Sowing the Seed, the Word of Our Testimony

Several of my readers have wondered, “How do I get this truth out into the public square? How do I find the sincere seekers of truth? The most effective and exhilarating is face to face. One on one is fine if you’re not fighting the cell phone and other interrupters. There is another way, a way that I have witnessed as an observer and a testifier.

This is something you can do. How do we personally reach those who are hungry for this light, famished for the deeper walk? We go to where they are. We go to the church houses who have an “open mike.”  They will ask for testimonies. This is where you stand up and tell them your testimony. That is what Yahshua and His apostles did. They went to the synagogues and spoke.

How does this work? Which churches do we visit? Usually in charismatic, “full gospel,” Assembly of God, Pentecostal, and “Bible” independent churches do you see this “calling for testimonies.” The goers have left the mainstream denominations, and a few are looking for a deeper walk with the Savior.

He has given us much knowledge. So, what do we share during our two minutes? Christ is our example. Christ’s opening message was always, “Repent.” Of course, to stand up and just say, “Repent,” will not do it. It is better to give a testimony of how repentance has worked in your own life, how your sins and sinful heart died with Christ on the cross, and how you were buried with Him and how by believing in His resurrection, you now have been raised to walk in a newness of life. You are telling them that you are a living example of repentance found in Romans 6:1-12.

“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…” (6:6-8 NIV). “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God…” (Col. 3:3).

You have seen “Romans 6” in many of my writings. It contains the cross message, which is what the world needs. The cross is where the old selfish heart dies; it is the end of the sinful road for mankind. The message of the cross is the first of the apostles’ doctrine. It is what our Savior wants us to share. He will convict the heart that is ready. Our job is to deliver the message. The cross message is the powerful contact point for those seeking more than a religious social club. The cross and the resurrection walk [the second doctrine, Faith toward God] is the message.

Just tell them your story, your trip to the cross. And watch the miracle of another’s conversion come to you. For after you speak and the after the service, they will come and shake your hand. That is where you give them links to the reading material, perhaps a copy of one of the Immortality Road articles on the cross. Perhaps you would want to order your own business cards with your contact info along with the website address, etc. All avenues are open to you when you are doing the Father’s business. Yahshua said, “I must be about my father’s business.” and so should we be about His business. This is what He is doing. He is calling out His people to enter through the narrow gate. He is doing it through us, thus fulfilling his purpose of multiplying Himself.

Note: Most in the church houses do not want to go to the cross and let their old heart die. It is not a popular message. That is why the preachers don’t touch it. But when that one or two respond, a true ecclesia is born, as in where “two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst.”

The next step after gaining a portion of His knowledge is to share that knowledge. We do this by sowing the seed, the word, into the good ground, into the “good and honest hearts” of His people. And in so doing, we become an active part of His body, known as the Sower, who went forth to sow (Matthew 13).

This vessel is sowing right now. Through Yahweh’s grace, I have a song to sing that rushes down the corridors of light, illuminating the hearts of those He knew before the world began. “And they that impart wisdom shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:3). That is our destiny and our calling, brothers and sisters. We just need to step out on the water.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Forgiving Small Sleights

Forgive. This second New Commandment predicts that there will be things in your new life to forgive. Someone in your life is irritating you. How do I know? It’s built into the human experience.

God in His goodness toward us, in that He wants us to grow spiritually, has provided in each life an irritant to help develop His nature in us. These irritants are people and situations in our lives that frustrate us.

We need someone to forgive. So it starts with the family. God puts initial love for them so much so that we “cannot live without them.” And then their weaknesses come to the forefront, forcing us to come to grips with the irritation their selfishness provides.

There is no way to get rid of it. The answer to this problem comes from a spiritual change in our own heart. This is how God foments a correction and growth in our makeup. Overcoming the irritants is how we grow from “one degree of glory to another.”

Ironically, we think that those who “bum us out” and “bring us down” are the culprits, but God uses them to fulfill His purpose of multiplying Himself in and through us. When we forgive those who irritate us, His nature of agape love grows in us, thus fulfilling His purpose.

Not As Easy As All That

As you know, that is more difficult than it looks. It is difficult to forgive completely and openheartedly. Most human failure is caused by not forgiving simple sleights. Human nature does not want to forgive.

