ted4leaders

Greetings,

Today I want to remind us again of the importance of allowing God to work in our midst. If we copy things that God has done in the past we will end up with a copy in the present. A copy is not an original and a copy will likely carry flaws in being true to the original. When we create a copy of a copy and follow that progressive pattern, we eventually end up with something that is not true. The things that God did yesterday were not a copy of something that God did. They were the living reality of the thing that God was doing at the time. We must allow God to be involved in our lives today so that we will a true testimony of what God is doing today.

I believe that the Church, and every expression of the Church, is a spiritual letter being written by God in the hearts and minds of people who are called by Him for His glory and purpose in the earth. I believe that every believer is supposed to be a testimony of something that God is forming within his or her life. The apostle Paul wrote in regard to such truth.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

As leaders in the body of Christ we must keep this principle of truth in mind when leading those entrusted to us. We have been joined with others in life to reveal God’s glory in the earth. It is not the will of men, but the will of God among men that brings life to the world. Leaders must submit to the spiritual letter being written by the Holy Spirit in the Church. This includes submission to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of those in their congregations or ministry. This is not just for the purpose of each individual in their care, but God’s corporate purpose for those He joins together in a congregation or ministry. I believe that this is a value to be embraced by leaders for every expression of the Church entrusted to them in the form of a congregation or some other expression of the ministry of Christ. The sufficiency of our ability to lead is in God and not in us. It is the ministry of the New Covenant. The New Covenant is based upon a personal relationship with God in the life of each one for purpose of the body of Christ.

To do this, we cannot merely teach Christian principles based upon a knowledge of right and wrong. We must lead to activate people in hearing and responding to God in their lives. That hearing is about intimacy with God. It is about being obedient to a person’s voice, not a religious system of beliefs. The voice is that of the person God in the life of each believer.

Mere principles of Christianity are only a shadow of what is meant to be relationship with God in Christ. When people walk in intimacy with God they walk in a way that agrees with the principles of truth found in Christ. It is not because they are following the rules. It is because they are intimate with God and their lives end up looking like the written testimony of His character, nature, way, power, and authority.

As leaders we must serve those we lead in a way that allows the Holy Spirit to build His Church. This is not to seek revival, but to be revived in a daily relationship with God. If we seek to build a church on the revival of the past we sometimes create a ‘remember when’ covenant. If we value the things of the past more than the writing of the Holy Spirit in the present, we can bind what God wants to do today. If we constantly long for God to do something in the future we can become dull and hardened to what God is doing today. We must always live in the moment and we must always embrace the unfolding and growing spiritual letter being written in our lives.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

As New Covenant leaders we are not called to merely teach principles of the Christian faith. We are called to serve is seeing New Covenant believers become the testimony of Christ in the world. That means we must serve to activate Christ in the heart of those who believe. We are leading for the sake of the redeemed human race. This is the testimony of Christ’s glory filling the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Today I feel it is necessary to post some revelation that I posted in a blog in 2012. These are the issues of human purpose and the objective of leadership in affecting the lives of human beings. Our destination is not just to go to heaven, but to bring a heavenly testimony to the world in which we live. I believe this is the good news that was preached to Abraham. A man named Abram was transformed by God to become an Abraham, the father of many nations through the power of faith in God. It was through a revelation of God that Abraham believed. God’s promise to Abraham was:

1. In blessing I will bless you
2. In multiplying I will multiply
3. Your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.
4. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed

These four realities are the testimony of multigenerational blessing of God to humanity and it has the power to change the world. Here are some thoughts in regard to the challenge to this heavenly destiny. I will begin by looking at a Scripture that is commonly taught concerning spiritual warfare.

Ephesians 6:12  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Notice that Paul sites here that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. There are spiritual realities that affect the testimony of mankind. The contact of our struggle appears to be flesh and blood, but there are spiritual realities behind that wrestle. Many people focus on the top level that is stated as principalities. There are many books, teachings, activations, practices, and focuses upon warring against principalities to change the world. I happen to believe that the secret of our warfare is not to assault principalities, but to eradicate the foundation that those principalities rest upon. I believe that the true issue of victory is found in the eradication of the spiritual hosts in heavenly places. Those heavenly places are the high places or the secret places of the human heart. What creates those places is the power of word and spirit conceived together to create a place of strong belief. Outside of Christ those words are lies and the spirit is one of deceptions. In Christ the words are truth and the Spirit is the power of God’s grace working with His words. In either case, it is word and spirit that create the beliefs of men. Those beliefs then propagate rule or actions. Those actions establish a force of inheritance to the future destiny of a belief. The ultimate testimony is seen as an influence and then a principle thing or a principality.

