Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
We are living in a very interesting time. As leaders, we are facing challenges and opportunities not seen before in the church. It is a costly time for leaders and for believers. God is requiring us to be transparent and vulnerable.
Psalms 29:9 The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”
I believe that there is a present grace of God at work in the earth. That grace is a grace of the Spirit of knowing. I believe that we have been living in increasing measures of this grace for these first years of this millennium. This grace is a grace of becoming the people of God. To be the people of God we must know the purpose of our lives. Our purpose is life! The secret to the forest is not merely the forest, it is the generational life that is hidden therein. We cannot hold on to our stuff and freely live for the future generations. We must be willing to be exposed and changed. We are a temple of God’s presence individually and corporately as the family of God.
Whenever God does something in the earth, His is voice is heard by everyone. Although His voice is heard, His voice is not understood by everyone nor is it responded to. I believe that even people in the world hear God, but they don’t know that it is God who is speaking. They hear a sound in their spirit and that sound comes to their souls. Thoughts come to their minds, reasoning begins to become a strategy, their imaginations come alive in their hearts and they begin to dream new things or see new things. When God speaks, He speaks everywhere, and the frequency of His voice can be heard by those who have ears to hear. God wants those of us who are believers in Christ to have these same realities. We should be hearing God, embracing what God is saying, and creating new things with what we’ve heard. Unfortunately, much of the church tries to preserve what God said in the past and they’re not open to hearing new things that God is saying. Sometimes we hold on to our understanding of what God said yesterday so tightly, the very thing that God said becomes a strong rock of remembrance that can even cause us to love what God said yesterday more than loving God. We can close our hearts to hearing what God is saying today. We must hold on to the foundations of the past, but we must see them as foundations to the present and the future and not the absolute reality of the present nor the future. They are stones in the mountain of God in the past, but they are not the stones of faith in the mountain of God today. When we grip them too tightly, they become monuments to what God said yesterday and hinder us from hearing what God is saying today.
I believe that the present grace of God at work in the earth is one of finding our true identity in Christ. This is not for our own sakes, but for the glory of our Father in heaven and for the glory of His family name. The cry in the temple of God should be Glory! This is not our own self-indulgence, but the glory of the calling, the inheritance, and the destiny of Christ. This involves our embracing our part in the calling of Christ, the inheritance of Christ, and the power of destiny in Christ. It is about being a part of the will, the way, and the plan of God through mankind so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters presently cover the sea. We make a great us and a terrible someone else. God wants each of us to be real and authentic. Even in the world, people are searching for their true identity. Their hearts are crying out to become authentic. In their search, they often embrace lies, because they do not know the source of truth. They don’t blatantly embrace lies; they are vulnerable to deception because they are not clear in understanding the source of true identity. They don’t embrace lies because they’re wicked or evil, they simply embrace lies because they don’t know how to find the truth. Unfortunately, we often do the same in the church as the people of God. We don’t know how to find truth. We don’t know how to discover who we really are. Only in Christ can we find our true identity. Our true identity is a testimony of praise! This is not human praise; this is human beings becoming a testimony of the praise of God as their heavenly Father. We are each a one and only in life. This is our true value. Our true value can only be discovered when we become who we really are. Who we really are in Christ will be resisted by what we are not. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. We wrestle against spiritual powers who seek to destroy our true identity. Our true identity will establish our true dominion. God wants us to be able to subdue and have dominion in life. To subdue is to destroy death with a life! I believe this is the testimony of grace. Grace is the manifest presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives, Who destroys death. This is the power of grace. True dominion is to destroy lies with truth. Truth is not something we know in our heads; truth is what we become in our lives. When we discover our true identity in Christ, we discover our true dominion in Christ. Jesus was the Word made flesh so that all flash could become a testimony of God’s word. As leaders we must allow God to strip away the lies that simply serve as a hiding place from our true selves. We must be an example and lead others into the same. God is inviting us to go another measure in manifesting His glory as the people of God.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
Thank you to those who have given the House of Bread. We have purchased our travel tickets through September. We still need to purchase tickets for numerous trips and connections in October, and November. If God gives you the means to help, please consider making a donation to House of Bread Ministry.
Thanks Again – Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry, 3210 Meridian St., Bellingham, WA 98225
