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

Greetings;

I was blessed yesterday to speak at Alife Church here in Bellingham. It was good to be home and a blessing to speak to my church family. It is great to be a part of a life-giving community of grace!

Grace empowers each of us to live for the wellbeing of others. As dads and moms, we live for the wellbeing of our children. As a husbands and wives, I live for the wellbeing of our spouses. As citizens of God’s community, I live for the wellbeing of the community. As leaders, we live for the wellbeing of those we lead. As human beings, we live for the wellbeing of human kind. Grace is not about what we get from God. God’s grace empowers each of us to be someone who can give what God has given us for the sake of others. Mercy gets, but grace gives. If we say, ‘You cannot judge me because we are in a time of grace.’ ‘You cannot make a judgment of me, you have to tolerate me as I am. You must see me as I am and you cannot judge me.’ These statements are not the confessions of people of grace. These are the confessions of people who need mercy. People of grace don’t need others to not make a judgment of them for them to be givers of life.  You can judge me. It will not change who I am for you. As a matter of fact, when you judge me it will only challenge me to be a person of grace.

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

Grace is the power of God’s Spirit in our lives that transforms us, anoints us, and empowers us to live for the wellbeing of others. We are saved by grace, but salvation is not just going to heaven when we die. It is bringing the influence of heaven into our world. God’s grace is the power of His presence in our lives that overcomes all wickedness. Grace empowers us to overcome injustice with a justice system of love.

Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

Something inside of us is coming out of us. The glory of the Lord has risen upon us. This is an amazing verse concerning God’s heart for His children. As little children, we know that our sins are forgiven and we have Father who loves us. This is a testimony of God’s mercy and it ends our past and justifies us to live. Our sins are forgiven and we have a Father who loves us, but the goal is to become like Our Father when we grow up. Our aim is to mature to be fathers and mothers in the faith. Fathers have known Him from the beginning. Being a father or a mother is becoming like the One we know and living for the same purpose found within His heart. We live for the family. The goal of each member in the community of God is to become like Him. We live for the Father’s will. The Father’s will is to raise sons and daughters who know they are the children of God. The process of becoming fathers and mothers involves being young men or young woman who embrace the life transforming work of God’s grace in their lives. Young men and women in the community of God grow in maturity to overcome the wicked one. They are strong in the Lord and strong in His word. They are not merely strong in Scripture memory, but strong in being the substance of His word. They have overcome the wicked one. Isaiah 60:1 describes this. Who He is, empowers us to be transformed by grace that we might arise and shine in a world of darkness!

Isaiah 60:2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.

God’s glory does not arise upon us so we can be empowered to condemn the world. We are not becoming people of grace so we can measure people in the world by our grace. True people of grace show mercy to those in the world, but they do not expect them to act as though they have the power of God’s grace working in their lives. The glory of God will rise upon us, but we must be willing to embrace what He is doing for the process of grace to be fully experienced in our lives.

I believe we often misunderstand grace when we fail to realize that there are two realities in the earth. One reality is that of the nations of the world. The second is that of being a citizen of heaven sent as an ambassador to the world. The nations of the world are in darkness and they are bound to an administration of a knowledge of good and evil. Citizens of heaven are children of light and they live in the freedom of an administration of the tree of life. It is not our job to condemn the world for being in darkness. We are not to get angry when people in the world act like people of darkness. We cannot measure world citizens or world leaders by the kingdom of God. We cannot measure people in the world to see if they are like Jesus. They are part of the kingdoms of the world. Sometimes people in the world do act like Jesus in some way and not in another way, but they aren’t Jesus. What do we tell our children about people in the world and about worldly leaders in our countries? We tell them they are not Jesus, but they are people who are trying to figure things out. We tell them we are God’s family and it is not our job to measure people in the world by what they are or are not. It is our job to arise and shine! It is our job to demonstrate what Jesus looks like to a world in darkness! God so loved the world that He did not condemn the world, but sent His Son to give life to all men. The world already does a good job of condemning itself. Jesus came to free all humanity from condemnation and the power of condemnation. In the world there is darkness, and the people in the world are in the great darkness, but God has delivered us from the power of darkness and He has conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

Children of God demonstrate what it looks like to live for the wellbeing of others. We cannot expect people in the world to live for our wellbeing. We cannot expect the leaders of the world to act as Christ. Give me a leader that simply agrees with something of the direction of God in my life, but the truth is our countries needs each of us more than we need our countries. The world needs us more than we need the world. We are the light of the world. The glory of the Lord has risen upon us. The people in the world are in deep darkness, but we are the light! Walk as children of light!

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings;

Today I am home in Bellingham. We had a blessed day yesterday. The family gathered with friends to celebrate our youngest granddaughter turn two. Zaria is growing and such a wonderful little girl! It was a good day.

Let me continue again on some attributes of a culture of grace. God’s grace is the power of His presence in our lives that enables us to overcome all things. It is the power of God’s presence in our lives that transforms our hearts and minds from within. God’s grace enables us to choose the things that God wants more than what we would want without Him. Grace is not God accepting us living a life that is determined by our own desires and passions. God’s grace doesn’t come to condone our flaws and limitations, God’s grace empowers our lives to become a testimony of His transformations. His desires in our hearts and minds always prove to be more wonderful and amazing that anything we seek to hold on to from our own self-preserving ways.

