The Fruit of Friendship With God

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Greetings,

Welcome to a new day and a new month. It feels like a weather change is in the air. My morning run felt like the fresh air of the fall season. I also believe that the season in the spirit is new and fresh. We had a wonderful day yesterday at Alife. There was a prophetic spirit in the house. That prophetic spirit was shared by many members of our gathering together. There was the sense of the family of God in the atmosphere.

Friendship with God produces true faith, and it is faith towards God that changes our world. Our aim is not a changed world. Our aim is friendship with God and in this our world will surely experience God’s love and it will change. This is the testimony of knowing God as our friend and of us living our lives as His friends in the world.

James 2:23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God.

Friendship with God is exhibited with works because we trust our Friend, believe our Friend, and do what our Friend asks. It is not our response to God that creates our friendship with Him. It is our friendship with Him that inspires our right responses to Him. God’s friendship with us, inspires our friendship with Him. Our heavenly Father demonstrated His love for us though friendship.

John 15:9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” 

Jesus knew His Father to be His friend. It was His intimate connection to His Father in His walk in life that inspired Him to respond to His Father and fulfill His Father’s desires.

John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

Truly, abiding in an intimate friendship relationship with God inspires us to keep His commands. Our goal is not to keep His commands. Our goal is to abide in a friendship relationship with God, but the fruit of that relationship will be seen in an obedience to His ways. Knowing Him as our friend will internally empower us to be His friends and enable us to demonstrate God’s friendship to those in our world.

John 15:11-13 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

It wasn’t the power or ministry of God that demonstrated the joy of Jesus in His redemption of our lives. His joy was to reveal the friendship of God to men and to invite us all into an intimate way and walk of friendship with God in life. Jesus gave us a greater testimony than simply knowing the works of God in our lives. He gave us the ability to know the ways of God in our lives.

John 15:14-15 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Again, it is not doing the commands of God that give us friendship with God. Obeying His commands simply demonstrate our friendship with God and invoke a growing of that friendship in our hearts. We grow in our friendship with God from within our hearts. It is the fruit of a revelation of His love for us. That revelation of friendship will inspire us to live as Jesus did and empower us to do all that He desires of us each day as we abide in Him and His love.

John 15:16-17 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.

Fruit is not something that gives us life. The fruit of our live is what gives life to others. I have many fruit trees, bushes, and vines in my garden. The fruit of those trees, bushes, and vines gives life to me and my friends. This is the testimony of their purpose in my garden. Our friendship connection to God our Father, and Jesus His Son, makes us fruitful in our world. It is a testimony of God’s love living in our hearts. When His love lives in our hearts, that love flows out to our world and is demonstrated in works of love towards others. By this, other people come alive! This is fruit of our lives.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

 

Donations can be made at the link on the home site of: www.ted4leaders.com www.ted4you.com or www.houseofbreadministry.org. Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225 To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year. Our Ministry Information Is: House of Bread Ministry 3210 Meridian St. Bellingham, WA 98225-1728

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Friendship With God

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Greetings,

Today I am in Deming, New Mexico. We had a great start to meetings yesterday and I will be continuing tonight. Last night I taught on Spiritual Realities and will do again tonight. Yesterday morning I gave a word on friendship with God. God has been speaking to me about being my friend and I His. It is in that theme that I write today.

God wants us to know Him in an intimate way. He doesn’t want us to just know Him as God, He wants us to know Him as our heavenly Father. He wants us to embrace being children of God so we can grow to become manifested sons and daughters of God. To be a son or daughter of God is not merely knowing Him in His power, it is knowing Him in His love. In this, we will know God as our friend and we will grow in being known as God’s friends. God wants us to know Him as our friend. I believe that this was God’s way in the desirable garden (Eden means, desirable) in the beginning of the history of God and man. Truly, the desirable place of life is to live in friendship with God.

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 for man to have a friendship connection of conversation and intimacy Him. This was paramount to their destiny as His likeness and image in the earth. I believe that walk was a walk of friendship and love. God wants us to be His friends  at the conclusion of every day and season of our lives. How we end each day is how we will begin the next. How we leave a thing, is how we will enter the next thing in our lives. Even after the fall of man, God looked for a connection with mankind in a culture of love and intimacy. His heart was still for a future and a hope for mankind.

