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

Greetings,

Today I am in Spain facilitating a week of prophetic training with hungry students in G42 Leadership Academy in Mijas, Spain. God was good today and life happened in the room and in the hearts of those there. I am looking forward to all that God is going to do here this week.

I am continuing to write concerning some of the tough questions presented to the church in this present time. God is working in His church and bringing life to issues that have once been swept under the rug and not dealt with in a spirit of life. As I have already written, if we address things like homosexuality, fornication, adultery and other accepted practices of the world according to what is written in the law, we could come up with some seemingly clear legalistic answers in how we deal with them. But we cannot just deal with issues we have to deal with people. God has never desired to simply fix issues, He desires to love people and to bring them the freedom of life and the freedom of becoming life-givers in their world. God doesn’t just want to get people into heaven when they die, He wants to get heaven into their lives while they live. This is not just a matter of controlling or judging things that seem to be wrong according to God’s word. It is a matter of getting the power of God’s grace into people’s lives that transforms them to be free from the consequences of things that are less than the life that God has for them.

As leaders and believers in Christ we have to realize that the law did not work. It could not accomplish what God wants to accomplish in human lives. What is it that God wanted to do? He has always desired to have an intimate relationship with people who would be flawed without Him in their lives. So, the Old Testament has some Scriptures that seem to be clear in how God deals with homosexuality, adultery, fornication, and other accepted worldly practices. In the law there are what appears to be clear judgments, but are those judgements what God desires? In the New Testament we could say that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality of other things that are accepted realities in the world. I have heard that rationalization, that reasoning, by people in the church. I addressed in an earlier blog that Jesus didn’t talk to the Jews about things that were already addressed in the law. He didn’t come to tell them what to do or how to act, He came to reveal to them who they were meant to be in Christ. Whether we conclude that homosexuality is wrong or not, Jesus never condemned homosexuals. He may make a judgment that homosexuality will not produce the fullness of life that God intends for people to have, but He never came to condemn those who wrestle with those things or even embrace them. He makes a judgment of a flaw, but He doesn’t condemn those to death who struggle with the issues that produce dysfunction or death. He wants to give to each and every one a fullness of life. He wants for each and every one to become givers of life in their world.

We have the example of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus could have condemned her. He was the only one in the room who could have condemned her because He was the only one in the room that was innocent. He did not condemn her, but He also told her to go and sin no more. He did not condone her lifestyle, nor did He condemn her in her present condition. He loved her, but then He expected His love to inspire change in her life. He expected her encounter with God to change her life in some way. I cannot just address this subject in a blog and come up with a clear conclusion. I have to look at this subject from some different perspectives.

Paul addressed the subject in Romans chapter 1 in the context of people bound to the way of the world. People in the world are confused people. They are people rejecting the voice of God in and around them and seeking to justify the desires of their own flesh as the way of life. They attempt to create a god in their own likeness and image and do not embrace a God who will transform them into something different than their own desires seem to mandate. The result is one of being given over to the lusts of their own flesh. This includes men lusting after men, women lusting after women, and other things that are like this.

Romans 1:22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

Paul words were given in the context of people living in the way of the world. He didn’t present it as a condemnation to those who live in those ways in the world, but as a challenge to believers to embrace a different way of life that brings hope and life to those bound to the consequences of the way of the world. It includes many things. It includes anything that can gratify personal needs but cannot produce a generational testimony of life to others. Paul did not write these things to those bound to them, but as an inspiration for all to be made free from them. Being free from them doesn’t make you better than those who are bound to them, it just gives you a power of grace to change the world around you for their sake. It gives you an inheritance in God’s kingdom to become a new and living way that can bring freedom to your world. Paul’s words were words to believers, not words to condemn unbelievers. The consequence of the world’s practice was already the condemnation of the world. God desires for them to be made free from them.

