Today I am traveling to Bulgaria. Just a short thought for you all today:
When you respond to the calling of Christ, you find yourself in Christ and Christ in you. God has made a way for you to be a dwelling place of God by His Spirit, not just for His blessing presence but for His purpose in all things. Christ in you empowers you to live to be a blessing to your world. When you live to be a blessing, your life is multiplied in the lives of others. This is the inheritance of God in Christ. By this the gates of hell are stormed, and heaven invades the earth. What is born of God overcomes death in the world and God’s grace prevails with unexpected glory!
May you children and your children’s children invade the earth with God’s New Covenant life and grace.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:www.ted4leaders.comwww.ted4you.com orwww.houseofbreadministry.org.Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is:House of Bread Ministry3210 Meridian St.Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
If we want the government of God, we must each have a willing heart for the government of God. To embrace God’s government is to let go of our old way of administrating our lives. Our old administration is one of information whereby we seek a knowledge of good and a knowledge of evil to do what we feel is right according to our own understanding. The government of God is made known through the transformation power of Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds. God’s government is the life of God’s kingdom empowering our lives from within.
Our own lives without Christ, are merely kingdoms of our own will. We are predestined in Christ for something greater. We are predestined in Christ to be expressions of God’s kingdom in our character, nature, way, power, and authority as sons and daughters of God. To receive the will of God, we must trust God more than we trust our own plans. We must trust His way above our own. Unless we are willing to let go of what is ours, we cannot receive what is His.
Mark 8:34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”
How do we know we can trust God with the secret places of our hearts and minds. We can trust God because He is a loving Father. He is not a God who seeks to control our lives. He doesn’t want to restrain us. He wants to give us more than we can know. He is generous in all of His ways because He is a giver of life in all things. He is our Father and He wants us to be as He is. He wants us to be givers of life to our world. This is true love.
Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
God appoints leaders in the body of Christ to assist us in embracing the government of God. The government of God is not a Christian structure of leadership or administration. It is a personal relationship with God in each heart to know God intimately and powerfully.
God’s abundant ways are expressions of His love working in us, through us, and for us in all things. The kingdom of God within us is an administration of God’s love. New Covenant leaders embrace the working of God’s love in their own hearts and minds and then they lead others to do the same. The work of God’s love is made real by His manifest presence in us. This is to know Holy Spirit as the person of God’s love. Holy Spirit has been sent in Jesus’ name to cause us to be expressions of God’s heart.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is: House of Bread Ministry 3210 Meridian St. Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
We often look to God as our rescue, but He is much more. He is the source of our being. I believe we are coming into a greater season of knowing who God is. In knowing who He is, we will also see as He sees. I gave a prophecy a few weeks back in Bellingham. I felt to share that word today.
September 1, 2024 – Ted J. Hanson
The Spirit of God says, “I put before you an open door and My voice is calling to you, and I’m saying, Come up! Come up!” And some would say, “Why must I climb? Why is it so high?”
“I’ve not called you to come to a place of escape. I’ve called you to a place of clarity. For the air is clear and the vision is clear where I am.”
And you would say, “The climb is too difficult, the climb is too hard.”
“But I’m strengthening your arm,” says God, “and I’m giving you sure footedness like the deer to be able to go where you didn’t think you could go, and the arm is strong that you can pull yourself to the place you didn’t think you could be. But it’s not just come to the place where I am. It’s to come to the place where you see what I see.” For God says, “I’m sending you forth as My givers of life. I’m causing you to be My sons, My daughters, My living waters. I’m causing you to come and to see Me as I am so that you can see yourselves as you should be.”
“And this difficulty is not a difficulty of the flesh. It’s a challenge to your spirit. For I ’m calling you to the place of clarity. For where you are the atmosphere is cloudy, but where I am the atmosphere is clear. And some of you are calling for Me to change your circumstance, to change your situation, but I’m calling you to come to Me. Because where I am the circumstance is clear, the vision is clear, and the strategy is made clear.”
“And I’m calling you to be My outstretched arm. I’m calling to see as I see, to be as I am – givers of life to your world. This is the Day called NOW. This is the season called TODAY. This is a time for clarity. It’s not that I’m coming to give you clarity. I have already given you clarity. So, come! Come to where I am and see what I see.”