God says that the key is to realize that it is not us that does the forgiving. It is the Spirit of God in us that forgives. Remember? As Christians we are dead on the cross with Christ and buried with Him and now “raised to walk in a newness of life.” It is now Christ’s Spirit within us that forgives, by faith in His resurrection. He has already forgiven everyone of everything.

Our great King has already done it all. When we believe this, we walk in His faith, His belief system. He has already forgiven that person. That is the record in heaven. When we let Him forgive another through us, then we are His witness here on earth of His love to mankind. The Father is localized in our vessel, and it is Him that is doing the wonderful works.

By obeying this New Commandment, “Forgive,” His love grows in and through us.

{Please hit that “like” button to boost readership of this blog. Thank you. This article is chapter 19 of the brand new book that is now off to the printers. It is called The Eleventh Commandment. To receive a free copy with free shipping just send your name and mailing address, and name of book to my email address: wayneman5@hotmail.com It should be available in May sometime. God bless you and yours.}

Everyone Wants to Be Loved

Everyone wants to be loved–to be cared for, thought of kindly, smiled upon, approved of, praised as worthy.

Everyone wants to be loved. It is the universal spiritual need that stares us all in the face. When our eyes meet, we witness simultaneously the same longing ache that we see when we peer into a looking glass and see the loneliness reflected in our own two wells of tears.

Everyone wants to be loved. We spend much of our lives searching for “the one”–the one who can fill that longing. A cosmic vacuum exists in the human heart, and no one is there to fill its aching need for love.

And there is only one earthly organism on the planet that is specifically designed to channel the kind of love that we all need. Only one being on earth that is capable of loving another the exact way that they want to be loved. And that is the human being.

We are all human. So then, why can’t we simply meet the need and fill the vacuum and just love everyone?

Someone will say, Well, I love people. Yet, Christ tells us, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” Whoa. You mean we are to love everyone? He continues, “But love your enemies, and do good…and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest” [1].

Everyone wants to be loved. But natural man has an irrational fear of rejection. It is irrational because  even a two year old teaches us its folly as they unconditionally embrace us and drown us with wet kisses. They have no fear of rejection, for innately they know that everyone wants to be loved.

So what happens to us? After our brief taste of the victory of fearless love as toddlers, what prevents us from giving what everyone wants?

If we can agree that the Creator made us this way–both with the need for love and the capacity to selflessly channel it–then we must realize that He has made a way for us to do it–to be the riverbeds of the living waters of the love from above that will fill the vacuum.

God is this love–this agape love. He through His Spirit will flow this selfless love and help us fulfill our destiny as His conduits, channeling His love to those who need it. For everyone wants to be loved.

The Price

But to be one of the “children of the Highest” who will love everyone like their Father does, there is a price to be paid. It costs something. And we should “count the cost,” as He admonished us to do [2].

It costs us our old life and all of our allegiances to the people and things we deemed important. And to pay the cost, we must bear our own cross and follow Him.

How do we do that? We must let our old spiritual heart die with the Son of God on His cross. We must die with Him, be buried with Him, and be resurrected with Him. This happens when we believe that God raised up Christ from the grave. We, too, now are resurrected “to walk in a newness of life” [3].

It all starts at the cross–now our cross. We, like Christ, show the greatest love when we lay down our lives for another [4]. There is no greater love. He did it, and now as the “children of the Highest,” we do it. And then God’s love will flow through us. Then we will be used by our Creator to be His fountain of fearless love, His essence, agape love. For “God is love” [5].

Then we will conquer the fear of being rejected. For “perfect love casts out fear” [6]. With our old selves dead and gone, we will be able to channel Christ’s Spirit of love back to God by loving others.

And then great joy will be ours, for we will have the capacity to fulfill everyone’s desire. For everyone wants to be loved.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[For more:  https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/what-the-world-needs-now-is-agape-love/ ]

 

1.  Luke 6: 27-35     2.  Luke 14: 27-33     3.  Col. 2: 11-12; Rom. 6: 1-12               4.  John 15: 13     5.  I John 4: 8             6.  I John 4: 18

 

 

Water Baptism–A Symbol of the Death of Our Sin Nature

We may not realize it yet, but we are blessed, for we have seen that our old self needs to go.  Many try to redirect or re-channel its activities.  Sometimes we try to clean it up, but He wants it to die.

