Greetings,
The letters of the New Testament address the purpose of the Body of Christ and not individual rights. Peter wrote to the Jews about being a living temple. Paul wrote about being a body. In both cases, it was about being a community together. Being a community must be important. Church expression must be important. I am not talking about church expression for you to experience Jesus. I am talking about the church expression to be Christ with the diversity of the uniqueness and ability of Christ. I am talking about being part of the community of Christ for the purpose and destiny of Christ in the earth. If it is important, do you think it is a target for the enemy? Is family important? Do you think it is a target for the enemy? Modern societies are being swayed to destroy the value, importance, and destiny of family. Family is being redefined. Family in societies of the world is becoming defined as the place that meets our needs. Family is not the place that meets our needs. Family is the place that fulfills our destiny. The enemy wants us to redefine family. It is not a relationship that produces life beyond our lives anymore. It is a relationship that meets our needs so we can have happy lives. I understand the world thinks this way. I can’t condemn the world for thinking that way. They are the world. They think that living for themselves is going to satisfy them. Living for yourself is not going to satisfy you. The true purpose of life can only be discovered when we become life-givers. That is true life. It requires supernatural intervention. In our carnal nature, we are self-seekers. We need a supernatural intervention to make us seekers of God and a seeker of others. In our natural nature, we are afraid by what we see or perceive to see in life. So, we need a supernatural intervention so we are not afraid anymore. We live by faith and not by sight. We need a supernatural revelation to become who we were meant to be, not who we were naturally born as. We were naturally born with problems. We inherited problems. Our problems include things like anger, jealousy, insecurity, or some other form of selfishness. We can inherit these, we don’t just learn them. Some of these things are spiritual inheritance we receive in our families. We can inherit an inability to be covenant keepers or a desire for our needs to be fulfilled in some illegitimate way. Some things have come to us through experiences we have gone through, but other things we inherited because of experiences of our parents and others in the generations before us. We inherited things that are common to the sons of men, but not to the sons of God. God has made a way for us to become who we were meant to be. Being born again is supernatural! It is as miraculous as the virgin Mary becoming pregnant. It is the same. It is not less than. It is miraculous. We even have a better covenant than the covenant that Mary had. Mary has a better covenant now than she did when she was the natural mother of Jesus. She is very much alive as is Abraham, Jacob and others. They all have a greater revelation now than they did while alive in the Old Covenant.
Being Zion, the city of God, is impossible with men, but with God nothing is impossible. All things are possible. To be the body of Christ is impossible for the flesh. God has called us to be impossible, but for God all things are possible. We inherited things that need transformation. Without the supernatural intervention of God we are depressed, oppressed, gossips, haters of one another, covenant breakers, unable to make covenant, fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, or some other alteration to true life. Without God, we are these things. Not one is more than another, but all are less than what we are supposed to be. God has called us to be part of something supernatural. God has called us into the Selah of God. It is too much for us to understand. It is getting into the presence of God and being transformed by God’s grace, Selah. Selah is a, God do it! It means woe! Impossible! Make it so God! Make it so! Transform me. Saturate me. Grace is the saturating place of change. This is the church. It is not just a place to walk out Biblical principles. If it doesn’t look like walking out biblical principles, we must question what we are being soaked in, but it is more than seeking to adhere to some Biblical truth. It is a place of being transformed in our character, nature, way, power, and authority. We need spiritual mentors and parents, brothers and sisters, only to inspire us in our relationship with God concerning us. We are the body of Christ. The hope of glory is Christ in each of us, but the glory is the body of Christ. The glory is the fulfillment of His calling, the calling of Christ. The glory is His inheritance coming forth in the earth. The glory is the unsurpassing work of His power in us. We are the body Christ.
As leaders in the body of Christ we must set an example in pursuing the community of Christ above our own interests or needs. We must lead others into this same testimony. We must lead people to become what they can only be by the supernatural grace of Christ. We cannot just teach biblical principles, we must lead to see them become transformed in Christ for the testimony of the body of Christ.
Food For Thought
Ted J. Hanson