As leaders, we are called to lead others to the place where God is. We lead to inspire others to be dwelling places of God’s presence. Clarity of vision is found when we see as God sees. We can only see as God sees when we find ourselves in Him and He in us. It is in abiding with Him that our vision becomes clear because it is in this hat things become clear.
Leaders lead others by seeking to see as God sees and inspiring those they lead to seek to see as God sees for everything in their lives. We cannot be distracted from God’s presence in the circumstances of our lives. God gives life, breath, and all things. When we see as He sees we become givers of life to our world.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is: House of Bread Ministry 3210 Meridian St. Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
The secret to leadership is found in the relationship and the following. We cannot lead unless we ourselves choose to be followers first. Who are you in relationship with? Who do you follow? Our ultimate relationship is with God by the power and intimacy of Holy Spirit within us. Leaders don’t decide where to lead based upon their own desires and vision. To lead God’s people we must agree with what Holy Spirit desires to do and is doing in the hearts and minds of those we lead. We don’t lead according to human purpose and strategy. Our gifts and anointing serve the authority of Holy Spirit. Our gifts and anointing don’t define our authority, they serve it. Our authority is a God-given responsibility to live our lives in a life-giving way to our world.
In everything we do as followers of Christ and leaders in the body of Christ, we have to be willing for God to interrupt us. When King David sought to bring the presence of God into Jerusalem, he had to learn a lesson of letting God be the one who determines our process and plan of carrying God’s presence.
When David became the king of Israel, he knew that he needed the presence of God in Jerusalem in order to rule as God’s sent king. He understood that the direction of God’s government is by God and not by men alone. In the history of David’s life the Ark of the Covenant had been missing from the Tabernacle of Witness for twenty years. The Ark of the Covenant was representative of the presence of God, and it was filled with the presence of God. In the beginning days of David’s rule there was a form of godliness in the Tabernacle, but God was not there. David understood that godly ritual is not a substitute for the presence of God. We must know this as well. Doing things designed to fulfill the purposes of God will not give us God’s presence. We must have God’s presence to discover God’s purpose and to lead for His purpose. A form of godliness is not enough to accomplish God’s purposes in the earth. Only God’s presence can bring about His kingdom will upon the earth. King David, as the governor of the government of God in the earth, recognized that in order to lead God’s house he had to have the presence of God (2 Sam. 6:1-15).
There are many hidden secrets in this story of King David. A profound secret is revealed in the death of a man whose name meant “strength” (Uzzah). He was struck dead for trying to steady the ark while it was being transported to a prepared place known as Nachon’s threshing floor (Nachon means “prepared”). David was attempting to move God’s presence without the instruction of how to carry it. It didn’t matter how spiritual of a procession he orchestrated or how much he had prepared to succeed. His means of transport was a human method and form for moving it, not a relational response to God’s instructions. The stumbling of an ox, and the death of the man who tried to control the presence of God in the task, interrupted David’s means of transport. God expects us to do things His way. Human strength and preparation are not a substitute for the way of God. In all the form that we have of God, we have to be willing for God to interrupt us. When God interrupts us, it’s not a correction to shame us. It’s a correction to keep us in the path of life for the glory of God in and through our lives.
Uzzah’s death was symbolic of the death of strength. We have to be willing to allow God to change our form of operation if our form of operation is absent God’s presence. The blessing of God is found in the presence of God. To get the presence of God we have to desire Him more than any work we may think we are doing for Him.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is: House of Bread Ministry 3210 Meridian St. Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
The government of God is not a government of godly or biblical principles whereby we are simply informed as to how to act or what to do in life. It is not merely an administration of Christian beliefs or values. The government of God is the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. It is the manifest presence of Holy Spirit transforming our hearts and minds because we are a dwelling place of God. Instructions alone can never empower us to become a testimony of God in character, nature, way, power, or authority. We can never come to understanding of these things by godly information or godly laws.
