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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am back in Bellingham. We had a good international Zoom chat with several of the pastors in my House of Bread network on Saturday. The leaders shared good words concerning healing, restoration, and deliverance. There was a common thought that it is important to see who is next to us in this season. It is time to build wells and not fences. If we dig the wells, life will be the attractor and not merely some form of ministry. It is important to pick up the rod for now. What is in our hand must be what God makes it to be in this season. There was a real sense that God is doing something good and that we will end 2021 strong. We also had a great workday on Saturday at our church working on many coming changes to our church ministry. I am looking forward to what God is doing in this new season.

God has called us to be supernatural sons and daughters of God in a natural world. He has called us to affect our world in supernatural ways. We can have supernatural expectations because our heavenly father is not bound by a natural world. By Him, the world is affected in supernatural ways.

Mark 16:17 “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

How do we live our lives in a way that allows the testimonies of the kingdom of God to become realities in the kingdoms of mankind? The kingdom of God is an internal kingdom of God’s life that affects the external kingdoms of men. It invites them to know the life of the kingdom of God within their hearts, but it also influences the external kingdoms like the mustard seed that grows to be a force that affects the realm of the birds, as leaven fills the loaf of bread, and as the rock of Christ becomes a mountain that fills the whole earth. Jesus was such a man, and He made a way for us to walk in our world as He did in His. It is even greater today, because the one Man, Jesus Christ, has become the testimony of the many members of the body of Christ joined to Him in heavenly places. Each of us are supernatural sons or daughters of God, but together we are the body of Christ that does even greater things. This is only possible by the Holy Spirit in us, upon us, and with us in all things. Jesus came to reconnect us to God as our Father so we can know God’s presence, God’s testimony, and God’s purpose in our lives in all things. He came so we would have the life that comes by being in a right relationship with God in our hearts. He came so we would walk with an outward testimony that reveals we are one with God in all things. He is in us and He is upon our lives as we become expressions of Him in our world. He came so that we would know the joy of God’s purpose in all things as He partners with us and we partner with Him for His will to be done and His kingdom to come into every situation of our lives. This is the testimony of Holy Spirit in us, upon us, and with us in all that we are and do. This was the promise that Jesus gave to His disciples.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

The Helper is Holy Spirit. He was with the disciples of Jesus’ day, because Jesus was with them. He was yet to be in them, and He was yet to be upon them, though there was supernatural power even when He was with them. Jesus did not leave them, but only made a way to be with them in a greater way. He made a way to be with them and even in them and upon them in their world. This is also our promise and our assurance of supernatural realities in our world. He must be in us to be upon us and when He is in us and upon us, He also partners with us to demonstrate that He is with us in all things.

John 20:19 Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

When Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, He breathed upon them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. It was only upon seeing Jesus after His resurrection, that the disciples were able to receive the Holy Spirit in them. I believe this was a born-again experience for the disciples. They saw the love of God presented to them in the marks of Jesus sacrifice for them and they received His gift of mercy to know Him forever near within their hearts. The breath of Jesus was the breath of the Holy Spirit sent to cause their own spirits to come alive in a supernatural way.

Jesus said that unless we are born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God. When we were born again, we became able to see the life of God’s kingdom by His Spirit within us. Just like the disciples, we received the Holy Spirit within us when we are born again. After Jesus appeared to the disciples, He spoke to them concerning a greater fulfillment of the Holy Spirit in their lives. He told them they must also receive the Holy Spirit upon them to be clothed in the power of Christ.

Luke 24:49 “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

The Greek word for endued is enduo, which means to invest with clothing (literally or figuratively): array, clothe (with), endue, have (put) on. To be endued with the Holy Spirit is to be clothed in the Holy Spirit. This is an outward evidence of the power of God in our lives. To have a supernatural expectancy of a supernatural God we must have His supernatural presence in our hearts, and we must also be clothed in His supernatural testimony of 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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am in Wichita, Kansas. I have had a great weekend with Pastors Derek and Talita Stoltz, Christ Life Ministries, and several others. We had a great men’s meeting on Saturday. My only regret was that I did not record the audio because the word was a clear word of the Lord. I will blog on that matter in my leadership blog on Wednesday. Yesterday I spoke concerning being supernaturally expectant of a supernatural God. How do we live with a supernatural expectancy of a supernatural God for supernatural outcomes in our natural world?

