In the Beginning Was the Seed—Part One

(Every garden begins with a seed. The Spirit is saying, Come with Me and dig deep in the garden of God)

We must “dig deep” because the garden holds a secret. But the garden gate is locked; we need the key. Christ is the key to the mystery of the locked garden gate. Christ’s words enfold this truth: “The parable is this: the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11).

Seed = Word. Word = Seed. Therefore, “In the beginning was the Word [Seed]…And the Word [Seed] was God” (John 1:1). And the Seed was God. In the beginning of all things was the Seed. And those that are His have been “born of that incorruptible seed, the word of God” (I Peter 1:23).

We now believe that the Seed, the Son of God, died, was buried, and was raised from the dead. Our belief in Him generates a new birth of that same Seed/Word in our hearts. We have that same seed in us. We are created in His image–both physical and spiritual. Like a garden seed is programmed to die, be buried, and spring to life, so it is in the spiritual realm.

What do seeds do? They grow. They are designed to spring to life and grow. Be it animal, vegetable, or spiritual, we are all designed to grow from a seed. In the Holy Bible, Christ and his apostles have commanded us to do certain things to spur on this growth.

The book The Additions to the Faith deals primarily with one of His commandments: “Add to your faith” the seven additions of the divine nature (I Peter1:5). Your faith is really His faith. There is only one faith (Eph. 4:5). Faith is the seed-beginning of all potential spiritual growth. It takes believing the word/seed faith, having not seen the physical evidence.

We should pause before exploring the seven additions to our faith. We must hold this truth tightly. The faith we have now from God is Christ’s actual faith/belief system. Christ believes  His own plan to spread agape love all over the earth in human beings.

God’s purpose is the reproduction of Himself, which is Love. He does this by using the age-old Law of Harvest: Each seed bears its own kind. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7 NASB). Spiritually speaking, we reap what we sow. But this sowing and reaping has nothing to do with Christians giving money to evangelists and believing that they will gain a return of money “one hundred-fold.” This prosperity doctrine is insidious. It preys on desperate people who fall into the trap of always looking after the flesh, thereby missing the Holy Spirit.

The Law of Harvest has to do with spiritual growth, as well as physical. Christ said, “The words I speak they are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). There is no spiritual growth except through a germinated seed. The seed is the word of God. Then the word, like Christ, is made flesh in our mortal bodies. But the seed must be sown in good ground, in a “good and honest heart.”

Spiritual growth is how much of God’s Spirit of love grows in our hearts. He wants us to bear the peaceable fruit of righteousness in a fully mature growth which Christ calls bearing 100-fold fruit. To bear this amount of spiritual fruit, we must “know him that is from the beginning,” the beginning of all things. “Beginning” is from the Greek word arche. This “arche/beginning is not a recent, little beginning. It is big and deep and goes back before the worlds were framed by the word of God. The same word is used in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word.” Or, we can now say, “In the beginning was the Seed.”

This study gives us the key to the garden gate. This study about the Seed/Son opens it. And it gives us knowledge on how to enter the 100-fold fruit bearing growth. For knowing Christ from the beginning is the key.      Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Knowing God Is Knowing His Word–Because He Is the Word

Because God is the Word, we cannot know Him if we do not know His words about Him being the Word. We find these words in the written word of God. The “word” found in John 1 is “Logos” in the Greek. It means “the plan,” basically. Everything in God’s far reaching excellent Plan is encapsulated in the word “word.”

God makes a big thing out of his word. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word of God.” His word is our life. Many scriptures come to mind about the word. “In the beginning was the word.” Since Christ is the beginning [“I am the beginning and the end”].  In Him was the word/logos or the plan. Since Christ is the beginning, then in Him was the word/logos/plan. Christ is the “Word made flesh” that dwelt among us.

And He was this word/logos/plan. And the Word was God. And this word, this explanation of God’s purpose and plan was at first passed on from generation to generation orally. Then his prophets wrote it down, and the word became the scriptures of truth. And the scriptures were passed down by faithful men, preserved for us today in the Bible.

This procurement by man of God’s word was done through men and women being the word. In other words, their lives became the word as their actions and interactions with God became the word, made flesh in a way.

Moreover, God’s chosen people’s history, the history of the Adamites, became our Bible. Comprehending their story, capped by the New Testament story of Yahshua the Christ the Anointed One and his apostles, is the journey we have set out on.

Thy Word Is Truth

His word is the truth about what is happening in heaven and earth. Therefore, it becomes the standard that we must go to, to settle all controversies. There will be times when we have doubts as to the veracity of certain doctrinal assumptions. He said that we are to prove all things to see if they be good or bad.

A grave mistake happens here on our walk into more growth in Him. It is believing that every thought that pops into our head is of God. We must know that God has allowed Satan to communicate with the inhabitants of the earth. He will speak to us in the thoughts of our mind. God does the same thing. The mistake is not discerning properly which voice is which.

Grave errors occur to young Christians for one reason. Christ said it. “You do err. You neither know the scriptures nor the power of God.” Knowing the written word of God  gives more God-thoughts to combat the negative thoughts.

There is much to prove out one way or the other whether thoughts come from God or of the devil. People will come up with suppositions, dreams, and imaginations. They become false doctrines that are clung to. But they must be in one accord with the standard, the word of God. If it does not agree with the written word, then we must throw it out.

