Conversations With the Seer–About the Need to Pray

(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a Seer.”  I Samuel 9: 9)

Having to pray was becoming a burden and not the joy that I had been told it was.  Something was wrong.  So I went to the Seer and said, “I know that prayer is important; the Bible says that we are to pray.  I’ve been told all my life that I need to pray.  But I can’t seem to find it within me the need for prayer.”

The Seer paused and peered into my eyes and finally spoke.  “When a person feels complete in themselves, when they think that through their own wits they will figure out what needs to be done, when they rely on themselves for the answer to their problems–then, they will feel no need to commune with a Being that is greater than themselves for help.  Where’s the need?  They have believed the lie that it’s all in them, that they innately have within themselves god-like powers that can be tapped, if only they would believe and rely on themselves.”

The Seer set down his cup and waved his arm in a 180 degree pass, as if addressing the entire world.  “But in the end, eventually this misguided human bravado will fail; self-reliance will cease to be the source of strength; and humanism will heave its last gasp as the ‘mighty ego’ collapses under the weight of its own inflated thinking.”

“But I thought that self-reliance was a virtue–you know, depending on yourself, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, working hard, and all that.”

“Yes, but there is a fine line.  If self-reliance squeezes God out of the movie that you are making of your life, what will the final scene be?  I will tell you.  Returning from a squalid night of self-promotion, you go to your vanity and look in the mirror  past the smugness you use as lotion and past the shabby arrogance you use as cologne.  And the image of yourself in the mirror begins to talk to you and says, ‘You are not what you crack yourself up to be.’  And you scream in fright, for you have been found out.  The jig is up.  The illusion of your own grandeur falls like flimsy celluloid onto the film editor’s floor.  And then, hopefully, an epiphany will flash on the screen of your mind in the form of this truth: ‘If a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.’   And then you realize that it is this very self-deception that blinds us to the need for prayer to our Creator and Sustainer.”

“Wow.  And what about those on the opposite extreme?”

“The physically lazy will be spiritually lazy, too.  Those who are too lazy to work with their hands either rely on man’s government for their monthly check or ‘the kindness of strangers’ to make it.  Either way, the lazy are not relying on God.  Accepting steady handouts stunts all spiritual growth, for your god is who you look to for your sustenance.”

“So the proud can be the poor, too,” I said, sensing more light the deeper we delve into the subject.

“Yes.  You don’t have to be successful to be proud.  Poor or prosperous, it is human pride that blocks one’s need to pray.”

“Well, I am prideful, then, because at times I just do not feel the need.  How do I break the pride?”

“There is no  magic formula that breaks human pride.  Unless you want to call ‘obedience’ a magic formula.  Our Creator has told us to pray.  We should just obey this directive.  Understanding comes after obedience.  You must go on, trust Him, and pray to your Father.  This will rid you of that rigid pride.”

“Just like that?”  I was thinking, Surely it couldn’t be that easy.

“Of course, it must be a sincere communication to Him.  It can’t be contrived or constrained.  Constant repititions of canned prayers and praying so many times each day facing in a certain direction–that is not what God is talking about.  Remember–you are talking to your spiritual Father.”

“But I don’t know what to say to Him exactly.”

“Let’s just think in the natural world for a moment.  Let’s say that your earthly father gives you a fine wrist watch.  You see the joy on his face as he hands it to you.  What is the first thing that comes to your mind to say to him–if anything?”

“It would be, Thanks, Dad!”

“There you go.  There you have your answer as to what to say to your spiritual Father.  Instead of a wrist watch, He has given you immortality!  A life with Him forever.  He has promised that you are His heir; you will inherit all things!  You are a prince or princess in His kingdom!  You will sit with Him on His throne!  So what words should  come to mind?”

“Thank you, Father, for loving me.”

“Now that wasn’t so difficult, was it?  You just prayed, communicating a sincere appreciation, for Him including you in His plan and purpose.  Don’t you see that true prayer issues forth from a heart of belief in His promises to us, and from our simple gratefulness to Him for it?”

“I see.” 

“The key is knowledge of His promises.  Then, believing them.  This brings gratefulness that will  come out of one’s heart as words of gratitude.  This is the fount of all prayer, the oracle of all expression.”  After a moment, he asked, “Did that help?”