The issue is not whether God condemns or condones the ways of the world. The real issue is the way of the kingdom of heaven is powerful enough to free us from the ways of the world and it will affect the world around us for the sake of others. It is a matter of the inheritance of the kingdom of Heaven. God wants to invade our world with heaven’s grace and miraculously change our world for the sake of others. His life will always produce life in a generational and multigenerational way. It will do this both naturally and spiritually for the glory of His name.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.

House of Bread Ministry –

Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org

Greetings,

I am now on my journey home after a great week in Bulgaria. We had an awesome time with God’s presence and hungry people in Sofia, Blagoevgrad, and Plovdiv. We held a weekend retreat for around 110 young people and the testimony of God’s presence and the willingness to receive all that God was giving out was wonderful. I just landed in SeaTac, so the blog is a little late in coming out, but we are here.

A common thing in the church globally is that we have segments of the church that believe we must only pay attention to the words that Jesus said, because they must be more important than the other Scriptures in the New Testament. They believe that the writing of the gospels, and the words of Jesus, take a greater authority and priority than anything else in the New Testament. So, we reason, Paul must have been confused. He returned to the law. The apostles were confused, they returned to the law. Jesus didn’t want any of that. When we think like that, we begin to twist Scriptures to our own destruction. Scripture is given at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit is God. God inspired the writings of Paul, James, John, Peter, and Jude.

In the writing of Jesus, Jesus said He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. In John chapter 17, He voiced to His Father that He did not pray for the world, but only for those the Father gave Him. He came to the lost sheep of Israel. He came to the Jews, people of the law. But because He was in the neighborhood, people who were not part of the law/temple system were pressing in to receive what He had. A sick woman came to Him and wanted healing, but she was a Gentile and not a Jew. Jesus said, woman healing is the children’s bread. In other words, healing belongs to God’s people and you are not a Jew. She said; Lord, even the dogs get the crumbs. Then Jesus gave her healing. She was saying, even those who don’t know God get the blessings of God because of what He gives. Jesus had a plan to reach all people. As a man He came to His own, through the door of the Jewish people. His ultimate plan was to go to all nations. When Jesus spoke, He didn’t say much in regard to many things that are addressed in the law. The people that Jesus came to understood the law very well. They knew what was wrong and what was right. They had many generations of knowing and attempting to practice the law. They knew what the law said about marriage. They knew what the law said about homosexuality. They knew what the law said about unfaithfulness. They knew what the law said about being abusive towards your wife. But Jesus didn’t teach hardly anything about marriage. He didn’t teach hardly anything about not being masters and slaves. He mentioned being masters and slaves, but the people of the law already knew that God’s people couldn’t be masters or slaves of one another without a way to freedom. They could be in a service of masters and slaves, but a year of Jubilee would return everything back to it original owners. In the law, even bondage ended in freedom. There are many judgements, statutes, and commandments in the law. The people of Israel knew what to do. They knew how to act. Jesus didn’t come to tell them what to do or how to act. He came to tell them who they were. He didn’t need to mention what they already knew. He made an emphasis that what they knew was really a matter of love. If they knew who God was and who they were as children of God, they would be transformed in their hearts and minds and act accordingly. There is a right and there is a wrong, but merely knowing right and wrong doesn’t make one a giver of life. Being a giver of life will always empower one to choose to do what is right.