His word is a big thing because He is a big thing, for He is the Word. The Word is spirit, and you must “worship God in spirit and in truth…” Without the truth, there is no real worship. So, word = spirit = God = truth. We must know the scriptures of truth in order to know God. For He is the Word of truth.

From My “Beginning” to THE BEGINNING

I say, “In the beginning was the ________________.”

And you say, “Word.”

And I say, “Right. The Word is in the beginning. The Word is the beginning.”

Many confuse God’s initial call on their life as the end all, be all. And they keep going back to those first experiences when God made Himself real to them. I know because God gave me wonderful revelations while I was a stark raving sinner. While others were seeing imaginary pink elephants and purple paisley wall coverings visually melting, I was seeing the oneness of God and how we should all be living together and loving each other. I called these experiences my Jesus trips.

And I held on to them as my life became unbearable because I was unbearable. In fact, one of the revelations became my sign: The old self had to die. This began my search for the truth. And I vowed that I would follow the philosophy or religion that could teach me the death of self.

For I was studying all the religions at the time. And none of them could tell me how the old selfish ego dies—until I heard the answer from this preacher who had just set up a Missionary Training Center in East Texas twenty miles from where I was visiting my mother and stepfather. I had no idea that the Bible would give me my sign. But there it was all along. The preacher taught from Romans 6, where the Spirit through Paul speaks about how our old man is crucified with Christ.

My early experiences were preparing me for the day when I would meet my mentor who would teach me the intricacies of being crucified with Christ. But at first I held on to those original experiences. I wanted to stay at my “beginning.” I did not fully realize that God reveals things to us—wondrous things—as a way to call us out of darkness. But that initial calling is not Him choosing us to be like His Son. Those that are chosen by Him to be in His first fruits company of manifested sons and daughters must go into basic and then advanced training. I learned from my mentor that there was so much more knowledge than those first experiences that God used to call me out of darkness.

Yes, they are wonderful experiences where He shows us a glimpse of what our walk here on earth can be. Those experiences were our alarm clock that woke us up to the fact that God is very real. And it is not that we are to totally forget those experiences. But we are to use them to get to the real purpose that He has for us. They are the first stepping stones that lead us across the creek. If we keep going back to that first stepping stone, we will never get to our destination, our destiny in Him. The objective and purpose of the stones is to get across. We are not to stay on the first stone and admire its attributes.

­­­­Remaining in our past, in the “beginning” of our new existence with God, will never help us to grow to be like Christ and His early apostles. We need to speak what they spoke. They “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine. They spoke the words of Christ’s teachings (Acts 2: 42; Heb. 6: 1-2). They spoke of God’s purpose, and His plan to fulfill His purpose. This purpose of reproducing Himself in us will not be found in our “beginning,” in our initial experiences when God was calling us out of darkness. His purpose will only be found in THE BEGINNING—Him and His words. If we are to ever be counted as one of God’s future kings, sitting alongside the King Himself, we must realize that it is all about “His beginning.” He must take pre-eminence in our thinking.

“In the beginning was the Word.” Our King Yahshua is the Word. In Him are all of the Father’s details and plans to accomplish His purpose. And we can only get to where He desires us to be by studying Him, the Word.

We must study His plan to know it inside and out. What future king worth his salt does not prepare himself through studying his father’s will for the kingdom? The apostle Paul was clear on this: “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3: 13-14).

How do we change our words and speak of His purpose and plan? “We” cannot get it done. It will be the Spirit of Truth abiding in us that will change our speech from our “beginning” to The Beginning. The Spirit of Truth is the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. Christ promised to send Him to us. The Spirit of Truth is our guide into all truth. His presence in us insures that we will not speak about ourselves. When He abides/remains/stays in us, He will take over our words that will only speak from the mind of Christ (John 16: 13).

Someone will say, “Well, what should I talk about then?” Study out His vision of sonship and share it with others. Share about His soon coming Kingdom. Learn the apostles’ doctrine and give it to others. Study out true repentance in Romans 6. That is the message for new followers, not our initial experiences. It is not about “us.” It is about Christ and His vision for us all. Study out the armor of God and teach it to others. Study out the Father’s purpose and plan to fulfill His purpose.

Finally, my brothers and sisters, feed His lambs and sheep. Not with old manna that was good for the purpose of calling you out of darkness. Feed them with the hidden manna that the Spirit of truth channels through us to others. Thank Him for those initial experiences and for the change He has made in your life. And then thank Him for the truth, for Christ is the truth, and He is the Word that was from the beginning (I John 1: 1; John 1: 1). kwh

[All these things and more are explained in my books—The Apostles’ Doctrine, The Royal Destiny of God’s Elect, The Unveiling of the Sons of God, and Yah Is Savior. They are free with free shipping. To order one of the books: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/donate/ ]

Man Dies, Talks to God, and Comes Back to Life

Man Dies, Talks to God, and Comes Back to Life

Maybe you have seen on youtube where this man dies. His heart stops beating, and he is gone for ten minutes. But he says that the passage into God’s presence is peaceful. God does not show His face; the man only sees His form from the back.

And God asks him, “Do you have any questions?”

