of being sons and daughters of God. The true test of grace is found in the process of tribulation, cheerful endurance, character change, and hope. That hope is the testimony of the work of grace proven in our lives. That grace is the manifest presence of God in or lives transforming us to become a testimony of sons and daughters of God who know that God is their friend.

When we see Jesus in our lives, the revelation we receive becomes the substance we become by the work of God’s amazing grace. I wrote in 2021 that a new gift of trust is being given to us that is unlike anything we have known before and that we would be tested in our trust. I believe that the strength of our trust can only be found in our ability to know God’s love for us. God is our friend, and His grace is always working in our lives to reveal Him in our lives. To know the trust that God desires for us to have, is to know Christ as the Rock of hope in our lives. He is the Rock that is solid and true. I am growing to know that He is the Rock of a friend, and He wants us to manifest a testimony of His friendship to our world. He wants our character to match the character of His truth as a Rock of our salvation.

What is it that makes Jesus the Rock? Is it His endurance or is it His unchanging Love. God is our friend and His love for us cannot be shaken. His steadfast love is seen through His willingness to give us life, His ability to empower us to become an expression of His love, and His partnership with us in all things to reveal His love through us to our world.

Luke 6:47-49 “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 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. 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.”

Foundations guarantee a future. When Christ is the foundation of our lives, the trials in our lives cannot prevail over the faithfulness of God in the foundation of our lives. The man who dug down to the rock, was the one who responded to the words of God in his life. In this story of two houses, both houses were built in the same geographical location. Both may have been the same design of house and even the same size of house. Perhaps they both were drawn with the same architectural floor plan. Both houses are likened unto people who God was speaking to and who were hearing what He had to say. The difference is that one responded by acting upon the words he heard while the other did not. Jesus says that the one who heard and responded to what he heard was like one who digs down to the rock and establishes a foundation for his house. The one who merely heard is like someone who built his house without any foundation at all.

If we just hear God’s words of love for us without responding with love for Him, we will fall short in becoming who we are meant to be. Our love for Him is seen in our responding relationship with Him. The response of acting upon what God is saying is a testimony to the process of setting a foundation for the house. Both houses in this story were faced with the violent storms of life, but only the house with the foundation set upon the rock was able to stand.

Deuteronomy 32:1-4 “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, as raindrops on the tender herb, and as showers on the grass. For I proclaim the name of the LORD: Ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.

In knowing Christ in us, we will become like Him in the place of our standing. As a Rock, He is One to be trusted and He will prove to be trustworthy in our lives. This is the testimony of God as our friend. The more we know that God is our friend, the more eager and willing we will be to respond to all that He says. We will become like Him in our character, nature, way, power and authority and we will stand as a place where God shines 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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I will finish my time in Portugal. I have a gathering tonight with many pastors from various congregations here. I believe that God is going to do good things. It has been a great journey in the Netherlands, Ireland, the Netherlands, and here in Portugal. God is releasing His life in the nations, and it is an honor and a privilege to participate in what He is doing.

God sees who we are, and He invites us to see who He is. When God sees us, He doesn’t see us according to the spots, blemishes, or wrinkles that have been placed upon us as false identities. He sees us as He has known us to be from a view of heaven. God sees the end from the beginning and thus He requires the beginning things in our lives to embrace the perfect testimony of His end work in our lives. His end work is a testimony of His unshakeable love. That testimony also includes us becoming a dwelling place of God’s unshakeable presence. Our true identity reveals the greatness, goodness, and mercy of God to our world.

When we see God, we become like Him in some way. Who He is changes who we are when we see Him for who He His. His unshakeable character makes us unshakeable in our character as His sons and daughters. We don’t see Him in His full measure, but we see Him in measures that lead to a greater glory in our lives. From glory to glory He changes us, but that glory is a testimony of turning to Him and seeing Him in our lives. He is our friend, and His presence always gives us more life.

Seeing God for who He is empowers us to believe in who He is. When we believe in Him, we also believe what He says. When we believe what He says, we respond to what He says. Responding to Him is not merely about responding to words of information. Responding to what He says empowers us to join to Him to be transformed in our hearts and minds and become expressions of who He is.

Luke 6:47-49 “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 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. 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.”

A house is only as secure in its standing as it is in its connection to a foundation. Christ is the foundation of our lives, and He is the life-giving Rock that empowers us to become a house that reveals the substance of who Christ is to the world around us. To be a house of God’s presence, we must embrace an authentic connection in hearing and responding to all that God says to us.

Every house that is built faces the elements of testing and the opposition of many seasons of life. In Christ the foundation of our lives is established in the Rock of Christ. The objective is to be connected to the Rock, not to see how great our house can become, but our connection to Christ causes our house to reveal a testimony of who Christ is to our world. Our connection to the Rock is a connection to LIFE. We are a house of God’s presence in all seasons of our lives. We are called to be a spiritual house. We are to be a holy temple of the Lord, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. This is not about being strong, it is being strong because of an intimate connection with God as our friend.

Ephesians 2:19-22 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

1 Peter 2:4-5 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

At the beginning of 2021, I wrote that God is revealing Himself as the unshakeable One in our lives. He wants us to be unshakeable in Him because His love for us empowers us to be unshaken in a shaking world. This is not just for us but for our ability to be a testimony of hope to those in 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