We live in a natural world with many circumstances around us that can deter us from having hope. So much of our time is filled with natural realities and we fail to see the true possibilities in the Spirit. The truth is our expectations can only be determined by our focus in life. We must be New Covenant people in the midst of the Old Covenant realities of the world in order to have supernatural expectations of life. Jesus was a New Covenant man in an Old Covenant world, yet He lived His life as a man with a supernatural expectancy of a supernatural Father. He knew God His Father to be love and He also knew that God His Father would demonstrate His love in supernatural ways. He saw what the Father was doing and was not distracted by the things of the world. The result of His focus was seen in testimonies of God’s love in supernatural ways for many. He set His face towards a future of hope because He knew who His Father was, and He knew who He was. His journey as a man was for our sake, that we might also know who our Father is and who we are in this world.

Sometimes we think that the political environments of our day oppose the will of God in our time, but the political environment of Jesus’ day was not less despairing. The natural government of Jesus’ day was that of Rome. The religious environment of Jesus’ day was that of the Pharisaic system of legalistic compromise. The natural environment of Jesus’ day was both legalistic and lawless. Jesus wasn’t distracted by the political or religious environments of His day. His focus was steadfast upon the kingdom of God and the righteousness of God in all things. He lived His life as a man with God in Him, upon Him, and with Him in all things. He did that as a man, not God. He was a Son of Man who demonstrated a life of being a Son of God. He did this as our eternal Adam for the sake of us as an eternal Eve. Because of this, the body of Christ of the first century demonstrated these same realities. At the birthing of the New Covenant church the environment of the world only manifested further as a system that opposed Christ. Both Jesus and the first century church faced a carnal and spiritually demonic opposition to Christ. Rome was ultimately epitomized in the man Nero Caesar, the sixth of twelve rulers who proclaimed themselves to be God. Nero was a degenerate man who was self-seeking, self-gratifying, and had a self-determined purpose in all that he was and did. He launched an imperial persecution upon the church that appeared to be a force that would naturally overpower all that was life and good. The anti-Christ spirit of the first century was not less than now, but the church prevailed in supernatural ways! The church prevailed because they knew Christ in them, upon them, and with them in all things!

To be people with supernatural expectancies we must know who we are in Christ and who Christ is in us. We must be supernatural people who expect supernatural testimonies in our natural world, and we must expect supernatural testimonies to be supernatural people. We must not be distracted by natural things that rob us of having supernatural expectations. We must also allow God to determine the supernatural realities in our world and we must not be blinded or distracted by our own preconceived ideas regarding His will. The focus of our lives determines the outcome of our lives. If we present our bodies to the world, we will become like the world. But if we present our bodies to God, we can expect to influence our world with the things of God.

Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Whatever gets our attention also draws our focus and what we focus on is what we give our lives to. We cannot think like people in the world. People in the world give their attention to the created things of the world. They cannot really change creation because their focus is not upon the Creator. They can only attempt to manipulate and control what they cannot control. We must give our lives to the One who gives life to influence our world with true life. When we give our whole beings to live for God, we can know that the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God will be done, despite natural oppositions. God is building a living church that has power over the realm of the dead.

Matthew 16:15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades (the realm of the dead) shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Death cannot prevail against life. The life of Christ is not just life. It is eternal life. It is life that is resurrection from the dead and this is the testimony that is the life-giving garment of the church. We are clothed in the power of Christ!

Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

We must put our focus on God in all things. Our focus cannot be to change the world from the outside in. We must live to be changed from the inside out and we must do external things that inspire those in an external world to come to the One who changes hearts and minds. To be witness to Jesus is not to be witnesses for Him. It is to be witnesses of Him! Christ in us must also be Christ upon us for the sake of people in our world. We can have supernatural expectations because it is a supernatural God who is joined to our spirits within. Holy Spirit is one with our spirit so that the life of God’s Spirit floods out from our lives in supernatural 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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Today I am home after a great week in Colorado Springs, Colorado with the G42 Leadership Academy. I taught for the week on New Covenant Realities. The students were hungry for God and eager to know Him more. Thanks to all who participated and blessings to you all in your journey of destiny in Christ. There is hope for the future. The younger generations and the older generations are joining to see the hearts of the fathers for the children and the hearts of the children for the fathers.

We once were people empowered by the desires of our own flesh, with dreams of our own greatness, and ventures towards our own destinies; but in Christ, we have entered a greater life, expression, and purpose in this world. We are each called to be a part of the body of Christ with expressions of Christ fulfilling various measures of the works of Christ in this world. It is a great calling, great testimony, and a great power of purpose that we find in the corporate place of Zion, the community of God’s manifest presence in this world.  This is not a time to live for ourselves. This is the time to live for the purpose of Christ in all things.