So, the people that Jesus came to understood the law very well. They knew what was wrong and what was right. But God wanted to also include the Gentiles in His plan. In Genesis Chapter 49, Israel told his sons, come let me tell you what will befall you in the last days. Israel, the man, was old and about to die. He laid his hands upon his sons and he prophesied over them. Peace will come and the true law-giver (Jesus) will come from Judah and Ashur will behold royal dainties. Jesus was born into the tribe of Judah, thus the true law-giver came from the tribe of Jesus. When Jesus was a baby, and they brought Him into the temple to be circumcised, there was an old widow woman named Anna, she was from the tribe of Asher. The tribe of Ashur was complete in holding baby Jesus in the hands of Anna. This was the last day of the tribe of Ashur, when Anna beheld the royal dainty, the royal baby Jesus. Benjamin was given a word. He was the son born of Rebecca as she was dying in his birth. She wanted to name him son of my sorrow, but Jacob, who should have been called Israel, said, no his name is Benjamin, son of the right hand. From that day on Jacob went by the name of Israel, thus Benjamin only knew him as Israel. The day Israel blessed Benjamin he said he would be a ravenous wolf, but then he would plunder the spoil. Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee of Pharisees that persecuted the church. He was a Benjamite. He was a ravenous wolf to the church. The last day of Saul was the first day of Paul the apostle and he was no longer a ravenous wolf. He was born again and now a new creation in Christ for the purpose of Christ in all things. Now he would plunder the spoil and bring the Gentiles into the church. The tribe of Benjamin would be a testimony to the grafting in of the Gentiles to the Israel of God. So, in Paul’s mission, he was writing to people who had no understanding of the law. He didn’t write to put them under the law, but to teach them principles, patterns, and values that were in the law. He talked about things that Jesus didn’t talk about, because Jesus didn’t need to talk about them when addressing the people of the law. The people Jesus talked to understood them. Paul was talking to people who had no understanding of the principles, patterns, and values that are in the law. I was a Gentile. I wasn’t raised in a culture of a Hebrew knowing the commandments, judgments and statutes of the law. But really those things are very simple. They were about living to be givers. They were a shadow of living to have the character of God, but they were to be done in the character of God’s love. So, we have to look at the words of Jesus and the words of Paul and recognize that they are both presenting the words of God. They are both valid Scripture and all Scripture is profitable for our way of life, to keep us in the path of life, to draw Christ out of us and to aid us in a right relationship with God and man. These things are given so that each of us can be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16, 17 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The words of Paul are very seldom the opinion of Paul. They are words of God talking through Paul to people who did not have an understanding of Scripture. I consider the writings of Paul as important as the words of Jesus. Not to put me under the law, but to show me what the shadow of the law looks like. What does it look like when I change? What character do I have? When we talk about how we deal with homosexually and other difficult issues like that, we have to consider the writings of Jesus and the writings of Paul. We don’t return to the law and measure anyone by the flesh so that we can judge them by the law and kill them in some way. We have to find the secrets of God that bring transformation to people’s lives. This is a big subject to address, but I have answered the question of why Jesus didn’t talk about certain things? The people He was talking to already knew them. Why did it seem that Paul talked about things that Jesus didn’t talk about? Because Paul’s writings were to people who had no understanding of what to do or how to act. To understand the words of God to us in our lives we must have an understanding of His character, nature, way, power and authority of God. When we know what God is like we are willing to hear His voice in a way that changes us. If not, we hear His words in a way that we expect Him to become like us.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.

House of Bread Ministry –

Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org

Greetings,

Today I am in Bulgaria after a week with RIM leaders in Spain and another weekend in Portugal in the Lisbon area. Had a great time in it all. God was with us at the RIM gathering and the prophetic presence of the Holy Spirit was powerful in Lisbon. I was blessed with a new connection in Portugal as well.

I have been writing about some complicated issues. There are certainly a lot of opinions on the complicated issues that people from the world bring into the church on their journey to faith. No one has to change for God to love them, but because they are loved God desires to change them by His power. God doesn’t just want us to be loved. He wants us to become like Him – to become givers of life even as He is a giver of life to all.

