Nothing in It for You and Me–All for Him

There was an old saying at the mission that rings true now some 40 years later.  “There’s nothing in it for you.”

I didn’t really understand then just how profound that simple statement was.  But Time is a faithful teacher.  And as I look now in the mirror and see a much more wrinkled image with a head laden with a heavy hoary frost, I take more time to contemplate the increasing fragility of my physical state.  It seems that the reality of my own mortality crowds daily into my thoughts.

In that mirror I also see in my own eyes how the years have neutralized the “piss and vinegar” that I was so full of back then in my 20’s and 30’s.

As my earthly frame grows weaker, that old saying–how that there’s nothing in this walk with God for you–rings truer.  It is making so much more sense now as I am staring down the time when I just may have to depart this old earthly body before Christ returns to this earth to set up His kingdom.

For, you see, in those younger years I thought that surely I would be alive when the LORD would come back.  Christ did say that “whosoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11: 26).  And, that “there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Mt. 16: 28).  Those destined not to taste death would have to be the generation of believers alive when He returned to earth.  Anyway, I always thought that I would be one of them.

But now, as the years tick on, and my body creaks with age more every day, I must take this into real consideration–this “falling asleep,” this “shuffling off of this mortal coil.”

And, yet, I now realize that God has this death of the physical body hanging over us for a reason.  We know that He gives life and He takes life.  Our very breath is in His hand.  And it is this impending destiny with dust that helps us understand the futility of living for one’s self.  The self just cannot see us through, for our earthly bodies must betray us, for that is the very nature  of the physical body formed of the dust of this planet.  The house of dirt was made for us by God on purpose not to last.  It is temporary housing.

God fashioned our bodies to be as ephemeral as butterfly wings.  He deliberately formed them to be fragile in hope that we might sense someday our own vanity before death came knocking.  As we see our bodies decay and crumble with age, He hopes that we will see the futility of living for the self.

Our fragility betrays our pretentious egos that always seem to shout, “Hey, everybody, seriously, I really am something!”  But that self-centered imagination breeds the ultimate deception, for “when a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Gal. 6: 3).

And we have all been guilty of that thought; it is in the spiritual genes of old man Adam and his offspring.  Yes, we are initially made that way by the Creator in hopes that we would see the purposelessness of selfish thinking and be humbled so that we could all realize one truth: Every man is created for only one thing, and it is not for self-glorification; it is for God-glorification.

And if we are blessed to be chosen by Him to reveal this truth to, then we are coming much closer to where we need to be in our walk on earth before our Creator.

There’s nothing in it for you.  For everything in the vastness of the universe and here on earth is for God and His pleasure.  This is the great sticking point with natural-minded man, who earnestly believes that he is the center of the cosmos.  Secular humanism is the new many-headed false god.  “Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me.”  Especially our self.

“For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things” (Rom. 11: 36).  Breaking it down, all things are of Him; they came from Him, and through His creative power all things (including us) exist.  And in the end, all things are created by Him for His pleasure and glory.

For instance, Him delivering us from utter degradation and destruction, and us returning and thanking Him and telling others about His saving love and power–He loves that and gets glory out of it.

“All things were created by Him, and for Him” (Col. 1: 16).  But God does not become a pompous little jerk like natural man when he gets power.  No.  God is LOVE.  He created us so that He could bring us to a place spiritually, where His essence and nature (which is Love) could be multiplied–eventually to fill the whole universe with LOVE!  Our gratitude toward Him for our deliverance from sin is the fertile soil where the seed of Love can grow.

And God-in-human-form is our example and showed us the way.  Jesus (Yahshua) tasted death for us all so that we would not be banished to the dusty tombs of oblivion.  “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory” (Hebr. 2: 9-10).

That’s the plan.  It is all for Him, so that He may glorify those who realize that it is all for Him.  He will share Himself and all His glory with the overcomers, even to the point of sharing His throne with them (Rev. 3: 21).

It is all for the Creator.  When we turn that page in the book of our minds, then joy and serenity will overtake us, for we will have embraced the heart of God with arms of humility, born of His true nature, Love.

{For more on this subject, check out this article:  https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/gods-endgame-where-this-life-on-earth-is-leading-us/ }

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

On Becoming Older–“Though Our Outward Man Perish”

In the world of men, the older one becomes, the less valuable they become–especially in American culture.  For only the outward appearance is esteemed.  But in the kingdom of God, as our earthly bodies age, it ofttimes yields a needed wisdom on the inside.  And with wisdom, one finds much spiritual treasure.

A Sense of Our Own Mortality

As our earthly body begins its corruption through aging, we begin to get a sense of our own mortality.  When we were young, we never thought that one day we would expire–that one day we would have breathed our last breath of earth’s good air.  We careened through youthful roads with a reckless abandon, never contemplating the delicate balance between life and death.

And then one day, we wake up and realize that we cannot do the physical feats we did in our youth.  And if we are blessed, we will then turn to the inward spiritual country, a land prepared by the Master Surveyor, laid out for those of us who will seek that rare realm.  This great land of the heart is called “the Kingdom of God” and it “is within you.”

Feeling the Need for the Spiritual

And as we turn to go there, we begin to feel the need for the spiritual food to sustain on our journey.  We see the futility of clamoring after things for just our earthly bodies, and we begin to respect and reverence the Spirit that fathered us anc created and placed us down here on earth.

Becoming older brings wisdom, for the dreams and schemes of youth have run their race cars into a wall of disillusionment.  Survivors of the crash walk more circumspectly, more grateful for more time to now think about the eternal things of God. It takes time’s erosion of our earthly strength to help us realize that God has an eternal purpose in all our trials, temptations, and tears.

The Fisher of Men

God allows us spools of line as a fisherman does a giant, fighting fish.  And with that extra line and time, the fish flips and flashes and flaps and flails until all his dreams and schemes of his own vainglory are surrendered to the will of the Great Fisherman.

And so it is with us.  He gives us great latitude to pursue our own way of non-surrender.  As the years pass, some will work so hard to wrestle free from God, that He allows them to throw off the hook.

But a chosen few will realize that they are destined for greater things, spiritual things, “things kept secret from the foundation of the world,” and they will surrender to His will.  They will see that “though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”  And because of this, these few will not look at the outward appearance, which shows the mere temporary things, but they will look on the invisible, into that dimension which is eternal (II Corinthians 4: 16-18).

And thus God brings them into His ship, into His heart, giving them a new spirit and a new in life–His life.

So becoming older can mean becoming wiser.  For with age comes spiritual clarity and more reverence for the Great Fisherman.  Youth are more likely to trust in the “arm of flesh,” which never has the strength to carry us down the road to immortality.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

The Virus, the Beast, and the Time of the End (First published 3-30-2020)

The Virus, the Beast, and the Time of the End

We are living during the beginning of the time of the end. I believe the “beast” of Revelation just may be Big Technology, what with 5G, AI, the internet of things, facial recognition, the herding of the sheeple using fear and hysteria…”And the whole world wondered after the beast…”

What is the one thing that the masses are clamoring for and wondering after? It is the latest technology breakthrough. They are addicted. Technology is an electric drug that is leading them into accepting a tiny chip that will hook their brain up to the Internet’s cloud whereby they will be the smartest little android in the office. This chip will insure that they can “buy or sell.” [If you still don’t believe this is happening, you are living in the past. Please do your own research on these things.]

Those who refuse to take the chip will be counted as rebels against the beast one world system.  They will have read the book of Revelation and will refuse to take the “mark of the beast.” For this they will be persecuted. We see this persecution unfold when we read Revelation 6: 9-11. It just may be the 5^th seal coming off the scroll of what is to happen in these last days.

God allows these sufferings in His plan to awaken His followers. In so doing, they will awake from their long sleep unto righteousness. “Awake thou that sleepest…and Christ shall give thee light (Rom. 13:11; Eph. 5: 14).

Many are realizing that something is wrong with all of this ginned up media driven hysteria. Do not fear. Yes, the virus is real, but there are other things going on. It is like a magician. Yes, the playing cards are real in his left hand. And while he directs our eyes on the machinations of his fingers and thumbs, with the other he is preparing to release a black swan from under his coat. That big black bird that “comes out of nowhere” is a worldwide economic collapse that will destroy the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and sling us into another great depression.

The Obama administration said to “never let a crisis go to waste.” They are not. While this virus does its thing, every mom and pop business in the nation is shut down. Most will not recover. Millions upon millions of workers are being laid off.

The world is in trouble and is suffering. But be of good cheer. Everything—I mean everything is going according to His Plan. The following months will bring hardship and panic. But through it all, hearts will turn back to the One who loves them.

I leave you today, the day that my dear mother brought forth her first born son some 73 years ago, with these encouraging words from our Creator: “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generation of old….I, even I am he that comforts you: who are you, that you should be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass…I have put My words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of My hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say…You are my people (Isa. 51: 9-16). This is His vision for the earth. We need to make our thoughts His thoughts.

[Be sure to watch the documentary The Social Dilemma on Netflix. It exposes more on this]

Kenneth Wayne Hancock