“Yes, it did.”  I left thinking about the word ‘prayer.’  It is nothing like what man says it is.  Then I thought about the words–promises, belief, gratitude–and realized that I was getting into something much deeper than man and his wisdom.  This wisdom was higher as the heavens are higher than the the earth, and profoundly simple as the blue of a robin’s egg or secrets of the frost and the dew.  I was full of questions, but they would have to wait for another day.  I had enough to munch on from today.                                                          Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Conversations With the Seer–How Do I Get Closer to God?

(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a seer. I Samuel 9: 9)

I asked the Seer, “How do I get closer to God?”

And he said, “You’ve got to ask Him to take you to that place–that special place where He dwells, where we can commune with Him.

“What is that place you speak of?”

“It is in a corner of His kingdom where He rules and reigns.  It’s in a spiritual world, invisible to mortal eyes.”

“It sounds very mystical and mysterious to  me.”

“All true seekers must by definition be mystics.  For they believe that it is possible to transcend our first estate as humans and finally become one with the Higher Power.  That is their goal, their hope, their belief.  And so it has been throughout the ages.  Philosophers, prophets, and sages of every ilk the world over have known that a spirit world exists.  They knew that a spiritual place apart from our five senses is out there somewhere–a place where the unexplained things intrigue the mind of man.  There are many ways that seem right, but only one way leads to the celestial home, and that is Christ.  He is the way to that special place.  He and He alone is able to take us by the hand and lead us to where we want to be.”

“I want to get there, but how do I?”

“It is not a physical place that we can travel to and enter, like a concrete city with its buildings of brick, mortar, stone, and colored glass.  Nor is it where the ocean’s waves lap at our ears with its endless breath.  Nor is it in the green cathedral forest, where the congregants stand erect, lifting their verdant arms up to the light blue ceiling, listening to the crunch of our footsteps and the whispers of our wonder at being in their presence.  No, this is not the special place where God will meet us.”

“Where is that place then?”

“It is that quiet country that spreads forth its boundless plain  in another dimension where God dwells.  Because He is an invisible Spirit, to experience His presence, we must finally come to that special place.”  It was as if the Seer was speaking in riddles.  The words, separated from each other, made sense, but when strung together, they spoke of something inviting, but covered in a fine mist.

I finally said, “I’m reminded of a line in that song, I really want to see You, Lord, but it takes so long, my Lord.”

“Yes, that sums up nicely the soul of the seeker, how we all feel, or have felt.  To our finite mind, time is slow. That inkling of a ray of the light of truth that we glimpsed when we were twenty may not be fully illuminated until we are sixty.  The knowledge that we need to love others, for instance, and not our selfish selves, may come to us when we are young, but how to incorporate the love-from-above into living takes time.  We must learn to forgive, appreciate, and in so doing, love others in all their human frailties.  This may take a lifetime.  And it is this needed patience on our part that shipwrecks hope.”

“I do want to be a loving human being.”

“Of course, you do.  But before being comes doing, and before doing comes knowing.  Knowledge comes first.”

“What knowledge are you speaking of exactly?”

“First, knowledge of the Creator’s plan and purpose must be attained.  Then we must get knowledge as to how we corrupt humans fit into that plan and purpose.  We must realize that we are special to Him.  We are ‘the apple of His eye.’  We are in and have been in His thoughts before time was ever stretched and measured out over the earth.  We are blessed for we know that plan.”

“What is His plan for us?”

“The teeming masses swarm to the latest thing that will tickle their greed or assuage their fear, and most, alas, will not come to the knowledge that God has created them for one major purpose: He wants to reproduce Himself in us!  While the majority of humans plod their own path or someone else’s path, He is quietly calling out a few with plans to transform them into vessels that will display Himself.  That is what His ultimate purpose is about.   All those who get on board with what He is doing, will be at peace, for they will be on the same page as the Great One.”   KWH   [To be continued...Let your thoughts be heard; make a comment.  To read more go to my books here http://yahwehisthesavior.com/unveiling.htm ]

A Childlike Faith in God Is What We Need

This world and the people of this world are sick.  The malady comes from a steady diet of doubt.  Almost all of the systems of man–the media, politics, education, and even religious denominations–almost all are starving God’s people and feeding them the poisonous pablum of lies.  And the major lie is that either there is no God or, if there is, He is untrustworthy and His word is no good.

