Thanksgiving Day, Lincoln, and Our Sacrifice to God

It is only fitting that President Lincoln set apart a National Day of Thanksgiving to God for America’s blessings.  It has always been America’s destiny to serve God.  No matter what President Obama says, we are a Christian nation.  Always have been; we have strayed, however, from our calling as a nation.

These words penned and proclaimed by Lincoln speak plainly: “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens, in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

I submit that there is only one “Our Father”–only One who dwells in the heavens–and that is the God of the Bible.  Lincoln’s writings and speeches are full of quotes from it.

We are reminded every Thanksgiving Holiday to return and give thanks to our heavenly Father.  For giving thanks is the sacrifice that God wants us to offer Him.  Just simple appreciation and acknowledgement of kindnesses, love, and mercy to us and ours.  That’s all He asks us to do.  We don’t have to offer up the blood of bulls, goats, calves, and heifers.  No severe human penance is needed to please Him.  God, like us, just wants to be appreciated.   

And we start this by simply giving thanks to Him. We teach our children to be grateful, and so we should be, too.  Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving.  And pay your vows to the Most High.  And call on Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me (Psalm 50: 14-15). 

He promises us that if we will sincerely thank Him today and everyday, then when a “day of trouble” comes, He’ll be there to help us.  There is a bad day coming for America.  It is almost upon us.  Oh, how we need to thank Him now.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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–Becoming the Temple of God

(Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.  I Samuel 9: 9)

“I’m trying to comprehend God’s plan and purpose about making us His sons and daughters, but it boggles my mind.  I can’t seem to take it in.”

The Seer looked at me and told me the truth, even though he knew that  it would sting.  “It is because your heart, your spiritual core, is small and unable to contain at present what the Creator wants to do with you.”

“How do I make my heart bigger?”

“You cannot make it bigger.  It is so typical of natural man, to think that it all depends on  his actions.  You can’t enlarge it to contain more of Him.  Even though you sincerely desire to please God, you cannot just will it so.  You cannot run the race according to your own specifications, win the prize, and then trade the prize for a bigger heart to receive more of Him.  It doesn’t work that way.  He is the One who draws you to Him. He shows mercy to whomsoever He desires to reveal Himself to.  He is sovereign; we are not.  He is the Potter; we are the clay.  We have to remember that it is His ballgame, His rules, His ball park, and His ball.”

“I really do want to play,” I said.

“I know you do.  He has led you here.  He has placed a thirst for the truth in you.  It is Him drawing you.  He has His hands on you.  But you must first meet Him in that special place.”

“Where is it?”

It Is Not a Church Building

“It is not in a building with colored glass windows depicting events that were written down thousands of years ago.  That special place I speak of is not inside the walls of a physical building.”

“You are talking about churches.”

“Yes.  The true church is not a building where people go twice a week to worship.  Nor is the church those people necessarily.  The church is His body, which is the temple of God.  And this only occurs when humans have His Spirit inside them, leading them in their daily walk.  The Holy Bible tells of this.  It is a letter to us from our Father.  Its thoughts are inspired by His Spirit.  But without His Spirit breathing life into its words today, it is only black ink and white paper. Without God’s Spirit breathing truth afresh as to what it means, then it sits alone and mute, gathering dust in the houses of America and the world.

“Don’t get me wrong.  It is God’s written word to us, and in those pages are spelled out how to get to where we need to go.  But the world needs someone with God’s Spirit to bring it to life so that it can bring its light to others.  It speaks of God’s glorious plan, but without a human picking it up and believing it, its greatest power rests in being a witness against those who do not study their copy of it.”

“The Bible tells us how to get to that special spiritual place.”

“Indeed.  But our perspective must change.  It is not a place that we go to, to meet Him.  But rather, you become that special place.  Or better put, the lack of you becomes that special place.”

The ‘Lack of You’

“Wait a minute.  I don’t get it.  What do you mean, ‘the lack of you becomes that special place'”?

The Seer became energized.  He was conducting a symphony of knowledge that was now reaching a crescendo.  “The ‘lack of you’ means that you must cease and desist.  Your old life along with its vestiges must decrease to a point that ‘you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.’

“How does that work?”

“I told you before that it is His ballgame and His rules.  And rule number one is ‘Obey His rules.’  He calls us while ‘we are yet in our sins.’  He commands us to repent of our sins.  We can’t clean up our mess by ourselves, no matter how hard we try in our own strength.  But He has provided a way.  The Great God of heaven, that great Spirit that created all things, came down and walked with us here on earth for a few short years.  He provided for us His own earthly body as a sacrifice that will cleanse us from sin, which is the breaking of the Ten Commandments.

“It is not just acknowledging that He died for us that cleanses us from all sin.  No. That is not enough.  We must rather die with Him.  For ‘He was made to be sin for us’ [1].  At the moment of Christ’s physical death, your old sinful heart and mine was placed upon Him, so that when He died, our sin died with Him.  When He was buried, our old sinful heart was buried.  And when He arose–this is the crux of our belief–when He arose from the dead, we, too, arise from the sinful dead, and become alive unto God [2].

“And as we grow spiritually in this truth, we begin to sense that it is no longer the original sinful human staring back at us in the mirror, but an entity quite changed.  We begin to see that we are that special spiritual place where God will dwell.  We become that special peaceful location–a place free from a demanding ego that tries to enslave other humans to worship its whims.

“At the end of this seemingly long spiritual growth cycle, we will have the distinct sensation that we are no longer in control or trying to be in control of everything around us.  The monkey chatter drowning our ear will have quieted, and then, we become that special abode for God’s Spirit.”   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1. 2 Cor. 5: 21
2. Romans 6: 1-11

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