The man gets embarrassed because he can’t come up with an interesting question. The only thing that he can think of to ask seems rather trite. “What is the meaning of life?”

“Oh, that’s easy. It is Love.”

And the man says, “I thought that was it.” And then right after that, the man came back to life.

Love. “God is love.” God is this divine, selfless agape love. God is invisible, for He is like the wind. You only know that the wind exists when you see its effects upon things in the five-senses-realm. We feel the wind’s effects on the trees and on our face, yet we cannot see it. Such is the Spirit of God (John 3: 5-8; 4: 24).

We know God is real and exists, for we see His effects on people. We see those addicted to drugs freed from hellish bondage. We see families restored, lives changed overnight. We see hands that stole, steal no more. We see eyes that lusted after women look up to the heavens and give thanks to this great Spirit of love for deliverance.

It is through the love that God showed to us when He “gave His only begotten Son” that we see God. For love sacrifices itself for another. “Greater love has no man than this that he would lay down his life for his friends” (John 15: 13).

And because God is this invisible Spirit of Love, we must approach Him through faith—believing having not yet seen. And through faith we begin to understand His plan to fulfill His purpose, which is this: God is multiplying Himself; He will reproduce Love—Himself—and He will do it in us (Matt. 13: 3-23). That is our calling. “Many are called, but few are chosen” by Him to be a part of this glorious vision of God reproducing Himself (Matt. 20: 16).

A Word about Faith

Again, it is not our puny little faith that we need to muster up. No. The scriptures speak about God’s faith, God’s belief [“faith” and “belief” are translated from the same Greek word]. It is all about His belief and His faith in Himself and His power to accomplish whatever He has spoken. It is His ballgame in His ballpark. The bats, balls and gloves are all His. The rules are His; He wrote them. And, oh, yes. He owns us the players. For we do not belong to ourselves any longer (I Cor. 6: 19-20). It is not about us trying to believe the word of God. We are to “put on Christ.” This means we are to believe like He believes, which is how the Father believes.

The problem that Christians have is that they still believe that they are alive and well. But He said that we are a “new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Cor. 5: 17). He sees us as such. Therefore, we need to believe it; that is walking in faith—His faith. He said that you and I are dead with Christ, that we “are crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6: 6; Gal. 2: 20). That is the Father’s belief. You and I need to believe what God believes. When we do, we are walking in faith and in the light. He said that we no longer live but that it is Christ that lives in us. And the “life [we] now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God…” (2: 20).   He has faith in Himself and belief in Himself. And He now believes that He lives in us! Believe it. Walk in it. Believing what He believes is walking in faith. It is walking in the Spirit and walking in truth.

Because God is invisible, it takes belief; it takes faith to please our Father, the Spirit of Love. After we believe that He exists, we begin to grow spiritually. We believe in His goodness and that goodness grows in us and heals our body, soul, and spirit. This is virtue—this awareness of God’s goodness now transported into our hearts, now changing us first and then growing to the point where His goodness and righteousness overflows out to others.

But there are bumps in the road to immortality. Trials come to test our mettle. Our knowledge of God’s good is seemingly thwarted by evil at times. We must not be dismayed (I Pet. 4: 12). It is all part of His plan. Our hearts are purified in the forge of God’s plan for our life in Him. The result is the gold of pure love, the divine Love that He is and will use through us to rule with Him in His Kingdom of peace, coming to this planet shortly.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

If You Ain’t Knowin’, You Ain’t Growin’

A wise voice once spoke to me, “If you ain’t knowin’, you ain’t  growin’.”

And so later I asked myself, “Knowing what exactly?” And then a few scriptures came to me.

“Be still and know that I am God.” First, be still. Get out of the traffic of your life, slow down, and take that country road and pull over, and with a calm mind, know that He is God.

But which God, or rather which version of the God of the Bible? “What is His name?” Moses asked. “I AM THAT I AM” was God’s reply. YHWH in the Hebrew. And it was the same I AM that spoke through Christ when He said, “Before Abraham was I am.” Know that “the fullness of the godhead dwelt bodily in Christ.” “Be still and know that I am God” (Psm. 46: 10) [For much more on this subject, read Chapters 11-14 in Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality found here:  https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/book-yah-is-savior-the-road-to-immortality/ ].

Knowing and growing in Him. And then the much quoted passage from Christ’s lips came to mind: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8: 32). But free from what exactly? He answers that two verses later. “Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.”  I.e., if you are sinning, it is because you are Sin’s slave. Sin is your master. You do Sin’s bidding. You are not free from sin. You don’t know the truth that will free you from sin and sinning (the breaking of the Ten Commandments [I John 3: 4]).

To know the truth that will free us from having to sin. What is that knowledge that will liberate mankind from sin’s slavery? HalleluYah! This is gigantic information!

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom. 6: 6-7). Same verses in the NIV: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.” We have got to know that our old sinful first nature “was crucified” with Christ on the cross. It is already accomplished! The only thing that we need to do is believe it. That is all. And through believing it, we know that it is done by Him. It just takes faith/belief.

I don’t get it. This is so fundamental. Why aren’t pastors and ministers preaching this in their churches? Oh, I don’t know. Could it be that they just do not believe it? And it is not a very popular message. Hey, people, repent of your sins and die with Christ on His cross! Not real popular. Probably it will get you fired. Hirelings get fired. God’s prophets and apostles and teachers don’t. They are not in it for the salary. And so, the pastors and ministers blather platitudes about Christ and never by His Spirit speak of this knowledge.