It is getting so bad that people are afraid to speak of God; it is not politically correct to believe in the Savior.  The atheists, marxists, maoists, and communists have done a job on the American people–so much so that people are reluctant to even demonstrate for our great republic founded on Christian principles.  No matter what Pres. Obama says, America is a Christian nation, but we have lost our way.  

But some are finding the way.  In the midst of all of this immoral morass, God is still in control.  He has a plan, and it does not matter to Him just how dark the sky seems to us, He will bring His plan to pass.  He will raise up a few good men and women who will believe Him and His promises found in the Holy Bible.  Christ is coming back to earth soon.  He is searching for those with “like precious faith.”  He is looking for those who believe Him and take Him at His word.  “When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18: 8).  I believe He will. 

A Childlike Faith

He said to let the little chidren come to Him for the Kingdom of God belongs to them (Matt. 19: 14).  Why to them and those like them?  Because they don’t doubt.  They believe.  It seems that the older we get, the more doubts enter into our hearts.  But the little child believes.  Ralph Waldo Emerson knew this and believed that we adults could go back to a childlike state to see the world through a prism of belief or faith.

For God is calling out His future sons and daughters right now.  They will be His future rulers with Him in the world government that He will set up right here on earth.  And the very quality that we need in order to fulfill this calling is a childlike faith.

I was talking to my two grandsons, Cody and Austin, 12 and 10, the other day.  They had been playing a “Civilization” video game and asked me, “What are ages?”   I explained that they are major chunks of time marked by a certain characteristic of that era of time.  Now we are in the Information Age.  We have just left the Industrial Age, which started back in the 1800’s.

“Well, what does A.D. mean?”

“It is an abreviation of the Latin Anno Domini, which means year of our Lord, or since Christ was born.  Isn’t it amazing, guys, how man’s dates are reckoned by Christ’s life here on earth?  He was so great that everyone acknowledges Him when they give a date.”

I looked at my two grandsons.  Not one doubt clouded their shining faces.  Their childlike faith readily believed that Christ was so important to mankind that man would include Him in every date in their history.  No doubts fogged their thinking–just clear belief, unfettered by negatives, unhindered by man’s puny fears and foibles.

And then I smiled and realized that God has the last laugh.  Always has, always will.   Every atheist, marxist, and maoist that picks up a newspaper today will be faced with this year of our Lord, 2009 A.D.       Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Without Faith It Is Impossible to Please God–But How Do You Walk in It?

Faith.  Belief.  Without it, we will never please the Creator, which should be our foremost thought. 

If we are only alive to please our selves, then which god are we serving?  For make no mistake about it, to quote Dylan, “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”  

And the only way to serve the Creator is by faith.  We are shut up to it.  Why?  Because God is invisible, and since He is an invisible Spirit, we must believe Him, having never seen Him with our eyes.  And that takes faith.

And then someone will say, “Well, I believe in God.  I must have faith and am all right, then.”  Not exactly.  For even the devils believe in one God and tremble (1).  The prophets tell us that we must believe on Him “as the scripture has said.”   The “rivers of living water,” which is His Spirit, will only flow out of those who believe on Him the way the scripture has actually portrayed God (2).

How to walk with God by faith

Every step we take on our spiritual pilgrimage back to our Father is done through faith. The first step is the renunciation of our old sinful life.  God commands that we put it to death on the cross with Christ–not literally, but spiritually.  We have to let it die in order to receive a new life and a new heart.  “We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.  For he who has died is freed from sin.  But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (3).

The scenario goes like this.  Some will get sick and tired of doing bad things (sinning) and can’t in their own power stop.  Their conscience bothers them.  They want to stop sinning, which is breaking the ten commandments, but an evil unseen force overtakes them, and the good they want to do, they cannot do.  And the evil things they don’t want to do, they can’t stop doing (4).  This is the state of an unregenerated human being prior to the cross experience.  His old nature is still present.  So how does one put the old sinful heart on the cross to die with Christ and then to be “raised to walk in a newness  of life”?

The Reckoning

How do we do it?  How do we let the old self die and our new life in Christ begin?  We reckon it done by faith/belief.  We have to “reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through  Christ” (5).       We’ve got to reckon it done!  The word “reckon” is #3049 in Strong’s.  It means “to account it, to count it as such.”

