Greetings;
As leaders, we must lead for the purpose of the good news of our destiny in Christ. I don’t believe that the message of predestination is about who is predestined in Christ and who is not. I believe it is about everyone’s commission when they find themselves in Christ. The outside of the door has a welcome sign of invitation for all to be saved. God’s desire is that all would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Once we enter Christ, we find our focus is changed. No longer do we live for our own needs, our own desires, or our own purposes in life. When we enter Christ, we discover our true purpose in life. We are called in Him to be a blessing by God’s Spirit to others, to live with the desires of Sons of God in Christ, and to fulfill the purposes of God our Father in all things.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
We are blessed by God in Christ to be the blessing of God in the earth. When we enter Christ, we discover the place where all are chosen before the foundation of the world. We then live for the glory of the Father’s name in all things. The power of our destiny in Christ is by the working of His grace in our lives. We are accepted in the Beloved to fulfill the purpose of the Beloved in all things. Jesus is the eternal Adam and we are members of the Eternal Eve in Christ. It is only in that that we can fulfill the good news that was preached to Abraham, the father of faith.
What was the gospel (good news) preached to Abraham? I believe that we find this good news recorded in the 22nd Chapter of Genesis. In this story, Abraham had revealed his faith in believing God’s good news by his willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. He expected God to raise him from the dead, because he believed the One who promised more than he believed the promise (Heb. 11:17-19).
Genesis 22:15-18 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
There are four key elements in the good news preached to Abraham. Those four things were:
1) In blessing I will bless you
2) In multiplying I will multiply
3) Your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies
4) In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed
The good news that God gave Abraham was not that He would merely bless him. It was that in blessing He would bless him. The Hebrew word for blessing here is placed in a double. It is the word blessing repeated twice. It can mean great blessing, but it more clearly states that in blessing God would bless. This is the foundation for belief of every human being. Do we believe and know that we are the blessing of God in the earth? When we realize who we are, we will live to be who we are. We are a testimony of God’s likeness and image in this world and we were born to bring glory to His name. As leaders, we must lead people in a way that they know who they are in Christ. They are not only blessed by Him they are His blessing in the earth. While the enemy pronounces “shame on you” words of bondage and death, God pronounces “shame off you” words of freedom and life. Being a blessing starts with believing who God is so you can believe who you are in Him. This is the foundation of the good news preached to Abraham. God’s plan was to make a way for human kind to be restored in the likeness and image of their heavenly Father in the earth. As leaders, we must lead others with a foundation of believing God and believing who we are in Him. It is the power of God’s Word and Spirit conceived in the human heart that establishes a foundation of believing God and believing who they are in Him. As leaders, we must be facilitators of God’s Word and Spirit in the hope of transforming the beliefs of men.
Living to be a blessing is the first step in doing our part in the calling of Christ, as part of the inheritance of Christ, by the power of Christ, for the purpose of Christ in all things.
Ephesians 1:18 …the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power…
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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