Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Last week I addressed the need to be the salt and the light of our world, as the influence of the kingdom of heaven in external ways. In order to convey what I need to say in regard to being God’s influence in this world, I feel I must post something I wrote a couple of years ago.
In Genesis chapter 28 we find a story of Jacob on his journey in life. Jacob was destined to become Israel. The name Israel means, Prince with God. If God is King and you are a prince, what does that make you? It makes you a son or a daughter of the King. I am using the word prince to also imply princess, as I use the word son to also imply daughter. It is a term of inheritance. In Christ there is no difference between male and female, all are sons. God always wanted to establish His sons and daughters in the earth because they fulfill His calling. They are the fullness of His inheritance. They exercise the fullness of His life-giving authority. God has never wanted servants. He has never desired slaves. He has always wanted a family. The earth was destined for the family of God – for the Israel of God. He didn’t merely desirea nation called Israel, but a kingdom of sons and daughters called Israel. The family of God is the expression of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, a heavenly kingdom among the kingdoms of the earth. It is an eternal kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is an internal kingdom that consumes the external realities of the kingdoms of men by an internal transformation of hearts and minds.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the testimony to the fullness that could only come in Christ. A first, second, and third generation would lead to a fourth generation that would be the shadow of what God had in mind for all nations. Jacob was destined to become Israel, but he had to find the keys to becoming before he could wear that testimony. On his journey, Jacob came to place and he decided to go to sleep. He found a stone and he set it up as a pillow for a night of sleep.
Genesis 28:10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.
Jacob did not have a revelation at this point of who he was. He did not have a full revelation of his purpose. He didn’t have a revelation of God’s full plan. He just had a desire in his heart for God. He went to sleep on the rock. He was no doubt tired. You must be tired to use a rock as a pillow. Is the church a place of comfort? Is it a place to go to sleep? Is it a place that gives you rest or is it a place where God rests? Jesus told Peter you are little rock, but on the huge rock I will build by church. The rock that the church is built upon is not a place of sleeping. It is a place of God’s presence and purpose. It is the place where the manifest presence of God rests in the earth. It is a place of the revelation of Christ in us the hope of glory.
Genesis 28:12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Jacob went to sleep on the rock, and he dreamed a dream. He saw a ladder that was on the earth but extended to heaven. The bottom was on the earth and extended to heaven. He saw angels ascending on the ladder and then descending upon the ladder. Those angels were bringing things from heaven to the place where Jacob was sleeping. Jacob heard God speak.
Genesis 28:13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”
God told Jacob that his descendants would be as the dust of the earth. They would be numerous. They would spread to the east, the west, the north and the south. In Jacob’s seed the families of the earth were going to be blessed. God promised to be with Him and to bring him back to the place He had promised.
Do you know that you are the house of God? You are the place that God rests so that God’s will and purpose can be done in and through your live. As leaders we must know this truth and we must lead others into the reality of being the place that has access to heavenly realities for heavenly purposes in the earth.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
I just finished another training course in Portuguese! We are reaching the nations for the generations of tomorrow!
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