“Just Look Around”–Lyrics of My New Song

Just Look Around

Just look around and see our cities burning.

Stones and bricks the weapons of today.

Just look around and see what’s affecting you and me

And the dreams we share to keep our children free.

Just look around; it’s only you and me.

 

Have you never had your grandma hug and kiss you?

Have you never held a baby in your arms?

Have you never given thanks for the entire human race

And another piece of momma’s apple pie?

Just look around; it is only you and I.

 

Just look around and see that hearts are turning.

Just look around; you can see them everywhere.

Just look around and see that love’s the way to be.

Just look around; God’s made us you and me.

 

Have you never seen a toddler picking flowers

As he reaches up and puts them in your hand?

Have you never smiled with love at such sweetness from above?

Just look around; I’ll help you if I can.

 

(CH) Just look around and see that hearts are turning.

Just look around; you can see them everywhere.

Just look around and see that love’s the way to be.

Just look around; God’s made us you and me.

Just look around; God’s made us you and me.

[Words and music of the song “Just Look Around” was written by Kenneth Wayne Hancock on August 30, 2020. The words are published here first on Immortality Road, a WordPress blog. I plan on singing it soon on facebook and youtube. Please make a comment about what you think of the song. I enjoy your feedback. KWH]

 

The Armor of God Is in the Mind

Martial metaphors abound in the scriptures of truth. Words of war describe the spiritual battles that Christians must face in order to grow. The Spirit of truth paints scenes of our struggles in figures of speech. Those who think literally often fall on the battlefield, without sufficient armor and implements of this war.

For the Christian, the battleground is the mind. It is not the “war of the worlds,” but rather “the war of the words,” for words are formulated through thoughts that course through our minds. The apostle Peter admonishes us, “Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” Whose mind? The mind of Christ (I Pet. 4: 1). Having the mind of Christ is being armed and battle ready.

To win this battle, we must think the King’s thoughts. Christ is the Word. His is the word that counts. When our thoughts reflect His thoughts, we win the spiritual battle.

This is why it is so important to study His word, both through quotes of the Savior and also His apostles’ words, which are His thoughts. This is true worship. Not the outward keeping of man’s traditions about God, but knowing the truth and meditating on it. And then believing the truth. Believe Him, for He is the truth. And know that His words are spirit. That’s true worship—“in spirit and in truth.”

The apostle Paul tells us to “put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” This is arming ourselves with the mind of Christ. Let us have the “loins of our mind” girded up with truth. We are to put on the “breastplate of righteousness” and the “shield of faith” and the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit.” All of these components of the “armor of God” are put on by us in our minds by having the pure truth about them in our thinking. When we know Christ’s thoughts and believe them, then we will have put on His spiritual armor (Eph. 6: 10-18). So let us delve a bit deeper into His spiritual armor…

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Adding to the Son’s Faith that Has Become Our Faith

As we dig deep and lay our house upon the Rock, we have uncovered a vein of gold. We are adding to the Son’s faith inside of us. Part of the Son’s belief system is this new commandment found in Christ’s words: “He that has seen Me has seen the Father…It is the Father that dwells in Me that does the miracles…Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me…He that believes in Me [that the Father dwells within Him] will do the same miracles that I do and greater works…” (John 14:9-12).  The words “believe” and “faith” are translated from the same Greek word.

Clues to Performing Miracles

Christ is promising us that we will do greater works than what He had done! His promise is with this stipulation: “Believe that the Father is in Him.” In the very next breath, Christ gives us cryptic clues on how to turn His promise into the power to do these miracles.

On first glance they seem incongruous with the previous flow.  “And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (14:13-14). He is saying, He who believes on Me the way I just explained in 14:11, they will do what I have been doing. What a promise!  His thoughts go from “believing that the Father is in Him” to “asking in His name.” So we have got to ask Him for the power—after we get all of the concepts lined up correctly and in a row.

First, we must ask Him for the power to do a miracle, not command or demand of Him. We must humbly ask Him, and we must ask in His name.

