Greetings;
I believe that we are in the midst of a grassroots revolution in the earth. God is doing a work of His grace to reveal His people as the people of God. We were the people of a nation, the people of a culture, or some expression of the people of self; but God wants to empower us to be His people. He wants us to forsake the governments of the kingdoms of self and embrace the government of the kingdom of God. A government is the testimony of what rules the hearts and minds of people. Whatever beliefs reside in the human heart determine the strongholds of the human heart. Whatever we believe, determines how we act. How we act is simply the fruit of what we believe. The things we do in life do not change us, what we believe in our hearts changes us.
We are living in a time where God wants to reveal His government in a greater way. This means that He desires to change the beliefs of our hearts. There is a lot said today about the goodness of God, the love of God, and the grace of God. These things are sure and the testimony of being born to be loved by God is very true. We were not merely created to worship Him; we were born of His Spirit to know the truth of being children of God. God loves all people, therefore, He desires for all of men and women to be born again in Him. He wants us all to be born of the His Spirit so we can know what it really means to be loved by Him. He doesn’t want us to do things for Him. He wants us to know who we really are. In order to know who we really are we must first know who He really is. I saw a statement on the Internet the other day that said, “Knowing who you are is the beginning of wisdom.” I don’t believe that is true. The beginning of wisdom is not knowing who I am, it is knowing who He is. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is not only the beginning of wisdom; it is the beginning of knowledge and the key to understanding in life.
Psalms 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His instructions have good insight. His praise endures forever. (HCSB)
Job 28:28 He said to mankind, “The fear of the Lord is this: wisdom. And to turn from evil is understanding.” (HCSB)
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
The awe of His wonder inspires us to know Him and hear Him to become as He is in all things. This is what will change our actions in life. It is in believing Him, not just believing in our selves.
If our focus is upon who we are, we sometimes fall into a deception of expecting God to become like us. When we encounter something in His word that doesn’t match our perception of Him we want to change the word instead of changing our perception of the word. We come up with crazy ideas that the word is not relevant for today because God was only speaking to a culture of yesterday. Let me propose to you that He was speaking from the culture of the kingdom of heaven to the cultures of the world and that the culture of the kingdom of heaven is relevant to any and every culture of the world. We are not the advanced culture that has now come to be smarter than the culture of the kingdom of heaven. God loved us so much He moved into the neighborhood of humanity, but He did not become like the cultures of humanity. He expects the cultures of humanity to become like Him. He is not the God of the people. He expects us to be the people of God. The cultures of the world, in any and every season of humanity, are cultures motivated by selfish desires, selfish visions, and selfish agendas in the propagation of the governments of self. People living in the kingdoms of self put their personal desires and needs above any expectations of change that requires a supernatural action of God. They expect God to accept them as they are, but also leave them as they are. Anything that would require a discipline or a sacrifice to their accepted character is a stumbling block in their minds to believing who God is.
The kingdom of God is a culture of life. It is a culture that promotes the wellbeing of others. It is not a kingdom that becomes like the kingdoms of this world, but the kingdom that consumes the kingdoms of the world and causes them to become a testimony of the kingdom of God. Metaphorically speaking, He is like yogurt yeast in milk transforming what is to what should be. He is like living enzymes in yogurt transforming a culture of yogurt to a testimony of cheese. His culture is a higher reality than what we have known and what we were born into. He is not the one who needs to change to match who we are. We are the ones being empowered to change to a testimony of who His. His presence in our lives empowers us to embrace the principles, patterns, and values of His heart. The government of His kingdom is one of grace and truth. He will not conform to our lies, but will rather transform our deceptions to become testimonies of His truth.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