I believe that some common English words for these four levels of expression are beliefs, actions, imaginations, and influence. Influence is the result of beliefs that inspire actions and propagate imaginations that expand that belief to become an inherited influence in the world. This principle is true for individuals, families, regions, nations, people groups, or wherever there is a manifestation of flesh and blood. These four levels constitute the elements of the likeness and the image of humanity in the earth. The good news preached to Abraham was a means by which these things can be changed to become the elements of the likeness and the image of the Father in human form upon the earth.

There is a great story in the Scripture where King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream (Dan. 2:31-45). The dream troubled him and he gave an order for his counselors and wise men to tell him his dream and its interpretation. God blessed Daniel and his friends with the dream and its interpretation. In the dream King Nebuchadnezzar saw a great statue of extraordinary splendor. It had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, waist and thighs of brass, and legs of iron with feet of iron and clay. Then a stone not cut with human hands struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. The crushing of the feet of the statue caused the entire substance of the statue to be crushed and become like chaff from the summer threshing floor and the wind carried them away so there was no trace left of the statue. The stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. The interpretation of the dream revealed that Nebuchadnezzar and the kingdom of Babylon was the head of gold, King Cyrus and the Mede Persian kingdom was the chest and arms of silver, Alexander the great and the kingdom of Greece was the waist and thighs of brass, and the legs of iron with feet of iron and clay was indicative of the kingdom of Rome and its carnal ruler Nero. In the time of Rome the rock of Christ would destroy the kingdoms of self by crushing the selfish beliefs of men through the selfless sacrifice of Jesus and His God willed resurrection as Christ the head and body to change the world.

I believe this image was not limited to the four nations represented in it, but that the four nations represented in it were a testimony of the image of man throughout all time. What should have been the image of the heavenly Father had become the glory of self. It revealed humanity in a self-righteous condition without dependence upon God. It took a human being, the Seed of Abraham, to crush the image of self by the testimony of the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person in flesh (Heb. 1:3). That human being was the man Jesus Christ.

The key to the destruction of the statue in the dream was a crushing of its feet. I believe that the iron of the feet was a testimony of the control of man. This was made manifest in the dictatorial rule of the Caesars of Rome. The feet of the statue were also a testimony of manipulation. The clay in the feet was a testimony of the will of man, as Rome was also a democracy. The statue stood upon a testimony of the will of a man and the will of the people, both reveal a belief system propagated by control and manipulation. This is only true when humanity bases its beliefs upon the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus was a man of grace and truth. He stood upon believing His heavenly Father and thus all of His standing was rooted in the Tree of Life.

The waist and thighs of brass in the statue were significant of the actions of the flesh that facilitate a judgmental rule of self. A belief based upon the knowledge of good and evil will inspire actions based upon good and evil, but those actions will be fear based and self-preserving in nature. They are actions of natural sight and are absent the substance of faith that expands a belief of love and life.

The chest and arms of silver in the statue were symbolic of the imaginations of the heart. Whereas the heart of Jesus caused Him to see the joy beyond the cross, the imaginations of the statue of self are self-gratifying imaginations and motives of the heart that sacrifice the future for the present realities of men. Those imaginations are centered upon self and not those that cause the children and the children’s children to possess the gates of their enemies.

The head of gold was a testimony of the influence of self. Those influences are rooted in a belief system that desires to be blessed more than living to be a blessings. It is seen through the reality of actions that are not willing to yield, but done to take whatever is needed to preserve the image of self. Those actions are actions of addition and not those of multiplication. Self-preserving actions propagate self-gratifying imaginations that spend tomorrow’s inheritance today and leave the generations bankrupt in their ability to possess the gates of the enemy.

Jesus destroyed the foundation of beliefs propagated by control and manipulation. Like the promise given to Abraham He knew He was born to be a blessing and therefore He lived to bring His Father’s blessings to the world. His beliefs were fully based upon a REVELATION of BELIEVING GOD. He was not changed by the controls or the manipulations of men.

Jesus eradicated the actions of the flesh that facilitate the judgmental rule of self. Instead of seeking to add to His own life He lived to multiply. He lived to give to others. His actions were fully based upon a REVELATION of BELIEVING GOD and were not influenced by the judgments of men.

Jesus transformed the self-gratifying motives of the heart to become life-giving imaginations of hope for our children and our children’s children. He lived for the generations and thus the imaginations of His heart were fully based upon a REVELATION of BELIEVING GOD. His thoughts were for the future generations of men.

Jesus established the influence of the Father in our lives so we can influence the world with the inheritance of His name and not the influence of self. The families of the earth will be blessed because of the likeness and the image of the Father made known in the flesh of men. Jesus’ influence was fully based upon a REVELATION of BELIEVING GOD. He didn’t attack influence with influence but eradicated it by the power to transform beliefs.

Jesus stood in a true heavenly belief that revealed a heavenly rule, a heavenly imagination, and heavenly influence for all mankind in the earth. He was the man who could see, listen, discern truth, and speak clearly on behalf of His heavenly Father in this world. He did this as a human being in this world and thus He has the power to transform the beliefs of humanity to change the world!

