Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
God doesn’t just give us promises for the sake of promises. He gives us promises for the sake of us knowing who He is and becoming like Him in His character, nature, way, power, and authority. The apostle Peter wrote that the great and precious promises of God are given to us so we will partake of God’s divine nature.
2 Peter 1:4 …by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
If the great and precious promises of God are given for us to partner with God and become like Him than we can also know that this principle is true for any and every promise given to us by God.
God wants us to know who we are and to become the authentic substance of sons and daughters of God. For this reason, God also allows us to go through pressures whereby we manifest who we are by the power of God’s grace.
Romans 5:1-5 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the Holy Spirit who was given to us has poured out the love of God in our hearts.
Our peace with God is not merely a state of being calm in our hearts or at ease in our soul. Our peace is a positioning in Christ whereby there is no gap between God and us. We have been made one with Him and there is no separation between Him and us. In this He manifests in our lives and His Spirit is the substance of His grace that changes our lives from the inside out. The true test of what is in us is made known by the pressures that come against us from the outside sources of our lives. This dynamic of the inward life of Christ and the outward pressure upon our lives causes the testimony of Christ within us to become a force of life that changes the character of our lives. In this process of grace we face tribulations or pressures in life. All who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
2 Timothy 3:12 Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
When we face the pressures of persecution we choose to persevere. Perseverance is not just a holding on to something in pain. It is a position of attitude from within our hearts. It is a choosing to cheerfully endure in the midst of the pressures that are against us. This is not just a thing of our soul. It requires us to draw the life of the Holy Spirit into our own spirit within. In the presence of the Lord there is the fullness of joy and true perseverance is drawing upon the presence of God in our hearts in order to see His life flood our souls with the testimony of true endurance. It is not a thing of misery, but a decision to embrace the life of Christ that is within us. True perseverance always carries the substance of a choice to be cheerful and to endure. It is a cheerful endurance. When we find the secret of true perseverance, we discover the key to seeing the character of Christ in us manifest. Our own character changes by the life of the character of Christ within us. The transformation of our lives from within is what reveals true hope – a testimony of Christ in us revealed through the substance of our lives.
As leaders we set an example that others can follow in this process of change. The character of Christ becomes manifest in us when the beliefs of our hearts receive and trust Him more that the things that oppose us in life. Christ in us is the key to this process of change in our lives. Our character is to be the character of Christ. This is more important than the gifting, the skills, the charisma, or the manifested talents of our lives. It is Christ’s character that can sustain Christ’s gifting and it is only that which is of Christ that can overcome the world. As leaders we must know and lead others in knowing that the pressures of life appear as our enemy, but the power of Christ within each of us is greater than the weapons that oppose us. We must pay more attention to our character, than to the surface abilities of leadership.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