He said to repent and be baptized in water.  Yes, water baptism is a symbol of something else, yet we should still do it.  But few know what the real baptism is.  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Messiah Yahshua were baptized into His death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Messiah was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Rom. 6:3-4. NIV.

Going down into the water is a symbol of the mortal life we now live in this flesh.  Coming up out of the water is a symbol of the new spirit-being life we shall live which is the immortal life that we are called to.

Water is a symbol of our mortality.  Our first physical birth is an immersion in a bag of water.  We are born of water.  We mortals are about 75% water.  We  begin  in  our  mother’s  womb in water.  During water baptism we are baptized into His death.  To live in this mortal body is to die.  This watery entombment we call a body is really a deathtrap.  It by its very nature has to die.  The Messiah’s earthly body was composed of the same watery stuff that our bodies are.  And He died.  He had to die by reason of the nature of his shell during His earthly tenure.  This watery, flesh and blood body cannot inherit immortality and go into the kingdom of the Eternal One.  To be made of water is to be mortal, to be awaiting death, for water is extremely unstable, subject to every whim of nature’s forces.

To sin is to die.  Mortality is to be able to die.  Therefore, our mortality is to sin. Sinning insures a human of not receiving a new spiritual heavenly body.  But now He has enabled us to live a life where we do not have to sin, if we receive His Spirit.  Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust (desires) of the flesh (this old mortal body). Gal. 5:16. NKJV.

He was made to be sin for us

We, then, when we go under in water, are symbolically being immersed into this watery mortal state of sin with Him.  We “are buried with him by baptism into death.” Rom.6:4. God calls those things that are not,  as though they were.  We are dead already (Yahshua told the disciples, “Let the dead bury their dead”).  He calls it before its actual physical death when we consent to and experience it (in revelation).  The water is the symbol of our earthly mortal bodily state.  This spiritual death of our old self comes now in this revelation before the fruit of death comes to our earthly bodies.

In conjunction with this, few know that the Messiah, the day of His death, actually became sin for us—he who had never sinned.  He was the sacrificial  Lamb who was set to be sacrificed  before the world ever came into existence.  God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. II Cor. 5:21. NIV. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev. 13: 8.

The levitical priest, in types and shadows, laid his hands on the sacrificial goat, thereby transferring Israel’s sins upon it.  So did the Father place all of mankind’s sins upon the body of Messiah.  When He died, the body of sin died; our sin died that day.  To whom is the arm of Yahweh revealed?…Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all…It pleased Yahweh to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see His seed. Isa. 53:1,6,10.

We make the Lamb’s soul an offering for our own sins by realizing that it was us in our sinful state hanging on the tree that day.  We must be immersed in this knowledge.  We must believe that our old self—that old monkey on our back, that old demon that we were, that selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed, sorry excuse for a human being—that old thing that we were is now, in God’s eyes dead.  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.

[This is ch. 28 of my book, Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality, which you can find at the top of this page.  Just click “Ebook…”]

Who Are the Elect of God? Hint: He Has Chosen the Weak Things

This teaching that a person must willingly submit their life to the death of the cross with Christ–it seems foolish to the worldly mind.  But this cross experience is the equalizer, for it places all of mankind in the same location before God.  And that is a place of weakness.

To admit that you can’t make it anymore in this old world, that your old life is selfish and devoid of true love, that you are in need of someone stronger than you to lift you out of the mire of evil thoughts and actions–that is weakness.

The worldly mind would think, how utter pathetic!  How weak and helpless!  But it is this very weakness that God has chosen!  “God has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the things that are mighty” (I Cor. 1: 27).

The apostle Paul is saying that God has chosen those who know they are weak, for the Word also declares, “God resists the proud but gives grace/favor to the humble” (I Pet. 5: 5).

How does a person know if they are one of the elect or chosen ones [“the elect” and “chosen ones” come from the same word in the Greek  http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G1588&t=KJV ]?  This is an all important question, for since God does choose out certain individuals, and we are to “make our calling and election sure,” we do need to sincerely explore His election or choices to do His work in the earth. (II Pet. 1: 10).