Brothers and sisters, we’ve got to know this: God gives us His word that if we submit our old sinful selves to spiritually die with Christ on the cross, that He will free us from sin and sinning. Because “he that is dead is freed from sin.” And now we also know that being spiritually buried with Him, and being raised up with Him secures a brand new life in Him, free from the bondage to sin and its consequences. It is all laid out there in the sixth chapter of Romans. This is where the knowledge of the truth that will free us from sin is crystallized.

Of course, there are many passages of scripture that deal with knowing. But I will close with one that seems to fit nicely here, again from Christ’s lips: “If you know these things, happy are you if you do them” (John 13: 17). And we are growing when we do Christ’s things. Knowing and doing equals growing. “If you ain’t knowin’ you ain’t growin’.”       Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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The Hidden Manna Versus Yesterday’s Manna

Yesterday’s manna will not feed the hunger of today’s sons and daughters of God. Yesterday’s manna will not sustain them on their spiritual quest to be like Paul, Peter, James, John and—yes, like the Son of God Himself. Yesterday’s bread from heaven that was given hundreds of years ago to the churches will not strengthen the future manifested sons and daughters of God. They have a higher calling than to just receive salvation. They are pressing “toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus/Yahshua” (Phil. 3: 14).

Yesterday’s manna was the perfect food for those who had never heard of Christ back in the early days. Tell them the story of how He died for them. Introduce them to Christ; tell them about His great love for them. Tell them about salvation through faith in Christ. But now God has a people, a chosen remnant, who have heard this story since childhood, and they need something more than an incessant introduction to Christ. They need the meat of the word to satisfy their spiritual growing pains. They need Him, the truth. They need the hidden manna in the form of His full purpose and plan to fulfill it.

His Purpose Is the Bread of God that Is Hidden

But what is the end product of God’s purpose for these who have the “high calling”?  They are  “the called according to His purpose.” They are being called right now to be used by the King to fulfill His purpose. “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son…” (Rom. 8: 28-29).

We see here that God knew these before. Look. He is the Creator—omni-everything, “knowing the end from the beginning.” Of course, He knew beforehand what they would become, much like a novelist creates characters and knows their destinies before the book is published. Furthermore, He gave us a destiny before we were ever born into the human mire.

We have a forerunner and an example. Speaking to Jeremiah, God said, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jer. 1: 5). Somebody is saying, “Well, that was Jeremiah. He was a great personage of God, and I’m just little old insignificant me sitting here…” But that is not how God looks at us. God knew us before we were born; He has given us a destiny before we came to earth. And what is that destiny? “To be conformed to the image of His Son”!

To be like Christ! That is God’s purpose: to reproduce Himself in a body of many sons and daughters through Christ. Christ formed in us! Now before that last line slips unnoticed back into the ether, remember what Christ said, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19: 26).

God foreknew us and gave us this destiny before we were born. That’s why He called us with this high calling. Then He justifies us (gets the sin out of our lives—first step). Then He glorifies us (become like Christ—full reproduction of God in our vessels) (Rom. 8: 30). We are His elect, His chosen ones. And He will “freely give us all things” in order for His purpose to be accomplished (8: 32).

Becoming like Christ–this truth came from heaven. It is the heavenly manna that is hidden from the masses because of their hard heart of unbelief. Believing this manna is spiritually eating it.

When we cease striving to make our own selfish desires a reality—even in our church and worship–and when we embrace God’s purpose and walk in it, the struggles in life subside. We see clearly now that He is for us, that He is helping us do what He has purposed us to do. By faith in His Spirit coming down into us, He takes over and the love, joy and peace flows. And we no longer feel like it is us having to powerlessly fight everything out there. Frustration evaporates. Things become easier because we begin to realize that “it is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me.” Victory is ours. He has our back because we have His.

The Daily Bread

What do we do right now to get His plan moving in us?  He said to pray that God “give us this day our daily bread.” We are to pray for the spiritual bread from heaven, the spiritual manna that this day and time requires. Right now we need our daily bread, and if we cry out to him for the bread from heaven for our day, will He give us a stone? You know He won’t.

We need the bread of heaven for today, not the doctrines of yesterday that have been tampered with. Yesterday’s manna is full of additives–false doctrines and traditions. It has become another gospel, one that is about Christ and not what He actually taught. It is like the manna in Moses’ day. It physically fed the children of Israel in the wilderness, but it was only good for the day it was collected. It went bad if they tried to eat it at a later date. Yesterday’s manna will not nourish us today. It has gone bad. It has been mixed with pagan motifs and false conceptions and imaginations.

But the true bread from heaven is the Son of God. He is the “hidden manna,” and in Him are His  purpose, plan, thoughts, and desires, which if a man eat, if a man ingest, if a man believe—he will live forever (John 6: 58).

The bread from heaven is hidden from natural eyes; it is the Spirit of Truth that “guides us into all truth.” And the truth is a deep pool that contains one special “pearl of great price” bidding us to swim into the depths until we find it.

