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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

I had a great week and weekend with a trip to see long standing friends in Northern Ireland and then a great time with the family church of the De Fakkel in Utrecht, Netherlands. God showed up in wonderful ways. We witnessed God transitioning the church to a new season with a further step into destiny. The Holy Spirit manifested with the cassia oil and some people were freed from some things in their lives. God is good!

I have been addressing the topic of friendship in these past months as God has challenged me to know that the greatest thing that I am learning is that He is my friend. While reviewing some prophecies of the past, my attention was brought to the following word given by me in 2009. I was surprised to see this and did not even recall giving it until seeing it now. It is very relevant to what God has been saying to me in these past months.

Ted J. Hanson – 2009

The Lord says, “In this hour, for My people, for My family, for My body, there’s going to come a new understanding of favor – it’s My friendship.”

The Lord says, “It’s not in the testing that favor is discovered, it’s discovering the favor that enables you to endure all tests. It’s not in the absence of the tests that favor is proven, but the favor is there, and the favor prevails all tests. I’m bringing My people to an hour where they will understand – they will receive that understanding that ‘I am your friend’. From that place I am empowering My people in friendship. I am empowering them not only to be My friend, but to be a friend to the thing that cries out from the earth for life. It’s in that favor – not as some treasure earned, not as in some reward given, not just as a prize that’s attained – it’s in the deepest intimacy and the strongest expression of love and favor to understand that I have chosen to declare that you’re My friends – and that I am your friend,” says God.

There have been many tests in past years for me, my local church community, other church communities that I know, and the nations of the world. I have even wrestled with knowing that God’s favor is on my life and on the lives of others that I know. In the past couple of years, and especially the past few months, I have increasingly become secure in knowing that God’s favor is upon us as His children. God is revealing a deeper intimacy with us in the Spirit. He is our friend! Knowing that God is our friend will make us unshakeable in every shaking circumstance.

At the beginning of this year God told me that 2022 would be a year of knowing God’s peace. Peace is a celebration of a connection to God in all things and all times. It is shared with our relational connections in life because it is a testimony of our connection with God. It is a celebration of being loved by God and sharing the fruit of that love with others. It is evidenced with heavenly blessings in our earthly circumstance.

I am growing to know that peace is given to us because God is our friend and when we receive a revelation of that divine connection, we celebrate being friends with God. In this, we invite others to know the friendship of God in their lives. We even see God in others as a testimony of His friendship to us. We also become a testimony of God as a friend to others in our world.

A friend doesn’t need anything from another, but rather lives to give life to another, expand life through another, and partner with others for sake of fulfilling the purpose of giving life to the world. A friend is a giver and not a taker. A friend finds their identity in giving life to others from substance of who they are. God is our friend, and He wants us to live as His friends and as friends to one another. This is the testimony of being the family of God – the people of God in 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,

I have just finished a weekend in the Netherlands with HOPE church in Ede and the Meeting Place church in Holten. We had great meetings with a wonderful presence of God and the members of His family. We began with a Friday night meeting in Ede, did leadership teaching on Saturday in Ede, and ended with a time of ministry in Holten on Sunday. It was a blessed weekend.

We are in a season of becoming authentic in our identity in Christ. God wants us to be the people of God who find our identity in Him so we can be expressions of who He is to our world. I believe that people in the world are crying out to find their identity. Our true identity is found in the likeness and image of God our Father. God is a giver of life, and our true identity will give life to others in our world.

We have liberty in Christ, and we are no longer bound to live under the law. We are free to be sons and daughters of God with the desires of God written in our hearts and in our minds. True liberty will bring life to others. Self-seeking motives and self-gratifying agendas will only give us false identities. Finding the desires of our hearts is finding the God-given desires that come by a supernatural connection to God in our hearts. True liberty is not simply living for our own desires, it is living with the desires of God reining in our hearts.

1 Corinthians 10:23-24 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.

Paul wrote in these verses that the testimony of true liberty is to live for the well-being of another. This is the nature of God our Father. This is the nature of God as our friend. There is freedom in knowing that the boundaries of our lives are defined by our willingness to live for the betterment of someone else. Jesus demonstrated such a nature when He gave His life for us that we might find life in Him.