Genesis 5:24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

 This descendant of Adam, Enoch, had a testimony of knowing God as his friend. The name Enoch means, dedicated. This man’s dedication was to know God as His friend. As a result, a place was made for him in heaven and for the future inheritance of his descendants upon the earth in the family of Noah. The name Noah means, rest. It appears that Enoch’s friendship with God made a place for his presence in heaven and God’s continued presence in the earth. This Enoch was a descendant of Seth, a fresh appointment of God in the lineage of Adam after Cain killed Abel. During this same time in the earth, Cain produced a descendant named Enoch. The Enoch of Cain, however, built a city and named it after himself – Enoch. His dedication was to himself and what he could build and do. His descendants did not inherit the earth. They were all taken away in a flood and no place for them remained in the earth. Their human testimonies were those of creative artists, inventors, and entrepreneurs, but these things all came to nothing in the presence of God in the flood. Only friendship with God made room for man to receive God’s life, become expressions of God’s life, and receive a partnership with God in the purpose of God’s life in the earth.

The testimony of God’s desire for friendship continued in the journey of man upon the earth. God called Israel to serve Him, because Abraham was His friend. Abraham’s friendship with God gave Him an inheritance that would be loved by God and would serve Him.

Isaiah 41:8 “But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham My friend.”

Power of ministry cannot reveal God in His friendship, only a face-to-face relationship can reveal a friendship with God. This was not only the testimony of God and Abraham, but also the testimony of Moses, as God’s sent deliverer to Israel after they had been bound in slavery and the darkness of Egypt for four hundred and thirty years. It was friendship with God that revealed the ways of God to Moses, not merely His supernatural works.

Exodus 33:11 So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.

Psalms 103:7 He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.

The Israelites who only knew God’s works, failed to enter into the Promised Land before them. Knowing God in His power is not the same as knowing God as our friend. A prophet can know the power of visions and dreams of God, but it is only through friendship that we can know His ways.

Numbers 12:6 Then He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. 7 Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. 8 I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?”

To see the form of the Lord is to see who He really is. It is only through an intimate relationship of friendship that we can know who someone is. It is only through an intimate relationship of friendship that we can know who God is and it is only through knowing who He is that we can know His ways.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson



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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

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Open Your Heart

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Greetings,

We had a great weekend here in Bellingham. On Friday night we had a worship night and God showed up in an intimate and powerful way. There was much body ministry and many experiencing a deep and intimate touch of God. That same Spirit continued yesterday in church. I released a prophetic word as well as a word given by Pastor Jonathan. I felt to post those words today. We are in a new season as the body of Christ, the spiritual house of His habitation.

Word by Ted J. Hanson – August 21, 2022:

The Spirit of the Lord says, “I am releasing another measure, and when I measure things I do not measure them the same way that men measure things. For men measure their world by that which ends, but I measure My world, says God, by that which has no end.  And I’m releasing another measure this morning that your vision might go farther than you can expect. For My measurement is always limitless. My measurement is always above and beyond all that you could think or even imagine.” And so the Lord says, “I’m lighting a fire inside of you for its My passion, it’s My love, that’s going to spring up within you and cause the vision of your heart to be the vision of your heart and not the vision of your mind. For there have been things that have tried to hem you in and bind you from moving forward in the things of Me. But this is a day of new expectancy. For I’m releasing another measure and My measurements are always in love, My measurements are always in limitless measures. For nothing can separate you from Me, says God.  Nothing can separate you from the limitless measures of My heart. For My expectancy of you has been greater than the expectancy that you’ve even had of Me. For I have put it in you to seek and to find and to know that which grows like a fire, burns like a flame,  and can see beyond the measurements of your world. Let My heaven’s measure invade your heart. Let me give you a new beginning. Let Me give you a new start. For this is the season of increase,” says the Lord.

Word by Jonathan Hanson – August 21, 2022:

I Just hear that He planted a vision, but you’ve been looking through the vision inside your head. But the vision isn’t in your head, the vision’s been in your heart all along. And you were told to express a clear vison so that other heads would understand so you looked to your head to find the answers, but you’ve been frustrated because you couldn’t find the answers.  but God says “Look to your heart. That’s where I live.  Look to your heart and express with your heart and the vison will be known. So let your heart be free. Let your heart be open. All the bondage that you felt like has held you back, that hurt you. You had to protect yourself. You do not have to protect yourself. I am there to protect you. And it’s not the kind of protection you wish for. It’s the kind of protection I long for which is to be with you in the middle of suffering. To be with you in the middle of things not happening the way you want. Let your heart be open. Let your heart be open. I put vision inside there. I put vision inside there long before you even knew what vision was. I put it inside your heart, so let your heart be open. Vulnerability is the key. Expressing your heart is the key. Going towards pain is the key, because on the other side of pain is love and it’s this connection with Me you’ve never experienced before. The enemy tried to mark you, so you wouldn’t go there but I say come deeper. Come deeper with Me. Come deeper with Me. I’m right on the other side of that thing you’ve been afraid of, but it’s inside your heart. It’s inside your heart.”