We are called, appointed, anointed to tear down the high places in the earth through the ministry of reconciliation to God in Christ. Those high places are the seat of heaven in the human heart. Where there is no gap between God and men in the human heart there is no end to the increase of His government and peace. When the Word and the Spirit conceive in the heart the place of heavenly belief is established and there is an empowerment of changed actions. Those actions stimulate the imaginations of the heart to believe for the peoples, nations, and generations of the world. It is through the power of the heart’s eye that we can believe for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done upon the earth as it is in heaven. Those changed beliefs, actions, and imaginations establish the principle things of heaven as an influence in and to the world in which we live. The stone of Christ and a REVELATION of BELIEVING GOD will fill our lives with the glory of God!

As leaders we must lead to help others live for human purpose and destiny. We must lead to activate, facilitate, and release a culture that receives a revelation of believing God in their hearts that empowers them to become the stature of Christ in the world.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

As leaders, God wants us to lead in a New Covenant manner. I believe that another name for New Covenant could be the Living Covenant. The New Covenant is the Old Covenant revealed as fully alive in the hearts and minds of those who believe. It is not a shadow conveyed through Biblical principles and rules to live by. It is the testimony of the influence of the Principality Christ Jesus in the hearts and minds of those who believe.

It is a covenant with God that brings life to those who receive it from within their hearts. It is the power of light shining from within and the testimony of Christ within that brings to pass the testimony of God’s glory. I believe that glory could be defined as men and women becoming fully alive in Christ and thus revealing the likeness and image of their heavenly Father to the world around them. Only in the New Covenant can the original mandate of mankind be restored. God’s commission to mankind in Genesis chapter one was for man to be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, and have dominion on the earth. Man was given dominion over the works of God’s hands. To be fruitful, multiply, and to fill is taking what was and repeating it over and over again. Subduing and having dominion is going beyond repeating what has been and opening the door for things that have never been.

The Old Covenant offered glimpses of the New Covenant, but no real change for mankind. Because of its inability to subdue and to offer true dominion, the Old Covenant created cultures and societies that were governed by means of control and manipulation. This is still true today for those who choose to embrace a government of information of good and evil over a government of intimacy with God from within the human heart. The governments of the world are based upon knowledge, and perceived knowledge, of good and evil. The governments of the world create take and take environments. The New Covenant offers the life of the kingdom of God within our hearts and the kingdom of God is a give and give environment. It is a government of grace and truth and it is the only means by which we can finally subdue and have dominion in the earth. Without grace and truth we cannot subdue and have dominion. Grace and truth are the true source of God’s life that serves to turn on the light! The warfare of the New Covenant is one of life. It is a warfare of manifested light! When the light is turned on the darkness flees. When the life is made manifest all manner of death is destroyed. It is a warfare that empowers a transformation in the lives of those who believe and it is not a battle of information. We are not here to inform our enemies of their defeat. We are here to enforce their defeat by the power of Christ made manifest. This is a New Covenant testimony.

I am presenting some basic foundational truth to inspire New Covenant paradigms in our leadership style and focus in the Church. We are here to see humanity manifest as sons and daughters of God in the earth. We are not here to merely do good works of God. We are not here to lead works of ministry, but to empower people to minister life in every aspect of life. We are here to empower God people to do good works from the testimony of their identity in Christ.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a different kind of human being entered the earth. He was filled with grace and truth (Jn. 1:14), and He was the first born to secure a new race of a born again humanity that also manifests the grace and truth of God in the earth. The life of Jesus was not meant to give those who believe in Him a way out of the world. It was to give them the power of heaven within their lives to be able to change any circumstance they might face in life. It is the life of Jesus that destroys the works of the devil. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus crushed the foundation of the world kingdoms.

Daniel 2:36-45 “This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold—the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”

It was the stature of Christ that crumbled and crushed all that represented the statue of human self. A Prince with God crushed the throne, rule, power, and influence of every principality of darkness. It is the manifestation of Christ in bodily form that crumbles the lies and deceptions of the enemy. Those lies and deceptions are dispossessed by the life and the truth of God in Christ. The high places of the human heart and mind are transformed by the likeness and the image of God the Father being formed within. The stature of Christ is meant to become a great mountain in the earth. It is the mountain of the Lord. This is a kingdom made of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation on planet earth. It is a kingdom revealing the power of Christ from within. It is nothing less than the human race manifested as the likeness and the image of their heavenly Father in the world. This is the testimony of the true Israel of God, princes and princesses of nobility reveling God’s kingdom to the world. These are those whose beliefs, actions, imaginations, and influence in the world are all based upon the testimony of Christ within them.

Jesus came to redeem human kind. He came to transform the lives of people who had been fashioned and formed in the likeness and the image of flesh to become a testimony of flesh made to become expressions of God in the earth. Jesus came to redeem the human spirit, soul, and body to be a testimony of the influence of life to the world.