Philippians 2:3-8 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

When we find our identity in Christ, we no longer seek to do things so we will know who we are. We do things because we know who we are. We are secure in our identity, and we know that we were born to give life to our world. We are sons and daughters of God born to be loved by God and to in turn love others, even as He loves us. We can humble ourselves even as Jesus did and live to give life to others. In this, we are willing to lose our lives that others might find their life in God. Our need to get something from others diminishes when we find our needs met in Christ. It is then that we can be givers of life to others.

When we know who we are, we can give identity to our surroundings. We can give identity to our world. This was the case with Adam in his creation. We gave identity to the animals in his world. Whatever he called them is what God said they were to be. God didn’t tell Adam what to call them. God simply gave identity to Adam so Adam could define his world.

So many people in the world find their identity in their world. They don’t define their surroundings, they let their external environment define the internal definitions of their hearts and minds. God wants us to know His presence and love within our hearts and minds so we will manifest as sons and daughters of God in our world. In this, we will bring life to our world, and we will define our external environments by the internal environment of God’s love in 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 back in Bellingham. I had a great weekend, and I was blessed to share at Everyone’s Church in Mt. Vernon, Washington. We felt God’s presence and a testimony of family. I am home for a few more days and then back across the big Atlantic pond.

God is continuing to speak to me regarding knowing Him as my friend and me being a friend to others as to revealing who God is. I believe we are each to be a piece of God as a friend to others. A friend doesn’t need anything but is a giver of life to someone else. This is what makes them their friend. This is the likeness and the image of God our Father.

If our friendship with someone is based upon what they give to us, we really don’t understand friendship. That kind of friendship is based upon our own need, not upon our ability to give life to them. Our friendship is tested when they don’t meet our need in some way. This is not true to the character of God.

At the beginning of the year God told me to let go of my need to influence anyone. I felt empowered by the grace of God to do so, and I immediately felt a release in my heart and a sense of new freedom. A couple of weeks later, God told me that I didn’t need to influence anyone, but they needed me to. There was a difference in this statement than me needing to influence them. The purpose of my influence was not to give me anything. It had nothing to do with giving me identity. It had everything to do with giving life to someone else. I felt empowered by God’s grace, and I experienced a release in my heart to see it as so.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

When God looked at the earth it was formless, void, and in darkness. From His perspective as a life-giver, He spoke from the place of seeing a finished work of life. His words released the life to bring order, fullness, and light to our world. God didn’t do this because He needed anything. He is a giver of life, breath, and all things (Acts 17:24, 25). A situation that needed life, breath, and all things was the perfect environment to reveal who God truly is.

Mankind, male and female, was created from the substance of who God is when God spoke to Himself and mankind was birthed from the heart of God to be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, and bring the dominion of life into the world. To be fruitful is to be a blessing of life to the world. To multiply is to give life for someone beyond yourself. To fill is to see that life increase in others, even beyond your life, as it has also increased in you. To subdue is to destroy death with life. To have dominion is to crumble every lie of death by the truth of life. This is the nature of God. God is a life giver and mankind, male and female together, are to be givers of life to their world. This is the substance of friendship. It is not to need life, but to give life to someone else. A friend knows who they are so they can be a friend to others.

In Genesis chapter 4, we have a story of Cain killing Abel. Cain was a firstborn, but he saw himself as a one and only. Because of this, he was jealous of God giving honor to his brother Abel in His respect for Abel’s offering. Cain set it in his heart to kill his brother. You see, Cain didn’t see himself as a firstborn son, he saw himself as a one and only; therefore, he lived for himself. To be a firstborn he would have had to see Abel as a second born. He would have needed to see himself as a firstborn for the sake of Abel and all that would follow in the family. Cain should have seen himself as a friend to his brother Abel, but instead he saw his brother as his enemy.

Genesis 4:8-9 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

God is our friend. He gives life, breath, and all things to us and doesn’t seek to get anything from us. We were created in His likeness and image and Cain should have recognized this. When God asked Cain where his brother Abel was, He was speaking to Cain’s true identity. He was reminding Cain that he was a firstborn and that he was born to be a friend to his younger brother. He was born to be a friend for the sake of His brother, not an enemy. To be who he was meant to be would mean to be a giver of life to his brother. This would be the likeness and image of God.

Each of us are our brother’s keeper. Our true identity will give life to another. This is the likeness and the image of our Father. God is our friend, and we were born to be friends to one another.