To “ask in His name” we must know what His Hebrew name means. The Son of God’s Hebrew name is Yahshua. Some spell it Yehoshua. It is the identical name of the patriarch Joshua the son of Nun. In two obvious references to Joshua, the KJV translators put the name “Jesus,” from the Latin Iesus (Acts 7:45; ­­Heb. 4:8). “Yahshua” means “YAH IS SAVIOR.” This agrees with the prophets: “I, even I am the LORD [Yahweh]; and beside Me there is no savior” (Isa. 43:11; Hos. 13:4). The meaning of His name testifies that the Father Yahweh was and is in the Son. Christ did say that He came in His Father’s name and that it was Yahweh doing all of the mighty works by his hands.

Three Concepts to Get Straightened Out

Consequently, we must get three things cleared up—the Oneness of the Godhead, Christ’s Hebrew Name, and asking in that name.

It all starts with one of Christ’s New Commandments. He commands us to believe that He is in the Father and that the Father is in Him. That is a command. If we obey this command, then He will give us the Spirit of Truth to dwell/abide/remain in us. Also, He promises that we will do the same works and miracles that He did—and even greater works.

And then He tells us how to do it. Ask in my name, which is Yahshua, which means the same thing that I am commanding you to believe: that Yahweh, the Father, dwells within the Son, and that He, in the Spirit of Truth, now dwells and remains in you! Wow!

We are to ask in Christ’s Hebrew name Yahshua, with the understanding of its meaning. And  He promised that “whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (Jn. 14:13).

How Do We Ask in His Name?

If we ask anything that comes under what His name means; if we ask anything that glorifies His name; if we ask anything that trusts in the promises contained in the meaning of His name; if we ask anything that honors the meaning of the Savior’s name—then He “will do it” (John 14:14). It is all about Him. When we grow to the point of not besmirching the purity of His love for us and others, then His love will flow down and through us to others.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[For more on His Name, send for my book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality. It is free with free shipping. Just send me an email requesting it with your name and mailing address. Send to wayneman5@hotmail.com]

 

Key to Understanding the “Additions to the Faith”

As Christians, we’ve often wondered, God, why me? And later we find out more about His purpose for us. And we see that it is all His doing. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you…” Why? For what purpose?  “…and have appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (John 15:16).

In the grand order of things, He has ordained us to bear fruit. That is our reason-to-be as God’s people. It is important to Christ, for He speaks of “fruit” in thirty seven verses in the gospels. Bearing spiritual fruit is why we are here on earth.

Full fruit bearing happens from a mature plant. As His plants, we must mature or reach “perfection,” in the fruit bearing sense of the word. We are destined by God to grow up through a spiritual life cycle. And when we reach spiritual maturity, God will visit us, expecting to find fruit.

What kind of fruit will He expect to see us bearing? “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…” (Gal. 5:22-23). The Spirit enters into our hearts through belief in His resurrection, and we begin to grow, bearing at first thirty fold, which is the amount of fruit that a child of God can bear. And we continue to grow and bear more fruit (sixty fold). And then at final maturity, we bear one hundred fold fruit like the prophets and apostles did (Matt. 13:18-23; John 15:2-5).

The Abiding Brings “Much Fruit”

Who is it that will fully mature in Christ? Who will bring forth “much fruit”? Christ said, “He  that abides in Me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit” (15:5).

But how do we reach this state of “abiding in Him”? “Abide” is translated “remain or stay” in other passages. When we have Christ’s mind and think His thoughts and stay in them, then we are abiding in Him. But His thoughts do not cohabit with error-filled thoughts about Him. Before we can add more of His divine nature, we must purge out the errors. If we do not do this, then He will. “Every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit,” Christ said (15:2). He will refine our faith in Him and purify it through trials.

How do we abide in Him and He in us? The apostle Peter, who knew Christ well, tells us that if we add seven attributes of Christ’s divine nature to faith, then we will abide in Him and be spiritually fruitful. The seven additions will “make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge…” of Christ and His purpose and plan. You will be fruitful, bearing much fruit.

These seven additions are parts of the Godhead and have transformative power to bring us to full maturity and spiritual fruit bearing, just like the early apostles. You will know God, for His mature heart will be your heart. For the Spirit of Truth, which is God Himself, will “abide with you forever” (John 14:16). How will we know? The Spirit of Truth will abide with us and shall be in us (v. 17).