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Jesus came not merely to get us to heaven when we die. He came to get heaven into us so that we will influence our world with heaven’s grace. We are not people of flesh and blood; we are people of the flesh and bone body of Christ. As the bride of Christ, we are loved in every way. As the wife of Jesus, we are the body of Christ as bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh in all things. This is not the flesh of humanity unto themselves. It is the flesh of the body of Christ and the life of that body is the manifest presence, testimony, and purpose of God’s Spirit within us. We are one with Jesus and He is one with us individually and corporately. Jesus was both Adam and Eve eternal. He was a last life-giving Adam with the hidden destiny within Him of the help-mate eternal Eve. It was at the seventh shedding of blood that Jesus made a way for the earth to yield the many members of the nations that comprise His spiritual dwelling known as the body of Christ.

John 19:33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

Just as the Adam of dust was put to sleep and out of his side came the rib of flesh that was Eve – from the side of Jesus came the living water of the Church. Jesus’ pierced side won back our joy and the testimony of a face-to-face relationship with Him in life. We are being perfected in Him to rule now and into eternity. The bride of Christ is the body of Christ and we are co-heirs with Him in the destiny of the family name!

Jesus was the Red Heifer (the Body of Christ offered outside the camp for all) so that we could become the Bride of Christ (Body of Christ). He gave His life fully so that He could sanctify us with the water of His testimony (His word) and present us to Himself as a wife without spot, blemish, wrinkle, or any such thing (Eph. 5:25-32). The shadow of this truth is found in the Old Covenant. Again, the Old Covenant was only an informational testimony of that which one day become the transforming power of God’s grace for mankind. We cannot just think in terms of a single lifetime. We must think generationally and understand that eternity is not measured in created terms. Our lives are part of something much bigger than the mere few years we are given in this segment of our journey. Life does not end on earth, but earth plays an important role in our journey of life.

Numbers 19:1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 2 “This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.’”

As was portrayed in this sacrifice, Jesus was without blemish to guarantee a progressive sanctification of our lives so that we too can become people without blemish. God does not see our blemishes and the Holy Spirit works in our lives to cause us to become as God sees us. Even with our flaws, God does not see our flaws. He writes us up well in the halls of heaven, even as he wrote Abraham as being a man who never wavered in his faith. Although God does not see our flaws, Holy Spirit is also working in our lives as the power of God’s amazing grace to cause us to reign in life. We are overcoming the weaknesses of our lives by the power of God’s strength. This is not merely for ourselves, but for an increasing glory in the maturation and culmination of God’s plan for mankind. Being healed of our blemishes does not make God love us more, it simply reveals the life-transforming power of God’s love working in 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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Last week my family and I had a challenging test. Our one year old granddaughter ended up in the hospital with an unusual virus. Thank you to all who prayed for her. She came home on Friday night and seems to be moving past here dilemma. God is good and I am so glad that He is near to us when we call upon Him.

Today I am in Colorado Springs, Colorado where I will be teaching through the week on New Covenant Realities. The students here are part of the G42 Leadership Academy, which has been based in Mijas, Spain for the past several years. The COVID virus has made us all have to make some adjustments, but adjustments can be made and purpose can be fulfilled when we seek God’s creativity in doing so. I am looking forward to a great, God-filled week.

Being a part of the body of Christ is an awesome thing. It is a great blessing and it is also a serious destiny with a great purpose. We can only find our true destiny in being a member of the body of Christ that is joined to other members that constitute a corporate dwelling place of God by His Spirit. In the world, people are taught to live for themselves. They are taught to live for their own personal dreams and visions. In Christ, our personal dreams and visions are always connected to other members of the body of Christ. God in His word says that He loves Jacob, but He loves the dwelling place Zion even more. I believe that Jacob represents our individual desire to love and seek God. God loves each of us individually and He wants us to find His life to the fullest as individual sons and daughters of God. I believe Zion is our corporate connection as the dwelling place of God in the earth. God also wants us to find our divine connection with one another to fulfill a greater purpose in the earth than we can do alone.

Psalms 87:2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! Selah

We are each called by God to be a part of a corporate expression of God’s will in the earth. We are not our own, we belong to Jesus and to one another. Whatever promise God gives to each of us, He gives to the corporate expression of us. Whatever promise He gives to us as the corporate expression of His house, belongs to each one of us as a part of that house. It is the testimony of a family name, a family inheritance, and a family destiny. The promises of God are given to the corporate house, not just the individuals in the house. Together we are the people of God. Jacob was a God-seeker, but he had to be transformed to Israel to become a people. Jacob is a person, but the gate of heaven is Zion. The gate of heaven is a city. The church is a city. The church is Zion and God in His fullness dwells there.

