Blog In Audio:
Greetings;
What is our goal as leaders? I believe that our goal in everything is to lead others into encounters with God as their Father, Jesus the Son, and Holy Spirit as the One who reveals the mystery of the fellowship in all things. I don’t believe that God our Father sent Jesus to merely show us what to believe. I believe He came to demonstrate to us a life of a Son of man in relationship with God the Father in a testimony of love, life, intimacy, and power. He didn’t just model this truth; He made a way for us to daily experience this reality in our lives. I don’t believe that Christianity is what God had in mind for us. I believe it is Christ in humanity, the true reconciliation of the human race to God as their Father. As leader, we seek to lead others into this truth in growing moments to the fullness of their lives.
We don’t lead because we are trying to create something that is different than what we don’t believe worked before. We lead to point to the One who empowers faith in the human heart. That faith is a supernatural response to the internal voice of God’s Spirit in our hearts. We are not “anti” anything in life. We commit the focus of our lives on Christ. We know that Christ in us is the hope of glory and Christ in each one we lead is their hope of glory in all things. I believe that glory is the life of God in and through them in this life and into the eternal realities of heaven beyond this life. In this life we see increasing measures of heaven invading our world. We see the eternal life of God filling the circumstances of our lives until in the ultimate destiny death is swallowed up by life. This is our great hope in Christ.
If we live to fix the things of the past our focus is on the past. If we live to embrace God in the present, our focus is on greater things. Our focus is on heavenly things in this life and into eternity. This was the cry of the heart of the apostle Paul for those in the world of his day.
Philippians 3:7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
Paul wasn’t talking about him being at risk in not going to heaven when he died. He was talking about attaining to the resurrection life of Christ in increasing measures in this life. If we live to change the world, our focus is on the world. We can even find ourselves bound to some bitter root of the past with this mentality. We don’t live to change the world; we live to embrace the life of heaven in our world. Receiving heavenly things will change our world, but our focus must be upon receiving heavenly things. There is always more to know in God and more to know of God. We must reach forward to know Him in all things. Our upward call in Christ is to know Him and to lead others into knowing Him too. Our focus is Christ Jesus in all things! In the world, people are led by strong opinions of the soul and natural desires of the flesh. In Christ we are led by His strong Spirit and the supernatural desires of our Father’s will.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Donations can be made at the link on the home site of:
Checks can be made payable to House of Bread Ministry and sent to:
House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