Hebrews 1:1-5 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”? And again: “I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son”?

A true human being is someone who was created in the likeness and the image of God. Leaders in the body of Christ must keep this objective in mind that all humans are meant to reveal the glory of God through lives that have been transformed from within. Whether this is in the lives of individual believers or in corporate expressions of believers, we are leading for the kingdom of God and the testimony of His praise. We are not leading for the kingdoms of men. We are leading for the testimony of a New and Living Covenant with God and men. We are leading to see the sons and daughters of God made manifest in every aspect of human society in the world.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

I am addressing the subject of New Covenant ministry and the need to be New Covenant leaders in the body of Christ. It is possible for some to experience New Covenant and some to experience Old Covenant from the same ministry. It is a matter of the focus of our hearts and the focus of our minds. The Old Covenant was one of information, while the New Covenant is one of transformation by the power of Christ within. When we minister to others we cannot hope for Christ to them, but Christ in them.

2 Corinthians 4:3-6 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The Old Covenant was a covenant that took people by the hand and led them. It didn’t have the power to take God’s people into the Promised Land in a way that people could become all that God had declared they would be. The Old Covenant was a testimony of light to darkness, while the New Covenant is a testimony of light shining out of darkness. I believe that the true Promised Land is the place of knowing righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit from within the human heart (Rom. 14:17). The kingdom of God is a kingdom that works from within the heart (Lk. 17:20, 21). The Promised Land of the kingdom is a place of knowing from our hearts that God is our God. This is true righteousness and it is empowered by the Holy Spirit. True peace is exhibiting the testimony of God in our lives because there is no gap between God and us in our hearts. This is also an empowerment of the Holy Spirit. True joy is to know the fullness of God’s presence in all things. It is to live with Him in everything. This is also a testimony of the Holy Spirit at work within our hearts. It is only by the power of Christ within that these things can be made real. They were shadowed in Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles in the Old Covenant, but made real by the power of Christ within the heart of the believer. These things cause the influence of God’s kingdom to be seen in every aspect of our lives. They work in any life, any geographical location, and in every circumstance of life. Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit activates the human spirit, floods the human soul, and empowers the human life to reveal God to the world around them. As leaders in the New Covenant we must lead to see these things empowered in the hearts of those we lead. It is through this intimate relationship with Christ within that New Covenant believers are transformed to the ways of God (Jer. 31:31, 34). It is not a discipline of the flesh, but an impassioning of the Spirit. It reveals a letter being written by the Holy Spirit and it is true for individuals and for corporate expressions of Christ’s body. As New Covenant leaders we must lead to see this letter of life written corporately in whatever way Holy Spirit is revealing it.

2 Corinthians 3: 2-6 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

These words of the apostle Paul are clear reminders of our responsibility as leaders in the body of Christ. It is not our will that brings about the New Covenant. It is the power of the Holy Spirit at work among us. Teaching the principles of Christ alone are not enough. We must lead to see people empowered by the Principality Christ Jesus from within their hearts. We must all be motivated by the Principality Christ Jesus and not seek to live by mere discipline to Christian principles. Old Covenant ministry is dependent upon knowing the principles, but New Covenant is becoming a testimony of those principles. Ministry engraved on stones is a ministry of death and only a shadow of what is real.

2 Corinthians 3: 7, 8 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,  8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?

There is a measure of glory in Old Covenant ministry, but it is a fading one. It is a ‘remember when’ covenant and it doesn’t produce the growing change of life that can only come from within. Old Covenant methods can give us instructions as to how to act and what to do, but only New Covenant empowerment brings an increasing glory of life from within. We must be New Covenant leaders in the body of Christ!

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

As leaders we must not only set an example to those we lead, we must activate, facilitate, and release others to become all that they are to be in Christ. We are not just those who know the word of God, we must become examples of the word of God to those we lead. We must become expressions of God’s word that will activate God’s personal voice in the hearts of those we lead.

1 Timothy 4:12  Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

Paul was not merely telling Timothy to be someone who was instructed in the word of God, but to become an example of the word of God. Every revelation from God is an invitation to have an encounter with God so that we will be transformed by Him to become a testimony of a revelation of God to those around us. When God has expressed something it is considered to be the logos (word) of God. The Scriptures are logos (word) of God, but so is leadership to be a testimony of an expression of God. Jesus was the very expression (Word) of God in flesh. The word of God is meant to pierce through the soul to the place where God speaks. The Holy Spirit within agrees with anything that has been expressed by God and when we are pierced through by an expression of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit brings life to the human spirit in the human heart.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 

Leaders are to be expressions of God to those they lead in order to activate the voice of God within the heart of each believer. Scripture is logos (word). Leadership, as well as maturing believers, are to be expressions of God (logos) as well. Their lives should pierce through the souls of those they influence to the very Spirit of God within their spirits, causing the voice of God to be activated within them. Leaders are not the voice of God to the people. This is Old Covenant. Leaders only serve to activate the voice of God within the hearts of those they lead. This is New Covenant.

