Chapter 24 of the book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality
Yahweh has a special calling for His people. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Those that “make their calling and election sure” become the elect. But what is this calling exactly?
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” When they don’t have the vision for themselves that Yahweh has for them, then they will perish and wither on the vine. What is this vision that Yahweh has for this special people in the earth?
He said that He wants to make His people a kingdom of priests and kings. For He is the “King of kings.” He also is the High Priest of many priests. He says that He is making us a “peculiar nation, a royal priesthood, a chosen generation” (The word “priest” in your center column reference is rendered “teachers,” teachers of Him and His precepts and His government).
If we as Israel the people of God don’t know where we have come from and where we are going in His plan, then we are still part of the Lost Tribes of Israel. We are not found yet. We have not discovered our identity yet. But when we awaken, when His vision is quickened in our hearts, and we really see what He wants us to be as His chosen people, then it changes everything. We begin to get on fire. We begin to say, Wait a minute. I can do this. I can be what He wants me to be. But that brings us back around to the question that we must ask: What is it exactly that He wants His chosen people to be?
Paul talks about a “high calling” for the people of God. In Phillipians 3:7-15, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge.” His people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge of who they are, who He is, and what His plan is. The knowledge of what now? Paul is saying that he is counting everything that this world has to offer as a loss for this one thing–“the excellency of the knowledge of Yahshua Messiah my Master, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Him,” that I may be part of His company of many sons.
Many times when we say the words “Savior, Messiah, the Son of God,” we think of one historical personage, but there are many members of His one body where many will walk as He walked. That is what He is wanting.
But someone will question this and say, “What do you think you are, a bunch of little Jesus Christs?” No. It is His Spirit; He wants to multiply Himself. He wants us all to manifest His Spirit of love, joy, peace, just like Paul and Peter and the other early followers.
And then someone will gainsay, “You can’t be like Him! You can’t be like Him!” And I don’t claim to be. But if you won’t let me be like Jesus, is it okay if I be like Peter? Is it okay if I be like Paul? That would be good enough.
So in the above passage Paul is going to win Yahshua and be “found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law.” That means when one tries to keep the ten commandments on their own strength and not with the Spirit’s help. “But that which is through the faith (belief) of the Messiah, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (v. 8-9).
“That I may know Him” (talking about this knowledge without which we as His people are destroyed) “and the power of His resurrection…” Many times in the past I thought that knowing the power of His resurrection meant that I know what it is to have raised somebody from the dead. But that thought is all centered on ME and how great and powerful I have become! I was musing on this mighty resurrection power of the Creator and how it would surge through me to raise up a dead body. No. That is not it. Knowing the power of His resurrection means experiencing HIM changing me from a mortal to an immortal being! It is Him granting this vessel of mine immortality! Praise Yah! When this mortal puts on immortality! That is really knowing the “power of His resurrection!”
In verse 11: “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” These are fine phrases; these are wonderful words, but what exactly is this knowledge that He is talking about, this resurrection of the dead? “Not that I had already attained…” I am still mortal, Paul is saying. “Either were already perfect…” When that which is perfect is come—being changed from mortal to immortal—all the other temporary things like our earthly bodies will be done away with—“but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of the Master.” The Master says that you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you to bring this glorification upon.
Pretty heady stuff. It just sounds so prideful when you are talking about getting glorified. The Master said in John 17:22, “And the glory which you gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one.” That was His prayer! That all of us would be glorified and be one with Him! But it is difficult to fully be one with Him if we are still living in a fleshly, earthly body, for He now dwells in a glorified, spiritual body. But some will say that He was just talking about the original 12 disciples 2000 years ago, but in 17:20 He states that it is not just the 12 that He’s praying for but for “all those who shall believe through their word.” That is us!