Yesterday’s manna cannot help us to grow strong for the end times. Only today’s bread from heaven will suffice us and strengthen us for the arduous quest we are on. Be strong, you mighty men and women of valor!     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Eating the Hidden Manna

Christ makes an exciting promise to His followers who overcome a specific shortcoming that is hindering their spiritual growth. “To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna” (Rev. 2: 14).

“Manna” appears throughout the scriptures. Manna first fell from heaven miraculously for the children of Israel in the wilderness. They called it “What is it?” because it had never happened before. They also called it the “bread from heaven.”

Christ said that the original manna was not the true bread from heaven. “The bread of God is He which comes down from heaven and gives life unto the world…I am the bread of life: he that comes to Me shall never hunger, and he that believes on Me shall never thirst” (John 6: 30-35). The manna in the wilderness was physical; the heavenly manna is spiritual.

“The Jews murmured at Him” in unbelief. The true bread from heaven was staring them in the face, and they could not see Him. The True Manna was hidden from them. For, you see, the Son of God is the “hidden manna.” He is hidden from those whose eyes only see the outward appearance. Because “seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear neither do they understand” (Matt. 13: 13). Unless God opens a person’s eyes, they will be blind to spiritual things—even though they read the same Bible and go to the same church house. Few realize that He fulfilled this scripture: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.” (Matt. 13: 35 NIV; “kept secret” in KJV).

Christ the Hidden Manna

Brothers and sisters, we are talking about the secrets of the universe being revealed! It is there for us. He has laid it all out. Christ is the hidden manna. But, What is it? The true manna from heaven consists of His purpose, His plan, His thoughts, and His dreams about His kingdom of love and joy and peace. The hidden manna is hidden only to those who cannot see. But those born from above do see and enter into His kingdom and governance (John 3: 3-6).

Christ wants to share it all with us. He wants us to eat the true bread from heaven, which is Himself. But how do we partake of the bread of life? Man’s wisdom cannot teach us these things. Man’s wisdom only sees the physical, such as the magical mystical tour of   transubstantiation. “No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden…None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” [And who are the “rulers of this age” that crucified Christ? Obviously Rome, the 4^th beast world empire, and those “which say they are Judean, of Judah, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2: 9; 3: 9]. Do not trust these two rulers of this age to guide you spiritually. This is part of the overcoming.

Conversely, the “hidden wisdom” looks after the Spirit and teaches us to spiritually ingest His purpose, plan, words, thoughts, teachings, commands, doctrines, and desires. And we partake of them by believing them, which is believing Him. We take His words into our thoughts, and make our thoughts His thoughts. This is having the mind of Christ (Phil. 2: 5). It’s not a physical thing; it is spiritual. He said, “The words I speak, they are spirit and they are life.” When we believe His words and think His thoughts, then we walk in His Spirit of life; we walk as a member of His body. Christ is still asking us, “Believest thou this?” (John 11: 26).

The Overcoming

To eat of the hidden manna, one must overcome a “few things” that Christ has against us. When Christ appeared to the apostle John on the island of Patmos around 96 A.D., He laid out a series of spiritual growth expectations for His body of believers, both on a personal and corporate scale. “The Alpha and Omega” spoke to John and told him to write down these things that have happened, is happening, and will happen in the past, the present and the future (Rev. 1: 19). In chapters two and three, we see the Seven Church Ages and their requirements for each level of spiritual growth.

Whole books are needed to expound fully their content, but let us glimpse at the third one–Pergamos. Christ is speaking to individuals, church bodies, and historical church movements in His words to the overcomers. He always acknowledges the good that we have done. Then He tells us the things we are to overcome in order to grow to the next level. If we repent of that thing, then He rewards us with a spiritual truth that helps us reach the next level. And so on through the seven ages of growth.

In Pergamos Christ appreciates the walk thus far, but…“I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality…Repent…” (Rev. 2: 12-17).

Background: God in the Old Testament had human beings physically live out a life that He directed. Their physical actions in ancient times serve as types, shadows, and examples. Their actions are a spiritual template for us during the “time of the end.” In short, the false prophet Balaam was hired by the Moabite king Balak to curse the children of Israel. He could not curse what Yahweh had blessed, so Balaam taught Balak to bring on the beautiful Moabite women to seduce the Israelites to go after their false gods.

The Pergamos Overcomings for Us Today

We must overcome through repentance these things in the Pergamos growth level:

1. Eating food sacrificed to idols. The original OT story has Israelites eating physical food that had been roasted in sacrifice to literal gods of stone and wood. Interesting. They ate food tainted by a false doctrine of worshipping idols. Spiritual application for today: Repent of false doctrines in our worship of the true God. Do not ingest false teachings about Christ. We must repent of the old leaven, the false teachings of churchianity.
2. They literally “committed sexual immorality” with the Moabite women. To be blunt, they committed fornication with the whorish Moabite women. You may ask, How can this apply to us? The answer is found later in Revelation 17. We see “the judgement of the great whore that sits on many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication” (v. 1-2). She was richly arrayed and on her forehead was this name written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH…And the woman which you saw is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.” We know that city is Rome, whose pope crowned emperors and kings. Even the notes in the Catholic bible say that it describes Rome.

God is warning us and requiring us to repent of the false doctrines taught by the great whore, the Roman Church and her daughters. And we must “come out of her” and not  be in fellowship with others who are saturated with false teachings.