So, let’s say a couple comes into the church and they have been living together, but they are not married. I have some clear understanding of marriage and what covenant should be. Do I put this couple under the standards of my understanding of marriage in order for them to be a part of the community? As I have been presenting, the standard of life around them in an atmosphere of love will inspire them to desire to change, but law without life will surely kill them and drive them away. In an atmosphere of love and life, this couple that is living together, at some point will likely feel a conviction to make a higher level of commitment to one another. It may take a while to get there, but in the process of change God views them as His children and He loves them. If they were to die they may believe in Jesus to a degree that they will go to heaven, but they are not yet a perfect example of what a heavenly marriage on earth should look like. But after a process of time, they can come to faith and they will desire to go to another level of glory. I believe we always create environments that help people move forward. We don’t push them away. We don’t create an atmosphere that would reject them or condemn them.  We create an environment that will help them, draw them to faith, and see them grow in their relationship with God and the character of His name. When it comes to helping them take a step into something that is death, we don’t condone or help that happen. If they had a relationship with someone out of marriage and it fell apart, they should not enter into another relationship in the same way. They should not just live with someone new. If I have a relationship with them, I have a responsibility to have a private conversation with them as individuals that I love so they don’t make the same mistake that they made before. I should desire to help them, so they don’t leave another life damaged or see their own life damaged further. Because of love, I should pursue a private conversation with them concerning what a marriage is and how important foundations are for the future. This is called discipleship. I may have a relationship with one and not the other and therefore my voice can only be heard by one of them. It is different for everyone. It is meant to reach individual in the place that they are in order to help them walk into the future. It is based upon a personal relationship with them and a measure of responsibility given to you for their sake in life. It is not a Bible class. It is not an implementation of law. It is a personal relationship with people that helps them grow in their relationship with God. They are not only going to heaven when they die, but they need to learn to bring heaven’s influence into their daily lives.

When helping people in their relationship with God, we know the word of God is true. We could say, the word or God is clear, it says this.The word of God is clear, but understanding it is not. We could go into any Christian community and find many different opinions or definitions for the same word. They would probably all base their convictions on some revelation from God at some point in their lives. Revelation is always in part and when we get a fuller understanding of who God is we receive a fuller revelation concerning what He says. I have changed my views on many things over the years. I used to use Scriptures against certain things that I found later were actually for what I was against. I know people who have used Scriptures to prove how the gifts of the Spirit are not for today. Then they had an experience of a submersion in God’s Spirit and began to exercise spiritual gifts. When they read their Bible again, they discovered that the verses they used against the relevance of the gifts of the Spirit proved to be the very verses that were for it. This kind of thing happens all the time. This has happened many times in my life. When we see something we suddenly see it everywhere. We only know in part, not in full. We could find a verse that says we cannot be Christ’s disciple unless we hate our father and mother. Does God want us to hate our fathers and mothers? In the entirety of God’s word, we see that the word and will of God is that we love them more than anyone. God is not telling us to hate our fathers and mothers, He is simply trying to explain how essential, how loving, and how awesome God is in our lives. God is talking to us about loving Him, not hating our parents. Loving God is more essential than loving our parents and we cannot truly honor our parents if we aren’t honoring God first.

So, when dealing with issues with people we have to remember we are dealing with people, not numbers. Each person has a name. Each person has a character. They are a one and only, thus they must be reached and helped in a significant and unique way. We don’t deal with two people exactly the same. There is no method for dealing with people. The principles, patterns, and values of God are true, but they must be applied in a way that each person can hear God’s voice in their own hearts and come to faith. Two people may come living together and God knows that it is just a matter of time for it to change. Something in each of these people is life-giving and not life-taking. There may be another situation where two people are together, but their relationship is not life-giving. One individual may have a character and action that is taking, taking, taking and God may want to intervene for the sake of life. So, it may be God’s will for what looks like a relationship to fail. Sometimes God might even use a leader of a person to say something or do something that might encourage the failure of what looks like a true relationship. But I don’t know what that is, God does. We need to hear God in our relationship with others and in our process of discipleship as the community of God.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.

House of Bread Ministry –

Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

Those interested in Christ Life Training for January of 2019 must contact us by December 1, 2018.

We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org

Greetings,

Today I have arrived in Mijas, Spain for a RIM gathering with good friends. I had a great weekend in Portugal with great people who were hungry for God’s presence and word. The journey is beginning for a few locations to come.