God wants us to reckon it so, but He does it first!  He has already reckoned our change done.  When we believe Him, then He counts us righteous in His eyes even in our imperfect state.  It is His nature to “call those things that do not exist as though they did” (6). If He is this positive, then He would want His children to be the same.

He wants us to follow in His footsteps!  God “accounted”  righteousness  to  Abraham  because of his belief—before Abraham was righteous!  “Accounted” here is the same word as the one translated “reckon.”  We are commanded to RECKON some things done.  Now we have to reckon our sinful self gone—by belief—as though it were already done—for that is how God looks at it!  By belief!  Reckon it done through Him and His faith.  He said it.  Let it be done.  For what saith the scripture?  Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.  Rom. 4:3.  Yahweh imputed or reckoned to Abraham the ability to live in a upright manner, keeping Yahweh’s laws and  not  sinning, by just believing that Yahweh had done it!  We make it so hard through our hard heart of unbelief.  He is looking for childlike faith, the belief of a small child.  All we have to do is just believe that Yahweh has provided a way for us to actually put the old life to death and start living a new life in Him. 

The Churches Won’t Touch This

But the “Christian” denominations don’t believe it is possible.  The pastors won’t touch this, for it will get them fired.  The people in the pews don’t believe it, for they have been told all their life by those very pastors that they are sinners and that they will die a sinner.  The pulpits present no hope of ever really changing the heart.  The “deliverance” they preach is window dressing.  Just come to church, pay your tithes and offerings, and don’t rock the boat.  But the people in the pews still sit there in their private sins, undelivered.  But the future sons and daughters of God will long for more and will come out of her. 

They will take this first step by faith, by reckoning it done.  Then, by faith, they will take the next step, and the next, and they will begin to walk in the Spirit. 

But someone will say, “But we just can’t live without sin.”  Of course , we can’t.  That’s why we have to die on the cross with Christ and by faith receive a new heart, His heart, His Spirit.  We who do this have the victory–victory over sin and sinning.  For if we are still sinning, where is the victory?  Our faith is our victory (7). 

But we have to want this new life.  We have to pant after it like a desperately thisty deer.  We have to throw ourselves upon His mercy and break–break our hard hearts, and so He will come and comfort and heal us by giving His very Spirit into us, giving us a new heart.

Our part is to believe that “with God [in us] all things are possible.”  Even to live a life without sin and sinning.  Impossible, you say?  Not with Christ, for He said,  “And nothing shall be impossible to you…All things are possible to him that believes” (8).  And again, “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God” (9). 

Somebody is going to pick up the Book, believe its contents, and change the world.  By faith.   And He wants it to be us.       Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1. James 2: 19
2. John 7: 38
3. Romans 6: 6-8
4. Romans 7: 15-20
5. Romans 6: 11
6. Romans 4: 7
7. I John 5: 4
8. Mark 9: 23
9. Luke 18: 27

{You can read more on this in my book, here:  http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yahch30.htm

“Repent and Be Converted”–Returning to Our Previous State with the Father

“Repent and be converted…”  How these words of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost have been watered down by mainstream Churchianity today.  “Repent” has become “feeling sorry,” and “being converted” now means “coming to church.”

“To repent” is rather the changing of one’s mind, from the Greek word metanoia.  “Godly sorrow does work repentance.”  Ie, feeling sorry for our past sins to God will bring about a change in our thinking.  But for the mind to really be changed, we must go through the “cross experience”  whereby our old heart and mind are “crucified with Christ,” buried with Him, and finally raised up in newness with Him.  We then receive His Spirit, His heart, and His mind.  We then are poised to be “transformed by the renewing of our mind.”  Old thoughts of selfishness are “passed away.”  “Behold, all things are become new.”

Being Converted–What It Really Means

“Converted” is from the Greek word epistrepho, meaning “to revert, to return, to come again” (1).  “To return” inherently means that we were there before.  “To return to St. Louis” means that we have been in that city on a previous occasion.  Therefore, “being converted” to God means returning back to Him–reverting or going back to a spiritual position we had with Him before.

Truly becoming a child of God means that we have received His Spirit.  For “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8: 9).  We become a “new creature” with the Spirit we had with Him in the beginning now residing in our earthly bodies.  “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”  And this treasure is a portion of His Spirit, a bit of Him that we shared with Him before the worlds were framed.