So, Just open your heart to Him. Express your heart to Him. Do it in private! Do it in public! Do it even with people that scare you. Express your heart to Him.

“Watch Me do things! Watch me do things that you have never known possible before. I am healing you deep inside and I’m unloosing the things that have tried to take you out. All the talons that have hooked into the places your pain, those talons are being released right now.”

He’s releasing you from darkness. He’s releasing you from things that have held you back. From places that have band aids – He’s ripping off band aids! Because you kept it on for too long. The wound is there, and it needs some air. The wound needs some air. I see Him healing the places that had the talons hooked in there.

The spiritual strongholds that have been bound because of what you did Jesus we release their talons now from people’s hearts, in Jesus’ name, and we connect and bind to You God. We connect and bond to Your love.

 

I believe that God is doing some deep things in this season. Today I am in the mountains in prayer (both literally and spiritually) that I might find Him because I know He wants to come to me where I live in my everyday world. When I seek Him in the mountain, I will find Him in the mountain so that He can find me in the valley of my everyday world. His mercy has triumphed in the mountain that His grace might abound in the valley of my today!

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

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The Way, Path, Law, and Word

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Greetings,

I am enjoying the summer months of Northwest, Washington. Our youngest granddaughter, Eleonore, has kept Bonnie and I busy and full of life the last couple of days. Another great sleep over at Gopa and Oma’s house for the little one. Life is good! It is good to be grandparents, but especially good to be part of a family that knows God and His love in many ways.

Isaiah 2:3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

What does it mean to know the ways of God? Is it some form of information that we embrace in order to discipline our flesh to make actions we think God would make? I think that knowing the ways of God is a changed character. It is a changed nature within us that empowers us to demonstrate a life that is true to the character of God. God is a giver and not a taker. He doesn’t need anything from anyone, but gives life, breath, and all things. I believe that knowing the ways of God is about being transformed from living for ourselves to living to give life to others. The way of God is always a matter of choosing life that brings life to others. It brings life to the world we live in. This is why we worship God. It brings life to our world. It is not because God needs our worship, it is because worshipping God releases the life of God to our world. When we give God His proper place in our lives, our lives are transformed to become like Him in our way of life.

What does it mean to walk in the paths of God? I believe the path of God is not a discipline of our flesh, but an empowerment of the Spirit. It is not merely a way of walking for our own sake, but a way of moving forward in life that reveals the testimony of God’s love and life in every circumstance.

Psalms 27:11 Teach me Your way, O LORD, and lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.

Proverbs 4:18 But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.

Perhaps the smooth path is the path that causes no pain to others. Our enemies seek to cause us pain, but the path of God brings life. I believe the path of God includes the testimony of God in and through our lives and it empowers us to move forward and even make a way that others can follow. It is the witness of the testimony of life. God’s path is a path of justice that makes a way for life in the earth. It reveals the goodness and the greatness of God in our lives. The path of God is always a path of deliverance from our enemies, and it leads to a place of transformation and inheritance in Christ. The path of God in our lives always leads to life.

Isaiah 43:16 Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters, 17 Who brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power (They shall lie down together, they shall not rise; They are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick): 18 “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

What does it mean for the law to go out of Zion? In the Old Testament, Zion was the place that David set up his tabernacle for the manifest presence of God in Jerusalem. Zion was the geographical place of the stronghold of the Jebusites, a name meaning “to trample” or “to tread upon”. I believe that Zion represents the human heart. This is where the tabernacle of David is found. It is the place of the human heart that has been redeemed in Christ. What was formerly a stronghold of destruction, becomes a stronghold of God’s mercy and grace. God’s presence is in our hearts. God’s law is a law of love. I believe that knowing God causes our hearts to become a habitation of His love. Love for others even as we are loved by God becomes the rule of our hearts.