But we first are to add them to His faith, His belief system. He has commanded us, “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me…” (John 14: 11). Christ said that it was the Father in Him that was doing everything. He also said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). His faith that we now live by is us believing what He believes about Himself: The invisible Father, the Spirit, lived in the Son. They are One.

Isaiah wrote down the following often quoted prophecy concerning the Son of God. “…Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…and his name shall be called…The everlasting Father…” You will call Him “The everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6). That is straight from the Spirit of truth. These seven additions must be added to a Oneness belief system, not the one found in most denominations.

Christ, Yahweh in human form, makes a great promise to those who get this straightened out in their minds and hearts. “He that believes on Me, the works I do shall he do also” (Jn. 14:12).    Believes on Him how? Believe that the Father is in Him. Christ pleads with us and gives us a new commandment, “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (14:11).

That is astounding, but the promises become even greater. “And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (14:13). The meaning of Christ’s Hebrew name “Yahshua” confirms the Oneness concept of the Godhead discussed above [More on this next time].    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

My First Encounter with the Resurrection in 1971

I remember when I was twenty-four, I went through a life-changing experience, and Christ’s resurrection was at the center of it all. As a child I had heard many times the story of the Savior and how He rose from the dead. I had walked the aisle at ten, being swiftly baptized into that Baptist church. But later as a teen I left the church after my parents’ divorce. I surmised then that something was terribly amiss; there was no love and peace in Big D. In my tortured teenage angst, I figured that the message the church was teaching was not strong enough to hold my parents together, so I moved on.

Yet, everyone at the church had said that I was “born again,” but booze and cigarettes and Playboy magazines became my cheap little gods. I realized later that I had never risen with Him from the state of being dead in sin. By 1971 my old nature had grabbed the steering wheel of my life and was drunkenly crashing into everything. It was then that I first heard that my old sinful nature “is crucified with Christ.”  And that I am buried with Him, and by believing in His resurrection, I, too, am raised from the dead (in sin). I was raised to “walk in a newness of life.”

I had skin in the game this time. I was presenting my body as a “living sacrifice,” trusting in the power of His resurrection to sustain me in this new sinless walk of life. I had a great teacher who told me that “he that is dead is freed from sin…and in Him is no sin.”

Powerful truth is found in His word. But, first, someone’s got to stand on the wall and proclaim it in the face of the gainsayers. And then it must be believed. It is by faith in His resurrection that the surge of new life comes into our mortal bodies.

So, I went home and tried to think upon these things. But the first thought that came piercing into my mind like a sharp arrow was this: “You don’t really believe that Christ was actually raised from the dead, do you?” This thought shattered me. My existence fell like shards of glass to the floor. I felt the terror of one who was hopelessly lost, rudderless, and adrift in an empty sea of nihilism.

The next day I related all this to my mentor. He told me that the voice was Satan’s and that Satan knows that belief in the resurrection is the crux of the whole matter. If he gets you to doubt the resurrection, he wins, and you lose. I have not forgotten that day so many years ago. I was blessed; I had someone to help me overcome Satan’s assault.

The early apostles continued in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. They had Christ as their mentor. He taught them that the resurrection has many levels, from the personal level on up to the universal level. Christ’s resurrection power is shown when a humble little garden seed sacrifices its identity and yields to that invisible creative power that is God, and then life bursts from that seed. Such is the word of the Spirit; such is the Seed, the Word of God, when it springs forth in our heart. We are “raised to walk in a newness of life” when we believe in Christ’s resurrection.

Later I would learn that there are many resurrections in His teachings.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[This is an excerpt from my book The Apostles’ Doctrine. It is taken from the chapter on the fifth teaching that the apostles’ taught: “The Resurrection of the Dead.” The book expounds on the seven teachings and examines the importance of being grounded in the seven doctrines of Christ. Send for your free copy with free shipping in the USA. Just send your mailing address to my email: wayneman5@hotmail.com  Be sure to include your name and the name of the book. If you live overseas or desire a pdf of the book, I can do that, too.]