Walking through the valley of the shadow of death

I write these words to those on the lonely journey– my brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow pilgrims walking on through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psm. 23).

We are called and chosen by Yahweh to tread through death’s shadow. Who are the dead that casts such ominous shade? Christ said it, “Let the dead bury the dead.” They did not have the Spirit, so they were the dead walking around the earth.

And we, the children of light, intersect with their shadows daily when we come in contact with them. We are kind to them, even merciful, for we were once them. We once cast shadows of death and doubt, but now we, according to his great mercy, are rays of His brilliance called to burn brighter and brighter as we wait on the day to dawn.

But we usually wait alone, it seems. Most around us do not comprehend who it is that we serve. We are not alone, for Yah has a few scattered throughout the earth. It feels like we are alone, but we are not.

Elijah found that out. He walked alone as he stood against the evil of King Ahab and Jezebel of the northern Kingdom of Israel (ten tribes). He walked without an entourage as he waited on Yahweh to communicate with him (I Kings 17: 1- 4). They of the court of Ahab, no doubt described Elijah as a “one lone nut.” First, Elijah prophesied a dire drought on Ahab’s kingdom. He slaughtered 450 prophets of Baal, and defied Ahab at every turn. So Elijah was running. Exhausted, he was being chased by Ahab into the desert. You talking about a trial. You and I have not gone through trials like this!

Then “the word of Yahweh came to Elijah. Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan river. You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”  Elijah was walking with God, waiting on Him, renewing his strength each day. Our takeaway is this: Though the going gets tough and lonely, if we stay in our Captain’s ship, He will guide us through the rough waters into a calm and serene bay. We may not realize it, but we will have learned that the trials and experiences on the rough seas are necessary for our spiritual growth. And now, as we rest on the beach’s comforting sands, we look around and see other sailors resting along side us. And then we realize that we are not alone in Yahweh’s work.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

By Promises We Partake of His Divinity

I write to my courageous brothers and sisters today. I share with the souls who have braved the turbulent oceans of man’s fickle and false claims of knowing Divinity. When quizzed about the “divine nature,” they will salute the greatness of God perhaps. But when asked how do we “partake of the divine nature,” very few will know the answer. Go ahead. Choose out a pastor/preacher. Ask them. Chances are that you will be disappointed, for they will not know the apostle Peter’s mind, which is the mind of Christ.

The Spirit dwelling in the apostle repeatedly taught the early church that they had “obtained like precious faith with us,” the early apostles (II Peter 1:1). First rattle out of the box, the Spirit says now to us, You all have received the very same faith that was delivered to the apostles. There is only one faith, the faith of the Son of God. The one faith is His faith, His belief system, what He believes.

The early church had access to the same power. They were not powerless. In fact, “His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.” And through all of this, God has given us “great and precious promises.”

Great and Precious Promises

What are these promises? Christ promised us that He would send the Spirit to us and that through His spiritual presence in you, “He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). Christ promised that if we asked anything in his name that he would do it (John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23). [“In His name” is the key phrase that opens the door to answered prayer. What is His name? And what does it mean? You need to order my book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality.   It is free with free shipping. Details here:  Ordering My Free Books in Paperback | Immortality Road (wordpress.com) ]

Christ also made this astounding promise: “He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father” (14:12). What works did He do? He healed the sick and raised the dead for starters. He has promised us that we will do greater miracles than He did!

The preachers don’t believe that, for they will say that this Christlike power comes later for us, after we “go to heaven.” One thing is wrong with that theory. In heaven there are no sick people to heal, nor earthly dead to raise. So, His promises are for us who are alive on the earth. Just look at our examples Peter, John and Paul. The Spirit in them healed the sick and raised the dead.

He also promised that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He promised to return to set up the Kingdom of God, with Christ our King on the throne. He also promised to give us eternal life and a place in His Government.

These are just some of the “exceeding great and precious promises.” We are still talking about a spiritual growth—growing into apostleship. These promises encourage us and spur us on to the finish line. And it is through these promises that we “might be partakers of the divine nature…” (II Peter 1:4).

To secure these precious promises, the apostle continues, we need to diligently “add to your faith” seven attributes of God’s nature. “If these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ [Yahshua]” (verses  5-8).

These additions make our calling and election sure, where we will never fall (v. 10). Adding them opens the door into His Kingdom (v. 11). They are virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity/agape love (I Peter 1:5-8).

Knowledge about what these additions are, their importance in helping us spiritually grow, and how we are to add them to our faith is the thesis of my new book, The Additions to the Faith, due out in the spring of 2023.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Who Are the Future Manifested Sons and Daughters?

The Holy Scriptures speak of a group of Christians who will grow to become like the early apostles. Paul, John, and Peter wrote eloquently about them.