And this leads us back to this question.  Who does God choose to be in His elect?  God has chosen the weak, the ones who have endured the sufferings of Christ.  These are they who have willingly submitted their old selves to be “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2: 20; Rom. 6: 6-11).

God has chosen these weak ones.  They are the elect of God, chosen by Him to turn this world upside down–to “confound the things that are mighty.”

The power comes into a Christian’s life after we humble oursleves “under the mighty hand of God.”

God has chosen this extremely humbling form of death for His elect to prove them to see if they be found worthy.  For crucifixion is the most humbling of all ways to die.  Thank God He provided our Savior Jesus/Yahshua the Anointed One to bear the physical, literal crucifixion for us.  Then it is our turn to follow our Example and yield to the spiritual crucifixion that puts an end to our old spiritual nature, to our original sinful old heart.  We do this by faith and begin to walk in the new heart we receive from Him.  Through study of His Word and communicating with Him, we grow in this grace/favor that He has bestowed upon us, seeking “first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”

You Cannot Put New Wine into Old Wineskins–Holy Spirit Only Goes into a New Heart

Many followers of Christ lightly throw around the idea of “getting the Holy Spirit.”  We are talking about the very essence of God here and who He is, and they are wanting “It” right now–even making a spectacle of themselves, splayed out in front of the whole church house, with some preacher “slaying them in the Spirit” with a magical slap of his hand on their forehead.

Do they really think that God can be manufactured like that with a few tawdry carnival tricks?  Besides, pagan societies have been “slaying in the spirit” for thousands of years in their heathen rites.  The anthropologist Sir James Frazer lines it all out in his classic 1922 volume The Golden Bough, one of the Great Books of the Western World (http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/index.htm).

People are wanting the Spirit of God, however, and that is a good thing.  But “you cannot put new wine into old wineskins.”  This is the crux of a parable that Christ was teaching.  And we must remember that a parable reveals “a mystery kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 13: 10-11).

The “new wine into old wineskins” parable is found in Luke 5: 36-39:

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.  But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (NKJV).

The mystery revealed here is that the new wine is the Holy Spirit of God that He desires to place within us.  But first the old wineskin, which is the old heart or old Adamic nature that we are born with–it must be replaced with a new heart, a new nature.  This new heart is the new wineskin.

People must realize that God will not  place His Spirit into an old heart.  Through the prophet Ezekiel, God promised us a new heart:  “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit…I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (18: 31; 36: 26).  Notice that before He gives us a new heart, we must first get rid of all our transgressions.  This means the new heart will come only after a full and final repentance from sin.

This repentance from sin is done at the cross.  We  must experience the cross in a spiritual way in our own hearts.  We must deliberately place our old sinful self on the cross with Christ, acknowledging that this is the only way that God has provided for us to rid ourselves of the sin “that so easily besets us.”  We are immersed into His death, for our sins were placed upon Him as the Sin Sacrifice for us, and when He died, our sins died.  And when He arose from the dead, we arose with Him.  This all, of course, is done by faith in His resurrection.  This is when He grants our new heart (https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/conversations-with-the-seer-heirs-of-god-and-joint-heirs-with-christ/).

It is ironic that this cross experience is the first thing out of the mouth of Christ and His apostles, and it is never taught in the churches.  Oh, the preachers will mention the cross and how He suffered, but they will never encourage their flock to identify with the Sin Sacrifice and give up their lives of sin.  Christ came preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  His apostles taught the same thing (Romans 6: 6; Hebrews 6: 1; Rev 2: 5, just to name a few).

Getting rid of the old heart through the cross experience is essential in putting to death the old heart, which is the old wineskin.  It must go, once and for all time, never to be resurrected again.

Expounding on this experience is “the preaching of the cross,” which is the power of God (I Cor. 1: 18).  But teaching a man that he has to die is not a welcomed message.

But that is exactly what the early apostles taught.  Some would call this teaching absolute “foolishness.”  You can’t just go up to some unsuspecting person and tell them that their old spirit and way of doing things has to die.  That is foolishness, they would say.  But “it pleased God that by the foolishness of preaching [the cross experience] to save them that believe (1: 20).