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

These verses are the ingredients of our coming together as the corporate place of God’s dwelling. We come together to consider one another. We come together to hold fast to our confession of being a living member of the body of Christ. We come together to stir up love and to stir up good works in one another. As the presence of God increases in the earth, our coming together should increase also. As we come together we can expect to see more of God’s presence. These are the ingredients of the pure water that sprinkles each of us as members of the body of Christ.

Hebrews 10:22 …let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

As I wrote last week, there are resisting forces to the greatness of who we are as the body of Christ, but great resistance can only prove to demonstrate the overcoming grace of the corporate dwelling place of God in His Spirit. We must be creative in how we draw near to one another. We must live by faith and not by natural sight. This is not a time to isolate our hearts from one another. This is not a time to live in fear or to live for ourselves alone. To the extent of whatever is possible, we must seek to connect to one another. Even though my granddaughter was in a hospital last week and I could not be present, I was present with her every moment in my heart and mind. I purposely chose to be present in whatever way was possible. We should do the same with one another in our corporate connections of the body of Christ. If it is possible to physically reconnect we should do so with eagerness. If it is not, we should connect by whatever means is possible. This is how we apply the washing of the water. The blood of Jesus has sprinkled our hearts to give us each a clear conscience as a son or daughter of God. The demonstration and confession of our lives towards God and one another reveals who we really are. We are the body of Christ! For this reason we must consider one another in every day of our lives. We see ourselves as members of the body of Christ and we present our bodies as living sacrifices for this cause. This is the confession of our faith. We seek to stir up love and good works in one another by whatever means is possible. The Day of the Lord is an eternal increasing Day. It is the testimony of true light and we are children of the Day and not the night. We must live as children of the Day joined to Christ as His light in all things.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

It was great to be back together yesterday in church. Pastors Jonathan and Danie gave a great word in regard to a shift for great hope. Jesus was in the house and life was happening. It is great to be a part of the Body of Christ. We are expecting sunshine all week here in Bellingham and I am expecting for the Son to shine in my heart all week in a supernatural way. It is great being connected – Spirit to spirit!

Today I am writing to encourage us all to apply ourselves to what God is doing in this present season of the Church. The Church is not an organization or a religious structure. It is the term given to our corporate connection to one another in Christ and it refers to our purpose together in bringing the influence of God’s kingdom in our world and our corporate purpose in fulfilling our Father’s will in our sphere of influence in this world. We have been in a natural season of isolation and separation. I have found that great resistance accompanies great destiny. We can expect a supernatural connection to God and one another when the circumstance of our world tries to dictate the opposite. Our destiny in not one of surface connection by a means of information. Our destiny is one of intimacy in Christ. It is a place of corporate connection with a common fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We each enjoy a personal relationship with God, but God has called us to a greater destiny than merely our own personal intimacy with God in Christ. He has called us to a corporate connection in Christ. The writer of Hebrews refers to the body of Christ as the true holy of holies. The holy of holies is a place of corporate connection as the many membered body of Christ where each member exhibits the manifest life of Christ and we as members give and receive that life to become something greater than we can be alone.

Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Jesus was God in flesh as a testimony for each of us to be people motivated by the Spirit of God joined to our own spirits in this world. As individuals we are a house for the Spirit of God. It is Christ in each of us that is the hope of glory for each of us. That glory is the guarantee of increasing life in this world and into eternity beyond this world. We are also members of the body of Christ. This gives us each a role to play in the corporate expression of Christ in a greater way. This is the Church, the one thing that God is building in this world to overcome the gates of hell. Those gates of hell are the influencing places of death and darkness in our world. As the body of Christ, the Church, we are the influence of the light of Christ to our world. Jesus lived His life as the one true body of Christ in order to make it possible for us to be joined to Him as bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh in this world. Jesus is the head of the body and the body is the fullness of Him in this world. The true veil that was torn when Jesus sacrificed His life upon the cross was not the veil of the physical holy of holies of the temple in Jerusalem. The true veil was that of His flesh so we could find an entrance into a body of life. The body that we have been given access to is the body of Christ. The body of Christ is the house of God. Through Jesus we have ended our old life of flesh and entered into a body of faith in Christ. Being joined together in the body of Christ is what gives us our true identity in Christ. The pure water is the testimony of water that can sanctify us in this world. It is the water that contains the ashes of the red heifer; thus, it washes us to declare who we really are in Christ. These things were symbolic of the testimony we find by the power of God’s words to our hearts and minds that sanctify us to reign in life as God desires.