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 ministry in Portugal. We had another great week and weekend in Lisbon with numerous venues of ministry. The people were hungry and receptive, and God was good to give life to us all. I am blessed to see God’s grace revealing the power of His love working in and through His children.

In third world cultures, people are often desperate for physical needs. That desperation inspires them to seek God as a savior and as a deliverer. In western world cultures, people are not as much desperate for need. They are often busy and desperate for comforts and the fulfillment of their own personal desires. Their search doesn’t inspire them to seek God as a savior or as a deliver. They seek God as their provider and promiser of good things. In eastern world cultures, people are desperate for knowledge and power. That desperation inspires them to seek God as wisdom and knowledge. They consider sources of wisdom and knowledge as life to their souls.

In the third world cultures, Jesus can be found as their Savior and Deliverer, but people in cultures of poverty sometimes find other spirits or other sources as their salvation or deliverance. Whatever promises to meet their physical needs becomes a stronghold or a god in their life. In western world societies, people don’t often see God as their provider, they see things as the fulfillment of their comforts and desires. These can be physical things created by men or they can even be physical things created by God. These things can even be physical experiences of pleasure and adventure in life. People in western world cultures often see their god as whatever offers them the fulfillments of their personal desires and plans. Jesus can be found as their Provider, but they seldom seek Him first. In Eastern world cultures people often see what offers their souls wisdom and knowledge as a god in their lives. It can even take on the form of law by which one is governed in their soul. Jesus can be found as their true Wisdom and Knowledge, but they often settle for lesser powers of truth to enlighten their souls.

I believe that God desires to save us amid our troubles and pain. I believe that God desires to deliver us from our oppression and bondage. I believe that God wants to give us blessings and comfort in life. I also believe that He wants to give us desires, but those desires are not merely desires of our own flesh. They are desires that fulfill our destiny in Christ. I believe that God desires to give us wisdom and knowledge, but that wisdom and knowledge doesn’t exalt the inner power of our minds. God’s power gives us the mind of Christ from within. He empowers a change in our character, nature, way, power, and authority as life-givers to our world. God can be all that is necessary for these things, but He is even more. He is our Father, and He is our friend.

Do we seek God to fulfill our needs, or do we seek God to know Him? Do we seek Him to save us amid our troubles, or do we seek Him on good and bad days simply to be with Him and He with us? Do we seek God to fulfill our desire for adventure, or are will willing to embrace whatever dream or adventure is in His heart for our lives? Do we seek God to know what to do or to be wise, or do we simply seek the One who is knowing and wise in all things so that we can become what He desires?

The center of our world must be Christ, it cannot be us. Humanity is not the source of life to the world. Our Devine Father is the source of life in our world and in all the world. What we value in life becomes the god of our life. I often say, “If hearing God is knowing what to do, then knowing what to do is our god.” What about when we make “beings saved” our god? Or “being delivered” our god? What about “receiving comfort”, “fulfilling our desires”, “having knowledge”, or “having wisdom”? God is our friend, and He wants us to know Him for who He is, not merely for what He can do.

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 had a great week in Portugal and a great weekend in the CCVA church of Moscavide and the CCVA church of Caldas da Rainanha. I am looking forward to a week of Leaders gatherings, the CCVA church of Carregal do Sal, and a weekend in Lisbon for prophetic ministry and multiple gatherings experiencing the new season of Christ in His church. I know it will be great.

The foundation our lives is upon Jesus Christ. It is upon Him that every aspect of our life is built. He is the foundation for our relationship with God our Father. He is the foundation for our daily communion with Holy Spirit. Jesus is our salvation and as Christ He is the anointing of God in our lives for each new day. He is the foundation for our being the body of Christ.

Ephesians 2:17-22 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. 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.

Jesus came so that we would know the friendship of God in our lives. He announced the good news of peace to those who thought they knew God and to those who didn’t even acknowledge the God is. All people have been given access to God their Father through Jesus Christ. Having been given access, we must all seek to live in the relationship that has been freely granted to us.

Jesus came into our world so that we would know that our world is dependent upon a connection to Him in the realm of eternity. He became flesh and moved into the neighborhood so that everyone in every neighborhood could know Him, and His Father who sent Him, in an intimate and real way.

