Greetings,
Each of us has been given a realm of rule in this life. We have each been given a life to have dominion in. I believe that dominion can only be fulfilled when we become the true testimony of who we are meant to be in Christ. When we become the authentic person that God has called us to be, we crumble the lies that seek to pervert the testimony of our dominion in life. Dominion is not a matter of control. It is a matter of truth. Truth crumbles every lie and truth is the full testimony of being the life-giving person God intends for each of us to be. This is not limited to our natural birth, but fully dependent upon God’s presence in our lives in order to be and to increasingly become. Truth is not based upon information we have attained to know, but the testimony that we become. Truth is not based upon what we do. It is a testimony of who we truly are. Truth is not based upon our own carnal or self-seeking desires, but upon the desires given to our hearts by a constant encounter with Him. God is life and true life-desires are granted to our hearts when we don’t lean on our own understanding, but acknowledge God in all our ways.
Psalms 37:3-6 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
Only by trusting in the Lord can we truly dwell in our sphere of influence in life. We can live there and exist there without Him, but we can only dwell there with Him. To dwell in the land is to bring life to its barren places and to crumble every lie with truth. God’s presence is the power of God’s grace and it is only by the power of God’s grace that we can bring life to the barren places of our lives. Our righteousness is only found when we discover the truth of who we are. We were born for the well-being of the world we live in. The creative power of our minds is merely an expression of our hearts and our hearts are the containers of life for the world. When are true to who we really are, we can do all things that serve the purpose of who we are. As leaders in the body of Christ we must set an example of truth and we must lead others into the testimony of who each one is in Christ. This is the strength of true dominion in life. Leaders set an example in trusting the Lord, thus they are empowered to lead others in doing good. Leaders set an example in accepting the responsibility of their lives for the sake of giving life to others, thus they lead others into the same. Leaders set an example of feeding on God’s faithfulness, thus they lead others to discover amazing testimonies of God’s love. Leaders set an example of delighting in the Lord and their hearts become bigger with time. Leaders lead people to discover the joy discovering the freedom of heart and mind that can only be found in Spirit of the Lord. Only the Spirit of the Lord within the human heart can bring true liberty in life. Leaders commit their way to the Lord and thus their leadership is merely an expression of God who leads all into discovering who they are in life. Leaders seek to know truth, become truth, and to be truth in the world in which they live.
We cannot attain to the truth of who we are from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We can only attain to the truth of who we are from the tree of life. The source of who we are is found in discovering who God is in our lives. I believe that the secret is in the coming of the influence of the kingdom of God in our hearts. The kingdom of God is not an external kingdom (Lk. 17:20, 21). It is an internal kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). It is the internal place of the heart. When we find the kingdom of God in our hearts we find the realm of God’s influence within us. What happens to our realm of influence in life when the realm of the God’s influence enters our hearts? God’s Spirit within us answers the questions of the human heart.
Acts 17:24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
We live, move, and have our being in God. The realm of God’s influence in our hearts will affect the spiritual and practical realities of the realm of our influence in life. God is the one who gives us life, breath, and all things. All things that we do in life are empowered by the life of God within us. The expression of who we are can only be discovered when we find the expression of who God is in us. God is the life and we are made alive by that life. God is the life-giving word and we are the voice, expression, and way of revealing Him to the world we live in. When we discover His presence in our hearts, we discover the source of our being. God is our God, we are His expression, and we live together with Him in all things. When we partner with God in who we are and receive Him in all that He is, we do works that express His glory in the sphere of our dwelling in the earth and we impact our time with the influence of God’s glory. We don’t get our identity from the things we do. All that we do finds its identity in who we are in Christ.
Jesus said that when we drink of Him, life-giving water flows from us to the world we live in (Jn. 7:37-39). The kingdom of God within us will cause our name to become a testimony of God in our realm of influence. Only by this can we know truth, become truth, and be truth in our world.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Thank you for your blogs, they are very timely. Deb