Greetings,

The church is the place of Zion, but Zion is also a place of the heart. The community of God is the place where our hearts are joined together. The church is a called out assembly, made one by the Spirit of Christ. It is the gate of heaven. It is where governmental decisions are made; where heaven comes to the earth. It is a mystery. It is not just a place where we physically come together. It is not just a place that we come together for fellowship and meetings. It is a mystery, where we come together in our hearts as us. I don’t think that anyone on planet earth has discovered the fullness of this truth yet. It is like marriage. I am not sure we have discovered the fullness of what marriage is. Few discover it in its fullness. Some experience a little, while others live in it, but never experience its true life at all. It is the mystery of parts brought together to be us, to be one. We are on a journey of discovery in these things. I believe that things grow in the generations. We are better off than we used to be. I believe that my children know more than I did at their age. Not because they are smarter, but because I have contributed to their foundation. If they live with the increase, their children should be greater than them. Doesn’t it stand to reason that the maturity of the church should increase in the generations? By this, the kingdom of heaven causes things to become better, more life-giving in the generations of those who believe.

Jesus was the sacrifice for us that we might have a new covenant. A covenant where He writes the character and nature of God on our hearts and minds. He changes us from the inside out. We should expect to become more loving, more merciful, to grow in our ability to be faithful. We should expect to become like our heavenly Father. We should expect to love Him more and more each year and to increasingly love one another. I can say that these things have been true in my life in my more than 44 years of knowing Christ. I am growing by the grace of God. In natural thinking I have been mistreated, but in spiritual thinking I have never been treated wrong. The difficult things were only intended to manifest the grace of God in my life. In natural thinking it is wrong for us to be misunderstood, but in spiritual thinking it is meant to be part of the process of bringing about the testimony of God’s grace in my life.

I have people who believe in me and I have people who oppose me in this world. In natural thinking, I should not have people that oppose me, but in spiritual thinking it is right. How can we say we are what we are if everything always goes for us? Do you think that God is a good Father? I think He is. Did you know that most of His children are in rebellion? Most of His children have either rejected Him or backslid in some way. According to natural understanding we might say He is a bad Father. He is a bad Father if we judge Him by what we can see outwardly. I know this is not true. Everything going well in our lives does not measure who we are. Everything going bad in our lives doesn’t measure who we are. The only thing that measures us, is us. What we are becoming.

Hebrews 10:19-20 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh…

Do you want to go into the holy of holies? What is the holy of holies? The veil is His flesh. The flesh of the body of Christ is the veil. What is beyond the veil? Beyond the veil is what is inside the body. Where is the holy of holies? Being inside the body of Christ. We cannot discover the holy of holies without one another. It is not on the outside of the veil in my flesh, but inside His flesh. Living in and from the holy of holies is to in and as the body of Christ.

Hebrews 10:21-25 and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

Bethel is the house of God. The place where angels ascend and descend. It is Zion, the city of God the house of God. We are to consider one another to stir up love and good works. Our being one together in Christ is more important than merely being one with Christ. This must be our aim, our focus, and the objective of our destiny as the body of Christ.

As leaders, let us lead for the manifest presence of Christ in the community of life. We are the place of heaven’s gate. We are Zion.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

    Greetings,

God loves each of us and each of us are inspired in our hearts to be seekers of God. We are seekers of God to become the blessing of God in the earth. We are the blessing of God to bring about the multiplication of His purpose and blessing in the generational families of mankind. Our descendants are destined to possess the gates of their enemies and the earth is to be changed by the destiny of our family name. We are more than ourselves, we are the corporate expression of God’s purpose and glory. We are the place of God’s kingdom administration in the earth. We are the place of Zion. Zion is a house of grace. Grace gives, grace never takes. God’s grace is God’s power to change our lives and to change the world we live in.

God wants us to understand grace. Grace is given to us, but it is not something that we take. It is something we must each find. It is found when we discover He is a giver. We know we have found grace when we become givers. When we are not givers, we haven’t discovered God’s grace. Zion is a culture of grace. It is not a less than covenant than the covenant of law, it is a greater covenant. It is not a covenant of a soft God, it is a covenant of a great God! Zion is a testimony to finally being able to be transformed. It is a testimony of a place where we do not just hear that God is speaking, but we hear what He is saying.

When we stand fast for our own opinions, when we stand fast to get what we need from others, we may have heard that God is speaking, but we have not yet heard His voice. The testimony of hearing Him is the receiving of a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Where do we receive this kingdom? We receive this kingdom in Zion.