There was a day in the Old Testament when Joshua and the armies of Israel faced five Amorite kings. The name Amorite means, bitterness; thus, I believe that the battle of Joshua represented our own deliverance from the strongholds of bitterness in our lives. God wants to roll away the reproach of the bitter wounds in our lives. Those bitter wounds have left us bound to limitations in becoming who God intends for us to be. If we are honest, many of our desires and many of the attributes in our lives have been shaped and bound by bitter experiences in our past or inheritances rooted in some bitter curse of despair. We must not be afraid of the bitter strongholds of our hearts and minds, but we must face them and know that God’s grace is sufficient to empower us to overcome in all things.

Joshua 10:7 So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. 8 And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have delivered them into your hand; not a man of them shall stand before you.”

When Joshua pursued his enemy, the Lord fought with him in a supernatural way. When we stand to overcome the things of bitterness that resist us from being who we are meant to be in Christ, we can expect that God will fight with us in a supernatural way. This is the testimony of grace!

Joshua 10:9 Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly, having marched all night from Gilgal. 10 So the Lord routed them before Israel, killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them along the road that goes to Beth Horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah. 11 And it happened, as they fled before Israel and were on the descent of Beth Horon, that the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died. There were more who died from the hailstones than the children of Israel killed with the sword.

Joshua 10:12 Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.

Joshua 10:14 And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.

When Joshua was in the battle, God turned the sun back and gave him another day in the battle. Imagine; Joshua is fighting in a battle with the enemy. He is running out of time to defeat the enemy so he asks God for more time. He may have had a finger missing. He may have had a few gashes in his flesh and wounds in his body from the combat of battle. He had been in the battle with a sword. A heavy sword! He had been likely fighting for 12 to 16 hours and he cried out to God for more time! We can do this! We can overcome! Give me another day to risk my life. Give me another opportunity to lose another finger. Give me the opportunity to suffer longer. We can do this! Give me another day. That day God heeded the voice of a man. He turned the sun back and gave Joshua another day.

Joshua did not fight the battle for the fulfillment of his own desires. He fought for the sake of his people. He fought for the namesake of God. He fought for the wellbeing of others. While the battle was going on Joshua captured five Amorite kings. The name Amorite means, bitterness. These were kings of bitterness. He locked them in a cave and when the battle was done he called the next generation to reap the reward of his victory. He told those men to put their foot on the necks of those kings. Joshua defeated a bitterness of the past and made it so the next generation had the victory over that bitterness. I believe this is God’s intention for us all. God’s grace doesn’t just empower us to overcome, it empowers us to overcome all things for the sake of others.

God is removing the headship of promiscuity and legalism. They are rooted in the realm of time. Even as God stopped the sun in the day of Joshua, God wants to free us from things that are bound to the realm of time. Religious legalism is a result of a bitter root. It is mean and angry and it trying to control those who embrace it as truth and inspire them to control the lives of others. It attempts to assure those that embrace this stronghold of thinking that what caused the wound of bitterness will never happen again and it is more bitter than anything that happened. Promiscuity is the same. I can do anything. All things are lawful for me. I can do anything I desire! These are the song of a bitter wound seeking freedom from its root of pain. God’s grace can give us the victory of the bitter roots bound to time. Grace can turn back the sun and stop the moon for the sake of life for the future generations of our lives.

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

The statement that all things are lawful requires the added testimony of grace. God doesn’t want us to measure things by what is lawful or what is not lawful. He wants us to come to another level of understanding as the children of God. He wants us not to be that ignorant. We should not have to be told what to do. He doesn’t want to tell us how to act. He wants us to know what to do and how to act. He wants a revolution A revolution of grace, a human race that is empowered by grace. People of God do not only know who God is, but they live with a revelation of who they are and they seek to know Him in every way that He is.

I know You are my Father. I know You forgive me of my sins. Now I want to know how You do that God? How can you be like that God? I want to be like You when I grow up? How do You do it? How do You love us? How can You forgive us of our sins? I want to be like You when I grow up, Father. I want to be able to look at the most unforgiveable things and see them as forgiven. I also want to be like You in that I want to empower others overcome all things. I want to help them put their feet on the necks of bitterness. I want them to overcome the wickedness that tried to destroy them with bitterness of soul.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings;

Today I am in Castlegar, BC, Canada. We have had a great weekend with some wonderful people who have hungry hearts for all that God wants to give. The presence of God has been wonderful and the reception of God’s word has been commendable as many people have come out for numerous sessions of teaching. I will be teaching on Life-Giving Relationships all week as well as doing some special training during the afternoons. Thank you to all who have come ready to receive, open to hear, and hungry to respond to all that God is doing.

I have been writing concerning a culture of grace. We are God’s family and the family of God is empowered by God’s grace. God’s grace transforms our hearts and our minds to enable us to live for the wellbeing of others. This is the character of our family!