Immortality: The High Calling
Paul continues in Phil. 3:13: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended…” He is saying, I’m going after this thing; I want to be one of those who He is going to change into an immortal. And He knows there are many of us that it is going to happen to. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God” (I John 3:1). But Paul now is going to forget “those things that are behind and reach forth unto those things which are before.”
What is the greatest thing in our life that we have in front of us, before us? It has got to be immortality, everlasting life, life eternal. Paul says that he is forgetting all the things in his life that have gone on before. He is forgetting the old conversation, the old worldly things that he used to talk about, forgetting the old ways of thinking, the old habits, the old way we used to be. Counting all those things that we were and that we did as dung—that old pride and arrogance—and start walking in this newness of life. Paul is saying that he will forget all the old things of his past and reach forth for this immortality that is coming. He says that he is pressing on for “the mark of the prize of the high calling” of Yah-in-human-form.
“Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” He didn’t say as many as “are” perfect. “Be” is the infinitive which speaks infinity, a place where there is no time or tense. He is saying, in other words, those of you that lay hold of this message of your soon coming immortality, you need to think on these things that I am telling you.
Yahweh’s high calling is for Him to be fully formed in you. Paul talks more about this in Roman 8:18. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” In us? For the creation is waiting for the making known of the sons of God, Paul says in the next phrase. God subjected the whole creation to vanity, to no profit, to futility. “Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption…” (the physical corruption of our mortal bodies) “…into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (His immortal ones, just like Him).
Paul is talking immortality here, as he did in I Cor. 15, the resurrection chapter. At His coming, this earthly body, that may die and turn to dust, will be changed like unto His immortal body. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those that wait upon Him and that love Him.” Immortality!
The whole creation is groaning. The people of this earth need to be delivered from the deception of worldly governments and economic systems. Look at the evil in high places. And we are groaning under the high taxes that we have to pay to the private banking corporations, the Federal Reserve System and the other Central Banks all over the world that are squeezing the people dry. These private banks, that sound so governmental, print the paper money, loan it to our government so that they can throw it away on $500 toilet seats, and we, the taxpayers, have to pay the interest on this national debt with our income taxes! This nation and all the nations of the world are in bondage, for the borrower is servant to the lender.
America is in trouble. “The creation is groaning and travailing in pain until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit.” Even us who have a bit of truth, a small portion of His Spirit, we are groaning right along with the rest of creation waiting for one thing; we are waiting for this great event to happen: the adoption, the redemption of our bodies, the putting on of immortality!
This is the high calling: to be one of the immortal ones, one of the manifested sons of God. He knew beforehand all those that He places this high calling on. And He also gave them this destiny—to be one of His immortal offspring. To be just like Himself in human form. These are the elect, the ones He has chosen before the world ever was. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified…Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” (Romans 8:28-30,33).
Destroyed for lack of knowledge
But, His people are being destroyed because they do not know who He really is. They do not know who they are nor the wonderful, pre-destined promises that He has made especially for them.
We Israelites need to realize that in not knowing this, we don’t know where we have come from. We don’t know our history nor the prophecy given over us. We don’t know where we are going. The word of Yahweh spoken over our ancestors, the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel through His prophets, all this is there to be quickened within us by belief. For His word will not return unto Him void, but will accomplish the purpose for which He spoke it. He spoke it over our ancestors, and He is speaking it over us today. And if we will take it to heart and walk in it, this world will turn around.
His purpose for His elect is immortal sonship! In Revelation 7 and 14 there are 144,000 “redeemed from among men and are the firstfruits unto God.” They are with Him in Spirit and truth, and they are standing as an army, immortal as He, for each seed bears its own kind. And where does Rev. 7 say He gets these immortal ones from? He will select them from the 12 tribes of Israel. Not from just Judah, but from the 12 tribes!
To be like Him—that is the high calling. And we need to make this calling and election sure by studying and proving all things. We must read, dig deep and put our house upon the rock where these truths will be solid. And after we have finished, we will be able to stand with Him and walk with Him. Kenneth Wayne Hancock