The Old Covenant brought control and bondage, but the New Covenant brings life and liberty. It’s the manifest presence of God that brings liberty. As leaders we must lead in a way that the voice of God brings the liberty of God’s presence in the lives of those we lead. We cannot hear God for people and expect them to simply remember what we have said. We cannot teach law, present Biblical rules, propose Biblical principles, or enforce any form of covenant that holds people to the words or experiences of the past. This is a covenant that is read. It is a covenant that is remembered. A veil remains on this type of covenant for it is an Old Covenant of bondage and control. Only the New Covenant of the life of Christ within can bring the life and liberty of God. Only the New Covenant brings increasing and lasting change from within the human heart.

2 Corinthians 3:12-15 Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech—  unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. 

It is only when one turns to the Lord in their hearts that the veil can be removed. We cannot teach people to know God, knowing God is a personal revelation discovered within the heart. It is there that true change is brought about in and through the believer. Leaders in the New Covenant must excel in the example of this personal experience and they must serve those they lead in a way that advances the New Covenant grace of life within the hearts of those they lead.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Christ in each believer is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). It is the anointing oil that breaks the yoke. It is not merely the anointing, but the anointing oil. The anointing oil is the testimony of the fatness of Christ within us. It is the grease that comes out from within. It is not the illumination of Christ that makes men free. It is the manifestation of His presence within our lives.

Isaiah 10:26, 27 And the LORD of hosts will stir up a scourge for him like the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; as His rod was on the sea, so will He lift it up in the manner of Egypt. It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil.

One can experience the anointing oil or the light that comes from the anointing oil. As New Covenant leaders we must lead to activate the anointing oil in those we lead. It is like the testimony of the torch within the clay vessels of Gideon (Jdg. 7) and the sound of the Spirit within that blows through the prophetic shofar. When Moses told the people to stand still and see the salvation of their God, God told Moses to trust what was within him. He told Moses to lift up his rod and move forward (Ex. 14:13-16). These were shadows of the testimony of Christ within.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings;

Today I want to remind us all as leaders that our role is to provide New Covenant leadership to those we lead. We cannot slip into the pattern of Old Covenant methods in our leadership. The New Covenant is not a transition in time two thousand years ago. The New Covenant is a transition of relationship. It is NOW reality in relating to God. The New Covenant is a personal relationship with God that is empowered by Christ within the believer. The New Covenant is a NOW covenant and it requires NOW leadership.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

The New Covenant is dependent upon what God says today. Old Covenant ministry was dependent upon what God said yesterday. It was a ‘remember when’ covenant. God would show up in the power of His presence with His instructions and commands. The people were then instructed to remember the day and to remember the words that were given to them in some past event with God. The Old Covenant was a covenant that took people by the hand to lead them, but the New Covenant is one where each one knows God. In the New Covenant we do not teach our neighbor or their brother to know God, for even the least has a personal relationship with God in their hearts. That relationship is not merely based upon an experience with God in the past. It is a personal relationship with God each day, every day, and it is NOW!

In the New Covenant we become the place that hears God in relationship with Him.

It is a place of being able to hear, read, and keep the words that are given to the believer in Christ (Rev. 1:30). There is a daily personal relationship with God in our hearts, therefore, there is a remembering of the things that God has said and done for us. Because we hear God in the NOW place of relationship with Him, we are also empowered from within to do what He desires. His voice within us becomes an empowerment of faith and passion to walk in His ways. Jesus is standing in the midst of His Church.

Revelation 1:10-12 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.

Leaders in the New Covenant must be the first to recognize God in their lives. They must demonstrate an example of faith towards God. The New Covenant is about knowing God and walking with Him in all things. New Covenant leaders don’t merely tell people what God is saying, they demonstrate a testimony of what God is saying in their lives. They stand among the congregation to be the first to give a testimony of the corporate letter God is writing in the expression of Christ life community they are part of.

The Old Covenant and New Covenant offer two different means of governing the human soul. The Old Covenant was one of information while the New Covenant is one of transformation from within. In a governmental system of the knowledge of good and evil people are informed of the knowledge of God so they can administrate their lives according to that remembered information. In the New Covenant people are transformed from within and they are dependent upon the life of Christ within their hearts to empower God’s desires from within.

Human beings are made of three parts in the dynamic of their human expression. Every person has the substance of power within them, a throne of administration, and a physical expression of whom they are to reveal the authority of their lives. These are the power, throne, and authority of being human (Rom. 13:2; 1Thes. 5:23). Human beings were designed to be led by God’s Spirit in the power, throne, and authority of their lives.