I have been writing about what we do with people who come to the church from the world. What do we expect of them? We must first create an environment where all people are welcome, and all people belong. All people have been reconciled, because God has reconciled them already even as sinners. This is how God sees them. They have to come to the throne of grace to receive the mercy of reconciliation, but that is between them and God. As a community of God’s life and love, we must create an environment where that can happen. We are loved because of God’s mercy, but we are also being changed by the power of His grace. Therefore, we must also be a community of Christ that demonstrates lives that are being changed by God’s grace. We must create an environment where we overcome every wicked thing and they overcome too. This happens because God changes the desires of our hearts. As the psalmist David wrote, when we commit our way to God, He gives us desires in our hearts.

Psalms 37:3, 4 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

The internal change in our hearts and minds is up to God and it is a miracle of God in our lives for each of us to become expressions of Him. We don’t just want to be a community that accepts everyone exactly as they are, and no one needs to change. No one has to change to be loved, but because they are loved God gives the power for change in their lives. God doesn’t just want us to be loved. He wants us to become like Him. He wants us to become givers of life.

Let’s say that a couple comes into the church and they have been living together, but they are not married. What should we expect of them? Let’s say they have no children, or they do have children. I have some clear understanding of what marriage should be and what that covenant should look like. In raising my own children, my wife and I gave them clear values and we set good foundations for life in marriage. My own sons and daughter walked those paths to find covenant partners for the covenant of marriage. They were blessed to have a path set before them that showed them the way that they could walk in, but people coming from the world don’t know what that is. They have no concept of the values of covenant. They have naturally observed failures around them. They are not trying to make mistakes, they simply don’t know the path to walk in. Some of them may be living together and they understand some things that are godly, that even married Christians don’t know. They may have discovered some things of God without realizing it. The way of the world is, we are not sure where this is going to go so we are going to leave the end open in case it fails. God has a better way. His ways are, I have put you together, no weapon formed against you shall prosper, until death do you part. That doesn’t mean, exist, just get by, or be miserable. It means, flourish, figure it out, grow in relationship in love with one another.I can’t take a couple that has been living together and give it to them through some law of marriage. I can treat them as though they are in a covenant. I know God wants them to make a higher level of covenant. So, I am going to teach on marriage to the whole church community in a covenant way. I’m going to talk about my own marriage, how God joined my wife and I together in covenant. I am going to share testimonies, like, I will never say to my wife, if God is willing I will still be with you in five years.I plan to be with her for five years or even fifty years. Now, if that changes because one of us dies, my attitude is still going to be permanence until that day. I am going to share those values and that testimony. I am going to talk about what are the ingredients of a covenant marriage. I am going to share how commitments are a revelation of love. And when we say, here I am, I love you, I pick you, it empowers us to have faith towards one another and to do things for one another. It empowers us to respond to one another and appreciate what one another has. It envisions us to want to give to one another and live for one another. To celebrate how different we are but how wonderful we are together. To testify how we freely love each other, not because either of us are right, but because we were each born to be loved. We are going to talk about our purpose together – about our children and our children’s children. We are going to talk about our family’s destiny. Now, if that is my way of life in the church and as the church every day, this couple that is living together, at some point they will likely feel a conviction and will want to make a greater commitment. They may come and say; Pastor, we have been thinking about getting married with an official wedding. God has been talking to us. We believe that although we have been living together and it is though we are married, we have been leaving an open end as though there is a possibility of failure. We want to make this official. We want to get married in the sight of God. We want to confess that God is in our relationship.Now, that gives them a foundation of faith. Law alone cannot change them but hearing God in their hearts will testify of the law that has truly been fulfilled in Christ. I believe this is a true environment for love, life, and change in and as the church. It is a journey, not merely a goal or destination. It is unique to the path of each one.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.