How can we tell our progress in the process of the working of God’s grace in our lives? All things are lawful for us and we could think the ability to do all things, or anything, is a mark of our freedom in Christ. We could consider the liberty of doing all things is the true testimony of God’s grace in our lives, but in doing so we would be selling ourselves short of the power of God’s grace. When we see grace as the power of personal liberty we often substitute God’s power of transformation for an excuse to not change in our ways. When we do this, we exchange God’s acceptance of our lives for a personal agenda of tolerance by God and others for who we want to be. This leads to a mentality of entitlements from God and others and negates our ability to be empowered by a supernatural transformation by God’s grace in us. God’s mercy sets us free from the judgment of anything. So, we could live with an attitude of nothing matters. “God loves me! I am a child of God! My sins are forgiven! You cannot judge me by what I do! I can do anything! I can eat meat. I can eat vegetables. I can have this freedom or I can observe that law. I can do anything, because I am justified by faith in Him and it is by faith that I have peace with God. Mercy has triumphed over judgment!” Surely God’s mercy frees us from the bondage of law, but God’s grace empowers us for much more than living in the freedom of our own personal desires.

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

The first part of this verse reveals a liberty to do all things, but doing all things is not the true freedom of grace. All things are lawful for me, unless I know who you am. When I know who I am, I cannot just do anything. I can do anything and still be loved by God, but when I know who I am, I become empowered to do all things for the sake of being a giver of life to myself, others, and the world.

I believe that we are in a grassroots revolution on planet earth. This revolution is one that comes from the hearts of people and not merely the governments of lands. God wants that kind of revolution in the hearts of people upon the earth. In the world, we find that connections today are in a more detailed level. We see it in social media. I believe that it is a sign. It has made the world a smaller place in a sense. It has made the world a more wonderful place, but also a more terrible one. It has made the world more safe and unsafe. Everything is assessable. In the natural there are many revolutions in the world that are happening from within the hearts of peoples. People are revolting. Their cry is that something must be different in the kingdoms of the world. These revolutions are even inspiring wars among men. There is violence. There is revolt. It is proving that human beings make terrible slaves. God is prophetically restoring the speech of the Lord, the speaking of the Lord, and the speaking of the word of the Lord. There is going to be a removal of the headship of promiscuity and a removal of legalism. Each of these headships are from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They are both rooted in the realm of time and they are based upon experience and human wisdom. Natural sight is the motivating factor of these headships. One says there are many rules and the other says there are no rules. God wants to remove that headship from the church and from the peoples of the world. God is releasing a new sound in the earth.

We must be tuned to the frequency of God’s heart so when God touches us our lives are filled with the sound of what He wants to do, not the sound of our own personal desires. The sound of God is one of life for others. It is a sound of living for the wellbeing of one another. His speech is a speech of passion and compassion. His speaking is even through those who do not know Him and the wise are willing to partner with those who do not know Him for His purposes in the earth. The speaking of the word of the Lord is when what God wants becomes a body of flesh and spirit upon the earth. This is the testimony of the family of God.

We need to be like an empty box, with touchable strings, that is tuned to the frequency of God’s heart so when He touches us we become filled with the sound of His heart. We cannot use a misunderstanding of God’s grace as an excuse to propagate our own personal desires, ways, or opinions among men. Our hearts must be ready to be filled with the sound of what God wants in the earth. This is a testimony of God’s grace working in our lives.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

Today I am in Bellingham. It has been good to be home with family and friends in my local community of Bellingham. I was blessed to hear my daughter minister the word in church yesterday and God has proven again to release the blessing of inheritance in the lives of my family. Life is good.

I have been addressing a culture of grace. What does it mean to be people in a community of grace? Last week I revealed that grace empowers us to overcome for the sake of others. That overcoming process includes the ability to go through things of suffering. The work of God’s grace amid our suffering releases blessings in the earth that are measures of inheritance for the generations that follow. The overcoming grace of God in our lives empowers us to release various blessings and breakthroughs for others in the world we live in. What we bring into this world even becomes material for the next generation in various aspects of life and inheritance. When children of God embrace being sons and daughters of God they mature to become sources of inheritance to the world they live in.  When we reveal the Father in our lives, the world changes. There is no need to pray for the world generically, when we have been sent to reveal Christ to the world specifically. We are in this world for the sake of others. Like Jesus, we must be faithful for the sake of those God has given us. It is for the sake of Bill, for the sake of Mary, For the sake of Susan, and this is not just for the sake of the world that we live in and overcome. It is for specific people that we touch. Paul lived for the sake of Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. He lived for individuals and even in bigger picture, he lived for the church of Colossi, Ephesus, Galatia, Corinth, Philippi, Rome, and Thessalonians. He didn’t live for all the church, but in living for some of the church his life ended up impacting all the church. When Jesus gave His life to 12 men, He was also able to give His life for the world. He came to get Christ in us and he has sent us to live in the same way that He did. We have been sent to this world for the sake of specific individuals in the path of our journey.

Paul suffered for what was lacking in the affliction of Christ. He endured suffering for what was being completed for the sake of the body of Christ, for the sake of the church. Grace is what gives each of us the ability to overcome. We overcome wickedness for the sake of the church, for the sake of our friends, for the sake of our children, and our children’s children. God’s grace empowers us to endure things that oppose us and the fruit of our overcoming is for sake of the body of Christ.