Paul went on to say that he preached “Christ crucified,” which is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1: 23).

The power of God?  The power of God for what–to do what?  The power from God to grow!  To grow up into His sons and daughters.  “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to becoome the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1: 12).

First, we have to receive Him, His Spirit.  But He will not give us His Spirit to co-exist in the old wineskin of the old sinful heart.  It first must die on the cross with Christ.  Then we can receive His Spirit, and then He will give us the power to become the sons of God.

Paul continually taught this (Col. 2: 12-13).  He knew that this was the key to unlock future growth in His Spirit.

So, what happened to the great start 2, 000 years ago?  Satan, of course, knows the plan and began right away to insure that Christ’s followers believe the lie that God is not able to change them from sinners to saints.  And through this deception, many cannot grow spiritually, for they cannot receive Him and then receive power to be His children.

No wonder Christ said, “O ye of little faith.”  Is anything too hard for Him that created billions of galaxies?  That’s galaxies–not stars!

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

{One other thought: The new wineskin will in its ultimate fulfillment be our new spiritual bodies promised us upon Christ’s return (I Cor. 15: 42-55) }

The Holy Spirit (in Us) Reproves the World of Sin–Let Your Light Shine–Conversations With the Seer

“Is the ‘Spirit of truth’ in the Bible the same as the Holy Spirit?” I asked the Seer during one of our daily morning meetings.

“Yes.  Remember that ‘there is one Spirit.’  And there is one truth.  Christ said ‘I am the truth.’  So, yes, they are one and the same.”

“It says that when the Spirit of truth is come, that he will reprove the world of sin.  What does that mean?”  I asked.

“To reprove is to expose or reveal.  It shines a light on people’s innermost thoughts and sins.”

“How does the Spirit do it?”

“Because God is all-powerful, He can show things to us directly.  But oftentimes He uses other people.  Remember when the Savior sent out His disciples and told them to say to the people, Repent.  The message first and foremost to all is  ‘Repent.’  Why?  Because ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand.’ It is right here, inside the very one that is telling you to repent,” the Seer said.

I paused a moment, trying to let his words soak in a bit.  I finally asked, “I am having trouble understanding the kingdom of God being within someone.”

“God’s dominion is where His Spirit is.  Wherever He resides is His domain or His kingdom.  We receive His Spirit of truth when it comes down into us at our conversion to Christ.  Those that are God’s children will definitely have His Spirit, according to the apostle John, who says that ‘he that does not have the Spirit of Christ is none of His.’ It is by faith that you receive a portion of His Spirit when you receive a new heart at your conversion.”

“How does that work?”

“It is all by faith, meaning that it happens by believing that it will happen–because God said so.  It is not believing-something-into-existence that is against what God said.  It is believing that we receive His Spirit because He said that it could and would happen.  If you take step A, B, and C, according to His word, then D will happen–because He said it would–nothing more.  He can’t go back on His own word.”

I asked, “So, after our conversion, He wants us to help others escape the darkness of their sins?”

“Think about it.  How else is someone supposed to come out of the darkness of sin, except a person speak to them about their sinful lifestyle?” the Seer said.

“Yes, I guess we can’t expect God to verbally speak to us in a big booming voice from heaven telling us to quit sinning.”

“Exactly.  He doesn’t do it that way, except in special instances where He speaks to one person, and then they  go and tell others the message from God.  Even God came down in human form and told us to repent.  Do you remember what Christ said in John 15: 22? ‘If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin…’  See, the great Creator Spirit Yahweh came in a human being and spoke to them, and unless He had done that, ‘they had not had sin.’  In other words, their sinful nature would not have been exposed if He had not spoken to them about escaping the darkness of their sinful life and letting the light come into them.  What words do you think He actually spoke to the people?” the Seer asked, his eyes piercing mine.

“Words about repentance?”

“Precisely.  You see it all over the gospels. ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,’ He said to all He crossed paths with.  And to finish that passage above in John, ‘But now  they have no cloak for their sin.’  He is saying that by Him (His Spirit) speaking to  people about their sin, they would not have become guilty; they would still have a cloak to hide behind, to keep their actions in the dark.  But now that I call them on it, they have no excuse for continuing their sinful ways.”

