Greetings,
Our path in life is meant to be one of calling, inheritance, and purpose. I believe that the place of our calling is the place of our identity. Our calling is not a calling of humanity as independent individuals seeking for life. Our calling is to find our identity in the calling of Christ. It is a calling in the family name. Who are we in the corporate testimony of Christ? The path that God has for us is one that reveals the testimony of our Father’s kingdom influence and our Father’s will being done in the earth as it is in heaven. Our future is connected to others. It is connected to others in our past in the path set before us and it is connected to those who will follow our footsteps in our destiny in Christ. As leaders we must set an example that other can follow in this path of calling. When we find our place in the calling of Christ, we begin to reveal our part in the inheritance in Christ. Inheritance is not something we get from our parents to spend. It something given to us to expand in the earth for the benefit of the word that we influence. I believe that another word for inheritance can be testimony. Our testimony is not a testimony of self, but a testimony of the power of Christ in us. The power of Christ in us is not meant to simply benefit us, it is meant to benefit the world around us. We are given a part in the testimony of Christ to expand the life of Christ in the world that is given to us. It is part of a generational path that invades the earth with heaven’s grace. We are not simply on a journey to get to heaven when we die. We are on a path to bring the influence of heaven into the earth that will expand in the generations that follow.
When we find our part in the inheritance of Christ, the testimony of Christ, we begin to find ourselves in the influencing power of Christ. The power of Christ in and through our lives is meant to change names in the earth. Names are places of character, nature, way, power, and authority. Our part in the power of Christ is an influence that is above principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, and names. It is an influence that changes names. It changes dominions. It changes thrones, powers, and ultimately principalities. The first things of darkness, the normal responses of darkness, become transformed by first things of light and it creates new normal or first responses in the earth. These are new realities of life in the earth that come by the transforming power of Christ. This is the ultimate destiny and purpose of our path in life. Our path in life is a path of who we are in Christ. It is who we are in the family identity, testimony, and purpose in all things. To find this path we must apply our heart to instruction. We must listen to words of knowledge.
Proverbs 23:12 Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to words of knowledge.
To be a good leader, we must first be a good follower. Our path is a path of destiny. Thus, we must learn and listen to the voice of God in the place that was, that is, and will be. We must also seek to pass on the wisdom and knowledge of the past to the generations beyond us. We must live for the future generations of the calling, inheritance, and destiny in Christ.
Proverbs 23:13 Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. 14 You shall beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell. 15 My son, if your heart is wise, my heart will rejoice—indeed, I myself; 16 Yes, my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak right things.
This is not an abusive beating, but the discipline of love. There is pain in the discipline, but it is not a pain unto death. It is the sacrificial pain of someone who loves and wants to give the full inheritance of all that is in the family tree. It produces the fruit of a right relationship of love.
Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
The rod of correction is not a rod of merely teaching right and wrong. It is a discipline of love that grafts the next generation into the spirit of the family tree. It grafts them into the family identity, inheritance, and purpose of destiny.
The word for rod in Proverbs 23:13 is the Strong’s reference number: 7626 Hebrew: shebet Definition: a scion, i.e. (lit.) a stick (for punishing, writing, fighting, ruling, walking, etc.) or (fig.) a clan (tribe). The šêḇeṭ is a grafting stick, like is used in the process of grafting in a tree. I have an apple tree that I planted in the year 2000 and it has six grafted branches. God told me to plant the tree and that the six grafts represent the kind of church that He wants. Six is the number of man and God’s church is both Spirit and human. It is a place of connection of God with man where God reveals who He is through diverse expressions of humanity. Each branch on my tree produces a different kind of fruit. On my tree there are red apples, green apples, yellow apples, and many combinations of diversity in the fruit of apples. There is one tree, one root, and one life-flowing sap in the tree, but there are six branches with unique fruit on each branch. This is the same principle that is revealed in this Scripture of Proverbs 13:24. Each of the branches on my grafted tree were a šêḇeṭbefore they became a fruit bearing branch. The mature branches today are the fruit of the pain of grafting to the parent tree. The grafted branches represent the future fruit of the tree and they are the grafted branches into the life that comes from the roots of the family tree. The nutrients of life to the roots of the tree have to become the same source of life to the very end of the branches. When you graft a branch to a tree, you have to first wound the tree. You have to find a tender branch on the old tree, and you have to see the need to embrace the pain for grafting a branch that is different in its destiny to the roots of the inheritance of the tree. If a parent enjoys giving discipline to their children, they have not found a tender branch on the tree. They have to become tender in order to empower the child to be tender in their connection to the love that is being given through the parent. If the discipline doesn’t hurt the parent, something is lacking and there will not be a grafting. If there is not pain for the child, something is lacking and there will not be a grafting of the branch to the inheritance of the tree. The pain is the testimony of love. Without the pain, something is lacking in the love. The pain is not the pain of abuse, it is the pain of love. You cannot destroy the diversity of fruit intended to be manifest in the branches of tomorrow, but you must also see that it is essential that the branch finds its life in the roots of the tree. What the parents have the children need and who the children are is essential to become a family that is new in the generations to come.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Thank you to all who support House of Bread Ministry in prayer and in financial contributions. We are reaching the nations for the sake of the generations in God’s plan. Your prayers and support have partnered with us and we are reaching the people of Portugal, Bulgaria, Nations in Africa, Spain, Wales, England, Ireland, Netherlands, Canada, and the U.S.
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
www.ted4leaders.com
www.ted4you.com or
www.houseofbreadministry.org.
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
Thank You – Ted J. Hanson