My own natural son, my oldest son, is my pastor. He pastor’s the church that I pioneered 27 years ago. In the local church, he is my pastor. I am a spiritual father in his life, but he is my pastor. I receive him as my pastor. This means that I expect him to hear God and I expect to need to hear what he is hearing. I talk with him as a dad, I talk with his children as a grandpa, I talk to him as a spiritual father in kingdom business, and sometimes he challenges me because I hear the voice of my pastor. I challenge him when I am the voice of a spiritual father and he challenges me when he is the voice of my God-sent pastor. It is a spiritual dance that requires the manifest presence of God. It requires God’s grace. I am listening for Gods voice and so is he. It requires each of us to find God’s grace.

I would rather that everyone just thinks like me and then it would be easy. I would rather everyone believe me and trust what I say. I would rather that everything was the same and thus it would be easy to relate to and understand them, but that is not the way it works in a culture of grace. I would rather be the father in my home that always knows what I am doing. I would rather be the man of God that never makes mistakes, but I am not. I am a child, a young man, and I am a father. Every day I must know that I have a Father who loves me. I am a young man because there is still a wicked one to overcome for the sake of the world. I suffer some things so I can give breakthroughs to others.

My son and I we have an understanding. He says my ceiling is his floor. He believes that what I have established becomes his foundation to establish more things. I must also believe that my ceiling is his floor, which means there is always more. I must be willing to embrace what is beyond the highest level of my life. I embrace life fresh and new to believe to overcome again. What established the ceiling that is his floor is the fruit of the overcoming that I did in the past. But the grace of God is at work now. We are overcoming even to new levels. This means that I must be a young man again. I must change my vision to dream and say there is more to overcome for the sake of others.

Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Paul described how he was a light to the Gentiles. The mystery of God included those who did not know God and it was the testimony of Christ in them. He said Christ in each person is the hope of glory. Christ in each person is the hope of transformation. Christ in each person is the hope of something coming into this world that has never been seen before. This is the hope of heavenly things and new realities in the families of humanity. Christ in each of us is the hope of gory. Grace is the power of Christ in each one. That grace is not just for us. It is for the world we live in. It involves overcoming for the sake of others.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings;

I have had a wonderful week in Angola, Africa. God has touched many people and transformed many people’s hearts and minds. There are many hungry sons and daughters of God here who want the New Covenant life of Christ! I am looking forward to returning here in November to see God do more. I know that a harvest of New Covenant life and Grace is in this land!

I have been writing in regard to a culture of grace. God’s grace empowers us to change. Grace empowers us to be who we were meant to be and grace happens when we see Jesus in our lives. It is the manifest presence of Jesus Christ that activates God’s grace in our lives. This is a reality of living in the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. We have been delivered from the power of darkness! We are overcomers! Grace is the power that gives us the ability to overcome! Grace is not a theory, it is a reality of life-transformation by the presence of Holy Spirit in our lives.

In the family of God, we are children of God. I am always a child of God. I always have that attitude. God’s mercy is new every morning. God’s mercy always reminds me that I am a child of God. My sins are forgiven! I have a Father who loves me! We must never stop being children of God in our hearts and minds.

I am a child of God, but I also want to grow up. I want to become a father. I want to live for the sake of others. I want to become an example to others and even bring the substance of breakthrough and change in their lives. Giving the life of Christ in me to the world that I have been given is the ultimate purpose of my life. I was born to bring healing to nations and to give life-transforming food to the hungry. For this to happen, I must always desire change and I must embrace that change in the process of growing to maturity.

To become a father I must grow as a son of God. I want to be a son of God that reveals the grace of God at work in my life. I want to receive the grace of God that empowers me to overcome all wickedness. It causes me to be a testimony of God’s presence and a testimony of God’s word. That is not a testimony of knowing the Bible. It is a testimony of becoming the substance of God in His character, nature, way, power, and authority. I don’t just want to read the Bible to obey the Bible. I am becoming what the Bible describes. The character, nature, way, power and authority of my Father God is the substance of my name. I am demonstrating the life-giving power and authority of God in and through my life in all things. God’s grace in my life is not just for me. It is for the sake of others. It is for the sake of the world.

Colossians 1:24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church…

The principle in this verse, the truth in this verse, can be applied in each of our lives. Paul rejoiced in his suffering for sake of others. He was going through things for the sake of others. It is one thing to look at the suffering of Paul and say he went through it for us, but what about the sufferings that you and I go through? Aren’t we each meant to go through suffering for the sake of others? Maybe the suffering we go through is not for what we can get or become? Maybe our sufferings are for the sake of our children and our children’s children? Maybe the sufferings we go through are for our friends, our neighbors, our city, our nation, or the nations. In the book of Romans we saw that by faith we enter into grace.

Romans 5:2 …through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

In grace, there is tribulation or suffering. It is during that resistance that we cheerfully endure. During challenges, we cheerfully endure and our character changes. That change in us brings forth hope. Is that hope just for us, or is it for the world we live in? Paul rejoiced in his suffering for the sake of others. He filled up in his flesh what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ. There is something lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Jesus is the Savior of the world. He is the Lord of all people and the desire of the nations, but when He came to this world He came to twelve men.

John 17:6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”

John 17:9 “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.”

