Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
As I wrote last week, God is reconfirming the foundations of our lives. Those foundations are set in the rock of Christ.Everything about our lives is meant to be built upon the foundation of Christ. The rock of Christ is a life-giving stone of life. It is not about what we get in life, but about what we give to the world we were born into. As leaders, we must lead others into the reality of being the life-giving house of God.
2 Corinthians 3:4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
The Old Covenant was based upon a knowledge given upon a mountain of judgment. It was a mountain that killed flesh, but it did not transform the flesh of men to become expressions of the word of God. It was a letter of a law that could only kill. A mountain of death is filled with stones of death. When someone was found short of being good according to the material of the knowledge of good and evil, they were judged by the rocks of that mountain. Those found guilty by its measurement were forced to leave the community of God’s people and they were put to death by stones (Num. 15:35, Deut. 13:10, 21:21). I believe that those stones were symbolic of the death we put upon ourselves when we seek to live under a governing system that makes us dependent upon knowledge and temps us to live independent from intimacy with God in our hearts. If we seek to live our lives under an administration of law or conscience, we seek to live independent from a place of life-transforming intimacy with God. We were not given life to spend it upon ourselves. We were not given life to create kingdoms that are separate from the kingdom of our Lord and Christ. We were given life to be expressions of the kingdom of God in the kingdoms of men.
The mountain of God is a mountain made of stones that are intimate with God in Christ. Each stone has the quality of hearing God in their hearts, responding to Him in their path of life, and becoming one with Him as the immovable, unshakeable rock in their lives. They too become life-giving stones as He is life-giving to them in all things. The life that we give is not life that is initiated by our own spirits, but by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and transformation within our own spirits. Our sufficiency is from God and not of ourselves. As leaders we must set an example and lead others into the place of discovering the internal sufficiency of Christ within the human heart. It is Christ in us that enables us to give life. The fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are attributes of the Holy Spirit and not the independent spirit of mankind.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
As leaders we must set an example of indulging in the Spirit of God. We must live in the Spirit and also walk in the Spirit in all things. We cannot walk in the way of our own human opinions, but in the life-giving ways of the Spirit of God. True righteousness is a right relationship with the Spirit of Christ in our hearts. We must lead in a way that others can see an example and follow into this right relationship with God in the Spirit. It is a matter of being dependent upon the life-transforming stones of grace found in the true mountain of God – the mountain of His life-giving habitation. This is the life-giving mountain of truth that comes by the internal transformation of our internal ways so we can truly walk in the paths of God in all things.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Thank you to all who support House of Bread Ministry in prayer and in financial contributions. We are reaching the nations for the sake of the generations in God’s plan. Your prayers and support have partnered with us and we are reaching the people of Portugal, Bulgaria, Nations in Africa, Spain, Wales, England, Ireland, Netherlands, Canada, and the U.S.
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House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
Thank You – Ted J. Hanson
