He Is Near

Stop. Please don’t touch that screen. Slow down for just a moment the race car thoughts that rush around and so often crash against the walls of reality. Stay with me a little while, and I promise I will give you thoughts of peace and comfort.

Rest a moment and be assured that your Creator knows precisely who and where you are and loves you anyway. For you are not alone on the world’s racetrack. We are in it, too, for we, like you, are playing the cards that He has dealt us. For make no mistake; He has placed us in the 21^st Century and in the country where we reside. Our personal time and place, along with the joys and the sufferings, are ordained by Him for this reason: that we would seek and perhaps find Him.

He made us, after all, in His image and likeness. Therefore, we are His offspring. It is like we are children on a picnic in the park with our dad. We are sitting on the red and white table cloth. We are talking, and we look up and our dad is gone. We take off running around the woods, searching for him. We’ve lost him. Where is he?

We race around and spin and look up at the green arms of the giant trees and then we look down at the brown bed of leaves at our feet. But our dad is not there.

We think that we are lost. But we do not know that he is leaning against a giant red oak, smiling with a four leaf clover hanging in the corner of His mouth. He then sees our distress and hears our cries and walks back around that tree and says, “Hey, guys. I’ve been here the whole time. I’ll never desert you. I’ll never leave you alone.”

That’s our God. “…He is not far from any of us.” He is omnipresent. We live in His Spirit; we move around in His Spirit. Our very existence is derived from Him (Acts 17: 24-28).

So now, if you will, close your eyes a moment, and rest your face in your hands and thank Him for breath and life. And thank Him for being right there where you are. Thank Him for this opportunity today—as you breathe in—to just believe in His magnificence and His creative genius and His merciful love, that He would share His purpose and life and wisdom with us.

And now our thoughts are beginning to walk more slowly. We’ve left the rasping asphalt of  tableted technologies, and now our feet are savoring the crunch of green grass. And now we sit down and look up and down and around, and finally we look inside our chest, and we realize that He is sitting there, smiling, on the throne of our heart. And we smile at Him, knowing that He is very near and that He will always be with us and that He will never leave us. KWH

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New Book The Apostles’ Doctrine Coming Out in March 2019

[Below is the “Introduction” of my new book The Apostles’ Doctrine: The Seven Teachings of Christ. I will announce how you can order your free copy with free shipping very soon. May our Father bless and keep you]

Introduction

 We cannot do things to achieve salvation from God, but we must do certain things in order to grow His Spirit within us after we receive a new heart and after we are “born again.”

Because our Creator has a purpose of reproducing Himself (Love) in us, He, of course, has a definite plan to fulfill His purpose. He has thought it all through and lined it all out in His written word. And in His scriptures of truth are contained the thoughts of the Son of God, the “Word made flesh.” And these thoughts contain admonishments, and when done by us Christians, we will grow up to be like Him, which fulfills His purpose. [This is discussed in The Royal Destiny of God’s Elect, published in 2017.  It is free with free shipping to all who ask. See details here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/free-new-book-the-royal-destiny-of-gods-elect/.]

We understand now that God is Love and that His purpose is to repro-duce Himself in us. We were created as a house for God to dwell in, for Love to dwell in. And we understand now that God has a plan to carry out this purpose of reproducing Himself. We see that this plan entails His kingdom, first to be established in our hearts, and then it is to be set up as a literal world-wide government headed by our King, the Son of God, upon His return to earth.

And we see that an integral part of God’s plan is the law of harvest. God is the Seed, the Word of God. And this Seed/Word “was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Christ is that Seed that germinates in our hearts and starts to grow as a grain of corn is planted, dies, and resurrects and grows in our gardens. We, too, begin to grow spiritually.

But then something bad happens to young Christians. The weeds spring up and begin to choke the word/seed. Babes in Christ are fed tainted milk, which are false concepts about God. Materialism with its many temptations subvert God’s plan from coming to fruition. Tough decisions arise for the babe in Christ for which Christ says to “count the cost.” The way grows narrow and difficult to navigate, where one finds few fellow travelers. And then the world extends a very wide and welcoming road where many go and seem to have wonderful fellowship, and the pilgrim is tempted to take that avenue.

What We Are to Do

But if God is calling us to the “higher calling” of being used for Him to reproduce Himself through, then we must ask ourselves, What do we do now to grow spiritually? Not what man’s traditions say to do, but what do the scriptures say for us to do. Tradition tells us, Go to church and give your tithes and offerings, confess your sins, do the best you can, and you will go to heaven when you die. But, is that all there is? Will God really be pleased with that? Is that all there is to it?

Surely not. For I do not see much growth in the lives in Christian circles. People do get cleaned up and start living a better life, but many backslide into their past actions. Many just remain regular attendees of their church services, content to be a part of a Christian social fabric. Is that what the prophets and apostles of old prescribed for our growth? Is that what the church in the book of Acts did?

No. We are given at least seven general “things to do” as Christians to effect proper spiritual growth. First, the early church “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine” (Acts 2: 42). The apostles had a doctrine, and it was the same that Christ had. “Doctrine” means “teachings,” and they were delivering those teachings to the new converts. Some preachers asininely say, “We do not want doctrine; we just want Jesus.” They must not know that “whosoever transgresses and abides not in the doctrine of Christ has not God” (II John 1: 9).

What were the apostles’ teachings? They are concisely found in Hebrews 6: 1-2. They are the foundation that when done, will help us grow unto “perfection,” or complete spiritual maturity. They are repentance from dead works, faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, eternal judgement, and perfection. How many Christians would be able to list these vital concepts that the apostles taught? Few even know about them. Whose fault is that? God says it is their pastor’s fault. God pronounces a woe unto the shepherds for not feeding the flock of God with proper teachings (Ezk. 34: 1-10).

This book is by no means an attempt at a full rendering of each of the seven doctrines of the apostles. Each one could be the subject of several books. Nevertheless, what I have endeavored to do is to present an introductory treatise on Christ’s teachings, which stresses their importance and clarifies their function in the fulfilling of God’s purpose and plan.

Many think that such an endeavor has already been done many times, that there is no need for another Christian tome on the subject. However, most books that address Christ’s teachings come out of a strict denominational matrix which extrudes a tired predictable dough of regurgitated dogma void of original inspiration.

I have approached them as a Literature major would: Casting off the chains of preconceived interpretations, I read and study the eyewitness accounts, and with the Spirit’s guidance, extract a thesis from the sacred texts of the Bible. And then I go about proving that thesis using the texts themselves.

Two Major Sections of the Book

 The first part explains the importance of the apostles’ doctrine. An outline of foundational concepts about Christ’s teachings is also offered to facilitate more understanding of how these teachings help fulfill God’s purpose of reproducing Himself.

The second part of the book addresses each of the seven doctrines. The light shed therein serves to illuminate the path of each individual’s spiritual pilgrimage. Like I have said to my students over the decades: I cannot educate you. I can give you the tools, but you must pick up and use the tools. You must educate you.    KWH

[A note on the Sacred Names of Yahweh, Yah, Yahshua: I use them in this book. There is great revelatory truth found in the meaning of His name. Those interested may request the author’s book Yah Is Savior. Order your free copy with free shipping by sending your request to my email: wayneman5@hotmail.com . Include your name, mailing address, and the title of the book.]