John 17:12 “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

John 17:17 “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”

He had finished His journey; His task as a man in life. He had not yet died upon the cross, but His confession was that He had done everything the Father sent Him to do. He did not pray for the world, but only those the Father gave Him. He only lost the one He was supposed to lose. He had not yet died, Judas had not yet betrayed Him, but He knew there was one who was going to lose. He had a knowledge that He was finished. He told His disciples; If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. In the same way, Jesus was sending His disciples. God sent Jesus to reveal the Father to twelve men who would also reveal the Father to some men and women, who would also reveal the Father to some men and women, who would also reveal the Father to some men and women. He gave His life for the relational connections in His life. He lived to transform the lives of a few that through the few all might be transformed. Our suffering in this life is for the sake of those that God has given us.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

I am presently in Angola, Africa. We had a great leader’s gathering on Saturday. I was on the radio for an hour yesterday morning and released a word on New Covenant. It was a great time in the church yesterday with a full house of people and God’s presence. This week I will be teaching daily on New Covenant Ministry. I am expecting God to do great things.

In a culture of grace, we see Jesus. Grace comes at a revelation of Jesus Christ in our lives. When we see Jesus for who He is now, we become relevant to who we are supposed to be now. He brings salvation to our souls. We must embrace the change that comes to our desires, reasoning, thoughts, emotions, and imaginations. We must grow in the salvation of our souls. Our souls need the prosperity that comes by God’s grace. We need more thoughts, more reasoning, more emotions, more imaginations, and more desires. We need our souls to grow in the salvation of the Lord. This is a testimony of God’s grace working in our lives. This is the testimony of being maturing sons and daughters in Christ. We must be able to cry, to laugh, to have peace, and to experience life in all of life’s expressions. We must become happy and abundant in our hearts and minds. The attributes of our souls must be healthy. To the degree these things are healthy in us is the degree we will bring healthy life to the world. Salvation is the salvation of our souls. Our thoughts, reasoning, strategy, emotions, imaginations, and desires are brought to life by an abundance of God’s life in our spirits within. Our salvation includes going to heaven when we die, but there are many days between today and heaven. Salvation is bringing heaven into every day of our lives. God’s mercy forgives us for a lifestyle of hell, but God’s grace gets us out of a lifestyle of hell. Mercy justifies us to live, but grace empowers us to live. If our lifestyles don’t change and we still live like children of the world we have not discovered the power of God’s grace.

If we say that God loves us, but as children of God we don’t think we need to change, we end up redefining mercy as grace. We may go to heaven when we die, but we are going to create a lot of hell between here and heaven. Maybe we’ll be saved as one who escapes the flames, but everything in our lives will be ashes. There will be no gold, silver, or precious stone. Gold, silver, and precious stone are the testimony of Christ formed in the lives of others. Wood, hay, and straw are simply the things that we live for in this life. When we live empowered by grace we give life to others.

Grace is meant to empower me to become a father that allows the world, and even empowers my world, to be changed. God’s grace puts the character of God in the lives of people. It empowers children and children’s children to be different than before. We don’t live to please God because He is not pleased us. We live to please God because we know how pleased He is with us. If we don’t live to please God, we don’t really know how pleased He is with us. We don’t really know who God is in our lives. We substitute His pleasure for us with our pleasure for ourselves. If we know He is pleased with us, we ask the question; “God, how can I live to be pleasing to you? How can I be who you say I am? You don’t see my spots, blemishes or wrinkles. How can I live without spots blemishes or wrinkles to the world I live in. I don’t need to change so You will love me. I need to change so people will see how loving You are.”

We don’t need to change so God will love us. We need to embrace His grace that changes us so the world can see how powerful His love really is. Without Him we cannot change. With Him change is inevitable. When He walks into the room of our hearts and minds, everything changes.

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. 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.

‘Because He loves you, I am praying you will walk a walk that is pleasing to Him. Because He loves you, because you are a child of God, I am praying you be fruitful for every good work. I am praying you will grow in knowing who He is. I want you to be fathers. I pray you will be strengthened with all might by His glorious power.’ Paul was praying for the grace of God to work in them. God’s grace activates a cheerful endurance that transforms human character and manifests hope. Paul was praying for the One in them to empower their patience and long suffering with joy. Not with misery. With the evidence of His manifest presence. In the presence of the Lord is joy forever, inexpressible and full of glory. Paul was paying for the might inside of them. That might is the power of God’s grace that brings all through. He was giving thanks to the Father, because He has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He is the one who delivered us from the power of darkness. This is grace!

Grace is the testimony. Mercy declares you can be delivered. He loves you even if you are not delivered. Grace says that because you can be delivered, here He is and He is delivering you! He is delivering you from the power of darkness because you have been conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of His love. This is not some day in the future. It is today, tomorrow, the next day and even beyond the life as you know it. It is because we have redemption by His  blood and the forgiveness of sins. Because of His great mercy, we have been given the power of His amazing grace. We can finally become real. I can finally become Bonnie’s husband. Not just a husband, but Bonnie’s Husband. I can become Jonathan’s dad, not just a dad, but Jonathan’s dad. I can become Aaron’s dad. I can become Joanna’s dad. I can become Aubrey’s grandpa, London’s grandpa, Kaden’s grandpa, and Zaria’s grandpa. Not just a grandpa. Because of God’s grace I can become your friend, not just a friend, but your friend. To be real requires the grace of God. My thinking has to change. My thoughts, strategies, imagination, emotions, and desires have to change. I have to become the real me. Grace makes me the real me.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings;

Today I am writing from Spain. I started today with the G42 Leadership group in embarking on a journey in New Covenant Realities. I am looking forward to all that God is going to do this week. I know we will have an encounter with the Holy Spirit in a wonderful way.

