Greetings;
I have been writing concerning being a community of children, fathers, and sons. As the family of God we must always be childlike in our expectations, faith, teachability, and understanding of God’s love. We must also desire to grow up into mature sons and daughters who are like our heavenly Father in character, nature, way, power, and authority. To do this we must find God’s grace to overcome in all things. In light of this, I felt to repost a segment of a blog I posted in the past. It involves being clothed in grace.
We are not standing in the earth defending ourselves from the enemy. The enemy is defending himself against us because we are dispossessing every power of death by the power of God’s grace. We are storming the gates of hell with the gate of heaven as the body of Christ in the earth. The influences of the realm of the dead are being eradicated by an invasion of the gate of heaven’s life. We must walk in God’s grace and be the people of God. The people of God bring the fruitfulness of God’s new covenant life and grace to the world. This involves standing, so that we will possess the inheritance of the earth beneath our feet.
The apostle Paul addressed the subject of standing in the sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians.
Ephesians 6:10-13 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
The full armor of God is the full clothing of His grace. The purpose of that armor is to empower us to invade the earth with life! We are transforming darkness to light, sickness to healing, bondage to freedom, and death to life in every form it is found. That armor of God’s grace is revealed throughout Scripture in many ways. The apostle Paul revealed it in the fourth chapter of Ephesians as 1) one Lord, 2) one Faith, 3) one Submersion, 4) one God and Father, 5) one God above all, 6) one God through all, and 7) one God in all (Eph. 4:4-6). The apostle Peter revealed these same things through the attributes of a spiritual house with a testimony of being: 1) a chosen generation; 2) a royal priesthood; 3) a holy nation; 4) God’s own special people; 5) God’s people of praise – once darkness, but now light; 6) the people of God; and 7) the people who have obtained mercy and now reign in life (1 Pet. 2:9,10).
Being clothed in the grace of God empowers us to dispossess the enemy in the land of our inheritance. It is the power of the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Might, the Spirit of Knowing, and the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord (Isa. 11:1,2). This is the power of the grace of God at work in our lives. It is the clothing of the manifest presence of God that dispossesses the enemy. The armor of God is the testimony that reveals God rests in our lives. Our standing is not a standing of defense, it is a standing of occupation and inheritance. As is written in the synthesis of Scripture, standing is a position of inheritance. The whole armor of God is a testimony of the fullness of God in bodily form (Eph. 1:22, 23). It is the empowerment of the sevenfold Holy Spirit of God in our lives.
Ephesians 6:14-18 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—
The armor of grace is the testimony of God’s love in our lives. We know one Lord, one desire of heart that empowers us to be the generations of His testimony. He picked us! He loves us! Our future testimony and posterity is made known by the truth of His love. A revelation of His love is giving us a new ‘want to’ for the empowerment of our commitment to God in Christ. We can boldly come and say, ‘here I am’. We are the little ‘i ams’ in the big ‘I AM’ of Christ. We have been granted repentance unto life that frees us from every dead work of the flesh. We are alive in Christ!
We live from our hearts with works that speak of our faith toward God. Our wisdom is not found in the strength of our own works, but in the empowerment of works that testify of our love for God and witness to our faith toward God in all things. It is through a right relationship with and a dependency upon God that we live from our hearts with faith toward God. It is the grace of the Spirit of Wisdom that reveals our royal and priestly roles in life.
Something is dripping off of our feet that reveals our heavenly position in Christ. We were once submerged in the bitterness of life, but now there is a response to God from our hearts that overflows with a testimony of His Holy Spirit. We are submerged in the grace of His Understanding. We were once of the ungodly nations of the world, but now we are a holy nation before our God. We stand under His submersions with a grace of the Spirit of Understanding to bring His life to the world. The testimony of His house in heaven is the reality of peace that we bring to the world in which we live.
We are not alone, but each stand as lights and the fire of life to create a shield of faith empowered by the Counsel of His light. The Father of lights is revealing us to be His children of light. We are light to the darkness, healing to all sickness, and life to death in this world. The Spirit of Counsel reveals that we are ministers of fire (Ps. 104:4) and the little fiery darts of the enemy pale week in the flame of His presence upon us. We are His special people, each carrying the grace of His life-giving hands of blessing as we walk in submission to Him and one another as the body of Christ.
We wear the helmet of His salvation. There is no god above us for He is the God above all in our lives. He is our salvation in every situation for we are fully awake in Him. The apathy of flesh has been overwhelmed by the passion of His Might. The grace of the Spirit of Might is making us alive to Him in all things and we contribute to the cause of Christ as His people of praise in the earth. We wear the grace of the Spirit of Might to reveal that He is the God above all gods and that we have fellowship with Him and one another in the power of His resurrection life!
Something is flowing through us that is a weapon of life. The life-giving words of God flow as a piercing weapon of love to the hearts of men. We release the sharp quickening edges of sacrificial love as our lives confess a love for God and for men. The judgments we make are not judgments of the flesh. They are judgments for the poor from the equity of our lives. We make decisions for others based upon who we are in Christ, not what they deserve in the flesh. We are the people of God who walk as the community of God to bring the communion of God to all men. The word in our mouths is a word of His love, a judgment of eternal life for all who believe in Him. We are the people of God and we wear the grace of the Spirit of Knowing, intimacy with God and men through Christ’s eternal judgment of love for all people.
Our decrees are those of the life of the Spirit and not those of defeat. Our destiny is not Nirvana, dust, or the grave. We reign on a throne in Christ and we manifest the glory that He sups and dines with us and we with Him. There is one God in us and our children and our children’s children will reign with Him in life. We wear the grace of the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord, praying always in the Spirit with an awe of His presence and glory in all things. We are the essence of the prayer of God to bring forth the full harvest of His destiny in the earth. We have obtained mercy and now we reign in Christ!
God’s grace is not His favor without change. God’s grace is His change made known in our lives that testifies of His favor. We are clothed in the power of God’s grace and we are dispossessing the enemy of Christ’s inheritance in the earth. Where the soles of our feet walk it is becoming the inheritance of God in the earth. His enemies are being made His footstool because His presence rests in and upon our lives as the children of God.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