“Because God has provided the way to escape that old sinful life.  Just like I am doing.”

“Yes.  You, my son, are a living example of how great a deliverance God can do in a person’s life, for you have changed so much since you first drove up on the land.”

“Thank you for your help,” I said.

“If you will recall, one of the first messages I gave when we first met was on repentance from sin.”

“That’s right.  It was.”

“That is the message for a newcomer into the Kingdom.  Leave the life of sin behind and take on the light in your heart.  But, you see, God speaks through those who already have His Spirit.  He will reprove those without Him of their sin, and this takes away the excuses for continuing in that sin.  They must be confronted with this kind of love in order to become guilty, and therefore, repent and turn from the old life.”

“But people won’t like the message.  They will reject us if we try to help them,” I said, remembering how I was rejected on my first few feeble attempts to tell others about what God had done in my life.

“Of course.  Not many people want their darkness revealed by the light.  All the way through John 15 and 16 Christ talks about how the world will hate us and persecute us.  Ever wonder why?  Because He has commanded us to ‘let our light shine’ and to ‘reprove the world of sin.’

“He says to not hide our light under a bushel.  But what is ‘the light’ exactly,” I asked.

“The light is His Spirit come down into us that dispels the darkness of sin in others.  When His Spirit has come into us, He in us will shine into the darkness of sinful hearts to help them by turning them from their sinful lives unto righteousness.”  The Seer looked at me approvingly.  “But let it shine into all the world.  Yes, this Kingdom of God is hidden ‘to them  that are lost: in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.’”

“I was blind to God’s goodness once,” I said.

“Yes, we all were.  The apostle Paul tells us that we are now light and that we should walk as children of the light, and that ‘we should have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them’ or reprove them [Eph 5: 8-11].  If we ‘do not quench the Spirit of truth,’ we will do this, for we are the ‘children of light’ and no longer in darkness.”  He could see that I had a question.  “Yes?”

“Why don’t more Christians reprove the world of sin?  Why don’t the preachers preach  repentance?”

“They are too busy teaching the opposite.  They teach their congregations that they cannot stop sinning.  They will tell them that they are sinners and will always be sinners.  They will recite it with pride: ‘I’m a sinner saved by grace.’  In essence they are telling the people in the pews that God is unable to change them from darkness to light.  But the scriptures speak otherwise.  The word says, ‘With God all things are possible, to him that believes.’  Even to give us a new heart that will not sin against Him.  ‘And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin (I John 3: 5).’”

“If you take something away, you don’t have it anymore,” I said.

“Yes, He is in the business of taking away our old sinful dark spiritual nature and giving us a new heart that does not sin against Him.  Look.  Christ’s Hebrew name Yahshua means ‘Yahweh saves.’  That is why He came in the flesh–to deliver us from sin and sinning.  It says, ‘You shall call Him Jesus/Yahshua, for He shall save His people from their sins.’  What are Christians saved from if not from their sins?  Paul asks this question: ‘Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  God forbid.’”

“It is hard to help others out of the darkness if we are still in darkness ourselves,” I said.

“That is it exactly,” the Seer said with a smile.  The follower of Christ, who believes that he still sins, will be very reluctant to talk to someone else about repenting of his sins since he is a sinner himself and would be a first class hypocrite if he tried to dispel the darkness of sin in others.  And so, sin abounds in others as Christians are too timid to stand in the gap and truly help those who are in darkness.  And thereby they do not show to the world that they have the Spirit of truth in them.  For ‘when the Spirit of truth is come, He will reprove the world of sin.’” 

 “People never even mention the word ‘sin’ anymore,” I said.

“I know.  And yet, it is the very thing that God’s Spirit deals with; it is what His Spirit does.  It deals with a person’s sin and exposes it and thereby helps that person come to repentance and change.  To put it another way–if people in the world are not having their sin reproved, then the Spirit of truth is not residing in anyone, for He, the Light, will shine into the darkness and ‘bring the hidden things of darkness to light.’  And we as the children of light are to let our light shine.  Which light?  The light of His Spirit that resides within us by faith.”