Hebrews 12:22-29 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

It is among the innumerable company of believers in heaven and upon the earth that we receive the increasing testimony of God’s grace. The increasing eternal grace of God causes us to experience the fire of God that purifies us. We tend to like the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but grace includes a submersion in fire. When things get hot we tend to think we are in hell, but only the things of the devil can be destroyed in hell. The things of God cannot be destroyed. Many people break covenant and forsake the assembling of one another because it gets too hot in the place of eternal relationships. It is supposed to be hot. Our God is a consuming fire. Why? So we will become the unburnable bush of God’s presence and character as the family of His purpose and destiny. It is so the why we do something becomes more valuable than what we do. If we measure the substance of a local congregation, a local expression of the kingdom of heaven, by whether it is easy or not, we will fall short of the glory that God intends for us to have. If we measure it by what we think is expected of us, or what we think we must do, we will be shakable. But if we get a revelation of why we are here, we will become unshakeable. This is true in a marriage. If we measure our marriages by what we must do as a husband or as a wife, we will fall short of the revelation that can only come by the power of God’s grace. The same is true in a family as a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a father, or a mother. If we do not have a revelation of being a family and if we don’t embrace the grace it takes to be a family, we will be shakable in the time of shaking. God wants us to hear His voice so we get a revelation of why we are who we are together and why we are here. The why is more powerful than the what. Why are we part of the community? Why are we in covenant? Why do we tithe? Why do we make sacrifices? Why do we give offerings? Why do we live for us? Because it is us! It is Zion. It is the city of God. It is the place of God’s purpose. It is the place of God’s presence! It is the place of heaven’s gate! When we know this, we can expect an awesome God. We can expect goose bumps and laughter and we can also expect a consuming fire. We can expect our attitudes to be challenged. We can expect our vision to be challenged. We can expect to have to overcome the devil and even satan, false accusers. Most false accusations come from those we thought were our friends. That is what proves whether we are friends or not. That is the testing fire of a marriage, a family, or any community.

I think that sometimes in the body of Christ we need to shut our eyes and remember who we really are. The shakable things are things that need to be removed. The moments of shaking do not define us, God does. He does it by the power of His grace. He does it by the testimony of Christ in us. Grace is the manifest presence of God in our lives and shaking should not be able to change that. God, the unshakeable One, defines us! Upon this rock He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, but it will prove to destroy the gates of hell.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

   Greetings,

We live in a New Covenant and we have been given access to God’s mercy and God’s grace. Mercy frees us from the judgments of the law and grace empowers us to reign in life with the transforming power of life. God’s grace invites us into a place of being part of the corporate community of Christ that brings the blessings of heaven into this world. We saw in Psalms 87 that God loves Zion more than the tents of Jacob. Zion is the city of God, the community of God. Jacob is a testimony to us as seekers of God, but Zion is a testimony to being the community of God. Jacob is a testimony to our love for God, but Zion is a testimony to God’s love for the community of God and the testimony of the inheritance of God made known in the earth. Zion is a mountain of God’s presence. It is the place of God speaking in the earth.

 Hebrews 12:18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, 19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. 20 (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” 21 And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)

The law was given at Mount Sinai, but grace is given at Mount Zion. Only one man was able to come and receive the Torah/Temple plan and that was Moses. He experienced an encounter with God that gave him a testimony of the law, a shadow of the good thing to come, which is the power of Christ in us and the transforming testimony of God’s grace. The design of the tabernacle was given with an outer court, a holy place, and the holy of holies with all its furnishings. Everything was given to Moses was just a shadow of what God has always wanted in the earth as a reality among men. Zion is a place where God lives, not a place we go. It is a place we are. It is a place where God lives. It is a place where we hear God, we experience Him, and we experience the freedom of the life of Christ in all things. True revelation comes by God’s manifest presence. It is the place of eating the food of the Spirit and a place of experiencing the sustaining power of life that comes only from God. Zion is a place of receiving the boldness to be in God’s presence and the boldness that comes from being in His presence. Zion contains the fragrance and atmosphere of things that speak of spontaneity, depth, brokenness, and passion. It is the place of the presence of God that transforms us to become a tabernacle for God’s glory. These things were given on Mount Sinai in shadow form to Moses and Sinai was a place flesh could not touch or it would die. It was a terrifying sight. The writer of Hebrews says we have not come to that mountain. The Old Covenant Mountain was terrifying, in that it was a destroyer of flesh, but the New Covenant Mountain of Zion is even more awesome. It is not just a freedom from the Law, but a transformation of flesh. The church is not an easy place, but it is a place of greatness and destiny. Sometimes I hear people say or imply: Thank God it is not like it used to be. Thank you Jesus for getting saved. Thank you God for not being the Old Covenant God anymore. I am so glad you finally came to your senses God. We may not say these precise words, but the implication is often there. This is a misconception concerning the truth of God and the testimony of Zion. What can we expect in Zion?