Those who repent and purge out the old false doctrines about Christ will receive a reward. The Spirit is saying this to the churches: To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone” (Rev. 2: 17).

In Summary

Christ is the hidden manna, the bread of life. The word “Christ” means the Anointed One. The Anointing is truth. Therefore, the Anointing is the Spirit of truth. Consequently, the Hidden Manna = the Spirit of Truth. And when the Spirit of Truth comes into your life, “He will guide you into all truth…for He will show you things to come” (John 16: 13).

As we eat the hidden manna, we will find that it tastes very sweet like honey at first, but afterward, it will grow bitter in the belly. The first flush of love, joy and peace is sweet, but as we grow closer to the day of the Lord’s vengeance, the bitter misery of tribulation fills the air.

But right now, let us eat of the hidden manna that He has given us.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Vain Worship–The Opposite of True Worship

Truth is free from error, by definition. The Father is searching for “true worshipers.” Christ said, “The true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (John 4: 23-24). You want to get God’s attention? Start repenting of error filled worship and get into worshiping Him in a true way, and He will definitely take notice of you. Because He is seeking out somebody like you–somebody who will get rid of the errors and get into the true way of worship.

Christ taught us that our worship of the Father must not only be spiritual in nature, but also full of truth and free from error. Since He is the truth, our worship of Him must be grounded in truth, or it becomes “vain worship.” Vain worship is fruitless, futile worship. There is no profit in it; it affects nothing. God tells us to repent of error filled worship. This is part of “continuing steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine” of repentance from dead works.

For vain worship happens when erroneous concepts about God are taught by the preachers, pastors, and priests. When natural men concoct doctrines out of the thin air of their imaginations, vain worship is born. “In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” They disregard God’s words and teach unregenerate man’s traditions (Mark 7: 7-8). Their imaginations become doctrines, and these talking points become traditions, and then finally these false traditions become commandments for the masses to obey. This is error-filled vain worship.

Some Examples of Vain Worship

Churchianity is rife with false doctrines. Its foundation lies rotting on the sand. They say that repentance occurs when a sinner feels sorry for their sins and accepts Christ as their personal savior. Sorrow for sinful past actions is a good thing, but “godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation” (II Cor. 7: 10). The sinner wants to change his ways, but the preachers won’t tell them how He effects that change in their hearts.

They have prospective Christians being baptized in water as a mandatory action before joining the church. But they don’t teach them that the real baptism happens when the old sinful self is immersed into Christ’s death. The sinner’s old heart and spirit must die with Christ and be buried with Him, and be raised with Him through belief in His resurrection. This is the truth that we should rejoice in and worship in! This is true repentance from sin. But does anyone ever speak of our escape from sin and sinning, symbolized in water baptism (Rom. 6: 1-12)? Sadly, no. We all should ask the preachers, “Why aren’t you teaching Romans 6? Just read it aloud to the people, and let the Spirit reveal His truth to those that can receive it.”

Then there’s the matter with being “born again.” They say that feeling sorry and “coming down to the front” in an altar call is being born again. But there can be no new birth without the old seed of man’s sin nature dying first. Christ said, “He that loses his life for my sake and the kingdom’s sake will save it.” There has to be a losing of one’s old sinful life before one can be “born again” or born from above, which is being born of that incorruptible seed, the word of God” (I Pet. 1: 23).

Furthermore, they teach that “faith” is us believing God’s word—accent on “us” doing the believing. They say to the young Christian, “You gotta have faith,” as if that person’s faith is a different commodity than the one that God has. There is only one faith; the Spirit in Paul made that clear in Ephesians 4: 3-5. The true faith is “the faith of the Son of God.” It is His faith. When we receive Christ’s Spirit we receive His belief system; we now possess in our hearts the very same faith/belief that Christ displayed in the gospels!

It is not, “I have faith in God.” But rather it is, “God’s faith now is in me!” Paul gives us the secret that he lived by: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20). Paul was dead, yet alive with Christ living in his earthly body. And the life on earth that he was living, he lived by Christ’s faith. Nobody else’s. Notice that Paul did not say, “I live now in this flesh body because of my faith in God.” No.

Newsflash! The Spirit of Christ is not just living in apostles like Paul; Christ lives in our hearts, too!

We are told by Christ to worship the Father “in spirit and in truth.” But the Christianity of the churches lies seething in error taught today by their preachers, pastors, and priests. These false concepts prevent sincere Christians from worshiping in truth. You cannot worship God in truth if your mind is full of error. When we comprehend that the Father is the Spirit of Truth, then we will realize that no room exists for error in His house of worship. And we are His house.

His Love Is Greater than Falsehoods about Him

And yet, despite the false teachings about our King and Savior, His love still touches hearts. The story of Him giving up His earthly life as a ransom for us all reaches down deep into the core of our existence. When we glimpse that inscrutable, boundless love—the greatest love the world has ever heard of—it still pierces harden hearts and leaves an indelible imprint. Today, at this very moment while you read these words, Christ’s story is touching thousands in spite of all the false concepts and traditions about Him.

After all, He is Love Incarnate and is come down from above, filled to overflowing with abundant mercy upon all who opens their heart to Him. No matter the dastardly sin nor the craven crime, He will touch all who come to Him sincerely. Even as He prayed for His mocking torturers, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” That’s our King; that is who He is.