If We Can Just Believe…

I know that is “getting out there,” but if we can believe  that we are returning to a spiritual state that we already had with God, then it will become easier to believe that we now have the great Eternal Spirit, Yahweh Himself, walking in us now.  For things are always easier to do, if we have done them before.  Can we with humility say, Been there, done that?

The Returning Prodigal Son

In the parable of the prodigal son, he returned to his Father.  He was once with his Father, but went to the swine pens of this world.  We, like him, have made a complete mess of our old lives, and are now returning, reverting to our prior position with the Father.  We are the prodigal sons and daughters of God, repenting from our old life and being washed from the slop and mire of sin.  We now in spirit have returned to our Father to the standing we had with Him before this wearisome walk on earth began.

“The Jews took up stones again to stone Him.”  Christ asked them, Which good work from my Father are you stoning me?  They said, Because you make yourself out to be God and you are only a man.  Christ then quotes from Psalms, ”Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods”?

The word “gods” is translated from the Hebrew word elohim, which is the exact word translated “God” over 2,000 times in the Bible.  Christ said that we are elohim.  That portion of His Spirit that He has given us was with Him in the beginning.  Remember when He said in Genesis, “Let us make man in our own image…so God created man in his own image” (1: 26-27). 

But we must not make the mistake in thinking that our old man Adam is God.  No.  Our old self must die, thereby blotting out our sins.  Only after believing in His resurrection can we receive His Spirit.  It is His Spirit that is God.  We are mere clay vessels that He has chosen to reside in.  It is all Him, not us in our natural thinking. 

This is difficult to comprehend when we look at this “after the flesh” and not “after the Spirit.”  Most still circle that same old mountain of sin in their lives, not believing that God is quite capable of “blotting out” our sins (Acts 3: 19).  Most will not believe Him and truly repent of their sins.  Sadly, most will not believe that “He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin” (I John 3: 5).  Their preachers don’t teach it, and most will depend on them for their spiritual food.

But a few will believe and repent and follow on in the Way.  They will receive Him into a new heart, and they will grow, and He will grow in them, “till we all come in the unity of the faith…unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4: 13).  These will be His fully manifested sons and daughters of God in these latter days.

We need to help them fulfill their calling.  In so doing, ”there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior” (2 Peter 1: 11).

Repentance and being converted to Christ has a deeper meaning than some think.  But knowing and doing the truth about them will bear fruit.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock 

(1) Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for epistrephō (Strong’s 1994)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 17 Aug 2009. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G1994&t=KJV > 

“converted” –  http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/translationResults.cfm?Strongs=G1994&Criteria=be+converted%2A&t=KJV

Conversations With the Seer–Who Will Do the “Greater Works”?

(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the Seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a Seer. I Samuel 9: 9)

“Christ did say, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also,” I said to the Seer.  We were talking about how followers of Christ today could grow to a point in which they could do the same miracles of healing and raising of the dead that the Savior and His apostles did (1).

“That promise is true,” the Seer said, “but what does it mean, to believe on Him?  Even the devils believe in one God and tremble.  Many believe that He existed, that He was a prophet, that He was a wise teacher.  Although important, it is not enough that we believe that Christ existed, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day.  Christ gives us His followers a commandment: ‘Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.’  Those who go and learn what that means–they are the ones that will do the greater works.”

“How could we do anything greater than healing the sick and raising the dead?” I asked, thinking that would be difficult to top.

“He is bringing many sons unto glory.  Multiply these works by thousands of us doing them—those are the ‘greater works.’”

“Never saw it like that before.  So what does ‘believe on Him’ mean then?”

“Christ was saying this: The Father that dwells in me speaks the words through me and does the works.  The Father is a Spirit; He is everywhere.  The Son is a vessel that walks in this knowledge and also contains the Father/Spirit.   We who have received His Spirit in our new hearts, we, also, are in the Father, and the Father now is in us.

“Christ commands us: ‘Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”  This is a commandment.  In fact, this is one of his new commandments that His apostle John tells us about.  He is saying, The things I do only God can do, so believe what I am saying to you about the Father being present right now in Me.  These miracles done through me—it is the Father in me that is doing them.”

“He did say, I and my Father are one.”

“Precisely.  Those that obey this new commandment and believe that it was very Yahweh, the great Creator, walking, teaching, healing, through the Anointed One Christ—they will do the same works that He did.”

“Just accepting Him as their personal Savior is not going to do it,” I said.