2 Corinthians 3:15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. 16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Only the manifest presence of God in our lives transforms us from within. This is the government of God. Leaders assist by setting an example and serving to administrate an atmosphere and path by which the government of God can govern our lives. The kingdom of God is not merely a coming kingdom someday. It is a constantly coming kingdom within us that transforms our lives. The internal kingdom of God causes our kingdoms to manifest as kingdoms of our Lord and Christ. The Lordship of Jesus and the anointing of Christ in, with, and upon our lives empowers us to become a testimony of God’s kingdom to our world.
The Old Covenant served as a shadow of the good thing to come. The good thing to come was an administration of grace. The administration of grace is an administration of God’s manifest presence dwelling in us. It is an administration of God’s manifest presence working in and through us to be givers of life to our world.
When King David became king in Israel, something was missing from the Tabernacle of Witness. The ark of the covenant had been missing for twenty years. All of the ceremony of the tent was performed, but the manifest presence of God was not there. Forms of service, methods of ministry, or simply administrating what we believe to be the will of God is not enough. We must live with and be empowered by the manifest presence of God in our lives. King David knew that to be the king of Israel, a testimony of the kingdom of God upon the earth in shadow form, he had to have the manifest presence of God. He was not merely interested in returning the presence of God to a form of law that didn’t value God’s presence. He knew that to be king in Israel, every decision and act of his rule had to be made by the inspiration of God’s word and presence in his life. For this reason, King David sought to create a tent for God’s presence in Jerusalem and put the ark of God’s covenant there – 2 Sam. 6:1-15.
In the beginning days of David’s rule there was a form of godliness in the Tabernacle, but God was not there. RITUAL is not a substitute for the presence of God. King David, as the governor of the government of God in the earth, recognized that to lead God’s house he had to have the presence of God in his house. As leaders, we lead for, from, and with the presence of God in our lives. We lead others to live in this same way in their daily lives. Only the manifest presence of God in us, with us, and upon us can fully empower us to be the husbands, wives, dads, moms, grandpas, grandmas, friends, neighbors, and members of our community. It is true in the things of the spirit, and it is true for all the things in the natural. The fruit and the power of the Spirit comes from the presence of Holy Spirit in our lives.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is: House of Bread Ministry 3210 Meridian St. Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
The government of God is the empowerment of Holy Spirit working in the human heart and mind. This is where the law of God is written. That law is the Father’s love given as a desire to those who willingly receive it. This is the writing of the character, nature, way, power, and authority transforming who we are from within. This is what empowers our thoughts and beliefs to be life-giving to our world. This is the internal government of the Kingdom of God. Leaders in the New Covenant are not the government of the church. They are simply governors serving the Holy Spirit for the will of God in all things. Every individual is responsible for the presence and purpose of God in their life. They are responsible to seek to be a participating member of the body of Christ for the will of our heavenly Father.
New Covenant governors cannot rob God’s people of carrying the responsibility of their covenant with God nor the blessing of His presence in their lives. The government is not what comes to the body, but it’s the design of the body and it’s the fuel in the body. The design of the body is for each individual to grow in knowing who they are in Christ and who Christ is in them. The fuel of the government of God is the manifest presence of Holy Spirit in each believer. This empowers each one’s response of faith. These truths are realized by each one turning to the Jesus whereby He is Lord by His Spirit working in and through each member of Christ’s body. Every believer is a part of the royal priesthood of God in Christ. We are all kings and priests unto our God.
Revelation 1:5 To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
The leaders of the Church are NOT the government of God. Those who are responsible to lead in the Church are covenant governors to serve the body of Christ in fulfilling the identity, testimony, and purpose of being kings and priests to our God and Father. The shadow of this was seen in the Old Covenant priests and Levites. It was not God’s desire to merely have one tribe in the role of carrying the covenant and presence of God. He has always desired that all of His people fulfill this role.
1 Chronicles 15:14 So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel. 15 And the children of the Levites bore the ark of God on their shoulders, by its poles, as Moses had commanded according to the word of the LORD.