What does it mean for the word of the Lord to go forth from Jerusalem. The name Jerusalem means “vision of peace”. The influence of our lives is determined by a vision of peace, a vision of our lives being one with Christ in heaven as we increasingly become the community of God in the earth. We become expressions of God’s word in some way as a testimony of those who have a vision of peace, an increasing reality of being part of the community of Christ in the earth. We become transformed to influence the world as expressions of the people of God. We don’t condemn the world; we give love and life to inspire all to come to the mountain of the Lord.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

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The Way of God

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Greetings,

We had another great day yesterday at Alife here in Bellingham. Pastors Jonathan and Danie gave us a great challenge to say yes to God for our part in His corporate testimony and purpose. Our yes is not merely for our dream in life, but to be a part of His vision and dream together as the family of God. This will include our yes in areas we don’t think we can. God is the qualifier, and it is for His glory that we live.

As believers in Christ our way is not the way of the world. Our way is the way of Christ. People in the world are seekers of self and not seekers of God. They are seekers of life, but their perspective of life is what they can receive from the world they live in. Their identity is wrapped up in the world they find themselves in or the world they create for themselves in their natural environment in life. They are disconnected from God so their focus in life is to fulfill their needs in created things and created beings. They look to other people and other things to meet their needs. They even unknowingly, and sometimes knowingly, look to see their needs met by spiritual influences that are less than the Creator. Mankind, natural creation, and even spiritual creation are all creation, and they all need the one Creator who gives life, breath, and all things. It is through a personal relationship with God in our hearts that we find our way in life. Our counsel in all things comes from Him, not from the things of this world.

Psalms 1:1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. 3 He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.

Our counsel comes from the voice of God in our hearts. It is not merely a counsel that gives us right information to live by. It is a counsel that changes our hearts and gives us right desires to live by. Our path in life is determined by the One who puts the desires of life in our hearts. He puts before us life and death and the Spirit of the Lord within our hearts inspires us to always choose life. Our security is found in our connection to God in every situation of our lives. We are seated with God in Christ in heavenly places, and it is from the inside out that we find true life. The law of God is not the Torah law of the Old Covenant. His law is love that was only reflected in the principles, patterns, and values of the Torah law. Our meditation is upon the love of God. His love gives life. We don’t meditate on His law to know His law; we meditate upon His law to know His heart. We meditate upon all that He says so that we will know who He is. We don’t study our Bible so that we will know the Bible. We study the Bible because it is the book that reveals secrets to our Father’s heart.

Our world consists of everything, and everyone, joined to us in life. How can we be sons and daughters who give life to our world? This is all found in His manifest presence. It is the manifest presence of God in our lives that gives us life. This is the true water of life. There are many seasons in our lives but the key to the fruitfulness of every season of our life is to live in Christ and for Christ to live in us. This is true prosperity, and it will even guide us into physical realms of blessing.

To meditate upon the law of God means to ponder upon it by talking to oneself. This is the meaning of the Hebrew word. It is to murmur to yourself regarding God’s words. What an interesting thought. It is not merely keeping the things that God says in our hearts, but it involves expressing them to ourselves and to the atmosphere around us. This is stirring up the ways of God from the inside out. I believe that the true strength of our meditation is not merely saying God’s words to ourselves but in saying them with God’s presence from within. We must be active and proactive in our relationship with God.

These words of the Psalmist were words spoken by God to Joshua as the entrance to the Promised Land. They were instructions as to how to dwell in the land of God’s promise. These instructions were the key to the victory of God’s people over every opposition to their Promised Land. These instructions also apply to the Promised Land of God’s blessing in our world.

Joshua 1:8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Our meditation is to know God wherever we go in life. God is with us, and we must demonstrate that we are with Him. Our observation is not an observation of the things that He has said or the book that He has inspired to be written. Our observation is of His heart. By this He will teach us His ways, we will walk in His paths, His law of love will be in our hearts, and our lives will be an expression of those who are a part of His community of life. Our vision will be one of peace with God in all things and the testimony of our lives will be that of being part of the community of God’s favor. It is a testimony of being in constant and continual communion with God by His Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 2:3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

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Righteousness, Peace, and Joy

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in Wisconsin. I have been blessed to spend several days with my good friend Tim. We have known each other for many years and have known God together for almost fifty years now. Our time together has been precious as our time with God is precious in all the seasons of our lives.

God didn’t send Jesus so that we would know what to do. He sent Jesus so we would know who our Father is and in knowing who our Father is we would know who we are. God sent Jesus to reconnect us to our Father so that we would become manifested children of God and bring life to our world. We were born to be loved by God and being loved by God empowers us to love others in our world with love that comes from God. This is knowing the kingdom of God within us and knowing the kingdom of God within us causes are kingdoms to become expressions of our Lord and Christ. This is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit from within our hearts.