“No, it won’t.  We do the receiving of Him; He does the accepting of us.  Big difference.”

“The Great Creator Spirit poured Himself into the man called the Christ,” I said.

“Believe that and you will be given the Spirit as well.  Speaking of all of His followers down through the ages, He prayed, ‘That they may be one, as we are.’  And His prayers will be answered.”     KWH

(1) John 14: 9-20; 17: 11.

The Manifested Sons of God–Overcoming the Law of Sin and Death

The scriptures speak of a special destiny for certain human beings who overcome the pitfalls of their carnal mind.  And the world is waiting breathlessly, waiting for these rare individuals to appear on the scene (1).

They are called the sons and daughters of God, for God is their spiritual Father–not in word only, but in power.  For they will have changed at their core; “old things are passed away” in their new shining life.  They will have picked up The Book and just believed it and walked in it, and they will change history.

The End of the Carnal Mind

The apostle Paul saw their day, which all signs tell us is our day–the latter days.  He saw a group of individuals who through faith would walk the way Christ walked this earth–in purity of purpose, in honor and integrity.  The way they would do this is by receiving a new spirit–God’s Spirit into their hearts.  God’s Spirit will lead and guide them.  Consequently, they will be called the true children of God, for those “who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (2).

These offspring of the Most High, who dwell on earth today, will overcome being carnally minded, which is death.  For “the wages of sin is death” (3).  Therefore, the carnal mind stems from a heart that sins.

The Old Heart

This old heart is the spiritual condition that a person is born with.  It is the core center of natural man Adam and all his earthly offspring.  This old heart is the well from which the mind draws up evil selfish thoughts by the bucket fulls.

Without a spiritual heart transplant, one will continue sinning.  Temptation arises, and like a bull led by a nose ring, the natural carnal minded man and woman succumbs to the temptation.

The Law of Sin and Death

And hereby hangs a law, as inexorable as the law of gravity.  It is called “the law of sin and death.”  It is quite simple to understand.  If you continue in sin and sinning, you will die.

But someone will say, “Well, we are all going to die eventually anyway, so what is the difference?”

Yes, “it is appointed unto man once to die.”  The first death will come for the vast majority–the death of our physical bodies (unless we are alive in Christ when He returns and we are changed).  But it is the “second death” that we need to be concerned with.  For it is the snuffing out of any memory of us and the hope of life in the next dimension–the era of the immortal ones walking on this earth.

So natural man is strapped with his old sinful nature, and try as he might, he cannot rid himself of it in his own strength.

But God has provided a way to escape this hellish condition–a way to be freed from the inevitability of this “law of sin and death” (4).

There is another Law that negates the sin and death law.  It is called “The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.”  Receiving His Spirit “makes us free from the law of sin and death” (5).

The children of God will go through the “cross experience” whereby the old heart we are born with will be surrendered up.  A spiritual death will occur as they identify their old self with Christ, who was sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,” through which God “condemned sin in the flesh” (6).

And all this is done in us when we just believe it.  This spiritual state of being “right with God” is when He dwells in us and keeps His own laws in us.  When we walk in accordance with His Spirit, we do not break His Ten Commandment Law (7).

A chosen few, the future manifested sons and daughters of God, called the elect, will experience the above.  They will go deep and answer the “high calling” and make their election sure (8).

These are the sons of God, shining as lights in a dark and “crooked and perverse nation.”  Again, we must ask ourselves, Are we one of them?   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1. Rom. 8: 17-19
2. Rom. 8: 14
3. Rom. 6:23
4. Rom. 8: 1-5
5. Rom. 8: 2
6. Rom. 8: 3
7. Rom. 8: 4
8. Phil. 3: 14; II Peter 1: 10

We Were with God in the Beginning–Part II

Why This is Hard to Believe

The children of God were with their spiritual Father in the beginning, so declares the holy scriptures {see Feb. 9, 2009 post).  This message is difficult to receive when a person, dwelling on the earth and its pulls, is full and fat, and is “doing great,” and is living high-on-the-hog.

He has need of nothing, he thinks.  But he does not know that as a selfish earthbound mortal, he is really blind to the heavenly way.  He is wretched in his blindness to spiritual matters, for he can never be happy being earthly-minded.  He is poor, for he lacks the Spirit that was in the beginning.  And he is naked, strutting blindly on the earth, willingly ignorant of the truth about what is really happening “on earth as it is in heaven” (Rev. 3: 17).