The ark of God contained the presence of God along with the testimony of His Law and Spirit. In the days of Noah, the ark was a boat that carried the family of God’s people that would be left behind in the earth to fulfill God’s purpose and plan as the wicked were removed in the waters of the flood. God’s presence rested with Noah and his family for a furtherance of His plan in the earth. For the Israelites, the ark as the covenant was the sanctified container carried by the priests upon poles as they journeyed in their chosen path by God. The priests had the responsibility of carrying the ark in a way that demonstrated that the presence of God in the ark was what directed their path. That ark was the testimony of God’s presence resting with His people for His covenant purpose and plan in the earth. In the New Covenant, the ark that contains God’s presence is the body of Christ. God resting in our lives is the source of His covenantal purpose in our world. Leaders must lead to activate, facilitate, and release those they lead to embrace their role as members of the body that carries God’s manifest presence for His kingdom to come and His will to be done upon the earth as it is in heaven. Leaders are not called to minister on behalf of the body of Christ. They are called to equip each member for the work of the ministry. That ministry is the testimony of God’s love to the world. It is a ministry of God’s manifest presence and purpose to the nations of the world. Each member is meant to do their share in functioning together with others for the identity, testimony, and purpose of the body of Christ.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is: House of Bread Ministry 3210 Meridian St. Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
Leaders lead others to know the Prince of all princes, not merely principles of a Christian faith. It is the voice of God to our hearts that empowers us to live, move, and have our true being in life. Principles of truth testify of God in His character but only God can transform us to become like Him in His ways. Knowing Christ transforms our character. Seeking to merely adhere to principles of His character can only conform us by restraining us in some way. The New Covenant is revealed through an intimate relationship with God in each one’s heart. It is a spirit-to-Spirit connection that transforms us from within to be growing and maturing members of the body of Christ. A priority of leadership is not teaching people what or what not to do. It is inspiring others to seek to know God for who He is so that they can become who they are meant to be.
I believe that much of the church tries to operate with Old Covenant principles. Principles alone cannot change the lives of people. We all need the influence of a greater Prince that can empower us to be sons and daughters of God in Christ. Christ in us can give us the true life-giving changes that are only testified of in godly principles. The system of the Old Covenant was one of law and conscience, while the New Covenant is an administration of grace and truth. Under an administration of the knowledge of good and evil it was necessary to have a knowledge of good to inspire the human desire for the One who is good. That knowledge either came in the form of the administration of the human conscience or in the form of law. The perfect knowledge of good was given through the full expression of law in the Torah Law of God. God had no intention of the Torah Law changing the inherent lives of people, it simply pointed to the perfect knowledge of good in a time of the administration of the knowledge of good and evil. It lacked the fullness of truth, which could only be revealed in and through a human expression of grace, and truth.
Galatians 3:24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
Jesus was the Word of God in flesh. God became a man as an expression of God in human form as the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person. The word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood so that anyone and everyone could be transformed by God and become an expression of God in their flesh.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth…
John 1:17…For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
Jesus as a man was full of grace and truth. The influence of His life was the Spirit of God within Him and by this He grew as a testimony of God in human form. He was the Word in flesh. He was the Truth. To lead the church as New Covenant leaders we must embrace the realities of New Covenant grace and truth. We cannot put New Covenant rule with Old Covenant principles and expect it to work. Godly principles are a witness to God’s character, nature, and way but only a NOW relationship with God in our hearts empowers us to become truth. As church leaders we are governors of the government of God, but the government of God is the life of God within the heart of the church and within the heart of each believer. We must lead in a way that activates, facilitates, and releases the life of God within the church and its members. Our role is not merely to teach godly principles but to demonstrate an intimate relationship with God that inspires others to follow.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:www.ted4leaders.comwww.ted4you.com orwww.houseofbreadministry.org.Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is:House of Bread Ministry3210 Meridian St.Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
When I was completing my master’s degree in biblical studies, I was asked to write a simple theology of the Old Testament and a simple theology of the New Testament. My conclusion was this (from my book: The Now Covenant):
The Old Covenant testimony revealed that God always wanted a people who could say God was their God, it would be said of them that they were God’s people, and they would know the reality of living together with Him. The New Covenant testimony is that God finally has a people who from their hearts know that God is their God. He has passed over their sins and made them dependent upon Him in their hearts. He is their righteousness. God finally has a people who are a testimony of Him. They have peace with Him in their hearts because He is their peace. There is no gap between them and Him and thus the testimonies of His heavenly realities are becoming increasing testimonies in their lives and others can see it. God finally has a people who live together with Him in all things. They know the joy of His manifest presence in their hearts. They know that God gives life, He gives them breath, and He gives them all things.