But who are these future immortal ones? The time in history is right for them to appear on the scene; it is the time of the end. Most Christians have read that “He is bringing many sons unto glory” (Hebrews 2:10). And they have read that He has given us power “to become the sons of God” (John 1:12). But most say that we cannot be like Paul, Peter and John. Who are the few who do believe, who are grown from the same seed as the apostles?

One major trait that they all have is an unsatiable appetite for the truth. They want the absolute, unadulterated truth as to why we are here on earth. Who is this Creator? What is His plan for us? What’s the timetable for coming events? What about the evil in the earth? Who inhabits Satan’s kingdom? Who is calling the shots, running the show, pulling the strings of the puppet politicians? How will the world end?

They want to know the truth about the things that touch all our lives. And when they hear it,    they are quick to lay the idols of their own prior understanding on the burn pile.

You can tell who they are by their ability to discern what is truth and what is a lie. God has given them this ability, and that is what sets them apart. That is what makes them different from other human beings. God has chosen them and ordain them for His mission. And he will not allow them to be deceived any longer.

It is this humility, this dependence on God’s Spirit, that allows them to seek and find the truth. Yes, God intervenes and creates a hunger in their hearts for truth. That is the beginning of God calling them to Himself. It’s the start of the Quest, when the hero awakens out of his selfish slumber. And he is made aware that there is something greater than his anemic little desires for vainglory. Something much greater than himself is afoot here. He begins to realize that something earth-shattering and then, earth-reshaping, lies in the prophetic pages soon to come to life for those who seek.

But it all starts when God instills the thirst for truth. It is all Him. He is behind everything. He is the “Author and Finisher of our faith.” He arranges our lives from desperation to the first steps on this pilgrimage to find the Source of love and peace. He injects our lives with desire to know Him who is the Truth. And then we learn that it is His ballpark—His bat, ball and gloves. He invites all to play. Those who show up for the meaningful and sometimes strenuous practices, will be learning to play by His rules. Those who learn them will be the starters at game time.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock  

Patience, Godliness, and Wisdom—Their Relationship

Our spiritual growth in God does not happen accidentally. We have a part to play. A seedling plant must strive to break free from the clutches of the clods of hardened earth to get to the light.

So it is with God’s offspring, you and I. To grow and to fulfill God’s purpose for each of us, we must first gain knowledge of his plan, and then execute it. He is “bringing many sons [and daughters] unto glory.”

How is he doing this? He has several spiritual programs to accomplish His will. They are laid out in black and white in the Holy Bible. The programs for our growth are hiding in plain sight. But you won’t hear about them in the church houses, even though the early apostles wrote glowingly about their secrets. Their pastors, priests and preachers have closed their eyes and ears to anything new. Yet God’s programs are full of “new creatures, new testament, new hearts, new lives, where all things are become new.”

Some of the Programs

We should not think that once we profess Christ, it is all done. The Apostles’ Doctrine, the title of my 2019 book, expounds on one of God’s programs that shows us how to become like the early church. The apostles walked in the seven teachings that Christ taught them. Their doctrine was Christ’s doctrine/teachings. To be like the early apostles, we need to do what they did; they “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine,” and then power was given to do mighty works in the land.

Another of Christ’s programs to help us grow spiritually is what I am writing now–The Additions to the Faith. We must add, through much study and prayer, certain facets of God’s divine nature to His faith that now resides in us. But we cannot add them if we have no knowledge about these attributes of God.

We have seen that in order to fulfill God’s purpose of fully walking in his divine nature, we need to add to our faith certain attributes of that very divine nature. We see that we are to add patience to temperance. The problem has always been understanding these English words. We are dealing with three words: patience, godliness, and wisdom.

They are all scriptural, taken from the King James Version. All three are difficult to comprehend because of man’s traditional definitions and connotations placed on them. To get a clearer picture of their meaning, we go to the Greek texts.  “Patience” means endurance. “Godliness” means to love and revere God. Wisdom is to fear Him, or to be in reverential awe of Him.

We can all agree that we need more wisdom. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom…” (Proverbs 4:7). God has made it seemingly simple for us to get wisdom. Just ask Him for it, the apostle James tells us (1:5). But we cannot waver in unbelief (verse 6).

Why would we waver? Those that waver will not get wisdom (verse 7). I always thought that the wavering happened because of our weak faith in not believing at the outset that God would give us wisdom. But now I see that we waver when we don’t understand how overcoming trials produce wisdom. God tests our faith; going through these trials shows us just how awesome our great Creator is. We will see his great love for us in correcting us, getting us ready to sit with him on his throne. We have a lot of changing to do. Trials bring those changes about.

We still are talking about adding patience, and to patience godliness. Many early Christians had, no doubt, complained to James about the trials that they were going through. He gets straight to the point. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (1: 2 NIV). Joy? The heathen are hunting us Christians down like dogs. How do we see this as bringing happiness? At first glance, it is difficult to see, but a profound revelation hides in the shadows of our disbelief.

How Trials Bring Joy

How do trials bring joy? These trials test our faith. This testing of our faith “develops perseverance” (verse 2, NIV). It “works patience.” Trials of the faith develops endurance/patience/perseverance (verse 3). Overcoming trials develops spiritual muscle needed for us to endure all things thrown our way.

When our Father tests, chastens, and corrects us, we tend to not understand just how blessed we are. That is why we are admonished to “let patience have her perfect work.” In other words, we must allow endurance and perseverance do the job of bringing us to spiritual maturity. This is what the additions to the faith is all about: The spiritual maturity of becoming like Christ and his apostles. “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete” (verse 4 NIV).

It is here at verse five that we receive an astounding revelation. The previous four verses show us  how  God gives us wisdom. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God who gives liberally…”

But we must ask, “What does wisdom have to do with patience/endurance? What’s the tie-in?” First, we are admonished to ask for wisdom, not knowing how or from where it comes to us. God then gives us wisdom through orchestrating trials for us to overcome in our lives. These trials, as we have seen, produce endurance/patience. Then, on the other side of the testings and trials, we see that it produces in us a love and reverence for God in all His marvelous ways of creating us in His image. Love and reverence for Him is the very definition of wisdom. “The fear of the LORD, that is wisdom.” “Fear” in the Hebrew means “reverential awe.” Reverential awe of Yahweh, that is wisdom. Wisdom and patience/endurance combine to bring godliness to be added to patience. And the kicker is this: Godliness in the Greek means “a love and reverence for God.”

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Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Adding Godliness to Patience

To bear the spiritual fruit that we are to bear in these last days, to be found worthy to sit with Christ on His throne, we must add to our faith certain spiritual attributes (II Pet. 1).

We are to add patience to temperance. And patience is endurance, as seen in the Greek text. We must “endure unto the end,” enduring persecution and tribulations, enduring “hardness as a good soldier” of Christ (Matthew 24:13; II Thes. 1:4; II Tim. 2:3). We must “endure all things for the elect’s sake,” especially “sound doctrine,” which are those Christ-borne teachings that attack man’s traditions that we have all been taught since childhood (II Tim. 2:10; 4:3).

And perhaps the most difficult thing to endure is the chastening of God. We must endure His correction when He begins to purge out the false teachings about Him and the immature ways we carry ourselves.

God will scourge us and prove us. He forewarns us: “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by Him.” For He chastens those He loves. “If we endure [this is the adding of patience/endurance] chastening [correction, disciplining], then God deals with us as sons and not bastards. When we have passed the tests, He receives us as his heirs, “that we might be partakers of His Holiness” (Heb. 12:5-10).

God endures our immaturity and our weakness and we, in turn, endure the maturing process. Understanding, accepting, and finally, welcoming these things that we must overcome—this brings spiritual maturity.

The Beginning of Godliness

Adding patience/endurance to our faith is the maturing process. Going through this maturing process brings about a reverence for God. We begin to revere Him for what He is doing and how He is including us in his plan of reproducing himself. Revering Him is adding godliness to patience/endurance.

Many say that “godliness” means “God-like-ness. It sounds good, but the word “godliness” is translated from the Greek word eusebeia (G2150), meaning reverence or respect. This Greek word is derived from eusebes (G2152), which comes from sebo (G4576), a verb meaning “to revere, to worship” (Strong’s).

We now are living by the faith of the Son of God (Gal. 2:20). There’s only one faith—Christ’s (Eph. 4:5). We are now building on His faith as we endeavor to add to it. Belief first, yes. But faith/belief alone is not enough. For “even the devils believe in one God and tremble.” Virtue and then knowledge must be added, then tempered, and then endurance is added as we overcome hardships.

As we begin to comprehend the magnitude of this heaven-directed spiritual life cycle that God has called us to, then love, devotion, awe, and reverence begin to grow in our hearts toward our Father. This is the beginning of us adding godliness/reverence to our faith. We do love Him because He first loved us. And the love of God is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”

This reverence for God comes when we first know about his plan. And then, as we walk in it, we endure the tribulations and chastening on the road to sonship and daughtership. Then we begin to see that we [are] receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved.” He is favoring us with this knowledge that “we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” [reverential awe] (Heb. 12:28).

Who Will Add Godliness/Reverence to the Faith?

So, all of this creates questions: Who is going to step up? Who are these people who will do the seven additions that the apostle Peter wrote to us about? They are out there. These articles are a tiny light flashing faintly in the ocean of mankind. I believe that “this little light of mine” is shining. Its rays will reach whomsoever He directs them to. Who are they? How will we know them? We will know them by their fruits. More next time.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock