Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
What does it mean to be saved? Is being saved merely a ticket to heaven when we die, or is it a matter of bringing heaven into our lives now and for eternity? Jesus was the Father’s gift of love to redeem humanity. We were looking for a way to get to God, but He wanted us to understand that He desired to make a way to get to us. Religion alone seeks to get to God, but the intimacy of Christ within us seeks to bring God and heaven into our world. God has always desired to live with mankind in all things. He wants an intimate relationship that can support His purpose in all things. We were the ones preventing Him from coming near to our hearts, but the Father’s gift of His only begotten Son made it possible for us to see Him for who He really is. Seeing God for who He is has inspired us to invite Him into our lives, inside and out! This is the testimony of heaven’s grace, an administration of God’s transforming love. The administration of love cannot live in the atmosphere of law or promiscuity, but God has made a way by His gift of mercy to free us from the administrations of death.
John 3:18-21 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
God does not condemn the world. The administration of the knowledge of good and evil condemns the world. True light is love. It includes mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation, and all the things of true life. We cannot hold on to a justice system that demands others pay their debts to us when the gift of God to us was one that paid the debts of us all! Outside of Christ there is still a need for all to acknowledge the condemnation that they are bound to because of the administration they embrace. Only in Christ is that condemnation lifted. The New Covenant does not exist for all simply because Jesus died for all. The New Covenant is available to all, but it can only be attained through an exchange of administrations.
Mercy is obtained by an acknowledgement of mercy given. God loves us, but we don’t deserve His love. To think we deserve His love is an injustice in the covenant of law and conscience. The justice system of grace is available for all, but one must first receive the end of the justice system of law and conscience. That requires God’s mercy, and it can only be obtained through a revelation of the cross. The revelation of the cross is the love of a Father and a Son. It is the sacrifice of the Son for the sake of the Father’s will. It is the sacrifice of the Father to give His only Son that all might come and know the life of a son or daughter of God. It is the love of God for humanity that all might come to know the love of God. When we know the love of the cross we boldly come to the throne of God’s grace to demonstrate the love of the cross for the sake of others in our world.
Love is a revelation, and it includes God’s mercy and His grace. His mercy justifies us to live and His grace empowers us to live in life. It is a transition in the administration of each of our lives and it invokes the scandalous justice of God’s love. As leaders, we must demonstrate the love of God in our own lives for the sake of those we lead. We must lead others into the path of life, a path of being life for others in our world. It is a testimony of God’s love among the communities of mankind. It is not about works of ministry. It is about being a family of God’s love.
Leadership is a matter of becoming for the sake of others becoming also. We are not leading others to merely do what we do. We are leading them to invoke and inspire each one to find a relationship of life with God in all things. It is not a matter of doing; it is a matter of being. The word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood so that anyone and everyone in the neighborhood could become expressions of the life and love of God to their world. This is the testimony of God’s grace working in and through our lives.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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Thanks Ted,
Hearing this, blessed and inspired me today
Miss you, and appreciate you ….. Hebrews 6:10