In the Old Covenant Torah/Temple system, there was a sacrifice of a Red Heifer. That heifer was spotless, without blemish or defect of any kind. It was only a shadow and symbol of what was to come to us from heaven. It was not the thing that God desired, only a copy of something that God desired to bring into the earth. Some are looking for a day of the restoration of this sacrifice in some form in the nation of Israel, but I believe that this sacrifice is already complete in Christ and the fruit of that sacrifice is rising up in the earth. The red heifer is but a symbol of a spotless body for the service of God in Christ. I believe that heifer was symbolic of the body of Christ, the womb of God in the earth joined to Jesus the head in all things for the glory of the Father and the testimony of Jesus name.

It is a supernatural miracle to be a part of the body of Christ. Before we could become the body of Christ, Jesus had to come as the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person in human form. He was both the head and body of Christ for the new creation of a human race destined to become the brightness of the Fathers glory and express image of His person in the earth. Like the first Adam, the eternal Last Adam of Jesus contained a spiritual rib for the formation of the body of Christ in the earth. The body of Christ is the eternal Eve joined with the eternal Adam to fill the earth with the glory of God. This testimony is so glorious that even the heavens and the earth are shaking for the manifestation of this true glory. It is eternal in that it is destined to make both heaven and earth as one for the glory of God.

There are resisting forces to the greatness of who we are as the body of Christ, but great resistance can only prove to demonstrate the overcoming grace of the corporate dwelling place of God in His Spirit. We must seek to join together so that no part is lacking in the corporate purpose of Christ. Greater days are before us! Greater days are at hand.

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings;

Happy Resurrection reality! I hope you had a great Resurrection Sunday! We had to do a little adjustment here in Bellingham. We had a couple of COVID cases in our Learning Center so we had to change our Sunday service. Pastors Jonathan and Danie are locked in their house so they had to broadcast from home. I did a bit of a gathering at the church with a few others, while others joined in online from their homes. It wasn’t what we thought would happen, but our hungry hearts are still reaching out to God. Pastors Jonathan and Danie challenged us to let some things die in regard to our old expectations in order to receive all that is new of God in Christ in this season of time.

Today I want to consider what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Good Friday was a matter of the life of the flesh being poured out for us all. Resurrection Sunday was about making the blood of grace available to us all. The life of the flesh is in the blood of the cross, but the life of the Body of Christ is found in the Holy Spirit. The sevenfold power of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the life of new creations in Christ. I believe this is the true blood of grace.

Our blood is the fluid that circulates in the heart, arteries, capillaries, and veins to carry nourishment and oxygen to every part of our body as well as the ability to carry away waste products from every parts of our body. Blood supplies life to our body members, protects them from harmful substances that will kill them, and gives its substance to preserve life and provide healing where needed. Blood gives life, preserves life, and protects life in our body. Red cells provide life and carry away death causing substances from our body members. White cells protect our body parts against foreign agents. Platelets preserve life and protect it whenever a body part is wounded. These are attributes of the blood of the flesh. The Bible doesn’t teach that the life is in the blood. It teaches that the life of the flesh is in the blood (Lev. 17:11). What about the life of the body of Christ? What is the blood of the body of Christ? What is it the provides spiritual nourishment, oxygen, and all manner of life to us as new creations in Christ? What is it that cleanses us from all impurities and keeps us healthy? What is it that provides the necessary spiritual warfare to overcome in all things?  We were people of flesh and blood, but now we are part of the flesh and bone body of Christ. When Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after His resurrection He presented to them that He was a body of flesh a bone. He was a body of resurrection life. He was a testimony for us all as new creations in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

God’s mercy justifies us to live, but His grace empowers us to reign in life. God’s grace working in our lives is the true blood of the body of Christ. This is the power of being new creations in Christ. We have redemption through Jesus shedding the blood of His sinless flesh. This is what gives us all the forgiveness of sins. We are justified to live and there is also an administration that empowers us live new lives in Christ. This is reigning life. This is the power of the blood of the Spirit working in and through our lives.

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

We are justified to live because of His blood, but we are saved by His grace. We shall overcome all wickedness through Him. Our thoughts, reasoning, desires, imaginations, and emotions are being empowered by God’s grace working in our hearts and minds. It is even powerful enough to quicken our mortal bodies and affect our spirit, soul, and body. This is the power of God’s grace working in and through us. It is the power of God’s manifest presence in or lives. It is the proof that there is no gap, no separation, between us and God and we access this power when we boldly come to the place of God’s presence because of His mercy and find the life that now empowers us to live. This is grace.

Romans 5:10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

God’s mercy reconciled us to God as our Father, but God’s grace empowers us to live with the evidence of lives that have been reconciled to God. Grace is the evidence that God is in our lives. We must choose to receive God’s mercy and embrace His grace to live with a culture of grace among the kingdoms of the world. We are new creations in Christ! This is our gift of resurrection life that came by Jesus and Jesus alone – the Savior of 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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings;

Well, it has been a busy weekend. Two birthdays with two granddaughters and lots of family activity. My youngest is now 1 year old and the second youngest is now 6 years old. It is great to have family. We are enjoying the company of our California crew. God is good! Loving God and loving one another is what creates a world of life.

I have been addressing the need for us all to be seed and bread to our world. Today I want to share a bit of my personal testimony as to the value of being a testimony of living bread to those who have been given to us in life. I came to Christ late in my 17^th year. I have been a believer now for 48 years. When I met Jesus, I committed my life fully to Him. He radically changed my life! The Holy Spirit in my life was very real and life-transforming in every way. Shortly after inviting Christ into my life, I entered the military and found Christian connections there. I was fully involved with God and with the church throughout my military years. When I was 21 years old I met my wife Bonnie and we were married just before I turned 22. A couple of years after we were married we had our first son. Bonnie and I committed his life to God and we invited God to help us to be parents to His son in the way that He desired. In a couple of years we had our second son and we committed him to God in the same way. We were both very strong believers and were fully involved in the church. I was involved in the church as a worship leader and also committed my life fully as a husband, a father, and in business to serve God in every way. In my 27^th year, Bonnie and I moved from Texas to Washington State to assist in planting a church there. I ended up pursuing business as a means of providing financial support as my means of supporting the purposes of God in the church I was joined to. When I was 30 years old God began to call me into committing my life to ministry. It was not my desire. My desire at the time was to fulfill a career working in a business that promised a great income and a someday early retirement with a good financial supply. I had a piece of property in the mountains and I was busy carving out what I thought to be my dream. I was still committed to the church, but I had a desire to live for my family and to complete my life for that cause. God began to speak to me about His purpose for my life. One morning, while driving to work I was involved in a rollover accident on the freeway. I ended up with a couple of broken processes in my back as well as what appeared to be a cracked neck. After several hours of fervently praying in the emergency room of the hospital, it was concluded that my neck was not broken. I believe God healed me that day. In any case, during the accident I agreed to talk to God about His call upon my life. I began to read my Bible more, in an attempt to position myself to hear God. Shortly after the accident I was reading the book of Ephesians.

Ephesians 4:17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

As I read these words God spoke to me. He said, “That’s you. If you don’t see it, hear it, smell it, feel it or taste it, it doesn’t exist as far as you are concerned. You’ve lost your sensitivity to Me. Read on!”

I read further in the verses that followed and as I came to verse 28 I read; He who steals must steal no longer… As I read that line God spoke to me loud and clear. “You thief! You’ve taken the children’s bread and you have fed yourself. I made you who you are and you have consumed it upon yourself. Your heart is hard”.

Those words put me on a journey to discover the point of my life. Within a couple of days I was driving home after working a night shift on my job and I saw a sign outside a church announcing a men’s prayer meeting. I decided to stop and enter the church. Upon entering the building I saw groups of men in circles around the room praying. I stepped into a circle and said; You don’t know me, but I need to make a confession. I took the hands of the men next to me in the circle and prayed. God, I confess before you and before these men that my heart is hard and I need you to break it. I then let go of their hands and walked out of the building. On my way home God’s presence filled my truck cab and He broke my heart. For the next months that led to years I couldn’t stop praying, reading my word, and pursuing being living bread to others in my world. God gave me the following Scripture as a foundation for my life from then on.

Ecclesiastes 11:1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. 2 Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth. 3 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. 4 He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. 5 As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. 6 In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

I have written this testimony today to simply inspire us all to know that the life that has been given to each of us is given that we might be seed and bread for our world. It is for this reason that I am a house of bread to my world. In whoever you are and in whatever you do in this life be sure to give your life to give life to others within the boundaries of the sphere that God gives you.

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Well, it is officially spring! There was a real sense of new life in church yesterday. We were blessed to have Andrew Shearman with us and he brought an encouraging word concerning speaking to the dry bones of our lives. It is time to live again! God is a God of hope and the future is always life. God is life and we ae meant to be life to our world.