The community of God has a foundation of mercy and grace. Something in all of us should be like a little child. We should always know we have a Father who loves us and our sins are forgiven. This is a powerful revelation, but this by itself is not an understanding of grace. It is an understanding of mercy. Knowing we have a Father who loves us and our sins are forgiven is enough for us to know God’s heart for who we are, but only the presence God’s Spirit in our lives can cause us to become who we were meant to be. How we were born naturally is not the true testimony of who we were meant to be supernaturally. We had to be born again in Christ to find God’s grace that transforms our lives to become who and what God says we are to be. We should desire to be different than who we used to be. Who we are outside of Christ is not who we were meant to be in Christ. It is not true to the character, nature, way, power, or authority of a son or daughter of God. It is only a testimony of being a son or daughter of man outside of Christ. We were meant to be the likeness and the image of God in human form. When we become the likeness and the image of God we become the testimony of God’s influence in all that we are and all that we do. All humans are meant to be this way, but a disconnection from God has prevented mankind from fulfilling their true destiny. In Christ, we don’t present an image of people who just do anything. We don’t just act any way we want to. In the same manner, we are not humans who are controlled or contained by some form of law just to a pretend an action of change. Law controls us, but grace transforms our lives from within our hearts. Law constrains our actions, but grace liberates our actions to finally be life-giving actions. Law is a hard-fast unchangeable rule. Grace is an increasingly changing, transforming, metamorphosis in our hearts and minds. Metaphorically speaking, we were supposed to be butterflies, but we were born as caterpillars. We were destined to fly, but we were born crawling. We need a metamorphosis. We need to change in our character and ability. This is the power and purpose of grace.

We do not understand grace because we have redefined salvation. We say by grace we are saved, but our definition of being saved is going to heaven when we die. Going to heaven when we die is surely part of our salvation package in Christ, but there is more to our salvation than what happens when we die. We think by grace we will be saved when we die, but God wants our souls to be saved. Our souls are being the bridge between our spirits and our physical lives.

3 John 2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

God wants us to prosper in all things. To be in health and to prosper in all things, our souls must prosper. Our souls manifest our desires, our thoughts, our reasoning, our imagination, and our emotions. The healthier our thoughts are the heathier our reasoning is, the healthier our imaginations are, the healthier our emotions are, and the healthier our desires become. When our thoughts, reasoning, imagination, emotions, and desires are healthy our lives will be more prosperous in all that we are and do. This affects all that we are in spiritual and practical ways.

I am a husband to my wife. I am not a husband to the wives of the world. I am a husband to one woman. She doesn’t need me to be a husband. She needs me to be her husband. She needs me to dwell with her, to understand her, to see how valuable she is, and to treat her accordingly. She needs me to rule in life with her in all things. Bonnie Hanson needs Ted Hanson to be her husband. This means I cannot just find a recipe to being a husband. I must be empowered to be her husband. My son Jonathan, my son Aaron, and my daughter Joanna need me to be their dad. They don’t need a dad, they need me to be their dad. Jonathan does not need me to be Aaron’s dad, he needs me to be Jonathan’s dad. Aaron needs me to be Aaron’s dad. Joanna needs me to be Joanna’s dad. That means I must become who I am for each of them. When I go as a minister to places that God has divinely joined me, those places don’t need me to be a minister. Each place needs me to be who God says I am for them. I must discover who God says I am for each one and each place that He sends me. This can only come by the power of God’s grace. I can be inspired by a book on marriage, but I must discover God’s grace that makes me who I am as a husband for my wife. I must constantly grow and mature. My wife does not need the husband she married forty years ago. She needs a better husband than that. She needs the husband that has been growing in maturity for forty years. The places I go need the minister that has been growing in maturity by grace. We can only be who we are meant to be today by embracing the work of God’s grace in our lives.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

We just finished a great weekend of prophetic training in Bellingham. We were joined by my good friends Bill and Linda Jonson from Tallahassee, Florida. We activated, facilitated, and released about seventy guys and gals in the life-giving prophetic power of Christ. We had several healings, miraculous testimonies, and life-changing words. Last night there was a packed house as a team of about fifty ministered and Jesus walked into the room!

A culture of grace is dependent upon the manifest presence of Jesus in our lives. Grace happens at a revelation of Jesus Christ. When we see Him in our lives, our lives are changed. When He walks into the room everything changes! The book the Apocalypse, the Revelation, is not about doom and gloom. It is about the person Jesus and what happens when He walks into the room. The apocalypse of Jesus Christ is about the person Jesus Christ. Each part of the book is a testimony of what happens when the person Jesus Christ walks into the room. The very 1^st chapter is enough to stand on its own. Jesus loves us He has washed us in His blood. He stands in the midst of His Church. When we hear Him, we turn and we see Him and when we see Him something in us becomes like Him, because we see Him as he is. Grace comes at a revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the voice behind us. He is the voice that invites us to have an encounter with Him. Every revelation from Him is an invitation to have an encounter with Him so that we can be transformed by Him and become something of that revelation. This is grace!

