Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
As leaders, we must know that Jesus is the way and He is the truth. We know this by being the place where God dwells in the earth. It is a place of the Holy Spirit in us and upon us. We must also know that He is the life! This is the fruit of our partnership with God being with us in all things.
The kingdom of God is an internal influence of God’s presence to our hearts and minds by the presence of Holy Spirit within us. It is a place of righteousness; a connection with God that gives a righteousness that is the fruit of being rightly joined to God through Jesus Christ. It is a place of peace; a testimony of heaven’s truth by the manifest presence of Holy Spirit spilling over upon our lives to testify that there is no gap between us and God. We must also know that Jesus is the life! True life is not just something we receive from God. It is the testimony of a partnership with God in all things that empowers us to walk in the authority of true purpose in life. That purpose is to be givers of life to our world. That partnership is the authority of God with us in every sphere of our influence in life. This is true joy, and it is the fruit of a partnership with God.
Psalms 16:11 You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Jesus revealed this to be another attribute of our lives today, tomorrow, and in the space between. Our true joy is fulfilling the purpose of God in our lives in a partnership with Him to bear the fruit of life for the sake of others in our world. As leaders, we walk in this and lead others to know this authority. God’s business is one of relationship and love. Our partnership with God will produce the fruit of love and relationship with God and one another. God is not a debt collector. He is a ransom redeemer! He desires for all to know friendship with Him and one another.
John 15:11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
The context of John chapter 15 is that of abiding in the vine of Christ to bear the fruit of Christ in all things. In that place of abiding in Him, we experience the loving hand of God that prunes away what cannot be fruitful, and He prunes the things that distract us from being able to bear the true fruit of life. God wants us to bear fruit. That fruit is the fruit of relationship with God and it invites and invokes relationships with one another. For this reason, Jesus stated that the new commandment was a love for one another based upon a revelation of His love for us. The true fruit of life comes from that place of love and relationships.
In the story of the unjust steward, Jesus commended the steward who was about to lose his livelihood for making deals by showing mercy with what had been entrusted to him by his master. His objective was to make friends because he knew that relationships would be important when all else failed. When his master saw what he was doing he recognized that he was making friendships for the future. Jesus said that this was the most important thing in life and he equated it to being faithful with the things that have been given to our care in life.
Luke 16:9 “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. 10 He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.”
The physical things of this world are not the substance of true fruit. It is how we handle relationships in this world that bears the fruit of eternal life. This is the fruit of a partnership with God as our Father in all things. True leadership is to lead through a partnership with God in managing our relationships with others in our world. This is dependent upon us knowing God with us in all things. This is the place of knowing joy in the Holy Spirit. This is true in every season of our lives. We must seek to be faithful with the things that have been given to us and use them for the purpose of making friends in life. God partners with us as a friend and doesn’t want us to merely relate to Him as the one to whom we owe our debts. God is with us in all things.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