We don’t hear God with our souls, we hear with our spirit. When we allow God’s Spirit to food our human spirits we come alive from within. We do this by stirring up the Spirit of Christ within us. Christ within us is the hope of glory. It is the hope of coming fully alive as a human being. When our human spirits become empowered by Christ’s Spirit within us it floods our soul. It floods the throne of our will, thought, reasoning, imagination, and emotions. It is there that we begin to give human expression to that which we have heard in our spirits. When our spirits flood our souls with life, our souls flood our physical expressions of life with life. God’s Spirit is to flood the human spirit, the human spirit is to flood the human soul, and the human soul floods the human life. As leaders in the New Covenant we must lead to activate this process or hearing an manifesting God’s will in the lives of those we are called to lead. It begins with us as leaders. We must be activated, facilitated, and released with the life of Christ within us and then we serve to activate, facilitate, and release those we lead into the life that God has for each one.

When we live by law we submit our souls to the law as God’s voice, but when we live by the Spirit we submit our spirits to God’s Spirit as the voice of God in our lives. This floods our lives with the sanctifying salvation of God in all things.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

Sorry to say that I posted the wrong blog earlier today. It has been a busy day and I am just now getting to the place of making the correction.

Leadership is not a position to seek for the sake of leading. It is a calling, an anointing, and an appointment from God for the sake of others. Leadership is a gift to those they lead. It is not just a matter of gifting and function. It is a matter of God-ordained relationship. That God-ordained relationship is one of a leader towards God’s purpose and objective as well as his or her relationship with those he or she leads. Leadership is a patter of authority; therefore, leadership comes from authority. It is always under a life-source. In the kingdom of God leadership doesn’t represent the people, it represents God who gives life to the world. Leadership represents God in heaven and the delegated expressions of God with skin on that carry the substance of the life that is being given to the authority.

If you are called to lead in an area of life it means you are the first to be found in the authority of that area of life. Authority is not mere power; it is the power to give life to others. All authority comes from God and all authority is intended to bring life to those they are over. A pitcher of water must be over a glass in order for the glass to receive the water that the pitcher holds. It is not a matter of control. It is a matter of proper relationship in receiving what the pitcher carries for the sake of the empty glass. Authority is always over for the sake of all that is ‘under’ that authority. It is not a matter of lording or seeking to be more important than others. It is a matter of being able to fulfill God-given responsibilities. The pitcher doesn’t become filled with water because of the need of an empty glass; it becomes filled with water because of the abundance of a fountain of water. It is the fountain of water that fills the pitcher and then the pitcher seeks out a glass that is seeking to find a pitcher of water. Needs do not determine what authority is required. God-directed authority activates the hearts of the needy to seek out the life that is being offered through the authority of God. This is true for individual people as well as societies and situations in society.

How do you determine the direction of God in leadership? Do we look at the needs of an area or the needs of a people and then attempt to fashion leadership to a role of meeting those needs? If we look at the apparent needs of people and fashion leadership to meet those needs we are not seeking authority. We are attempting to grasp for some form of power to meet the apparent needs of people. It can be true for a community or any needy area of life. A proper direction for the authority of leadership doesn’t come from the apparent needs of a people or any given situation. It comes by the direction of God. It comes from the source of authority. We live in societies that attempt to meet needs, but that reactionary approach seldom deals with the root of the perceived fruits. It is a backwards approach to healing a situation. Authority produces life because authority comes from a life-source; it is not a demanded power by a source of need.

If we lead to meet the needs of others we will never change the world. We will manage a measure of fruitfulness, multiplication, and filling, but we will never see the greater measure of God’s authority to subdue and have dominion. The needs of people are very often determined by their perceived realities. If we lead to respond to their needs we are responding to their perceived realities. The result will be another measure of what has happened before. We may gather a crowd, grow in size, or grow in number, but we may never change the world. To subdue is to destroy death with life. Leading to meet the needs of people very often deals with the perceived fruit of a need, but doesn’t really change the root cause of that apparent need. The substance of life doesn’t come from the task we are trying to accomplish. It comes by the measure of life we carry to accomplish the task. That measure of life comes from who and what we are under. It is not determined by what we are over in our responsibilities. True dominion is the ability to crumble a lie with a measure of truth. Dominion, like subduing, is not determined by who or what we are over. Who or what we are under determines dominion. God is the fullness of truth, so to be a measure of truth we must be under that expression of truth in God. This involves our personal relationship with God by His Spirit as well as the God-sent physical expression of that truth to our lives. Who or what we are over does not determine our responsibilities in life. Who and what we are under determine responsibility. We are responsible to receive life so we have life to give to others. We cannot change the world by looking at the world. The future of the world is not determined by how it is in the world. It is determined by how it is in heaven. Authority is not a matter of seeing what is in the world and attempting to bring heaven to it. It is a matter of seeing what is in heaven and then bringing a measure of that heavenly substance to a hungry world. When life walks into a room, death is transformed to become life.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

