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

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

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