This is the state of mankind now in this prosperous 21st century.  And the only thing that will wake up God’s people to Him is that He allows the engineering of an economic fall–one that will strip the toys and gadgets from the lost sheep of the House of Israel.

In the Old Testament stories, it was always an economic collapse brought on by crooked politicians that finally pierced through the hard hearts.  When they became destitute, “then they cried unto the LORD (Yahweh).”

And He heard them and came down by making His Presence known to a prophet, who in turn, led His people away from the moral and spiritual abyss and led them back “to the beginning”–back to the pastures of the Father’s heart.

How to Get Back to the Beginning with Him

We will be restored back to what we had with Him in the beginning.  How?  We believe that we receive His Spirit–after we surrender our old self on the cross and let it die with Christ, who was the sin sacrifice (Romans 6: 1-6).  This is the first step.  Then through just believing God and His love granting us a new life, heart, and spirit, we begin to walk in this new life–His Life now incarnated in us.

We believe that His Spirit within us now cauterizes eventually all connections to our earthly past.  And then by faith (belief), we leave the bars and chains of earthly thinking with its negative demands, and we begin to walk in the Spirit, in the spiritual state that we already “had with Him before the world began.”

The Truth

For the truth is that we were with Him in the beginning.  The “We”  here is the portion of His Spirit that we are now, not our earthly body.

For after receiving Christ, anything we are is “new” to our current earthly reality, but “old” in that our new existence in Christ is one we shared with Him before time as we know it began.

A person instructed in the Kingdom of God will, consequently, “bring forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Matt. 13: 52).  The “old” is our spiritual relationship we had with Him before our earthly sojourn began.  The “things new” is living now through His Spirit within our hearts–right now here on earth.

This sin-free spiritual walk in Christ is “new” and rare, for few have been priveleged to glimpse this; few have been given the eyesalve to anoint the earthen eyes that they may see.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Bearing the Fruit of the Spirit–Being the Children of Light

The apostle Paul says that we are light, and we are to “walk as children of light” (Eph 5:8).  Then, in the very next breath he says, “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness…”  This thus signifying that “light” is equal to bearing the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance (Gal 5:22-23).

We become the children of light when we have His Spirit abiding in us, bearing the fruit of the Spirit.  Light is what makes something known; therefore, God will be manifest in us when others see and experience His love, joy, and peace coming through us.  We are the light of God when we have the fruit of the Spirit because others will see God in us.

We bear this spiritual produce when we abide in the Savior Christ.  We are commanded by the Savior to “abide in me,” and let me abide in you.  Let my Spirit live and flow through you.  Then you will bear much fruit (John 15: 4-5).   Much love from above, joy, and peace will flow down from Him by His Spirit within us and out to others.

How Does His Spirit Abide in Us?

Yes, we are told by the Savior to let the Spirit of God come and flow through us.  But how does this happen?  Is there something that we, His children, need to do to effect this?  How will His abiding presence come into us so that we can bear this fruit of His Spirit?

The Savior Jesus (Yahshua) makes a conditional promise to us concerning this.  “If a man love me, he will keep my words…” (John 14:23).  Good things will come to the man who loves the Son of God.  Loving Him will mean he will obey his words and what He tells us to do.  “If you love Me, keep my commandments”.  If we do this, then He will give us the Spirit!  And the Father “shall give your another Comforter; that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth…for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14: 15-17).   This is the Spirit of God coming down into us!

He just said, those that love Him will keep His commandments.  “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loves Me” (John 14:21).   The person that loves the Son of God understands just what He requires of him, just what He wants him to do.  This person that loves the Son of God will comprehend what this pre-requisite is before we can receive the  in-dwelling Spirit.

What exactly are these commandments that Christ wants us to keep?

The first new thing that He commands us to do is, “Believe Me.”  Real simple.  Not complicated.  Even a child can comprehend this.  He is saying, Believe Me when I tell you about my relationship with the Father.  “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.”  That is a command.  Those of us who take this to heart and do it will receive His Spirit in a reality and bear much fruit of the Spirit.

He did not request mythic gargantuan tasks to prove that we love Him.  He merely gives us a simple command: ”Believe me that I am in the Father and believe me that the Father is in Me” (John 14:11).  We are to believe that He was in the Father’s will, heart and mind, soul and body.  And we are to believe that the great Spirit Father, Yahweh Himself, was walking around doing the great miraculous works through Christ!