As leaders we must have to be motivated to lead. What is it that motivates leaders? Faith is surely a big part of being able to lead. I used to believe that faith was towards something that God said, but I have come to understand that faith is always towards a person. Faith works through love and that love is a love for a person. It is not a love for a promise. It is not a love for a purpose. It is not a love for a ministry or a task in life. It is a love for God and a love for people. True faith is towards God and it comes by hearing God. When God speaks we hear what He says because we love Him. We don’t twist His words to our destruction. We hear Him and we respond to His voice with actions of love for Him. Faith is a huge part of being able to lead. We lead because we are first able to follow. We follow not only the voice of God; we follow the heart of God. We grow in knowing Him and we grow in knowing His heart. I believe that as we grow in knowing Him we also grow in doing what we see Him doing. His heart leads us. His Spirit leads us. We do what we see our heavenly father doing. We don’t wait for Him to do it and then follow His actions. We see what He would do and we do it, because we know His nature, character, way, power, and authority in the things He does. Our hearts grow to be motivated by what motivates His heart. We are moved by compassion and love in the role of leading for the sake of the Father’s will in loving people.

I used to think that vision based upon principles, patterns, and values is what motivates leaders, but I have come to understand that there is something much stronger than vision based upon these. It is what actually gives vision the power of imagination. I believe that it is two-fold. I believe that it is a love for God and a love for people. Love for God and love for people empowers leaders to serve through a power of submission. There is no doubt a part of leadership that is built upon principles, patterns, and values that motivate their actions, but these alone will not be enough to motivate leadership in the long haul. Leaders must know the commission of their leadership and that commission is no doubt filled with principles, patterns, and values that direct their hearts, but being able to lead others is not merely being able to obey God or obey a commission. It is to submit to God and to submit to people in the task of leading. It is possible to obey without truly submitting, but it is not possible to submit without demonstrating actions of obedience. I believe that submission is an attribute of love for someone else. Obedience can be performed through a commitment or an obligation to something, but submission is an attitude of the heart. Leaders submit to God by embracing willingness to follow Him in leading others. They also submit to people by willingly embracing their responsibility of leading them for the sake of love. They tip in the direction of those under their leadership in order to give them the substance of life entrusted to them by God for the sake of bringing others further in the path of destiny. They also come under God’s authority in their lives so they can be leaders that others can follow. I believe that leadership is a gift of God’s love to those they are entrusted to lead. They don’t lead for the sake of their own agendas. They don’t lead for their own ministries. They don’t lead for the sake of their own kingdoms. Leaders lead for the sake of the Father’s heart in writing spiritual letters of life in the hearts of men and women joined together for God’s purposes in the earth. Those letters are letters of God’s love being written by His Holy Spirit to be manifestly read by those in the world around them. They are a message of God’s kingdom love to the kingdoms of the world. Each letter has a unique message of life and each letter contributes to the bigger picture of God’s life for the world. Leaders are not merely responsible to the letter being written. They are responsible to the One who is writing the letter and to the hearts of those the letter is being written within. Leaders must lead for the Spirit of the letter, not merely the words of the letter. The letter without the Spirit can kill, but the Spirit of the letter will always bring life. It is a testimony of God’s love.

Love is the true motivation of leadership. It isn’t a love for the letter being written, but a love for God the Author of every letter and a love for people, the substance of every letter written.

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

As leaders we must have to be motivated to lead. What is it that motivates leaders? Faith is surely a big part of being able to lead. I used to believe that faith was towards something that God said, but I have come to understand that faith is always towards a person. Faith works through love and that love is a love for a person. It is not a love for a promise. It is not a love for a purpose. It is not a love for a ministry or a task in life. It is a love for God and a love for people. True faith is towards God and it comes by hearing God. When God speaks we hear what He says because we love Him. We don’t twist His words to our destruction. We hear Him and we respond to His voice with actions of love for Him. Faith is a huge part of being able to lead. We lead because we are first able to follow. We follow not only the voice of God; we follow the heart of God. We grow in knowing Him and we grow in knowing His heart. I believe that as we grow in knowing Him we also grow in doing what we see Him doing. His heart leads us. His Spirit leads us. We do what we see our heavenly Father doing. We don’t wait for Him to do it and then follow His actions. We see what He would do and we do it, because we know His nature, character, way, power, and authority in the things He does. Our hearts grow to be motivated by what motivates His heart. We are moved by compassion and love in the role of leading for the sake of the Father’s will in loving people.