Jesus is the chief cornerstone of our lives. He is the foundation of life for us all. This is true for all the ages that are after His coming and for all the ages that were before His coming. As the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world, He is the foundation of all who labored in the days of the Old Covenant, and He is the foundation for all who live in these days of access into a New Covenant. The prophets of the Old Covenant served as the ceiling that became the floor in Christ. The first fruit apostles of the New Covenant, the apostles of the lamb, became the foundation for the building of the house of God’s habitation in the successive ages of the body of Christ.

Jesus came that we might be the body of Christ – the habitation of God’s manifest presence in the earth. Wherever the presence of God is, there is life. We are to be the life of God in our world.

Colossians 2:6, 7 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

We are to walk in Christ, knowing Jesus as our Lord. He gives us the desires of our hearts and those desires are desires of life. They are desires that give life to others. We are rooted in Him; therefore, we live and grow in Him. Holy Spirit is in our lives in the character, nature, way, power, and authority of Jesus. He has come in Jesus’ name. Christ in us is the hope of all glory.

Colossians 2:8-10 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

Knowing Jesus is not merely knowing some philosophy. It is not merely embracing some form of religion and external control by a knowledge of good. Jesus is the head of all principality and power as a matter of authority, but He is the head of our lives as a matter of intimacy.

Jesus became a person in our world so that we can know to relate to Him as a person in the realm of eternity. That is not someday, that is today! Jesus came so that we would know that our connection to our heavenly Father is a connection to the life-giving person of God. That connection is a never-ending connection of increasing life. Holy Spirit in our lives is the person of God in our lives. We must cultivate our relationship with Him daily. We must never see God as distant in our lives. He is present and we should acknowledge Him throughout every day.

Your life and my life can only be built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. He is the foundation of life for us to be givers of life to our world. Talk to Him! Listen to Him! Respond to Him! Know Him! Love Him and receive His love in all that you are and do.

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. I started here this weekend and will be here for the next few weeks. We had a wonderful day yesterday in the church of Alverca, near Lisbon. I am looking forward to all that God is going to do here.

In the past couple of blogs, I have been addressing the apostle Paul’s words to the Church of Corinth regarding our works in life. Those works can be self-focused works that are consumed by the fire of God, or they can be God-focused works that are only refined by the fire of God’s presence. As Paul describes these works, they appear to be written in a reverse order to what they should be according to natural logic. I believe that straw represents living for our daily comforts and needs, hay represents a life of personal success, and wood represents some measure of generational inheritance of natural things. Surely the correct order of these would seem to be straw, hay, and wood but Paul writes them as wood, hay, and straw.

This is also true for the works that endure. Gold is a testimony of God’s character, nature, way, power, and authority. Silver is symbolic of the testimony of Christ’s redemption. Precious stones are symbolic of individual identity as God gives life to each of us. Surely it would be logical to say that our individual value leads to our testimony of redemption in Christ and our redemption in Christ leads to our perfected purpose in God.

In Paul’s instruction to them regarding building upon the foundation of Jesus Christ, he addresses them as God’s field, God’s building, and a temple of the Holy Spirit. These also appear to be in a reverse order.  A temple denotes a personal connection to God. A building denotes being a testimony of God, something that is being built by Him. A field denotes the purpose of God, as being something that provides life to the world.

Why does Paul write these in a reverse order? Perhaps this reverse order has to do with destiny. God determines the end of a matter before He determines the beginning. How we view something determines how that thing can come to pass. It is only by seeing what God sees that we can embrace the process to become what God sees.

Isaiah 46:10 “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,”

Isaiah 48:3 “I have declared the former things from the beginning; They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.”

God’s works are determined by what God sees in His heart. He is purposed in doing what He sees to be done. When we know the purpose is God’s field, we will embrace being a temple of the Holy Spirit so that we can become those who are built by God for a testimony that can fulfill the full purpose of God in our lives. When we know the end, we embrace the process to get to the end, but when we are not sure of the end, we don’t know what process to embrace.

Successful people in the world have a generational focus. They plan to create something that will last beyond their lives. Their motive is self-focused, however. They embrace their own comforts and personal desires, but they also live for a full life of success. Because they see success as their goal, they are even generational in their process. They plan to create something that exists because of them and continues beyond their own lives in the hands of successors. This only happens for those who see the end from the beginning, and they are determined to do whatever is necessary to make this process happen. Although they seek to build something lasting, in the presence of God it is consumed by His fire.