Hebrews 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.

God did speak from the earth, but now He speaks to each of us from heaven to our hearts. He did shake the earth, but now He shakes the earth and heaven. He shakes the outside and the inside. He changes the outside and the inside. He removes those things that are being shaken. Things that are made are shaken so that we receive the things that cannot be shaken. We are receiving an unshakeable kingdom. That unshakeable kingdom is accessed by mercy and it is an administration of grace in a corporate body for His great glory.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

        Greetings,

We were born to be children of God and as children of God we were destined to grow in maturity in Christ to become mature sons and daughters of God for His purpose and will. For this to happen, we must embrace the difficulties of life. It is through chastisement that we can manifest the true character, nature, way, power, and authority of princes and princesses of the King. It is through difficulties that we manifest the greatness of who we really are.

Most often the greatest difficulties are in the church. Metaphorically speaking, the devil is in the church and God let Him in. God put the devil in your territory so you can destroy him. Sometimes the devil is our own attitude or way of thinking. If we can be offended, we will be offended. If we can make judgments according to the flesh, we will make judgments according to the flesh. If we can be defiled, we will be defiled. If we can be insubordinate, we will be insubordinate. If we can become apathetic, we will become apathetic. If we can embrace natural knowledge above love giving, we will embrace natural logic. If we can run from destiny, we will run from destiny. God allows obstacles to come into the church that resist our overcoming of these things so we will manifest the true testimony of Christ in our lives. If it wasn’t for the devil we would not manifest as a son or a daughter of the King. The mystery is, the hardest place is the greatest place.

Hebrews 12: 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; 6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” 7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

It is easy to say I love you, when there is no devil in the mix. In a metaphoric sense, God wants the devil in the church. He let him in the door! Why? Because the gates of hell cannot prevail against the gate of heaven. There is a bit of a devil in each of us. I want that devil destroyed! If I can be offended I will be offended. If I can be disconnected. I will be disconnected. If I can be discontent, I will be discontent. If I can run, I will run. But when I get a revelation of who I am, I can never be offended, I can never be discontent, I can never be disconnected, I can never break covenant, and I can never run away, because I am a son of God and I am part of the family of God. I live for the purpose of Zion; the corporate place of God’s purpose in the earth. God loves me as a God-seeker, like He loved Jacob, but God loves the corporate place of Zion more than Jacob.

Jesus did not live for being the only begotten Son of God. He lived for the purpose of all the sons and daughters of God. He endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. When you battle something inside of yourself for the sake of yourself, when you battle with an attitude towards yourself, or you battle with an attitude towards others for the sake of yourself, that is not your cross. Your cross is to get over your attitude for the sake of others. Battling against your personal addictions is not your cross. Forsaking everything for the sake of US, for Zion, is your cross. Jesus was the Son of God and He did not suffer for His own sake, He suffered for our sake. Being a son or a daughter of God means being willing to do whatever it takes for our sake, the sake of others and the sake of what we are becoming as one together. Take this into your marriage and your marriage will flourish. Bring this truth into your family and your family will be richly blessed. Embrace this reality in your church and your church will become an overcoming place of God’s grace. Put this in your city and your city will prosper. We are supposed to be sons and daughters of God for the hope of His calling, the riches of His inheritance, and the working of His power to bring the influence of His kingdom to the kingdoms of the world. We are not called to do something good, we are called to be part of something great. We finally have reason for the devil. The devil is only in our lives so we will know we are sons and daughters of God. It is so we will know, greater is He who is in us than He who is in the world. This kind of discipline is training us and forming us to become something of the greatness of God in the earth.

Hebrews 12:14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; 16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

Esau was called a fornicator, a profane person. Why? He saw preserving his own life as more valuable than living for the sake of others. Living for his own needs was more important than living for the calling of God, the inheritance of God and the power of God. He sought his own desires above the desire of God and the destiny entrusted to him. The church is the place of the calling of God, His inheritance and His power. Though Esau wanted the blessing he could not find it, because there was no place of repentance for him. He sought it even with tears, but he had forsaken the destiny. His motive was not to be a blessing, but to be blessed. His heart was still in it for him and not for the purpose and will of God in the earth.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you again for your prayers and your financial support. Good things are happening!