I used to think that vision based upon principles, patterns, and values is what motivates leaders, but I have come to understand that there is something much stronger than vision based upon these. It is what actually gives vision the power of imagination. I believe that it is two-fold. I believe that it is a love for God and a love for people. Love for God and love for people empowers leaders to serve through a power of submission. There is no doubt a part of leadership that is built upon principles, patterns, and values that motivate their actions, but these alone will not be enough to motivate leadership in the long haul. Leaders must know the commission of their leadership and that commission is no doubt filled with principles, patterns, and values that direct their hearts, but being able to lead others is not merely being able to obey God or obey a commission. It is to submit to God and to submit to people in the task of leading. It is possible to obey without truly submitting, but it is not possible to submit without demonstrating actions of obedience. I believe that submission is an attribute of love for someone else. Obedience can be performed through a commitment or an obligation to something, but submission is an attitude of the heart. Leaders submit to God by embracing willingness to follow Him in leading others. They also submit to people by willingly embracing their responsibility of leading them for the sake of love. They tip in the direction of those under their leadership in order to give them the substance of life entrusted to them by God for the sake of bringing others further in the path of destiny. They also come under God’s authority in their lives so they can be leaders that others can follow. I believe that leadership is a gift of God’s love to those they are entrusted to lead. They don’t lead for the sake of their own agendas. They don’t lead for their own ministries. They don’t lead for the sake of their own kingdoms. Leaders lead for the sake of the Father’s heart in writing spiritual letters of life in the hearts of men and women joined together for God’s purposes in the earth. Those letters are letters of God’s love being written by His Holy Spirit to be manifestly read by those in the world around them. They are a message of God’s kingdom love to the kingdoms of the world. Each letter has a unique message of life and each letter contributes to the bigger picture of God’s life for the world. Leaders are not merely responsible to the letter being written. They are responsible to the One who is writing the letter and to the hearts of those the letter is being written within. Leaders must lead for the Spirit of the letter, not merely the words of the letter. The letter without the Spirit can kill, but the Spirit of the letter will always bring life. It is a testimony of God’s love.

Love is the true motivation of leadership. It isn’t a love for the letter being written, but a love for God the Author of every letter and a love for people, the substance of every letter written. It is not a love for ministry, a love for purpose, or a love for the anointing. Leadership is motivated by a love for God and a love for people! Let’s embrace a revelation of God’s love and let’s lead for the sake of love!

Food For Thought,

Ted J. Hanson

Greetings,

A leader is not someone who is a scholar or a professional. They are not merely individuals who have gone through a process of developing skills to lead others. A leader is someone who influences those they lead in a way that is in agreement with what God is doing as a whole among all who are being led. Whatever the Spirit among people is writing must be embraced by leadership within the environment of that community being expressed by the Holy Spirit. Leaders are the first to respond to what God is doing in the heavenly community they are part of. Whatever is being expressed of heaven must be embraced by leaders and implemented into natural expressions by leaders first. The objective of any expression of God’s community must be that the community members embrace the expression of God being given to them by the Holy Spirit. God wants to express Himself in a specific way and in a specific area in every expression of His community in the earth.

A leader is not someone who can give eloquent, impressive sermons. A leader is not someone who is a great orator, educator, or instructor. When we exalt these things we rob the church of the spiritual blessings that only spiritual leaders can bring. We don’t need information about love, mercy, or understanding. We need love! We need mercy! We need understanding! Leaders are an expression of God’s love, God’s mercy, and God’s understanding. They are expressions of whatever God is doing and in whatever way God is revealing Himself among people.

It is spiritual life that produces spiritual leaders, and only spiritual leaders serve to activate, facilitate, and release spiritual people. Those spiritual people are not the result of leadership. They are the result of the Holy Spirit working in their midst, but leadership is an example and an inspiration to that entire community expression of whatever God is doing. These are men and women who live to activate, facilitate, and release all that God is doing within their sphere of influence in life. They themselves must excel in being activated, facilitated, and released in all that God is doing so they can serve to assist others in all that God is doing.

Spiritual life is activated through a close relationship with God, God’s people, and the spiritual examples of leaders in the faith. These are leaders who live to respond to the NOW personal voice of God in their lives. They are people of faith! Leaders must exhibit compassion, concern, willingness, humility, warmth, forgiveness, brokenness, self-sacrifice, service, maturity, transparency, and the like in becoming what God has called them to be. Leadership is a gift to those they lead, not a position of being lords of what they lead.

Leaders must have a heart for God and for the generational destiny of those they lead. They must be willing to go through difficult things on behalf of those they lead. It is not their own will that is to be implemented in the communities of Christ that they lead. It is the will of the Father that they serve. They must lead with His heart and must therefore exhibit the heart of parents in the midst of the congregation. This is the example set by the early Church leaders in the birthing of the Church.

1 Thessalonians 2:2-13 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.

For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.

As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.

Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.

Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe

As leaders we must exhibit hearts of servants to those we lead. We serve the will of the Father in the role of leadership in the community expressions of God in the earth. It is not merely the actions of our lives that reveal who we are. It is the inner heart attitudes and motivations that manifest as the actions of love for God and for His people.

Food For Thought.

Ted J. Hanson

Thank you to those who support me and the endeavors of this ministry. We are providing resources and implementing an equipping of the Body of Christ. We are empowering those in the Body of Christ for the future generations of the world! If you would like to make a donation to support us and our cause please consider doing so at the donation link on this page.

Thank You – Ted J. Hanson