Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today is the first day of a new year, a new decade, and a new season in the life of the church. What is most necessary for us as leaders and what is most necessary for the church as we enter into this new season? This year is not just a year, it is also a leap year. We have one more day to see what we need to see and to be what we need to be for the glory of Jesus name in this time called now.
God is not just a being that visits us or calls upon us to visit Him. He is our life! The house that He has always desired is a house of human life. To be on earth as it is in heaven requires us to become the place of God’s habitation upon the earth. The church is not some place we go or a building we attend. The church is the body of Christ. It is the house of God! It is the place of God’s habitation. God doesn’t just want us to believe in Him, He wants us to believe Him. To be the place of His believing. It is not a day of the week or a season in the year, but a reality called now. Jesus is the foundation of this house and He is the way by which we become the place of God’s habitation.
Hebrews 3:1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, 2 who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. 3 For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. 5 And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, 6 but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.
We are the house of Christ. The house of God’s manifest presence. The time to hear Him is ‘Today’ and always ‘Today’. It is a time and place of knowing God’s rest. It is a place of God resting in us and us resting in Him. Perhaps the most important thing we can do as leaders in 2020 is be an example in being the place where God rests and the place that rests in God. We must lead those in our sphere of influence into this truth to truly be the people of God.
Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. 10 Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
If we are a place that God rests, we can know His voice every moment of every day. This is a word that I gave at Alife Church this past Sunday. I feel it is very important for this new decade that we have just entered:
I just hear God saying that the past decade there were many things that were not necessarily wrong that you held on to. They were enough for the time to get you to the future, but they weren’t enough to get you into now. And I hear God saying; today if you’ll hear His voice, today if you will hear His voice. So, God wants you to exchange the future for today, because the future as you saw it is stuck in the past. And God has better things for you than you could imagine, but the time is now. And God is releasing a grace for His body to be able to enjoy the moment, enjoy the hour, enjoy the day – today if you’ll hear His voice. Don’t even look at this year as; ‘how am I going to get to the end of this year?’, because that’s how you looked at last year. And last year, God says, I gave you enough to get you to the end of this year, but I didn’t give you enough for today. But now I am releasing My grace for now, and there’s a grace that’s coming on My family, a grace that’s coming on My people to appreciate the time called now. And don’t let now be tainted by what was; or diminished by what you think is yet to come. But let now be, be juicy, let now be full of life. Let now enter into your mouth, let now enter into your taste buds, not just your stomach. And live for the moment, live for today – today if you’ll hear My voice. But God says, there’s a grace for this. So today is the beginning of a moment of reality, and it will be real, unlike any time before.
As leaders we must lead by an example of being men and women who embrace God’s manifest presence resting in our lives each and every day. Let’s embrace the time called ‘today’ and release the things that no longer exist. The place where God rests and we rest in Him is more valuable than the stories of yesterday or the yet to come promises of tomorrow. Christ is everything!
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Thank you to all who have been able to contribute to our mission. Tickets have been purchased for ministry in New Mexico, Texas, Angola Africa, and Portugal. We are set through March 2nd. Please continue to pray for us and contribute when you can. We plan to move into 2020 with full purpose and a focus of bringing New Covenant life and grace to the nations.
Thanks Again – Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
