A Paradigm Shift!

Hi to Everyone:

I am sure you are all getting ready for Christmas. Bonnie and I are blessed to have our daughter Joanna home for the holidays, although our son Aaron and daughter in law Amani are still in Hawaii. We are missing them and wishing them the best during this holiday season. I hope every one of you who read this blog make family and friend connections this Christmas.

Today I am reflecting on this past year and realizing what an amazing year it has been for my family and I. My son has taken on the helm of the church and we have all transitioned to another dimension of faith and life in Christ. Last week I had an opportunity to speak in Canada and I presented three paradigm shifts in our thinking as a result of God working in our lives this past year. Today I want to present those paradigm shifts. A paradigm is a generally accepted perspective of things. It is like wearing a pair of glasses that cause us to view things in a certain way and then make judgments of what we see through those lenses of vision. God is continually changing the way we view things because He is progressively changing the way we think. He is renewing our minds to come in alignment with His way of thinking. We have the mind of Christ within us, but our old way of viewing things often clouds our ability to have a Christ-life perspective.

I entered this past year with a strong sense of transition and generational inheritance. This was not just because my son was becoming the pastor of our church. It was because God had been revealing a prophetic perspective of generational thought for some time. It was an increasing influence to my way of thinking and a significant one for the body of Christ as a whole. God is a multigenerational God! He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Israel! He is the God of Paul, Timothy, faithful men and others also! This is the increasing perspective that was affecting my thought as we entered the year of 2011.

Throughout this past year there have been three major shifts in the paradigm of my vision. I am not going to share them in the order that they came, but in a way that reveals a conclusion of their coming. So the first paradigm shift is one that removes man from being the center of the world and puts God as the center of every world. A religious paradigm of thought presents that man is bad and they need a savior. This is often a true statement, but it is not a statement of truth. It is a view that focuses on a bad world that God must make good. God didn’t send Jesus to the world because the world was bad and it needed a savior. He sent Jesus because He is a good Father and He loves all people. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son.” Our thinking must shift from that of seeing a bad world to one of seeing a good God. God is good and He loves people! This shift in our paradigm of thought will produce life on good days and bad days. God didn’t come to make bad people good; He came to make dead people come alive! He came to make a dead world come to life in Him! He did this because He is a good God who loves people.

A second change of thinking comes in our measure of love. Jesus confirmed to a questioning pharisaic lawyer that the law and the prophets rest upon two commands. The first is to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength and the second is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. The law and the prophets of the Old Covenant were dependant upon those two commandments (Mt. 22:34-40). Jesus later gave His disciples a new commandment. He told them to love one another, even as He loved them, to love one another (Jn. 13:34). This command was based upon a revelation of God’s love not a commandment to love. When we know the love of God we are empowered by God’s grace to love one another. So, this second paradigm shift is that love if a revelation, not a command. Old Covenant thinking demands a love for God and for one another, but New Covenant thinking inspires a power of love by a revelation of God’s love in our lives. This is an important shift in our thinking for the coming season of grace. When we understand this great love we come to know that forgiveness leads to repentance, reconciliation leads to understanding, belonging leads to becoming, purpose leads to passion, and having a Father makes us a son or a daughter. A simple shift in our thinking makes a profound difference to our perspectives in life.

The third change of thinking that transpired in 2011 was one of viewing who we are in this earth. There was a time where God delighted in a generation that sought His blessing. This was the “Jacob generation” of the past decades that cried out for more of God. But now God is calling forth an “Israel generation” that knows who the King is and thus they understand who they are. We are not wrestling with God; God is wrestling with us, because He knows who we really are. He wants us to become manifested as the princes and princesses of His righteousness (Isa. 32:1-4). These are the ones who keep their eyes on the righteous King in every wind, storm, drought, and heat of day. These are the ones to believe what He believes, act as He acts, imagine the future generations as He imagines, and influence the world the way He influences. This is the generation that is hope for those who cannot see, those who do not listen, those who act hastily, and those who have no clear influence of life.

Our perspective of things must be set upon the foundation of God, the One who is very good and who loves all people. Out thoughts must be motivated by a revelation of His love. We must arise and become who we are meant to be in this world. We are God’s means of bringing His life to the world in which we live. Receive these gifts as treasures this Christmas and lets MOVE FORWARD to bring Christ’s life to the worlds in which we each reside.

Merry Christmas,

Ted J. Hanson

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