    Greetings,

I have been writing about the church. What is the church? What is the purpose of the church?

We saw that God loves Zion more than the tents of Jacob, though God loves Jacob. He loves those who seek Him, because they want to be His blessings. But the purpose of those who seek Him is to become Zion, the city of God. It is to become the corporate place of God’s presence in the earth.

Hebrews chapter 11 reveals a testimony of people of faith. The worlds of many men and women were framed by faith. They heard God and their worlds were transformed. In the context of being surrounded by all the witnesses in heaven, Hebrews chapter 12 describes our ability to go through the disciples of God as His children. We like the victories, but the chastisements in life are different. This is partly because we don’t understand disciple. We tend to think that correction means we are bad and we need to be good. We often think that if we go through something hard or difficult, if we are corrected or chastised in some way, it means we are bad people. This is not correct. Chastisement endears us to God and keeps us in the right path, the path of life. In the context of that, the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, endured suffering. He endured hard things. He was chastised. If chastisement was for those who are bad, then Jesus would have wrongfully endured chastisement. He endured chastisement, because He was the Son of God.

Hebrews 12:3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; 6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” 7  If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

We are not to despise the chastening of the Lord. We are not to be discouraged when we are rebuked by God. He scourges every son He receives by allowing them to go through hard things. Jesus never sinned, but He was scourged. He never looked for love in the wrong place, but He was tempted with everything we are tempted with. God, His Father, allowed Him to be chastened. He allowed Him to be disciplined. What did that look like? It looked like being treated wrongly. God allowed His son Jesus to be despised, rejected, hated, lied about, misunderstood and many other things. All of this was for the sake of manifesting as God’s Son.

In the Movie, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, there is a line in the movie that defines the reason for this disciple in a marvelous way. In the movie, the wicked uncle killed Arthur’s father and mother and the boy Arthur was raised by prostitutes in a village. He endured handicaps, hardship, poverty, and despise of diverse nature. Arthur grew up believing he was the son of a prostitute, but something inside of him drove him to be the best he could be in everything. He became the best street fighter, the best at caring for those he loved, the best saver of financial profits, and many other things. He excelled in advancing amid his situation. When he came to the age of being a young man, all the young men in the kingdom were being summoned to attempt to pull the sword, x caliber, from the stone. It had been foretold that whoever could pull the sword would be the rightful heir. The uncle wanted to discover who was the heir only so he could kill him. Arthur was brought to the stone among the other young men, and the sword came out from the rock. He was thrown to the ground by the power of the sword and the uncle called him into his chambers and says, what is it that gives you such drive? Do you know who you are? Arthur says, I am the son of a prostitute. No, you’re not, explained the illegitimate king. You are the heir. We know who you are We’ve been in your city. We heard of your reputation. We found your treasuries. What is it that gives you your drive? Arthur didn’t answer. All his life, he has had a dream about a fire devil. At the end of the movie he had to face the fire devil. He accepted the responsibility of being Arthur. During the fight, he got a revelation that the devil in his visions and dreams was really his evil uncle. He stands and he says, you asked me what gave me my drive? You did, you made me what I am. You finally give reason to the devil.

You are a son or a daughter of God. Something inside of you has called out for the greatness of who you are and none of us are illegitimate children. Even if we were naturally illegitimate by birth, we are all called to be sons and daughters of the King. We must go through chastening, we must go through difficulty. It is the difficulty that inspires us to manifest who we are. Amid the challenges of life, the testimony of Christ in us is the hope of glory. It is the hope of manifesting as true sons and daughters of God and it comes by the chastening of God in our lives.

Food for Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

     Greetings,

When Jacob had the dream of a ladder extending to heaven and angels ascending and descending to the place of his resting, he took the rock that was his pillow and he set it upright as a pillar. The symbolism of this act implies a standing where there was previously a sleeping. It implies living with an expectation of becoming the house of God and no longer living for the comfort of one’s own house. It is important for every member of the house of God to stand. The strength of a family is every member standing. When every member stands for the destiny of the family the family grows in the posterity of the family name and the family inheritance. When partners in a marriage choose to stand for one another, the marriage flourishes and grows in maturity through every circumstance of life.