Borderline Personality Disorder–Reaching Out to the Depressed–Christ and the Man-Who-Lived-in-the-Tombs-and-Cut-Himself

The other day I happened onto a blog by a person who says she has BPD–“borderline personality disorder and other mental illnesses as well.”  As I read her post entitled “I Am Worthless, Pointless, and Hopeless,” I saw how her condition was destroying her.  She confessed that she was contemplating suicide and showed photos of her cutting herself with a razor blade and yearning to end her emotional misery through taking her own life.

I immediately thought of the time that Christ encountered “a man with an unclean spirit, who was dwelling in the tombs.”  He was “always, night and day…in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.”  Christ went on to cast the unclean spirit out of the man, who later was found “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind.”  The man even wanted to go with Him.  But Christ told him to “tell them how great things the Lord has done for you, and has had compassion on you” (Mark 5: 1-19).

And so I was moved to write this comment to her post: 

My darling girl,

There is another way to end all the pain and misery besides offing the physical body.  The death of the old self, the old ego, the old nature that we were born with, that old blue monkey crouched on our shoulder, screaming in our ear to do bad things to ourselves and others–yes, that selfish old adamic nature must die–not the body, mind you–the old heart inside of us, the old spirit that we have always been–that must die. 

I searched for 5 years desperately seeking solace and was led to the pits of nothingness.  Then, miraculously, while I tripped out on “sillysideburns” one day, it came to me: The old self had to die, not the body…I studied all the philosophies and world religions and did not find out how it is done.  

But then,  a wise man, seeing my plight, told me, “You need to die with Christ on the cross.  Just let all the bad inside of you go, by revelation, up on that cross, and let your old selfish self die.  When He died, you died.  When He was buried, you were buried, and when you truly believe that He arose from the dead, then you will arise from the dead, too.  And you will  walk in a newness of life.  You can read all about it in Romans 6 in your Bible.”

“Why doesn’t the churches teach this?  Because I know they don’t.”

The wise man replied, “Most of them don’t have the truth about real deliverance from sin, which like a serpent, coils around our inner being and has us enslaved. But this truth whereof I speak will deliver you, once and for all.  You are enslaved for now.  Follow my words and you’ll be free from the bondage you are suffering.”

And so, after reading all the books from the East and the West with no surcease from the emotional pain I was experiencing, I did it.  And a complete change happened in my life.  The drink, the smoke (of all kinds), the obsession with music, the womanizing, the cursing, the depression, et al, left.  And it has never come back in all these 40 years. 

I hear your cry, little one.  Read more here on my blog, ImmortalityRoad.wordpress.com
You are not alone…  Wayneman

Life Out of Death–The Ultimate Paradox

A paradox is “a statement that seems contradictory or absurd but is actually valid or true.”  Life coming out of death is a paradox.    Yet any seed must lose its identity before it will spring back to life in another more glorious fruitful form.  The seed rots and dies in the moist earth and then, through a miraculous Lifeforce, it multiplies itself at the harvest.  One grain of corn yields two or more ears of golden corn.

God is wanting this to play out in our mortal lives here on earth.  The death of self is the only sacrifice that God will accept from us.  He wants us to be a part of Christ’s body, but the only way to get that Life that lasts forever is through a spiritual death.

This death is the baptism that the apostle Paul talked about–being baptized into His death, so that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we to can be raised to walk in a newness of life [ 1 ].  It is His resurrection in us that is our only hope  of transcending the grave.  For the only pay that we will receive in our old selfish life is a certain physical death.  “The wages of sin is death” [ 2].   So we need to die now and avoid the rush. 

Let’s get it done.  Many are teaching that you can never get rid of sin in your life.  Where does it say that?  I thought that “all things are possible with God.”  If it is “no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me,” then “Is Christ the minister of sin?  God forbid!” [ 3].  Let’s “present our bodies a living sacrifice,” for this is the reasonable thing to do in gratitude for all He has done for us [4 ].

Let’s identify our old self with the sin sacrifice of the Lamb of God.  He took on our sins on Himself on the tree, providing a way for us to be made free from the old sinful cravings and dark selfish actions that we were a slave to all our lifetime [ 5].  We are going to pay for our sinful selfish actions sooner or later.  He said we would.  The upside is that He has provided a way for us to take on His Life after we let our own selfish nature die on the cross.