Today I am grateful for a relationship with God in Christ. Jesus made a way for the desires of my heart to grow from a place of knowing God. He reconnected me to the One who loves me. God did not separate from me. I separated from Him. I sought to fulfill the desires of my heart in a created world and a world of created things. My life was upside down because I was trying to fill my life from the outside in. My Father in heaven wanted to put my life right-side up. For this reason, God came into my world as Jesus the Son of God, the Son of Man. He didn’t just do this as an act of a man 2000 years ago. He did this as the eternal word of God and He is in my life by the reality of His Spirit joined to my spirit within. Jesus was the firstborn of a new creation. That creation is one of being joined to the Creator in our hearts. This is true righteousness, to be joined to the One who makes all things as they should be from within. Christ in me is the hope of all glory. I can become the authentic me because I am joined to the authentic Creator, the lover of who I truly am. He gives me desires that are empowerments of change from within. He is Lord of my heart. My desires are changing, and they are growing as life-giving expressions of our family DNA. That family is the family of our Father in heaven. I am a child of God and my relationship with God from within is empowering me to be a son of my Father in heaven with His character, nature, way, power, and authority growing from within me. He gives me the desires of my heart because of my relationship with Him. I am growing in knowing Him! Those desires are not my desires alone, they are His desire becoming my desires from within my heart.

I am thankful today because I have found, and I am finding, true peace. I am connected to the giver of life in all things. Nothing can separate me from the love of God. He is the source of my testimony in life. He is the giver, but I am an expression of all that He gives. He delights in loving me and I delight in loving Him. There is no gap between my world and His and His world and mine. All that He is and all that He has is changing the expression of who I am. Being joined to Him fills me up to overflowing and what He is doing on the inside of me becomes an expression that others can see. This is the testimony of my peace with God. He was never angry with me and the testimony of His connection to me and my connection to Him is eradicating the things that destroy life. God’s anger is an anger of love, and it is anger that only destroys the things that seek to destroy me.

Today I am grateful for a partnership with God in the power and the goodness of who He is. His manifest presence in my life is precious to me. I can’t live without Him, but with Him I can do all the things I need to do in my responsibilities of life. To know Him in my world empowers my world to declare His name for His glory. He doesn’t force His presence upon me, but He invites me to open the door to His presence in every aspect of my life. It is there that He feasts with me and I with Him. It is there that He drinks with me and I with Him. We experience the treasure and the power of life together. This is true joy! God, I love your house! My heart and my flesh cries out for You! This is not because You are far way, but because You are so willing and near. When You are with Me, what power can be against me? You strengthen me from within. What an amazing grace that I should be a place where You dwell!

We are part of the calling of God in Christ, we are part of the inheritance of Christ, and we are a part of His purpose in our generation for the sake of the generations to come. My prayer today is that you would know the righteousness of God in Christ from within your heart. It is a right relationship with the One who loves you and Who gives you the desires of your heart that are empowered by His love. My prayer is that you will know the peace of God from within. To know that nothing can separate you from the love of God. To be an expression of His love that your world can see that is an authentic expression of what you can see within your heart. I pray that you will know a partnership with God that is intimate and near, yet powerful and prevailing in all things. By this you will reign in your world with joy filled purpose and joy filled focus as you celebrate the life of knowing your Father in Heaven, Jesus His Son, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit at all times.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | 1 Comment

A Partnership of Love

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Yesterday I was able to minister at Everyone’s Church in Mt. Vernon, Washington. God’s presence was there, faith was in the hearts of the people, and God revealed Himself as good in His family. I hope you also had a great weekend. God is surely creating a family testimony and a testimony of being God’s family in the earth.

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

We often think of God’s purpose as a matter of power, but power alone doesn’t create the greatest purpose of God in the world. When Moses was sent to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt, God used the wicked Pharaoh for His purpose.

Exodus 9:16 But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.

God can use the wicked to proclaim His name to the earth because God is more powerful than those who oppose Him. God uses the wicked and the hard of heart to demonstrate His power, but what about us when we partner with Him as children of God? Our partnership with God and His partnership with us is not a matter of power. It is a matter of love and the testimony of love. God offers this partnership to anyone who seeks to know Him. I believe that God looks for those who seek to know Him to demonstrate His willingness to go to the place they live. I believe that Jesus demonstrated this when He encountered Zacchaeus as He passed through Jericho.