His love calls many, but He chooses but a few to fulfill the spiritual life cycle and be His elect; they are chosen to grow to full maturity during these latter days. When you read the gospels, you will hear Christ speaking to those destined to be “conformed to the image” of the Son of God. Christ does not dumb the message down. It is open to all; “whosoever will may come.” That’s the God we serve.

But He now commands us to learn of Him. Learn the true path, the uncharted narrow path that the eagle of Rome has not seen. The time has come to put away childish things—things that will stunt our spiritual growth, things that will prevent us from becoming like Peter, John and Paul, things that will block us from becoming fit to inherit the earth upon His return to this sad, corrupt globe.

When Christ returns to earth, little children of God will not be admitted into Christ’s inner circle where He will assign His manifested sons and daughters their duties for the rulership of the planet.

If we want to be one of these 100 fold over comers, it is time to put away the childish desires for oneself. It is time to seek Him and His purpose and plan and not material things that will all waste away. It is time to lay hold of the plow that will turn this world over, instituting His righteous government in its stead. It is time to quit playing church and begin to repent of the errors in our worship. For He is the only hope for the survival of mankind. Our destiny is to be used by Him to save the world. He is seeking a people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. When He returns, will He find us doing that?       Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Purging Out Erroneous Concepts of the Godhead

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We have learned that the apostles’ doctrine is Christ’s teachings. His apostles “continued steadfastly” in them. They are called the “milk of the word” and are utterly necessary for spiritual growth in Christ. And spiritual growth is what our Father is all about. Learning these teachings and applying them in our life enables us to grow from “one degree of glory into another.”

Applying them is what insures our spiritual growth. At each level of fruit production—30, 60, and 100 fold—each of the seven apostles’ doctrines are seen.

The first doctrine is “repentance from dead works.” This doctrine is the entry point into the Kingdom of God, for one must repent from sin and be born from above before one can see or enter into it. Christ came preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repenting once and for all of sinning in your life enables you to bear 30 fold fruit.

But to grow into 60 fold fruit bearing, one must repent from erroneous teachings passed down to us from purveyors of false doctrines. Just living on this planet subjects us to old leaven concepts. They come from sermons, Sunday school lessons, gospel songs, televangelists, books, movies, next door neighbors, parents, grandparents, and our own dreams.

False doctrines must go, for they are teachings, traditions, and concepts conjured out of the fervid imaginations of deceived minds. They must be excised from our thoughts. The apostles called it “purging out the old leaven.” To bear optimal fruit, a young tree’s wayward branches must be pruned.

Which Doctrines Must Go?

Where do we begin? How do we find one of the false teachings in our thinking? I suggest that we start with our concept of the Godhead. I know that it is perhaps the biggest and grandest concept of them all. But once we get this one straightened out in our minds and hearts, it will open doors of light to see other wonders in the next room.

Our goal and purpose in life is to be like Christ and His apostles. That is His goal and purpose for us. To accomplish this, we must “know Him that is from the beginning.” We must see God before man was created out of the dust of the earth, before man’s governments and armies and religions and societies ever came into being. To be like Him we must stand before Him, filled with His Spirit. We must have decreased so much that it is no longer us standing there but Christ in us doing the greater works. We must see God as He really is; we must see Him before man was deceived by Satan’s wiles, before the devil’s whispered lies about God took root in man’s imagination.

In order to fully understand the Oneness of God, we must get back to the beginning, before sin and self and Satan, and before false teachings marred the mind of man. We must go back to that time before sin entered the world, before tears and sorrow, before greed and hatred. We have to go back to the time in the Father’s heart when it was good, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38: 7).

To comprehend how God really is, to perceive of His purity, we must go back, back, back to the beginning, when we were together in His heart, when we were in one body, with one Spirit and one hope and one faith and “one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all” (Eph. 4: 4-6). Those chosen by our Father to go on to full perfection and maturity will go back there, back to the beginning. The future manifested 100 fold sons of God will repent of self and go back to the beginning before ego ever existed.

But we who have the “high calling” aspire to grow into the 100 fold manifested sonship walk. We desire to become spiritual fathers to those whom our God is calling and choosing. John addressed the fathers: “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning” (I John 2: 13, 14). Knowing Him from the beginning is knowing Him before sin entered in and shrouded men’s eyes, before imaginations supplanted the Truth that our elders in the faith saw and knew. The apostle John is telling us, “And now, you, like them, know.”

John, what do we know that is from the beginning?

“You have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things” (I John 2: 20). We have an anointing of truth, an unction, from the Holy One. The Holy One shares Himself, the Spirit of truth, which is the anointing, out of His reality of Oneness. God is One, not two or three persons. He is the “Holy One of Israel.” The “truth” spoken of in the Scriptures of, well, Truth, is the  Oneness of the Godhead. There, I have said it—again. If we get this one right, it will carry us on down the road a long ways.

Ferreting Out the False Doctrines

If you want to know what is not the truth about the Godhead, just go to the source of falsehoods—“the woman arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus…” (Rev. 17: 4-6). This proves that John saw the Catholic Church as this Mother of Harlots (denominations).