God doesn’t want us to live for personal success. He wants us to live to be significant in releasing His divine purpose in our world. When we see what God sees, we will embrace the process to become what He sees. It is shown to us by God’s grace and the process is revealed by God’s grace to those who embrace it. It is a process of precious stones, silver, and gold. It is a process of being a temple of the Holy Spirit, a testimony of the building of Christ, and a fruitfulness as God’s field for our world.

Our story in life, is a story of eternal life – knowing God the Father and Jesus His Son. It reveals that we are each loved by God. We are each an expression of God’s love. We are each sent by His love to be love to our world. The end that was declared by God was that we would be sent to our world to reveal the Father’s love. For that to happen, we must know that we are each an expression of God’s love because we are each loved by 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,

Today I am in the trees of the great Northwest. I have been hunting for the past couple of days. I hope to finish with success today. In any case, God is good and I have enjoyed my away time with the Lord.

Last week I wrote regarding the testing of each one’s work in life. The apostle Paul wrote about this in his first letter to the church of Corinth. When Paul wrote this, he wasn’t writing to unbelievers. He was writing to believers in Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:9-16 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

We are part of the field of God for the purpose of His harvest. We are part of His building for the testimony and inheritance of His name. We are part of the temple of His presence that we might find our full identity in the life that comes from Him. As His temple, we live as precious living stones manifesting the light of His love in the uniqueness of who each of us are. He loves us and His love makes us come alive in the true identity of who each of us are in Him. We are a place for the habitation of His presence. As His building, we exhibit increasing testimonies of His redemption as we each contribute to the many rooms of His inheritance in this world. As His field, we become the harvest of His divine purpose revealing His power of fruitfulness and the will to live to give life to our world. Our works in life are not works of self. They are the works of the will of God for the glory of His name. Those works are revealed in the Day of the Lord. What is the Day of the Lord? Is it only a moment of culmination in the future? Or is there something more?

The apostle Peter wrote to the scattered Jews from Jerusalem regarding the soon destruction of the torah / temple system that they had known. What could shake was shaking and what could be consumed was about to be consumed in the siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by Rome. The early church was being tested but the attempts of their enemy to destroy them would only prove the genuineness of their faith.

1 Peter 1:6-9  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.

Like the first fruit church of the first century, the Day of the Lord only proves who and what is real. Things that are not of faith are removed in the fire of God’s presence. These are natural things but also the attitudes of our hearts and the thoughts of our minds. We need not fear any destruction that comes because of God’s presence is fire and light and it reveals that we are children of the Day and not the night.

1 Thessalonians 5:4-9 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.

Paul was writing to the church of the first century, but what was true for the first fruit is true in every season of fruit in the destiny of the church. We are awake and focused on God in every season of our lives. We know that our identity, testimony, and purpose is found in Him in every stage of our journey in life. Our salvation is not just some day in the future. Our salvation comes through our Lord Jesus Christ in every situation we face in life. We live together 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,

Today I am in Wichita, Kansas. I have had a great time at ChristLife Ministries and at Eagle’s Nest Ministry. The people were hungry and God did some great things. Lots of prophetic words and ministry. Blessing to the family of God in Wichita!

While considering friendship with God, I have been stirred to consider the focus of my life. This would include the focus of all our lives as members of the body of Christ and also the corporate purpose of the church. Abraham’s friendship with God had an eternal fruit of Jesus the Messiah and the Seed for all the nations to become part of the inheritance of God in the earth. Although Abraham had possessions, he didn’t seek to build a kingdom of possessions. He lived as a pilgrim expecting to receive a city whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

God is our friend and His friendship with us is not so we can build kingdoms unto ourselves. It is not just so we can have a blessed life. It is so we can have a part in being the blessing of His eternal life. It is so we can be a blessing of God’s life to the nations and the generations of mankind. It is the heavenly influence of the city of God. That city is both in heaven and upon the earth. It is a city with foundations. I believe that those foundations are foundations of Jesus Christ the rock and an increasing revelation of the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit in human lives. They are the foundations of the Spirit of the Lord, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Might, Knowing, and the Fear of the Lord that empower our identity in the calling of Christ, our testimony in the inheritance of Christ, and our purpose in the Power of Christ in all things. I believe that Mount Zion is the governing expression of that city upon the earth, but that city is a heavenly Jerusalem, a vision of peace with God that is one with God in heaven and upon the earth in increasing measures. It is the place of Shalom – a place of knowing God as our friend.