You can take the 22^nd chapter of Revelation on its own and have a wonderful reality for today, yesterday, and the future. There is a river that flows from the throne room. It comes out of the human heart. It doesn’t flow through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It flows through the tree of life. It produces generations of humanity that bring healing to sick nations and fruit that feeds the hungry. When you discover this river that flows out of you, you no longer look at what is right and what is wrong. You think, ‘how do I give life?’ ‘I want to give life to the world.’ As a result, the fruit of your life is what the world needs. The touch of your life brings healing to those who are sick. The blessing that is in you heals the curse that is around you. It is a wonderful revelation! We saw the life-giving river of God flow last night in a powerful way as many were refreshed, envisioned, revived, transformed, and healed.

Chapter 21 of Revelation can also stand by itself. We could just take it and discover a great revelation of God’s grace. Look Up! There is a community coming out of heaven filling our lives. Things that reveal the character and nature of God are filling our hearts. God’s grace is working in us and the very pressures we find ourselves in are proving to be opportunities for God’s grace to cause our lives to shine. The many facets of God’s passion, love, victory, forgiveness, and life-giving power are at work in us. The destiny of the character, nature, way, power, and authority of God is being seen beneath our feet as a path for God’s glory is being set before us. We are being established upon the way and the path of God. God’s presence in us is empowering us to become a community of God in the earth. Even the gates of our lives are like pearls. Pearls are the result of wounds in the heart of an oyster. When an oyster is wounded, it releases enzymes and minerals from within that form a beautiful testimony. It is like our lives. When something wounding happens in lives, it can be a source of offence or it can be the source of a testimony of God’s love. An ugly thing happens to the oyster, but the oyster isn’t overcome by the ugly thing. It releases what is inside of it and turns the ugly thing into a pearl. If you ever go to one of those places where you can buy an oyster to find a pearl, be sure to pick the ugliest oyster. The ugliest shell usually contains the pearl. The pearl came because the oyster was wounded. The peal is a symbol of love. You can make a necklace, a bracelet, or a ring and it is a symbol of love. It’s an intimate love. It’s a lover’s love or even a father’s love. It is love that testifies of tender care. It is a love that reveals that the giver wants to spend the rest of their life with you. The pearl is a symbol of tenderness and intimate love. Like the wounding of an oyster, what the enemy intends for evil turns into a testimony of the Father’s love. The ugliest moments of our lives become pearls that others can see. People will get into this community by a testimony of love. The gates of the community are gates of pearl. They are gates that reveal a testimony of love. The community of God is filled with people who could have ugly testimonies. The potentially ugly people have become the most beautiful people in the world. It is a revelation of Jesus. A work of grace is the appealing invitation to enter the community of God.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

Well the snow is past and the sun is now shining in my part of the world. I had a great week last week with lots of snow encounters, grandpa and grandchildren experiences, ambushes by God in our Christ Life Training sessions, and a good weekend in my home church. God is good.

I have been addressing the subject of a culture of grace and what a community of people empowered by God’s grace look like. The foundation of the community of God, is God! He is who He is and He is secure in who He is. It is His security and His identity that sets the foundation for the community of God in heaven and upon the earth.

When asked by Moses as to who He was, God’s simple answer was one of security – “I Am”. He didn’t explain who He was. He didn’t explain what He does. He didn’t explain how He created the universe and how He redeems things and restores things. He didn’t explain how quickly He can do miracles. He simply said, “I Am”. I think the big I Am wanted all the little ‘i am’s’ to know who they are. The community of God is filled with loved people. It is God’s love that reveals to each on who they are. “I am a child of God. I am a son of God. I am a daughter of God. I am the bride of Christ.” The Dad wants the children to know that they are like Him. We are little ‘I am’ s’  in the testimony of the big I Am! Grace empowers me to be who I am where law only required me to be an I do, but even a parrot can be taught to say, praise the lord. But only a son or a daughter can say to their heavenly Father, “You are the excellence of my life!” The future is in our thinking. Who are we?

1 Peter 1:13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ…

Gird up the loins of your mind and be sober. To be sober doesn’t mean to be sad. It means to be purposed. Gird up the loins of your mind and be purposed. Rest your hope fully upon the grace that is brought to you at a revelation of Jesus Christ, not a revelation about Jesus Christ. A revelation of Him. When you see Him, your world changes. When you see Him in your heart, your heart changes. When you see Him in your circumstance, your circumstance changes.

I have a wonderful everyday experience that allows me to understand this verse better. When I come home from a trip my grandson loves to come and see me at my house. He will come to my house and ring my front door bell. He is looking forward to seeing me. He knows that anything that he may have done that was bad while I was gone doesn’t matter to me. He knows that I love him and he can’t wait to be with me. When he rings the bell at my door he has an expectation of me coming to see who it is. He will hide under the front bench on my porch. When I am away on a trip he loves seeing me on the computer through face time, but if he can get in the same room with me the atmosphere and the reality of his life changes. When he knows that I am home, he has an expectation of only good things. He comes to my house and he will ring my door bell several times. I will get up from my chair and he knows that I am going to get out of my chair. I am going to make some noise, I will say, “who’s ringing my door bell?” Who’s ringing my door bell? Is there someone at my door?” Now, he will be excited at this point! He will hide under the bench I have on the front porch. He is not hiding because He doesn’t want me to find him. He knows I will find him. He has a need. His world has been missing grandpa, but now grandpa is home. He has an expectation. He wants to experience a world with grandpa in it. The word revelation in 1 Peter 1:13 (grace comes at a revelation of Jesus Christ), is a great word. It is the word apocalypse. It doesn’t mean doom and gloom. It is an unveiling or revealing of what could not be seen before. An apocalypse of grandpa would be a revelation that, here he is! When my grandson sees me as I find him beneath the bench, his whole world changes! He experiences a change in his heart and a change in his mind. My grandson wants an experience with who I am, because he knows that who I am will cause wonderful things to happen in his heart, his mind, and in his everyday world. This is the way it is with grace and a revelation of Jesus Christ. When we see Him in our room, everything changes! Expect to see Jesus in your life today! Grace comes at a revelation of Him in your room!