When family members stand for one another they remain awake for the destiny of the family. That is to be awake. Here we are. We are standing for the family. To the degree that we stand is the degree that we are. The church, the body of Christ, is the place where members stand for one another. When everyone shows up and stands for one another the body is alive. When we become confused towards this truth of corporate standing we can become confused in our thinking. We are deceived when we think, I would stand, but no one stands for me. The problem with that thinking is it proves we are not standing. When we don’t measure others how they stand, but we simply stand for relationship we invite the supernatural presence of God to overcome the gates of hell. The toughest place on planet earth to stand is in the church. The toughest place to stand in the earth is the body of Christ. Sometimes there is pain in the offering. The foundation of our standing must be set upon love and a revelation of the purpose of our standing together as one.

Jacob was an individual called to be a nation, but as a man he was an awesome man. When he was born, he shared the same dwelling place as his brother Esau. They lived in the same dwelling place in their mother’s womb, but Jacob’s spirit was different than Esau’s spirit. Jacob was a seeker of God, but Esau was a seeker of self. In the natural, whoever comes out of the womb first would receive the inheritance of their father Isaac. In the birth of these children Esau came out first. As he was coming out of his mother’s womb, Jacob reached out and grabbed his heal. I don’t believe that Jacob was selfish. I think his little spirit discerned the spirit of his brother. If Esau would have had a spirit of being a God-seeker Jacob would have said, Yes! Go for it! Go do it! Go for it brother! I am right behind you! I am with you! But His little spirit discerned his brother’s spirit and he knew Esau would not fulfill the plan of destiny. God had prophesied before the birth of the children to say that the older would serve the younger. Jacob had the spirt of the firstborn, but in the natural he came out second.

As Jacob grew up, he was destined to be the firstborn but he had a problem. He came out second. One day Esau was out hunting, but he wasn’t hunting to satisfy anyone but himself. He came home starving. I didn’t get any animals. I am going to die! I am hungry! What is there for me to eat? Jacob had a stew. Esau smelled the stew and begged Jacob to give him some. Jacob made a deal. I will give you some stew for the birthright. Esau said, what is the birthright to me? What is destiny to me? I am hungry. I don’t care about corporate purpose. I am hungry. What is the hope of His calling to me? I am about to die. What good is the riches of his inheritance to me? I am about to die. Give me some of your stew! What is the working of His power to me? Esau traded the birthright for some stew. He traded corporate destiny for something that satisfied is immediate need. Jacob now had the birthright. Esau didn’t run to his dad Isaac and confess that he had sold the birthright to Jacob. Esau was still pretending. You can only receive the blessing of the inheritance if you have the birthright. When Isaac got old and he was about to die, it was time to give the inheritance to the son with the birthright. He thought that Esau was still the inheritor, but at that point in life Esau didn’t have the birthright anymore. His brother Jacob purchased it. What is the birthright? What is the inheritance? The inheritance is becoming the house of God. It is the hope of His calling. It is the riches of His inheritance. It is the working of His power. The inheritance is becoming the place of God’s influence in the earth. The inheritance is the place of being a blessing. It is not the place of being blessed. It is the place of being the blessing. Jacob wanted it. Jacob purchased it.

When the point of blessing had come, the good news was that Isaac was blind. He could not tell the difference between Jacob or Esau by vision. He could not see the difference between Jacob and Esau. Rebekah, Jacob’s mom, helped Jacob. She killed a goat and put the skin on Jacob, because Esau was a hairy man. She put the skin of the goat on Jacob. She cooked food to pretend it was Esau’s game from his hunt. She made Jacob feel and smell like his brother Esau, the firstborn. When Jacob came to his father Isaac, Isaac said, you sound like Jacob but your feel like Esau. He gave the blessing to Jacob. Who did the blessing belong to at that point? It belonged to Jacob because he had purchased it from his brother Esau. Who had the greater sin? Esau had the sin. He did not value the birthright. He didn’t value the place of corporate inheritance. He traded it for stew, something that fed himself. He traded his part in the eternal testimony of the family for something that satisfied an immediate desire in his life. Jacob didn’t steal the birthright. He valued it more than his brother did. I believe that Jacob understood the inheritance and made a deal with one who didn’t.

Do we value the birthright? We are part of something big. It is the corporate body of Christ, the Israel of God in the earth. It is the gate of heaven and we must stand in our part in the hope of Christ’s calling, as a part of the riches of His inheritance, and as a part of the testimony of His power at work in us that prevails above all principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, and names of every age.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Your prayers and support are enabling the word of New Covenant Life and Grace to impact many people. If God blesses you to bless us, please consider supporting House of Bread Ministry. Checks Payable to: House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA  98225

Online Donations can be made above at the column to the right.

Thank You for your support