House of Bread Ministry –

Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org

Greetings,

Today I am writing from kind of the middle of nowhere. I am out on a hunt and have managed to find a phone connection to be sure to blog to all you wonderful folks. No success in the hunting field yet, but hoping to find my groceries later today.

When I first came to Jesus more than 45 years ago I had an issue that I battled with. It was an issue in my heart and it caused me to do things that were not right. Human beings were not telling me to stop my behavior, but I knew I needed a miracle change. The Holy Spirit started convicting me. I knew that what I was doing was not good. This is a healthy environment to have, where Holy Spirit convicts and not humans condemning. Holy Spirit doesn’t condemn, He convicts. That is His job, not ours. During that time, I heard a testimony from a pastor, He said, I used to smoke a lot, and I knew that God wanted me to quit. Now, I don’t think if you smoke you will go to hell. If hell smells smoky you might smell like hell, I don’t know. It has been proven that smoking tobacco can cause cancer. So, smoking could send you to heaven quicker if you are a believer. It is not an eternal damnation, it just might be a shortcut to heaven. But, If God tells you to do or not do something, listening to His voice is more important than reasoning whether something is heathy or not, or even wright or wrong. This pastor said, I used to smoke, and God told me to quit. So, I quit, but then I would start again. I would cry, O Jesus, forgive me. I am smoking again, and I don’t want to do this. He said, he would go a little while and do the same thing again. He said this went on for many years. One day he smoked, and he cried, God I am sorry I don’t want to do this anymore please forgive me. Holy Spirit said to him, liar! You do want to do this. That is why you do it. He said, You’re right God. I love smoking! I would make smoking sandwiches if I could. I would smoke all day long if I could. I want to smoke! I desire to smoke, but God, I know You don’t want me to do this. Would you change my desire? Change my heart, God. When I heard his testimony, I went before God with my problem that night and I confessed my sin. I said, God I love doing this! I would make sandwiches out of it if I could! But I know You don’t want me to do this. Please don’t tell me what to do. I need you to go deeper. I need You to give me the desires of my heart. Give me desire to not do this. Change my heart God! That was more than forty-four years ago. I was addicted to this problem and not one time in forty-four years have I had a problem in that area, because that night God changed my heart. It was a miracle! That night my heart grew, and God put a desire in me to not desire to repeat my error of sin. This is not a method. It is a place of relationship. If you make it a method, you will miss the point. God wants our hearts and He is willing to give us new hearts when we ask.

Since that day I have adopted a value that has become a way of life for me. I don’t want God to tell me what to do. I want Him to give me the right desires in my heart. I don’t want Him to be Lord of my ‘what to’ in life. I want Him to be Lord of my ‘want to’. I am good at doing what I want to do and when God changes my desires things become real in my life.

We have to lead people into desires and not laws. We are human beings and we are good at doing what we want to do. We are terrible at doing what we are told. Why? We are not dogs, horses, donkeys or any other beast. We are not meant to be slaves, robots, or some object of bondage. If we are put into slavery we will rebel at some point. Why? We are human beings. We were created in the likeness and image of a passionate and creative God. Our Father is both passionate and creative. We are sons and daughters of God. We should be the most passionate, the most creative, the most passion filled creations anywhere. But we need God’s desires.

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

We must lead people into the place where they allow God to give them His desires. We lose our lives, but we don’t really lose them. When we lay our lives down down, we actually find them. In Christ we can pick our lives up. God changes our hearts and He writes His desires upon our hearts and minds. Life is the victory over every sin. It is way to victory over every bondage.

We are called to lead people into the place of desire. For me it was a testimony where the Holy Spirit convicted me and a miracle of God happened in me. No one did it for me, Christ in me is the hope of glory. Those people who just came to the church community, their only hope is Christ in them. They don’t need less desires, they need more desires that are life-giving desires. We give God our hearts and we set an example where anyone can by led by the desires of God put within them.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.