I will bend down and my grandson will see me. He will leap into my arms! He will smell me and feel me! He will experience me. I am no longer a picture on a computer screen. I am no longer a promise. I am grandpa and here I am! Grace comes at a revelation of Jesus Christ. When you smell Him and experience Him and He is no longer a page in a book. When He is no longer a promise, but He is in your world and now your world changes! The whole environment changes because grace comes at a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

Yesterday I was at Everyone’s church in Mt. Vernon, Washington. We had a great time together and we renewed our focus on God’s presence, God’s counsel, God’s life through us to others, and God’s desires given to us. This is our focus for 2017. God’s grace is working in our lives and we are the people of God. We are His family and good things are being worked out in our lives.

God takes what the enemy intended for evil in our lives and He turns it for good. I don’t believe that He is not in control of every detail; I believe that He is in charge of every detail. He is not a distant God who does not want a relationship with human beings. He has not just simply sovereignly determine the future. He has determined the future with an intimate relationship with a wonderful family. In this process of grace, the internal realities of God kingdom have to manifest. So, we face pressure, but we persevere. We are moving beyond the place of internal Passover to internal Pentecost. We are moving to ultimately know internal Tabernacles. God is our God, we are God’s people, and we live together with Him in all things.

God wants us to know in our hearts that church is not a place we go, it is something we are. We don’t just go there for training or Sunday service. We are the church! We are each part of the Provers 31 woman. We know who our Husband is. We are dealing in the real-estate of the earth on behalf of our family name. We carry the family name; the family character, nature, way, power, and authority. We are the church. We are each sons and daughters. We are overcomers. We are facing pressure and we are finding grace to cheerfully endure. We are cheerfully enduring and the testimony of Christ within us is transforming our hearts and our minds. The power of God in us is stronger than the pressure that is against us and what is manifesting is character from within. That character is the family of God character. Wow! That is not like us! It is a gift. It is not a discipline of the flesh; it is a transformation of the flesh. Wow! We are becoming loving! We are becoming merciful! It is a transformation in our hearts and minds by the power of God’s grace. We used to want to kill them, but now life within us is killing what wants to kill! We are changing from within! We are finding grace. We are persevering and character is manifesting and then we see hope. It is something inside of us. It is manifesting!

1 Peter 1:13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

In this verse, Peter is talking to believers; human beings who have discovered that God loves them. They are not better than other human beings, they have just discovered God’s love. This verse implies that the loins are in the mind. It implies that our future is in our thinking. The world does not gird up the loins of their mind. The world doesn’t have their loins in their mind, they have their mind in their loins. In other words, their future is in the desires of their flesh. They can even have a good intention and a good heart, but they do not put their hope in what God can do in them. They see their future as dependent upon their own human abilities. Their future is determined by what they think, they can do, or what they want to do. God knows that there is a better way. He knows that each of us are good at doing what we want to and not so good at what we are told to do. This is why He wants to put His life-giving desires within our hearts and minds. Those with religious thinking seek to impose rules upon themselves and upon others to bind their desires in some way. Law makes slaves out of all of us even though it is filled with good ideas and good commands. It turns us into slaves. It causes our view of God to change. Law alone causes us to think that God is a Master. It causes us to think that God needs things from us. He needs us to love Him. He needs us to worship Him. He needs us to act right. He needs us to obey. God does not need any of those things from us. When we do those things, it doesn’t change who He is and when we don’t do those things it still doesn’t change who He is. When we obey Him, He doesn’t love us more and when we disobey Him, He doesn’t love us less. I know this is true, because when we were sinners He died for us. When everyone was as bad as they could be, He didn’t love us less. It was not upon the cross that He loved us. It was before the cross that He loved us, therefore He was willing to embrace the cross because He loved us. Sin never created a problem for God towards us, it created a problem from us towards Him. Sin prevented us from seeing God for who He is and thus we could never come to Him and become who we were meant to be. We were unholy because we lived separate from Him. Living with Him would transform our lives to become holy as He is. Sin prevented us from seeing who we really are. On our best day we perceived that we were servants and God is a Master, but He never saw us as servants and Himself as a Master. He saw us as children and for this He sent His Son to redeem us from our fallen state of thinking. Our future is only found through Christ in us and Christ in us will empower the thinking of our hearts and minds to be that of children of a Father who loves us. This is the environment of grace and it creates an atmosphere of life for who we are meant to be. It is not about what we can do for Him. It is about who we are in Him.

Blessings,

Ted J. Hanson