When God became flesh and moved into our world, it was God’s means of enabling us to return to our heavenly Father as sons and daughters of God. We were not merely humanity with a need for God’s salvation. We were humanity with a need of reconnection to our heavenly Father. Only by knowing God as our Father can we know who we are. We are sons and daughters of God. To be a child of God is to be the substance of the life of God. God wants us to know that our lives were destined in Him to be for seed and bread in our world. That seed is the seed of the life of God beyond our days and that bread is the life of God for the world of our today. What Jesus was in His fullness as a man is something of what we are meant to be as sons of God and sons of men. Knowing Jesus is knowing God and knowing God is knowing Jesus. God gives life, breath, and all things. Jesus was a man who lived fully on the life that God His Father gave Him. He was the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of Him in all things. His testimony was that of being the bread of life for all of mankind. He fulfilled His purpose in being bread to the world through a partnership with His heavenly Father in all that He did.

John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus is our life and in knowing Him we become life to our world. We have the ever increasing promise of eternal life. Life in Christ is eternal and it is for this world and for all that is beyond this life. It is not just life to feel good about ourselves in this world. It is life to bring life to our world as Jesus gave all that He was for the life of the whole world.

John 6:48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

Jesus wants us to know the destiny of being sons and daughters of God. We have each been given a life to give life to our world. The life that we have been given is who we are as unique sons and daughters of God for His glory in all things. We have not been given a life to live for the will of ourselves. We have been given a life to live for the will of our Father. Our world needs life, but only God gives true life. His life is eternal life. Jesus told a story of a man needing bread. That man was willing to knock on the door of his friend until he woke in the night and gave him three loaves. In the Scripture the number three is symbolic for God. I believe that the story told by Jesus applies to us all in that each of us needs a personal relationship with God as our Father so we can also be life to others in our world. We are meant to be God bread to our world. We are not the bread of self, but bread as a testimony of God’s life to our world.  It is the life of the Holy Spirit within each of us that empowers us to be life to others.

Luke 11:5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? 8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

Even though this story told by Jesus directly applies to our need for a personal relationship with God in our lives, it also gives us a testimony of that life that comes from us when we know God in our own lives. Without Christ in us we can never really offer true life to our world. It is Christ in us that is the hope of glory. That hope is the glory of eternal life in this world and in heaven to come. That glory is also the ability to live as sons and daughters of God who can offer true life to our world. Each of us are meant to be bread in and to our God-given measure of the world as Jesus is the bread of life to us all and to all of 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

Blog In Audio:Greetings,

I hope you had a great weekend. We were blessed at ALife with a great word from Pastors Jonathan and Danie. Our ministry time together in our breakout groups was also filled with the presence of God. It is great to be part of the family of God. In the midst of a world of darkness the light of Christ is shining brightly.

We live in a world where humanity sees creation as the source of all life. This is the way of the world. Those in the world live in darkness and the power of darkness binds them from the light of Christ. Creation is not the source of life; it is the testimony of life. In truth, God is the source of life to all of creation. The source of life is not creation. The source of creation is found in the life of God. God wants us to see Him for who He is so we can become as we are meant to be. God is not formed in our likeness and image. We are formed in the likeness and image of God when we see Him for who He really is.

Who is Jesus? Jesus was not just God as a man to show us how to live. Jesus was the word of God made flesh so that He can now come by His Spirit to our own flesh and transform our lives to become as we should be for the glory of God our Father. It is through Jesus that we become testimonies for the Father’s glory and expressions of the image of God in this world. Jesus is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, in our lives. He is the center of all of our being. He was the body of Christ that made a way for us to be joined to Him as part of a growing body of life for the glory of our Father in heaven. Jesus didn’t come to this world to show us how to live. Jesus came to this world to come into each of our lives in order to transform our hearts and minds to be as we should be as sons and daughters of God. He is the name by which we find our lives as new creations in Christ. The name of Jesus is above all other names and He is the focus of our lives. We are not independent from Him, but dependent upon Him in all things.

Colossians 1:9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

Do we live our lives for our own will or for the will of God in all things? God is the source of our wisdom and He is the One who gives us true spiritual understanding. A revelation of God’s love in our lives will empower us to live to please Him in all that we are and all that we do in life. It’s not a matter of bondage, but a revelation that passionately empowers us to live life to the fullest with a focus of loving God and pleasing Him in who we are and what we do in life. In every season of our lives we are to grow in knowing God. Growing in knowing about God is not the goal. Knowing Him is the true testimony of life. We are part of something greater than independent lives of humanity. We are part of the light of Christ as the living body of Christ in this world and in all that is to come. We are part of the testimony of God’s light!

Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

How much focus do we give to Jesus in our lives? I believe that God is calling us back to the simplicity of the knowing Jesus and the power of His name in all things. We have been in a season of confinement, but perhaps we are in a season of stripping things away so we can know what is really important in our lives. Jesus is the Lamb who redeemed us from a life of separation from God. He is also the Lion that empowers us to become a testimony of praise to God in all that we are and do. Jesus is our salvation in every situation of our lives! He is not a means to a religion of Christianity. He is the source of Christ in our humanity. He is not just a godly man or an example of what it means to be godly. He is our righteousness, our way to truth and our source of life in all things. May we know Him more and more and may we see Him as the center of our lives in our everyday world.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

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

www.ted4leaders.com

www.ted4you.com or

www.houseofbreadministry.org.

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

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

Blog In Audio:

Greetings,

Each of us have been given a measure of life to be life in our word for the sake of those in our world and for the sake of those who will follow after we are gone. We are people of inheritance in Christ and we are to increase in that inheritance in our world. We are meant to be seed and bread in the seasons of our lives. Something has been sown into us to become bread of life to our world. Something of the seed of our lives is meant to be seed for the life-giving bread of our children and our children’s children. I am not just talking about our natural children. I am talking about the lives that we touch on our journey of life.

Yesterday in church I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to embrace a simple connection of life with God as My Father in a fresh and powerful way. I sensed that God is calling us to the simplicity of connection, a simplicity of connection with Him. I saw a picture of a ball of string. I would call it a ball of string, because it’s all balled up. It’s was all tied up into knots, but it’s not intended to be a ball of string at all. It’s intended to be a greater space, a longer line, and a greater freedom in our lives. I hear God saying, there are some things in your life that seem to be tangled knots, it seems like a ball of string. But if you look closely, you will see that it’s not a ball at all. It’s a tangled mess! But if you pull on it just right, it will all come lose. But I am the one that knows where to pull. I’ve not intended for you to have a lot of knots in your life. I’m returning you to the simplicity of connection to Me. Because I know where to pull, and the end result is I’m giving you greater freedom; I’m giving you a longer line. Its’ been said by some, ‘I want no strings attached’. But what if the string that’s attached is a silver chord of redemptive purpose in your life? What if I’m giving you a greater line, a greater liberty, and a greater leeway that’s never disconnected from Me? What if there is a chord attached, but that chord is a chord of life attached to Me for My purpose in your life? And If you’ll just let Me be Me and you be you, and return to the simplicity of connection with Me, I’ll give you greater liberty. I will pull the string where it needs to be pulled and it won’t be a tangled mess anymore.

We must never forget who God is in our lives and who we are in the eternal life of God. God is not merely some omnipotent power working from some distance at significant moments in our lives. God is a loving Father. More specifically, He is the Father of each and every one of us and He wants us to know Him in that place of intimacy and life. It is a place of being known and knowing Him. He knows our name and we each have a special place in the table of our connection to Him in life and as a testimony of His life to our world. We are not people on some journey of success or failure in life. We are sons and daughters of God and the measure of our life is another measure in His eternal story of love and life for all mankind. I believe that we have to get back to the simple truths of life. God loves us and His love inspires Him to work everything out for good in our lives. We are not limited in the possibilities of God’s miraculous love. We are constantly coming to a greater understanding of how miraculous it is to be sons of daughters of God and to know Him as our heavenly Father in every earthly situation of our lives.

God wants to give us more! God wants to bless us generationally! He wants to make us blessers! He wants to make us givers of life to others and to our world. Our Father wants for each of us to know what it is to have the same character, nature, way, power, and authority that is found in the substance of who He is. It is the simplicity of being in relationship with the One who is life in all things. His working in our lives is removing the lies that have prevented us from seeing the Light of who He is and who we really are in Christ.

Isaiah 30:22 You will also defile the covering of your images of silver, and the ornament of your molded images of gold. You will throw them away as an unclean thing; you will say to them, “Get away!” 

With what silver do you find your covering – our salvation? What treasures give us our salvation? With what gold do we find our identity? What treasures give us our identity? What values do we wear for others to see? God wants us to wear the value of being sons and daughters of God. Jesus, as the Son of God, was the bread of life sent down from heaven for the life of the world. His life was seed and bread for the nations and the generations of men. God is sending us into our world as the Father sent Jesus into the world. Jesus gave His life to those His Father had given Him for the sake of all of the world finding a connection to their Father through a revelation of seed and bread as the family of God.

Isaiah 30:23 Then He will give the rain for your seed with which you sow the ground, and bread of the increase of the earth; It will be fat and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed in large pastures. 24 Likewise the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat cured fodder, which has been winnowed with the shovel and fan. 

Things will work for us! Purpose will serve us! The silver chord is lengthened for us being seed and bread to our world that many may know who God really is and who they really are in this world. Keep it simple! It is life! It is being loved and being love for others 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