House of Bread Ministry –

Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org

Greetings,

Yesterday was a great day at Everyone’s Church in Mt. Vernaon, Washington. Bonnie and were honored to participate in Pastor Brice’s ordination and Pastor Tim’s licensing to ministry. It was a blessing to minister in worship, the word, and in ministry. Thanks to all who came with hungry hearts and loving lives.

I have been addressing the subject of how we deal with people who come from cultures of the world and don’t act like believers. When people come from the world into the church, they don’t believe the Bible. How can they believe the Bible? It is not their book. The Bible is a testimony of God’s ways for those who believe. The cultures that they come from have little or no understanding of the ways of God as they are revealed in the Bible. If we immediately push the Bible upon them, we will push them right out of the church – right out of the community of God. They will only receive the values of God when they know the true value of His ways. They must desire them in order to willingly receive them. How do we get them to value the ways of God as they are revealed in the Bible?

Those who have grown in their relationship with God are the Bible to those who do not know yet. They are the letter or the book that others can see. The community of God should be filled with people who are new, old, and in between. Those who experience God in their lives are a valid part of the community for the sake of those who have yet to discover the need to become strong in God’s word and strong in His presence.  A healthy, growing community of life needs visible evidence of the internal change that comes through an overcoming relationship with God in Christ.  Those who can testify are those who know their sins are forgiven and they have a Father who loves them. They have begun to experience His word and His Spirit in their hearts. They are overcoming things of dysfunction and death by a testimony of God’s Spirit and word working within them. We need more encouraging, inspiring testimonies than we do the preaching of law. I am not saying that we don’t preach the word. I am just saying that when we preach the word we must not preach it in an Old Covenant way. The letter of the word kills, but the Spirit gives life.

What is an example of a testimony? Things like: I am so blessed to be a part of this family. I started coming here a year ago. I didn’t know anything when I came. All I knew is that it felt really good here. No one judged me. No one measured me by what I wasn’t. You guys might not know this, but I had some things in my life that weren’t really right. When I got my pay check, I would go and gamble and lose my money. It was not only affecting my life, but also the life of my family. I started watching everyone around me and I saw how much freedom they were finding in God. I felt God’s presence in my heart and He told me my love was in the wrong place. He told me that I was actually going to gambling as a comfort and a hope. I felt the touch of God and I started crying. I felt overwhelmed by His love in my heart. I have to tell you folks today, God is real. Since this happen in my heart, I found out that God talks about this kind of stuff in His word. But I am so glad He doesn’t just talk to us in His word, He talks to us in our hearts. I’m just feeling free! I am feeling the freedom! God changed my heart! I’ve got such a hunger for God now. I can’t stop reading His word. I want to know his heart more and more, because His was bring such freedom! That testimony is more powerful than merely preaching that the word of God says you must not gamble.

We need to create environments of welcome and overcoming. I think sometimes we think if we don’t make the church perfectly clean before God we are in trouble. Now people in the world would say, I am not sure about God. He just wants to control everything and take away every freedom I have.The truth is, God doesn’t want to take away anyone’s freedom. But there are freedoms that people have that are not really freedoms. Alcoholism is not really a freedom, but something that puts you in bondage. Being critical is not a freedom, but something that puts you in bondage. A lifestyle of not being able to make commitments and using people to satisfy some need of your flesh is not really a freedom, but a means of creating bondage for you and for others. In the thinking of the world, people think these are my rights, this is my life. These are my freedoms. It is my life I can do what I want.The truth in what they say is that everyone should be able to do what they want. That is truth, but the problem is we want the wrong things. All people want the wrong things at times. King David said that if you don’t depend upon your own way, but acknowledge God in your heart, God will put new desires in your heart.

Psalms 37:3-4 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

I am more than forty-five years old in Christ. My heart is bigger today than it was forty-five years ago. It is bigger than it was ten years ago, five years ago, or even one year ago. I have learned that God doesn’t expect me to love Him beyond all of my heart, but all of my heart becomes a bigger measure every year. When I first came to Jesus forty-five years ago my love for God was pretty small. It was huge for me, but pretty small in the big picture of things. I love Him more today. I have been able to walk through some things I could not have walked through when I first came to Him. I have been betrayed by friends. I have been betrayed by spiritual children and I actually came through those things loving God and others more and not less. It was a miracle given to me by God in my heart because I allowed Him to give me His desires.

Loving God with all your heart is loving God with all your heart today. When you commit your way to God with all your heart that you have today you find that your heart is even bigger tomorrow because of His grace working in you. God gives you desires. He doesn’t just give you what you want. He gives you desires that are something you want. You are good at doing what you want. I have raised three children and I have four grandchildren. Children generally want candy every day, but if we give them all the candy they want they will become tremendously hyper. We would have huge dental bills, or they won’t have any teeth. We can implement a law that says,you shall not have candy. That boundary can work to a certain measure, but it by itself is merely a law that will control them. It would be better if they had a different desire where they want healthy food. This takes a process of parenting to bring them to that place. It is through a love relationship with a dad and mom that they can grow in maturity and in life-giving desires. The community of God should be the same. Everyone must grow in maturity, but the means in which we do this is essential to life or death.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.

House of Bread Ministry –

Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org

Greetings,

Today I am heading home after a week in Portugal and a weekend in the Netherlands. I accomplished a lot in Portugal with more video training completed and video spots for addressing some of the tough questions in the church. The people in Utrecht were wonderful. It was a full house yesterday and the Spirit of Life was in the house. Thank you to all who participated in various connections through the weekend.

Every mountain is made of stones. The Mountain of the Old Covenant was the mountain of Sanai. It was a mountain of law and judgment. One man’s experience with God proved to be a law unto those who dared not seek a personal experience with God in their own lives. Independence from God left men dependent upon information and disconnected from the place of a personal transformation by God in their lives. That mountain created the religious stones of Pharisaism. That is a mountain of knowing God’s words according to natural sight and natural understanding. It lacked the supernatural power of faith. It lacked the ability to hear the Spirit of God in the human heart. The word of God was presented to the human soul as an instruction to live by, but it did not speak to the human spirit with the power to put the desire of God in men’s hearts. Faith comes by hearing God in our hearts. It is a supernatural response to the manifested voice of God from within. Jesus said that the smallest measure of faith in our lives is more powerful than any stone in the mountain of law. The mountain of the New Covenant is the rising mountain of Christ, as we are transformed from within to increasingly become the stature of Christ in our lives.

Matthew 21:21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. 22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

A mountain of life is filled with living, life-giving stones. Those stones each have a revelation of God’s love and they hear God’s voice through an intimate relationship of life. They are not easily offended because they have a revelation of God’s love. They are of high value and they reveal the personal testimonies of God working in their lives. They are stones that are being transformed to fit with other stones in the mountain of God.

The Old Covenant could only offer a shadow of the good things we find in Christ. People in the Old Covenant could never really experience what can only be found in Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. 6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. 7 And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” 8 Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; 9 nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

The Old Covenant journey of God’s people is an example to us. They had the rock of Christ in the wilderness, but they could not become one with Him. We have been given the gift of Christ within our hearts It is the rock of Christ within us that empowers us to be a testimony of the mountain of God in life.

1 Corinthians 10:12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. 14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 17 For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.

The place of transformation is not in knowing what to do. It is in knowing Christ. We are blessed to drink the cup of the New Covenant life of the Holy Spirit. We are blessed to be the bread of the body of Christ. We need to depend upon Christ within us and upon Christ in one another. The body of Christ is the rising mountain of God in the earth. No stone by itself can be the mountain of God, but when we embrace one another in the life of Christ that is in each of us we experience a greater fullness of Christ in our lives.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you for your prayers and your financial support. With your help the message of New Covenant Life and Grace is reaching the nations.

House of Bread Ministry –

Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

We are taking registrations for our 2019 School session – www.christlifetraining.org