That’s it in a nutshell.  That is what the book says.  This is worshiping God in spirit and in truth.  This is the truth:  The Father dwelt bodily in the man Christ Jesus (Yahshua) of Nazareth.   ”For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2: 9)…”He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father…I and my Father are one…God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself…”

There is so much riding on this.  If we get this one, then the gates of heaven will open, and we shall be the recipients of His very Being in our bodies!  He goes on, “He that believes on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works  shall he do!” (John 14: 12).  Because the Father will be abiding in us, too!  HalleluYah!  This is how we get the Father to come down and live in us: we must first believe that the Father was dwelling fully in the Son of God.

We get this right and great joy, great peace, and great love will come down through us and on out unto the world.  Believing that the Father walked around in the Son of God and did the works is the first step in us receiving the Father and having Him walk around in our bodies here on the the earth.  It will be He loving others through us.  He will be touching others with peace and joy.

Christ goes on and confirms it again: “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (Jn 14:23).  This is how the Spirit will come down and abide in us.

“He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit…”  Much love, joy, peace and all the rest, coming down and through us to the love-starved world.  This is how we glorify the Father–that we bear much fruit of the Spirit (John 15: 8).   These fruit-bearers will be His disciples.

Once the belief has begun–belief that the Father is in Christ fully–then “whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”  We now have confidence to ask for more of His presence, more of His Spirit, so that it can be channeled out to others who need to know that God is real.

In this way the light of God’s Spirit will shine so that all men can be drawn to God.  “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.”  We are then to “let your light so shine that others may see your good works and glorify your Father (which is walking inside of you, doing the works).

Why is this so difficult for us to comprehend?  It is because of the old leaven, the old teachings about the Father and Christ taught by the false prophets and teachers throughout the centuries.  They have made it mysterious and difficult to understand God through subtilty, lest our “minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (II Cor 11: 3).        Kenneth Wayne Hancock

“Faith Toward God”–The Second Apostles’ Doctrine

    We are told to repent from our old life in the first apostles’ doctrine, but how do we do it?  How do we really change our old selfish ways, and let the old self die?  The second apostles’ doctrine teaches us how to do it. 

     How do we get rid of the old sinful life and get into the new life in Christ?  We reckon it done by faith/belief.  How do we start walking in a brand new life?  We reckon it done by faith.  Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ (Yahshua Messiah). Rom. 6:11. 

     We’ve got to reckon it done!  The word “reckon” is #3049 in Strong’s.  It means “to account it, to count it as such.”

     God wants us to reckon it so, but He does it first! When we turn to Him, then He counts us righteous in His eyes even in our imperfect state.  It is His nature to “call those things that do not exist as though they did.” Rom. 4:17, NKJV. If He is this positive, then He would want His children to be the same.

     He wants us to follow in His footsteps!  God “accounted” righteousness to Abraham because of his belief—before Abraham was righteous!  “Accounted” here is the same word as the one translated “reckon.”  We are commanded to RECKON some things done.  Now we have to reckon our sinful self gone—by belief—as though it were already done—for that is how God looks at it!  By belief!  Reckon it done through Him and His faith.  He said it.  Let it be done.  For what saith the scripture?  Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.  Rom. 4:3.  Yahweh imputed, reckoned to Abraham the ability to live in a upright manner, keeping Yahweh’s laws and not sinning, by just believing that Yahweh had done it!  We make it so hard through our hard heart of unbelief.  He is looking for childlike faith, the belief of a small child.  All we have to do is just believe that Yahweh has provided a way for us to actually put the old life to death and start living a new life in Him (read more from my book on this subject at   http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yahch30.htm ). 

     When Christ died, our old sins died with Him that day.  When He was buried, we were buried.  And when He arose, we arose with Him.  It is already done in God’s eyes.  We just have to receive this new life by faith and belief.  It hinges on our belief in Christ’s resurrection.  By us believing that He was raised from the dead, we are raised with Him to walk in a newness of life. 

      The old ministers of centuries past knew this and  preached and wrote about this–Luther, Wesley, Murray, et al.  But in the last days, there will be a departing from the faith–the faith that reckons it so, believing in the life-changing power of the cross experience.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock