God’s Will Is His Desire

“I just want to do His will…Only if the Lord wills…Seek His will…The will of God…” The use of “God’s will” is ubiquitous. Christians speak of His will all the time; they know that it is important. But it is used so much that the original meaning of “will” gets lost in the shuffle. The meaning of the word “will” has been shrunk down to a feeble, man-derived concept.  

God’s “will,” however, cannot be understood by squeezing it out of man’s wisdom. God’s will is vast; it is like going from a grain of sand to the cosmic energy of a billion suns. God’s will is galactic. Nevertheless, He has predestinated some of us “to be filled with the knowledge of His will.” How does He fill us? “Through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives” (Col. 1:9). That should be our prayer for each other: That you “be filled with the knowledge of His will.”

The Greek Word Translated “Will”

This “knowledge of His will” starts with this question: What does the word translated “will” mean in the Greek? The Greek word is thelema. It means “what one wishes” or desires. Simply put, His will is His desire. It is what God desires to do in heaven and earth (Blue Letter Bible – Lexicon (blbclassic.org).

What’s special about exactly doing His desires? Only those who do the will/desire of the Father will enter the kingdom of heaven. “Not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will [desire] of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). Doing the Father’s will, then, is extremely important. Our standing with Christ—our growth, our service—is determined by how much of His desires we do. I am not referring to working for salvation; that is a gift from Him. But to grow spiritually, we must work because He has saved us.

But first, we must know His will/desire before we can do it.

On our search, of this we can be sure; whatever the Father desires, He will bring it to pass. So, we should ask ourselves, “What does God desire?” Most will say that it is something about salvation. Yes, salvation is the first step, and He desires to save us (Gal. 1:4). The Father’s desire/will is that Christ will lose none of His disciples, but will resurrect them in a new spiritual body (John 6:39-40).   

But the scriptures expound more deeply things concerning His “will.” First, His desire/will is a mystery. But God has revealed it to us. God has “made known to us the mystery of His will…  which he purposed in Christ.” God’s will/desire is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” in heaven and in earth (Eph. 1:9-10). That bears repeating. God desires to “gather together in one all things in Christ.” 2,200 different denominations is not bringing all things into one in Christ.

God’s desire/will is to have our hearts filled with His presence—that we grow to full maturity and bring our exiled King back to earth. We do this by preparing for His arrival. How? By feeding His lambs and sheep. By obeying His commands. By doing and teaching His doctrine. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God or not” (John 7:17). Do you know of His doctrine? His doctrine teaches us of His will, His desire. [Send for my book, The Apostles’ Doctrine. It is free with free shipping because Christ took “money” off the table. To order, go here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/donate/ ] More on His will coming soon.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Origins of Christmas Season Found in “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT”

Origins of Christmas Season Found in “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT”

Thoughts on Death and Life–He Is Trustworthy

(From a journal entry, 5-30-19)

Humans are the only beings that contemplate their fate after death. Even the self-described atheist fears death. If it is not a door to another destination, why fear death?

Of all the living, it is mankind that wonders about eternity and their place in it. Where do I fit in, he asks himself. Why did I as a youth believe I would live forever and never die? Why did I act like I was an immortal one—only to splash down into the mud of mediocrity?  This dethrones our high thoughts—thoughts of a Christless immortality, which come from the good/bad cycle and the wretched throes of war and peace and abundance and famine.

Of all the living, only humans ponder eternity. The human is the only species that is wired with waves of eternity’s thoughts. The singsong cadence of the lives of mortals—living today, dying tomorrow—confuses them when clothed in their first earthen body. They do not know when mortality’s final trip is scheduled.

But we who have died and have risen with Christ have taken the first step on the way to immortality. He has promised us passage into His immortal kingdom. He has promised us a new spiritual body, free from the physical decay of our weakening “mortal coil.” HalleluYah! Praise Yah for His “way, truth and life.” He is the answer to all questions.

The Father plans to “gather together in one all things in Christ.” That means things in the heavens and earth. He has predestinated you and me to fulfill His purpose of spreading His love in a sublime oneness. He is working it all out through His will (Eph. 1:10-11).

It is all Him, brothers and sisters. Christ is the head; He is running the whole shebang. It is His feast and festival; we are the invitees. He is “the feature; we are just the trailer.”

All Human Beings Should Trust Him

The earth we stand comfortably on is hurling through space around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour. We are spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour (How fast is Earth moving? | Space). Yet we do not feel it; we do not see nor hear anything about these astronomical speeds. It is a well-planned miracle that our Creator has done for life on earth. He has provided the perfect amount of gravity to counterbalance the speeds we travel. We trust Him to continue providing for us.

Death and eternal life. There is no death without first a life being taken. And there is no eternal life without death being conquered. Christ is the “resurrection and the life.” He is trustworthy. It is our honor to serve Him. 

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Eating Christ’s Flesh—Pre-requisite to the Abiding

Eating Christ’s flesh? Uh, that is some heavy stuff, Wayneman. Especially when you use the verb “eat.” That word triggers my mouth into getting involved with ingesting food. But eating Christ’s flesh? And drinking His blood? Really? How are we supposed to do that?

Well, Christ does say, “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). It is this everlasting life that defines Christ’s abiding in us. He promised that He would abide and dwell in us if we ate His flesh and drank His blood.

Some people today will react to this statement the way many did 2,000 years ago. It was this very teaching that separated the sheep from the goats. “From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with Him” (6:66). How serious was this situation? After witnessing many miracles and just being with Him, they could not handle the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood. They thought that He had gone too far with His mysterious sayings.

What was their problem? Christ said that it was their unbelief (6:64). But unbelief of what exactly? It was unbelief in anything that their eyes could not see. All they saw was the flesh of His body. They were looking after the flesh and not after the spirit. To understand this enigmatic passage, we must look on his “flesh” and “blood” after the spirit. Christ said as much: it is the spirit that quickens” (6:63). We must catch the “spirit of the thing” to understand it.

What spiritual action is taking place with His earthly body and blood? Ironically, we must look at Christ’s flesh body and blood after the spirit. The spirit makes His teachings come alive. Eating His flesh and drinking his blood are metaphors, not literal, material things to do. We must look to the spiritual applications of what His flesh and blood did on the cross.

The Flesh and the Blood—What Did They Do at the Cross?

Christ made an extremely important statement. “Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” Obviously, we cannot consume the flesh of His physical body cannibalistically. What then does his “flesh” signify? It is a metaphor for the final act that His physical body performed. That act was Christ laying down his physical body unto death. The eating of his flesh is us believing what the sacrifice of His body did for us all. It is believing that His death on the cross and His subsequent resurrection of that physical body, served to take our sins totally away. His flesh dying as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world is the bread of life. It is what we are to take in/eat/and digest—spiritually.

Christ is called the Lamb of God for this very reason. All our sins were laid upon His body. Our sins were placed upon the Lamb. He was our scapegoat offering. When His flesh body died, our sins died with Him. When His blood was shed, the life of sin died that day on the cross.

“Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22). “He was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Cor. 5:21). He was our pure Passover Lamb, crucified, and with his crucifixion, sin died that day. All we must do is just believe it. When His flesh body died, our old sinful selves died with Him. And “he that is dead is freed from sin.” The lifeblood of our sin is drained away with Christ’s blood.

When we were baptized in water, “we were baptized into His death.” When Christ’s sacrificial flesh and blood died, our old sinful self died with Him, “that the body of sin might be destroyed.” We are free! We are new creatures in Christ (Romans 6:1-12).

When we believe what the death of His flesh body and the shedding of His blood did for us, then we will have eaten and drunk His blood. These figures of speech mean that we have taken into our hearts the love that He expressed to us. We must not corrupt the “simplicity that is in Christ” (II Cor. 11:3). Beware of those who would beguile you to follow the path of transubstantiation. God is Spirit, not material and physical. He does not live in a lifeless wafer and a sip of wine.

[What are your thoughts on this subject? Please leave them in the comment section. Subscribe and give us a “like” if we have helped you. May Yah continue to enlighten your steps.] Kenneth Wayne Hancock