Hold Me Like This [adapted from Mario Clavell’s “Abrazame asi”]

Just hold me like this

So we can feel both our hearts beat as one

With this embrace, know our life has begun

Since the moment you touched me.

When you hold me like this,

I can feel your heart beat close to mine

In perfect rhythm that goes with the rime

Of my words, “I adore you.”

When you hold me like this,

My heart sways in Eternity’s arms

And I know that there’s nothing can harm

Us in Love’s special hour.

Just hold me like this

In our embrace now we’re frozen in time

In perfect comfort, a love that’s sublime

When you hold me like this.

[Spanish words and music by Mario Clavell; English words by Kenneth Wayne Hancock]

Note: I wrote these lyrics a year ago—words to convey to the English speaking world the beautiful sentiment of this Latin standard. I am an incurable romantic. I believe in love, the love from above. Man and woman, if they are blessed, will taste a morsel of this divine love perhaps once in their life. It is this that the human heart longs for. Books, movies, and songs depicting this need for love will always be with us.

I believe that this rare emotional love is a metaphor of Christ’s love for us all. He said for husbands to love their wives as He loved us. We all yearn to be loved, and some of us yearn to love—to love with the love from above. To fill this aching vacuum in our hearts, the poets and composers write songs depicting this love. And they always will.

[Listen to Roberto Carlos sing this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UHhmK6n9s0

The Land of the Unforgiving

A trial of our personal faith just may come like this: Someone who is very close to us—a spouse, a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a best friend—accuses us of a foul deed that we did not do. And this person lashes out and stabs us with sharp words that cause extreme heartache. And the wound causes our joy to evaporate, and our peace is invaded as chaos fills our mind. And we harden our thoughts to protect our heart from the attack. And as our defense builds, we marshal enough resolve to make sure this breach of trust will never happen again.

But as we assemble our spiritual defense, we are sowing the seeds of our own spiritual decline, for we have placed ourselves in the land of the unforgiving. We cannot forgive someone if we are preparing ourselves to not at any cost be hurt by them again. The irony is that we hurt ourselves by trying to prevent any more pain.

So we begin to dry up spiritually. We pray and ask God to help us, for we are losing our bearings and are sailing away from His harbor of peace. In desperation, we ask for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Father. Forgive me for drifting away from you. Why have I done this, Father?”

And then He in a still small moment reveals the truth to us. “You want me to forgive you of this in your life. But I cannot until you forgive the one who hurt you.”

And then you realize why He told you to pray for that one who has despitefully used you. When you pray for them, you forgive them. As Christ said at His death: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” By asking the Father to forgive them, the Son showed that He was forgiving them. He also said that if we do not forgive each other, then the Father will not forgive us.

So the trial is not that we have been wounded by hateful words, but whether we will forgive that one who has hurt us. As we forgive, our heart changes, and we book passage out of the land of the unforgiving.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

To Those Who Desire to Be Anointed

I wrote a song called “Beauty for Ashes” back in the seventies during my missionary days. The tune was original, and I adapted the lyrics from Isaiah 61:1-4. It has been 48 years since then. There’s such beautiful imagery in that passage written down for us by the poet and prophet.

I thought again of those lyrics and marveled at their meaning: “The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me.” Why is the Father’s Spirit on Isaiah? “Because the LORD (Yahweh) has anointed me.” What is the scriptural definition of the “anointing?” The anointing is truth (I John 2:27).

We have all wondered and even asked God for His Spirit. Here it is. God gives His Spirit to those whom He has given the truth. But having the truth means having the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That means there must not be any false concepts concerning Christ, who is the truth (John 14:6). This is why the scriptures of truth incessantly warn us to purge out of our minds false doctrines, teachings, concepts and traditions. We must get rid of them in order to have Him—the Truth. Christ is the Anointed One; He is the truth.

Many sincere Christians desire that God anoint them. And He wants to. But they have to understand just what the anointing is. It is the truth about who Christ, the Anointed One, the Truth, is, and what He is about according to the holy scriptures of truth. That would include His purpose, plan, and will.

The Spirit of Christ in Isaiah says that the Spirit is upon the prophet because God has anointed him. God has given him the anointing, which is the truth.

Now for what reason? What is His purpose in anointing us? “To preach good tidings unto the meek.” “Meek” means the humble and downtrodden in spirit. We shall bear the good news of His kingdom coming to the “poor in spirit.” He has sent us to heal the brokenhearted; to free those still slaves to sin, freeing them from their prison of self; to proclaim the correct year leading to His “day of vengeance [Great Tribulation Period];” and to comfort those who mourn, both now and during that time of “Jacob’s trouble.”

But we shall be there for them, and we shall “give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He might be glorified. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations” (Isa. 61:3-4).

Sounds like His anointed ones will have a lot of work here on earth after great tribulation shatters the land. “Thy kingdom come, Father. Thy will be done…

“In His Name”–What Does It Really Mean?

One of the most trite and worn-out expressions in the English language is “In His name.” What does it really mean?  All through our Christian walk to date we have uttered that phrase or a variation of it. “In the name of Jesus.” “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

We ended most every prayer that we’ve ever prayed with a form of “in His name.”  We have recited it almost as an incantation, as if it had magical qualities that would bring healing and comfort. Now let us investigate and study these three words in a new light.  “In His name…” In, inside, within the true name.  He is pointing us to go into His name.  Take His Hebrew name, Yahshua, and go into that name and extract the meaning from it.

His name means literally, “Yah is salvation” or “Yah is Savior.”  But to all who received him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become the children of God. John 1:12.  Here, “receiving Him” and “believing in His name” are synonymous.  

A message in His name to be believed 

“Believing in His name” implies that there is a message to be believed, a truth inherent in His name. We have seen that Hebrew names are prophetical. We have seen that the Savior was named Yahshua because “he shall save His people from their sins.”  And Yahshua means “Yah is Savior.”  So what is the message contained within His name?  That message is “Yah is the Savior.

His name is loaded with meaning.  Inside that name is the meaning and efficacy needed to bring a person into the Spirit of the Father and to bring the Spirit into the person.  “Believing in His name…” The children receive the Spirit by believing in what His name means (by believing in His name). 

We believe that Yahweh or Yah, the Eternal Spirit, came down to earth and poured His essence into a specially set apart human form to sacrifice Himself so that we could take on His spiritual nature. For I am Yahweh thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour…I, I am Yahweh, and besides Me there is no savior…Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. Isa. 43:3, 11; 45:15. 

Yes, Yah did hide Himselfwell in a flesh body some 2000 years ago.  But He makes it very clear from the above passages in Isaiah that He is the Savior; He is the Creator.  The apostle John makes it very clear that the Spirit-filled human flesh body that he had walked with for three and a half years did the creating.  In the beginning was the Word…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made…He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…John 1:1, 3, 10, 14. 

Believing What His Name Means

There is no contradiction here.  Yah did the creating, the forming, the redeeming and the saving.  And Yah, clothed in human flesh, took the name “Yahshua,” Yah-Is-Savior.  The very name of the Messiah points to the fact that it is the Father Yahweh who is doing the saving.  Yah was in that vessel, the Messiah, reconciling the world unto Himself.  The Spirit, Yah, pours Himself into His temple and works out of it to the world.

When a person believes in the name of Yahshua, he is believing what that name means—that Yah is the Savior in human form.  In fact, the act of believing in the name of Yahshua is a miniature of the Creator’s plan of kingdom redemption.

If one has really received Him, that person will have believed in His name, which is to say, will have believed that the Father Yah was in human form, and that combination, Yahshua, is bringing salvation to the world.   

He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:18.  When one does not believe in the Messiah, he is not believing in the meaning of His name.  For He said, “He that rejects Me, rejects Him that sent Me.”  If you reject the Son, you are rejecting the Father that dwells within the Son, for that is exactly where the Father Yahweh is. “Know ye not that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” He asked.      

The phrase “in the name,” then, has profound meaning.  First, we cannot believe in His name if we do not know His name.  If we seek, He will reveal to us the meaning of His name.  This knowledge, in turn, is an important key that will unlock the door.

The Savior’s name is Yahshua, Yah-Is-Savior.  To believe in His name is to believe what His name actually means: Yahweh, the self-existent One that cried through Isaiah, who appeared and spoke to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and many others, offered up His perfect human incarnation and became the Author of eternal salvation for His people.

[This is taken from Chapter 9 of my book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality. You need this book. Order your free copy with free shipping by sending your mailing address to my email:  wayneman5@hotmail.com  Be sure to include your name, street address, and the title of the book. No mailing list, no follow up. It is just me here. God bless you. Kenneth Wayne Hancock]