The city of God is the community of God. It is a communion with God and a communion with one another. It is a place where we come to unity with God, and we come to unity with one another. Our joining together is centered around the manifest presence of God in our lives. It is the place of being the field of God for the testimony of the fruit of God in all things. It is seen as being the building of God, as a place of His holy habitation and purpose in all things.

1 Corinthians 3:9-16 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

If we find our identity, testimony, and purpose in earthly things we will only build earthly things. Straw is a material that only invites a place to sleep. It is symbolic of living for our own needs to be met in life. It is a day-to-day identity. Hay is a material that represents a testimony of the flesh. It is grass that is here today, but withers tomorrow. When we live for our own testimony we seek success, but we fail in the significance of life. We prosper in our own desires, but we don’t realize that our desires can only live in our lifetime. When we find our purpose in earthly things, the best we can do is to build with wood. Like wood it can create something that carries on to a next generation, but it is a purpose that is still connected to our own family name. It lacks the significance of God’s eternal purpose and can only carry on in some form of the success of human purpose. The Day of the Lord is a submersion in the fire of God and those who live in Christ have been called to live as children of the Day and not the night. To live for ourselves is to live like children of the night. It is a self-focused vision that is only consumed by the fire of God’s light. Wood, hay, and straw are only consumed by those flames. God’s mercy grants a salvation as escaping those flames, but it lacks the testimony of fulfilling the calling, the testimony, and the purpose of Christ in our lives.

When we find our identity in Christ we become like Christ. He is the precious stone that gives us the light of our identity. When we know that we are precious stones in Christ, we give our lives to help others find their identity as precious stones of life in Christ. Precious stones are stones that are refined in the fire of God’s presence. They are dependent upon the life that comes from their heavenly Father, and they are each unique and precious, like the foundation stone of Jesus Christ. When we find our testimony in the inheritance of Christ, we live to help others find their part in the testimony of their redemption found in Christ. Like silver, they are refined in the fire and only reveal the love of God in their part in His inheritance. That testimony is an eternal testimony of significance in being an expression of the eternal life of God for the benefit of others. When we find our purpose in a partnership with God in our lives, we demonstrate His overcoming power to reign in life. Like gold, we prove to be genuine in our faith and we demonstrate the qualities of the character, nature, way, power, and authority of His name. We live with the significance of influencing our world for the sake of the nations and the generations to come.

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 heading home to Bellingham after a great time with my grandson Kaden, granddaughter Zaria, son Aaron and daughter in law Amani. Bonnie and I had a great time connecting with them again. We will miss them and look forward to our next time together.

In a world of redeemed family, children are born to a dad and a mom as the fruit of intimacy. Love births those who are loved that they may find their identity, testimony, and purpose for the sake of those God loves in the world. That testimony of love will defeat every weapon of hate and it will be an overcoming power of life to every influence of death. This power of life is found in the friendship of family. It is found in a family’s friendship with God and God’s friendship with them.

The culture of family is rooted in God, and it is not something that is artificially created by the will of humanity. Family isn’t merely about creating an atmosphere where one’s desires and needs are fulfilled. Family is divinely designed by the nature of God. Family is part of the character, nature, way, and even the power and authority of who God is. God is the Father, but He is also an expression of the Father in the testimony of the Son. He is also the Comforter, in the form of Holy Spirit exhibiting the nature of a Mother. God is both a shield, as One who protects us, and a many breasted One, as a One who nurtures us and cares for our needs.  Family begins with parents and children, but the growing testimony of family is a testimony of friends and the fruit of life and love that manifest from that friendship. The strength of husbands and wives is found in their friendship with one another. True friends don’t seek to get something from another but to give support and life to another as a testimony of being a friend. Friendship is not just defined by being nice to someone else in a way that satisfies their desires and needs. Someone exhibiting true friendship lives as who they are for the sake of supporting who another is. The strength of parents to children and children to parents is found in a healthy perspective of parents and children. Parents serve their children in helping them find their identity, testimony, and purpose in life, while children find their internal identity, testimony, and purpose with the assistance of parents.

Friendship doesn’t negate honor, nor does honor destroy friendship. Honor is a recognition of who another is and giving them something of yourself in recognition of the value of who they are. God is the Creator, so our honor to Him is that He is the giver of life, and we are dependent upon what He gives to be able to be who we are for the sake of our world. God is our friend, but He is also the giver of life, breath, and all things. We are not simply dependent upon His friendship; we are dependent upon Him in all things to be who we are meant to be in our world. God fulfills His role in a way that exhibits a culture of honor. He recognizes who each of us are and He gives of Himself in recognition of who we are meant to be in our world. We must recognize who He is and in recognizing Him there is an awe in who He is, though He is our friend.