Luke 19:1 Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. 2 Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. 3 And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” 6 So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. 7 But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”

In this story, the hunger of Zacchaeus to see who Jesus was stirred Jesus to go to His house that day. Jesus told Him to make haste and come down because Jesus wanted to stay at His house. This was more than a superficial visit. Jesus didn’t care that Zacchaeus was someone that the religious considered a sinner. Jesus saw Zacchaeus as a child of God. I believe this story reveals God’s desire for partnership with us in life. God wants to stay in our houses. He wants to live in our lives. God wants to live with us and us with Him. It is not our works that justify us, but our willingness to receive Jesus into our lives. God wants us to know the mystery of a connection to God.

Ephesians 3:8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.

Reigning in life is not a matter of knowing what to do. It is not merely a matter of doing the right thing or making the right decision. It is a matter of being a place of God’s presence. It is the place of knowing the mystery of the fellowship of God and man in a partnership of intimacy, one with another. Jesus living in our house and we living in our Father’s house is the testimony of our dependency in life.

Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. 21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”‘”

Several years ago, God told me that grace is the evidence that God lives in our house. He also told me that peace is the evidence that we live in God’s house. When God is in our lives, we increasingly change in life-receiving and life-giving ways. When we partner with God and live in His house, our access to the substance of all that He is and all that He has enables us to know the substance of heaven in our lives. Our aim should be for Jesus to live in our lives in an intimate way of eating and drinking the food and drink of grace and peace. It is through a partnership of love that we will reign in life.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson



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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | Comments Off on A Partnership of Love

Connection in the Spirit

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

We had an awesome time in the manifest presence of God yesterday in our local church. There was a free flowing of the Holy Spirit with our personal connection to God and to one another. God was speaking and His family was responding.

True communion is a sharing of the bread of the body of Christ and a drinking of the Spirit of Christ as the life of being the body of Christ. The bread that we experience is the testimony of humanity made to become the word of God in flesh. The cup that we drink is a cup of the Spirit. It is a cup of resurrection life. How do we drink the cup of resurrection life? Our connection to one another as members of the body of Christ is not merely a connection of the soul. It is not merely a connection made by attending the same church or becoming a member of a fellowship. Our connection is a connection to God and to one another by the manifest presence of the Spirit of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ in us, upon us, and with us as the body of Christ. This is the testimony of grace! This is the testimony of the resurrection life of Christ in our lives. Even in the Old Covenant, there were times when men had a revelation of the presence of God and their need for His Spirit in their lives.

Psalms 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. 9 Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You. 14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.

David’s appeal to God was that God wouldn’t look at the errors of his departure from God, but that God would heal the root cause of his disconnects so that he wouldn’t disconnect ever again. He called for God to change his heart with the strength of David’s spirit from within. He knew that the Holy Spirit in him and with him was his salvation. David understood his need for the presence of God in His life. His salvation was the presence of God with Him. He understood that God is a giver and not a taker. His view of the Holy Spirit was that of being the generous Spirit. He knew that God’s manifest presence in his life would be a testimony to sinners and that they would be converted by the testimonies of God’s love. The beginning and the end of the testimony of God’s Spirit in his life was the removal of all shame and every cause for shame in his life.

The communion of the Holy Spirit in our midst is the removal of all shame. God’s presence in our lives removes the consequence of every shame in our lives and His presence heals the root cause of our iniquities. Hearing God is not about knowing what to do, it is about knowing God. True communion is knowing God in our lives and in and through the lives of one another. It is the life of Christ in us, upon us, and with us that testifies of the death of Jesus Christ to give us the resurrection life of Christ. It is the presence of Holy Spirit in our hearts that creates clean hearts within us.

I hear God saying for us to listen with our spirits! Holy Spirit speaks to our spirits, not our heads. God wants us to trust what He is saying to our spirits more than we trust what we think He is saying to our heads. We need to discover the rest, the revelation, and the transformation that takes place when we dwell in the presence of God, and we allow Him to dwell with His presence in us. We wrestle in hearing God because we believe that hearing God is understanding God in our minds.  God says that those who have ears to hear are those who hear. Hearing God is not an effort of the flesh, but a response to the Spirit. Both Jesus in the gospels and the Holy Spirit in the book of Revelation declared, “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.” Hearing is a response to the Spirit, not a strain of human effort. It is a matter of letting our spirits hear that empowers a process of letting our minds hear the voice of God from within us. The fruit is an empowering of our thoughts, reasoning, imagination, emotions, and desires from within. It is not something that we strive to see happen, but a supernatural inspiration from within. It is a drinking of the Spirit of Christ in our lives. It is a communion of the Spirit – God’s Spirit to our spirit. I believe this is the true power of God’s grace. This is the blood of the New Covenant working in us and when we allow this to happen in our place of corporate connection it is an empowerment of life to us all.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | 1 Comment

The Cup of Praise

Blog In Audio:

Greetings;

I hope you are enjoying your summer months. We have had some great weather here in the Northwest and we are enjoying the immunity boost of summer sunshine. Yesterday we had a great time of gathering as Alife Church in Bellingham. Pastors Jonathan and Danie did a great job of refreshing us all in how to strengthen ourselves in the Lord. There was lots of connection to one another as the family of God in our spiritual living room in Bellingham.