The Mother Church, the Roman Catholic Churcht is born of Babylonian confusion, its existence a great mystery. Its teachings are false in every way. Find out what they say about the Godhead and the truth will be its polar opposite. Case in point: the Trinity. The concept of the trinity has permeated almost all of Christianity. Hundreds of books have been written about it, but most will admit that it is unexplainable. The word “trinity” is not in the Bible, yet the whole world accepts the concept of “three persons” in the God head. And all that is left is confused minds after trying to understand it.

So before you call me a heretic, let me share a couple of chapters that illustrate and bear witness to the truth that our God is One. [To be continued]     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

Called, Chosen, and Predestined–Who Can Be Against Us?

It’s funny how we can read a verse of scripture for decades, thinking we understand it, and then one day, when it is pointed out, we “get the revelation.” We stared at it with open eyes, and we did not get it until it was time.

So it is with what Paul the apostle called “the manifestation of the sons of God.” “Manifestation” means “unveiling or revealing.” This unveiling, this making known of God’s sons for these last days is what this book is about. Certain people, in all likelihood living right now on the earth, have been chosen by their Creator to “overcome all things.”

These are the “elect” of the title of this volume. These have been elected or chosen by their Maker to sit with Him on His throne at the end of this age. They have a royal destiny to become kings sitting alongside Christ when He returns and sets up His kingdom.

They are described at length in Romans 8. They are “free from the law of sin and death” (v. 2). The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them because they walk in accordance with the Spirit of God (v. 1, 4). They are spiritually minded and have the Spirit of God dwelling in them (vs. 5-9). They have received the Spirit of Christ, which is the Spirit of the Father; the Spirit has promised them that He will make alive their mortal bodies. They are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” if they endure the sufferings that will come because of this commitment. If they suffer with Christ, then they “will be glorified together” (vs. 10-17).

Paul continues to say that “the sufferings” that we endure “are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us” (v. 18). The Spirit of God in Paul is telling these future chosen ones that God will reveal His glory in them! Furthermore, the whole creation is eagerly waiting for them to be revealed during these latter days. “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (v. 19 NKJV).

Every living thing in the creation is dying or will die. We all have bodies made of earth that will give up the ghost and melt back to clay. We are all slaves and are in bondage to this mortal fate. Why is the whole creation waiting for the revealing of the immortal sons of God? “Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of decay into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (vs. 20-21).

In a harvest, there are always first fruits. A few human beings will be glorified first, thus showing the way for the rest of the creation. Paul likens it to the whole creation groaning in birth pains, how we are all groaning and travailing, waiting, waiting for somebody to transcend death and decay. We do not want to die, and we certainly do not desire our loved ones to wax cold as the ground that receives them. Impending death is so horrid, that we refuse to think on it. If only we had a  champion to show us the way to immortality. Even we who have the down payment of the Spirit are groaning right along with the whole creation, “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (v. 22-23). We are waiting for the antidote.

We now live and walk around in these aging, decaying bodies, but some of us can take comfort in that we have a measure of His Spirit within. But we “are saved by hope”—hope that though we do not yet see the immortal bodies that God has promised us, “we with patience wait for it.” It is a tough and sometimes lonely road, but the Spirit helps us to pray, and Christ our High Priest makes intercession for us (v. 24-27).

In the last few verses of Romans 8, we get to the meaning of the title of this book, The Royal Destiny of God’s Elect. We see that those that love God are the ones He has “called according to His purpose.” He has a definite purpose (v. 28). He foreknew these; He knew them from the beginning, and He gave them a destiny beforehand; He “also predestined them to be conformed to the image of His Son” so that Christ would be the firstborn among many sons and daughters (v. 29). The remainder of the chapter insures us of God’s love for us in seeing us through to the end. After all, it is His plan and purpose.

The premise of this book is that the future sons and daughters of God must go through a rigorous unlearning and learning. The false teachings fed to us by the world must be purged, and the thoughts of God, the mind of Christ, must be learned in their stead. For the wide highways of the world are paved with poisoned stones, smooth for the tread of the bygone masses. The way of the elect is a narrow path that winds its way up the mountain of God. It is rocky and rough, and few are able to finish the race. Those that do will overcome all the sufferings and sacrifices and will be the forerunners for the whole creation. They already are chosen and predestined to win. Their confidence is in their Father who created them for the fulfilling of His purpose. They will have a hunger for God’s purpose; they will long to get the truth about why we are here, and why we are dodging death during our earthly sojourn. They will learn of His plan and purpose, His thoughts, His ways. And the old teachings about God they will gladly shed, and they will marvel at how small and suffocating churchianity’s dogmas were.

For these overcomers, soon to be glorified and revealed to the world, will return and “build the old waste places.” They shall be “the trees of righteousness” and the “planting of the LORD.” They shall bring great glory to God through their humble service to Him.

This book speaks of the beginnings of the mind of Christ, the thoughts of God, which are some of the first lessons about God that these future sons and daughters must have “to make their calling and election sure.” They will ask, What is this purpose of God that Paul speaks of? What is His plan to implement His purpose? What are His thoughts that are not our thoughts? Why are we really here? What’s really happening?

[This article will serve as part of the Preface of the above mentioned book that I am finishing at present. Hopefully, it will be published next summer. Kenneth Wayne Hancock]