The identity, testimony, and purpose of every person is to be a blessing of God’s life to their world, to live with a testimony of life that becomes an influence of life for others and thus the strength of their testimony doesn’t merely add value to themselves but multiplies a value of life in others. The purpose of every person is to transform things of death and dysfunction to life and function of life as a blessing to their world.  They will destroy death with life and crumble every lie with truth.

Because God is our Father and God is our friend, we will be clothed in the testimony of our Father’s name. We will rest in all things, knowing that we have the authority of the Father’s love. We will walk in the inheritance of our Father’s kingdom to bring the Father’s life to our world. We will be the will of our Father and we will fulfill His will in our world in all that we do. This is the testimony of family and our security of the fulfillment of these is that God is our friend. He is who He is, but He is near to us in who He is. His friendship empowers honor within our hearts for 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,

Today I am in California spending some time with my family that lives here – Aaron, Amani, Kaden, and Zaria. We are having a great time and I am looking forward to several more days with these loves of my heart. The friendship of family is surely a testimony of an abundant life.

God wants us to know Him as our friend and us as His friend. We see Him as our friend through a personal connection in our hearts, but also Him through others. When God presented this thought to me, I was challenged in my thinking. I have lived long enough to know friends, but also the disappointment of losing friends. Some I have lost through miss understanding, some through deception and betrayal, and others through physical death. In any case, those friends that I lost are dead to a living relationship with me today. I realize that my expectations of friendship can’t be fulfilled in any single human form. It takes many people together to reveal who God is in my life as my friend. My wife Bonnie says that friends come in pieces. One can be your best friend in this, another in that, and yet another in a different way altogether. Together they reveal what true friendship really is. We must learn to see and embrace the friendship of God in human form in our lives. That friendship can’t be found in a single person. That friendship is revealed in pieces to give to us a greater testimony of God’s friendship in our lives.

Friends in the flesh are only a portion of the testimony of who God is as our friend. No human being can replace Him as our friend. Because of this, friends come in pieces. We must look for God as our friend in pieces of humanity. If we seek to abide in a friendship relationship with God in life, we too will be expressions of God’s friendship to others in our world. Like all human expressions we are only a piece, but we can each be a piece of the bread of God’s friendship in our world.

The following is a portion of the prophetic flow released at Alife Church the weekend before last. I am also attaching an audio version of all the prophecy given as well to this blog because I felt the prophetic atmosphere is significant of what God is doing with us as His family in this season. God is our friend, and He is revealing Himself in the many pieces of His community.

I saw an archery bow and an arrow and I heard God say, “The archery bow is My promise and I’m calling you to hold on to My promises. Hold on to the things that I’ve said. Hold on to the things that I’ve declared about you. Because it’s not about the bow, it’s about the arrow, and the arrow is you. For I put you in My promises and My promises only serve who you are. You are not the servant of My promises. My promises are because I believe in you. So, I’m forming you, I’m fashioning you to be my sons, to be my daughters. It doesn’t matter what the enemy’s resistance is, you are the sharp arrows that will meet every enemy in the place of influence. Because the influence of My love in your life is greater than any influence of the hate of the enemy. The influence of freedom and release of My Spirit in you is greater any resistance against that. So, hold tightly to My promises, but understand it’s not what you hold on to that is My will. It’s who you are, that is My will. So, hold on to the bow because I’m sending you forth as My arrows to fulfill My purpose, a testimony of My love,” says God.

We must fully embrace knowing God as our friend to be an expression of God’s family in the earth. As the family of God, we will be known as the people of God in the earth, but that testimony is one of being loved by God and being the expression of God’s love to our world. We are each a piece of God’s testimony of love and life. Weapons of the enemy have been formed against this, but we are the weapons of God’s life. We are being stretched in the bow, stretched in the promises of God, so that we can be drawn close to God and see what He sees. When we see what He sees, we will become the sharp arrows of grace and truth that will pierce through the influence of our enemies with the influence of God’s love. God is our friend, and we are expressions of who He is to our world.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Prophetic Words at ALife on 9/4/2022

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