Last week, I posted a portion of my book, The Seven Eyes of Grace – Empowered to Live, concerning communion and the present grace of the Spirit of Knowing in the earth. I want to post another segment of this today. This book is available in Print and in E-book on Amazon. It will soon be available in audiobook on many sources.

Chapter 6.2 – The Sixth Eye of Grace; Pages 182-184:

Have you ever been in one of those condemnation services where the minister challenges you to examine the works of the flesh in your life around the elements of bread and juice? Truly there is a truth presented in the act, but many times the act ends up being a tool of condemnation in the hands of men in their ministry. Many people become condemned at what they believe to be the “communion table”, but fail to consider the other times they gather together as the Body of Christ. They fail to see the importance of living their daily lives for the purposes of God and one another. They may practice religiously the partaking of the bread and the drinking of wine as symbols upon a sacred tray, but they are spiritually, emotionally, and physically cursed for despising the true bread of the Body of Christ and for rejecting the cup of being led by the Spirit.

Communion can be described in the act of “breaking bread”, but communion itself is also an act of truly “breaking bread”. It is not just the natural bread of communion, but rather the spiritual bread of life that each of us represents as members of the living Body of Christ. I believe this is what was testified of in the practices of the early Church.

Acts 2:42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.

True communion was initiated in the fulfillment of Passover. Jesus became the true Passover Lamb, who took away the sins of the world. In preparation of that sacrifice, Jesus ate the Passover meal with His disciples. He had eaten that meal with them before. He had most likely eaten the bread of Passover and drank the cup at least twice before with His men. He had experienced the physical elements of bread and wine at numerous settings of his 331/2 years of human life. As the Word of God, He had observed the Passover meal hundreds and hundreds of times from the realm of heaven. However, this meal was different. This is the one Passover meal that He had longed to see. This was the one that would fulfill all of the previous meals leading up to that moment. This is why Jesus said, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk. 22:15). This was the one that would reveal the truth of the Passover meal. At that meal there was the Passover bread and the cups of the Passover wine.

The first cup of the Passover meal was a cup of Thanksgiving (Kiddush), for bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. This cup is sometimes referred to as the cup of Sanctification. The second cup of the Passover meal was a cup of Telling or Testimony (Maggid), for stories of deliverance from Egyptian slavery. The third cup was the Cup of Redemption or Blessing (Birkat Hamazon), to demonstrate God’s redemption power for all who believe in Him. It testified of the death of the flesh of Egyptian inheritance and the protection unto new life for the believer in Israel. The fourth cup was the cup of Praise (Hallel) to testify that God had acquired His people as a Holy nation unto Himself (Ex. 6:6, 7). Jesus had come to the world as the Word made flesh. He was born as flesh to proclaim that all flesh could be born-again in Him. We can be thankful that He lived a natural life for 30 years that we might all live our everyday lives as new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). He Himself had fled to Egypt to free all who were bound to the bondage of sin. He was born as the cup of Thanksgiving to God. He lived his life as the cup of Telling. When He was baptized by John the Spirit of God came upon Him in full measure and He went about demonstrating the deliverance power of God in Israel. He healed the sick, cast out devils, multiplied bread, and even raised the dead as a testimony of deliverance for all people. His life in the flesh set precedence for all who would follow Him to become the living testimonies of God’s story in the earth. The time had now finally come for Jesus to take the unleavened bread of the Passover and the third cup of Passover wine (the cup of Blessing or the cup of Redemption). Jesus finished its symbolism in the presence of His disciples. He proclaimed to them that He was about to give His life as a ransom for all men. The cup to follow the cup of Redemption would be the cup of Praise.

Jesus has become the resurrection life within the Body of Christ that we might drink the Cup of Praise anew with Him (Mt. 26:29). That cup is not a cup of earthly wine. It is a cup of heavenly wine! It is the cup of resurrection life given to all who believe in Jesus Christ. It is the cup that testifies that the cup of Redemption and Blessing has been drunk once for all men through the shedding of the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. To drink that cup of resurrection life one must first be a partaker of the Bread of Life. By drinking the Cup of Praise, we proclaim the fulfillment of the Cup of Redemption for all mankind. We proclaim that Jesus was the testimony of the cup of Thanksgiving, the cup of Testimony (Deliverance), and the cup of Redemption for all men. In sharing the cup of the Spirit, we experience the intimacy of the Body of Christ. In experiencing the intimacy of the Body of Christ we proclaim the death of Jesus Christ for all men.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson –

Updated Version in Print and E-book on Amazon




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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

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True Communion

Blog In Audio:

Greetings;

Blessings to all my American friends on this Independence Day. I pray that the freedom of your independence stirs you to find your dependance upon Jesus Christ and the Body of Christ. It is in our freedom that we can choose by our freewill to seek the One and the place of true life. This is the testimony of true love.

I have spent this past week recording my book, The Seven Eyes of Grace – Empowered To Live, in audio form. It will soon be available as an audiobook. There is now an updated version of this book in Print and E-book form on Amazon. As I was recording this book, I felt to share a portion of that book today. We are in a season of becoming the people of God as the body of Christ who knows the life of the Spirit over the life of flesh.

Chapter 6.2 – The Sixth Eye of Grace; Pages 181, 182:

What is communion? Webster’s Dictionary defines communion as: “A sharing, an intimate relationship with deep understanding.” Communion is not merely the ceremonial act of breaking bread and drinking juice or wine. Huge debates, conflicts, judgments, and divisions have come about over the dispute of the details of the elements of the “communion table”. We must be missing something! Communion must be more than the elements of “bread” and the “fruit of the grape”. How can we share and come to an intimate relationship with deep understanding simply by taking the elements of the “communion table”? Maybe if we find the true elements of communion, we will automatically find the true “communion table”?

We are so easily distracted by things, events, and moments of tangible evidence. I believe we have deviated from the true reality of communion by viewing it as a thing we do. We have seen it as an “event”. We have left churches because the “event” wasn’t often enough; or the “event” was with the wrong “elements”. For the sake of a debate on what we have called “communion” we have chosen separation, isolation, and even division. Have we missed something here? We have had great theological debates over wine and juice. The improper choice of bread has caused some to depart from the sharing of their lives with the congregation of saints they thought was their home. I have seen this dozens of times in various congregations around the world.

I believe in many cases communion has become nothing less than a thing of judgment. It has become a “Nehushtan”. Do you recall the story? The children of Israel on their journey in the wilderness had become discouraged against God and against Moses (Num. 21:1-9). The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people as a result of their murmuring and complaint; those serpents bit them and many of the people died. The people came repentant to Moses, begging that they might be forgiven of their sin. God instructed Moses to make a fiery serpent of brass and lift it up on a pole among the people. All who looked to the bronze serpent on the pole were healed of the serpent bites. It was a wonderful picture of Jesus Christ being lifted up upon our cross for our deception and sin. When we look to Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for our sin, we are healed of the bite of sin in our lives. Moses’ obedience to craft the bronze serpent was a response to a God-given instruction. However, there remained a problem. The children of Israel kept that bronze serpent around for hundreds of years and even began to include it with the articles of worship upon their high place. The very God-given thing became an abomination of idolatry. It became a place of judgment, rather than a place of blessing. King Hezekiah, a righteous king of Judah, broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses made, for the people burned incense to it and called it Nehushtan (2 Kin. 18:4). The name Nehushtan means, “brass thing”. Brass is often symbolic of judgment in the Scriptures. The thing of blessing had become a thing of judgment, because the people chose to worship it. I believe the elements of communion have often become like that. We have chosen to worship the table upon which the elements of communion reside instead of worshipping the God in which everyone abides. We have worshipped the elements of communion and missed the true intimacy of communion. We have failed to honor the Body that contains the presence of the Bread of Christ and the life of the Spirit of Christ. I believe the true communion table is the coming together of the Body of Christ. I believe the true elements of the bread of that table are the members of the Body of Christ. I believe the true cup of the communion table is the life of the Spirit within each and every member of the Body of Christ. We eat that bread when we lay our lives down for the lives of one another. We drink that cup when we choose the life of the Spirit over the life of the flesh.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson




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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

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

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

Posted in #graceculture, #newcovenant, #peopleofGod | Comments Off on True Communion