These three things were seen in the Old Covenant through the main feasts of Israel. Passover depicted the testimony of being the people redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. God was their God. Pentecost depicted the testimony of being people of God’s testimony – the Word and the Spirit. We are different than those who seek to live for themselves in the world. We seek God and live to be a testimony of Him in our world. Tabernacles depicted the testimony of being people who celebrated every harvest in partnership with God for His purpose and glory in all things. We don’t live for our own kingdoms, but for the kingdom of God. These realities were not intended to merely be ceremonial feasts. They are attributes of a way of life with God as His family in this world. God is our God, we are His people, and we live together. It is for these three things that leaders lead.
Leaders lead others in knowing God in a personal and intimate way. He gives them life. We are loved by God, and it is God’s love that gives us life at all times. Leaders lead others in knowing the supernatural power of God’s love. They lead in knowing the righteousness of God found in Christ. It is a righteousness of being loved by God through the testimony of Jesus – the redeemer of our lives.
Leaders lead others in being the family of God with the testimony of His Word and Spirit in this world. We have peace with God and there is no gap between us and Him. We are expressions of Him for the glory of His inheritance in all things. God loves us and we love Him! We reveal His love to our world through His continual change in our lives.
Leaders lead others in a partnership with God in all things. God gives us all things and all things are for His purpose and glory. Our lives are filled with many seasons of harvest and each harvest is purposed to give the food of life to our world and plant the seeds of life for a generation to come. This is to live our lives as sons and daughters of God who is our Father. We are givers of life as He is a giver of life to us.
We must live our lives each day with these three strong values in our hearts. We should expect to experience them every day and we should seek to celebrate them with our attitudes, thoughts, and actions in life. God is our God, we are His people, and we live together in all things.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is: House of Bread Ministry 3210 Meridian St. Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
Today I want to address the focus of our lives. What has our attention? What is at the center of who we are and what we do in life? If our attention is upon some created thing, we cannot become who we are created to be. Our attention must be upon our Creator for us to be created as we should be in life. We were created by the word of God and the word of God is what causes us to discover our true identity, testimony, and purpose in life. That word is not simply something that God has spoken in the past. It is not the Scripture, but it is fully Scriptural in its substance. The word of God is the voice of God to our hearts. When are spirits are joined to His Spirit, we hear His voice from within. His voice is the voice that creates us and forms us to be who we are meant to be. For this to happen, we must value Him above all others and above all things in life.
We need to put God first to be who we are in all things. God is the only one who brings us out of bondage into our path of destiny. His love is supernatural. He is not limited by anything that is created. When He walks into the room, everything in the room changes. When He enters a space of our life, we find His life in that space. His powerful love leads to His powerful purpose.
Exodus 20:2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 You shall have no other gods before Me.”
God brings us out of darkness, and He frees us from anything that imprisons us. He sets us at liberty so we can know the influence of His liberty in our lives. God wants us to be sons and daughters who bring freedom and liberty to our world. This is the testimony of life. We find true freedom and liberty when we see Jesus as the center of every area of our lives.
To put God first, is to put Him at the center of everything. He is at the center of our marriage, our family, our job, our service, and every aspect of our lives. Our attention is not upon God at the beginning of the day and then everything else throughout our day. Our attention is upon God at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of every day. We live for His kingdom and for His will in all things.
Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
We are a temple of Holy Spirit and our attention, affection, and motivation in life is from His presence in our lives. As leaders we set an example of living our lives with Jesus in the center of of all things. He is the voice behind us that motivates us by faith in life. His voice is a voice of love and when we live our lives with Jesus in the center, we discover our identity, testimony, and purpose in life. He is the Word that creates us. He is the beginning and the ending of every day.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
When we keep our focus on Jesus, we receive the life and the light that is our light as sons and daughters of God. To do this, we practice being aware of His presence. We talk to Him. We listen to Him. We respond to Him! He is our light and through Him we become a light in the darkness of our world.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:www.ted4leaders.comwww.ted4you.com orwww.houseofbreadministry.org.Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is:House of Bread Ministry3210 Meridian St.Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
Today I am posting a blog from a few years ago. I felt prompted by Holy Spirit to remind us as leaders about the justice system of God. God’s justice is not merely one of right and wrong. It is a justice of mercy and grace. It is a justice system of love.
God desires to give His love to all people, but not all people desire to receive what He wants to give. When we turn even in the slightest measure towards Him, we discover the amazing power of His unsurpassable affection. In Christ, former enemies become friends and those who were once not a part of His plan find themselves fulfilling His purposes in the earth.
As leaders we must lead with this same example. We should desire to love everyone. We should be willing to love all people, but we can only give our love to those who want our love. We cannot force our lives upon them, but at a hint in our direction we should be ready to respond even as God our Father responds to us. By this even former enemies can become friends.
Isaiah 61:5-6 Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But you shall be named the priests of the LORD, they shall call you the servants of our God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory you shall boast.
By the power of Christ’s internal kingdom of life, even those who did not know Him find themselves sowing and reaping in His kingdom. They find themselves standing as priests before Him and they become those who serve Him for the glory of His purposes in the earth. I believe that eating the riches of the Gentiles is receiving them as brothers and sisters in the kingdom of God. Those who did not know God become part of His family for the inheritance of the family name. The glory of the Gentiles is their salvation in Christ! We are living in a time where the harvest of the nations will be seen as those who labor in the fields of God’s purpose in the nations. We must be willing to partner with others for the sake of the purpose of God’s fields in the earth.
It is not in the defeat of those who have not known the covenants of God that we rejoice. It is in their glory! When those who had not known the covenants of God become those who sow and reap in the kingdom of God it is a time to rejoice in the justice system of the kingdom of God. It is a justice system of the Tree of Life. It is a justice system of love. Those who had not known the covenants of God are no longer bound to shame; but have found a place of inheritance among those who are the redeemed of the Lord!
Isaiah 61:7 Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be theirs.
This is a justice system of forgiveness and healing. It is a justice system of new beginnings and of grafting into the ancient things of God. Those who come at the end of the day will get the same wages as those who came at the beginning of the day. The ceilings of the past will become the foundations of the present, only to increase in the testimony of God’s grace and peace!
Isaiah 61:8-9 “For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering; I will direct their work in truth, and will make with them an everlasting covenant. Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed.”
It’s not fair! It’s scandalous by the standards of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s unfair by the standards of right and wrong! The justice system of the kingdom of heaven transforms the hearts of men to become a testimony of being children of God. Those who were the enemies of God become friends to His name! As leaders we must embrace God’s justice system of love above the justice system of right and wrong and we must set an example that those we lead can follow.
Isaiah 61:10-11 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
The Israel of God is not just a Jewish people group by birth, but a people of circumcised hearts! These are those who are true inheritors of God. They were Jew and Gentile, but now they have become the children of God in Christ! These are those who bear His name in the earth and the governing rule of their lives is Christ in them, the hope of glory! His righteousness and praise are springing forth before all the nations as the internal kingdom of Heaven invades the nations as the Kingdom that consumes all of the kingdoms of the world!
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:www.ted4leaders.comwww.ted4you.com orwww.houseofbreadministry.org.Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225To avoid us paying a transaction fee from your donation, you can also set up a payment or an automatic payment from your bank to House of Bread Ministry. Just set it up as a ‘bill pay’ through your online bank account and your bank will mail a check to House of Bread Ministry. We will record your payment as a donation to House of Bread Ministry (E.I.N. 91-2009037) and we will send you a contribution receipt at the close of the year.
Our Ministry Information Is:House of Bread Ministry3210 Meridian St.Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
Thank you so much for your donations to House of Bread Ministry. Your commitment to House of Bread helps us serve the Body of Christ with the ministry of life.