Most have not heard this true message of what the cross is all about.  They are told that Christ is our substitute.  No, He is our example, and we are to follow His steps [6 ].  This “preaching of the cross” is just a bunch of foolishness to those who are dying in their sins, whether they know they are or not [ 7].  But to us who He is calling and choosing, it is an absolute lifeline, and it is the power of God to change lives.  It is the only way for us to complete what we have been put here on earth for.

What we are doing here

And what is that, you ask?  He is using an elect chosen few of His redeemed ones from all of humanity to reproduce Himself through [8].  He is going to take only those who have submitted themselves to the death of the cross;  He is taking them into His heart to reveal His very essence to them.  They will be in awe of Him and revere His name and will bow to His magnificence as He overshadows their earthly physical plight to do His immortal work on them and then through them.  Those who submit to Him will be changed into His glorious image as His own sons and daughters when He returns to this earth to set it all in order [9 ].  They will rule with Him and be in His inner circle while the rest outside wait for their word on the day’s business of the King’s Government.

Now that is the Life that He’s talking about.  To be His son or daughter, to be a prince or princess by His side as He trains us up to be rulers with Him in His kingdom soon to fill the whole earth.  That is the great destination, the wonderful reaping of our initial humble planting of ourselves into death with Him on the cross.  For “if we have been planted together with Him” into His death, we shall also be raised together with Him in His resurrection [ 10].

Dying with Him does not make sense to the world

Yes, dying with Christ is utter foolishness to the worldly mind.  But to us who He is calling and choosing, it is our ticket to the big show.  And we will be on the stage of this earth, together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Noah and Job and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Peter and Paul and all of His sons and daughters who have followed Him in this death of self [11].  If He was good enough to literally and physically die for us, why then should we not spiritually die for Him and, better yet, allow Him to live out His life in us? 

In so doing we are then made free from sin.  And as we take in His Spirit into our new hearts through belief in His resurrection, sin shall not have dominion over us, for we are made free from it and its power over us [ 12].

But how?

It is just too simple and yet, too wonderful to just believe.  Our small, weak, finite minds fail to grasp just how to do this.  How do we get our old self to die and then receive a new life in Christ?  We have to just reckon it so.  We have to count it as a done deal.  He has.  He said that it was already done; the “works were finished” [ 13].  All we need to do is agree with Him and walk in this truth.  He said that our old man “is crucified  with Christ” [ 14].  Notice that is with an –ed, meaning that it is already done and over with in the past.  That’s how God looks at things; that is how his faith and belief works.  Now we need to believe what He believes about us.  It is His faith in His own power in our lives that is the key.  We just need to believe what and how He believes, and we will be changed into His image.  We are now alive unto Him who said that He has raised up all who believe Him [ 15].

Life out of death is the ultimate paradox.  The Savior said that very thing.  “He who seeks to save his life shall lose it.  He who loses his life for my sake shall save it” [ 16].  You will not hear this message in the vast majority of churches; they are trying to increase numbers–not lose membership.  For “few there be to find this way of truth” [17 ].  Yet, those to whom He is granting His grace and favor to at this time will hear this and they will respond and take their old self to the cross, thereby enabling the new man to grow into His likeness.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1. Romans 6: 6
2. Rom. 6: 23
3. Galatians 17-20
4. Rom. 12: 1
5. II Corinthians 5: 21
6. I Peter 2: 21
7. I Cor. 1: 18
8.  https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/the-law-of-har…oduces-himself/
9. II Cor. 3: 18
10. Rom. 6: 5
11. Matthew 8: 11; Luke 13: 2
12. Rom. 6: 18, 22; 8: 2
13. Hebrews 4: 3
14. Gal. 2: 20
15. Rom. 6: 11-13
16. Mark 8: 35; Matt. 10: 39
17. Matt. 7: 14

Dear Prodigal Son (with Problems with Sexual Lust)

Dear prodigal son,

This is in answer to the problems you are facing in finding the line between being fleshly minded and spiritually minded in your life.  You mentioned that you had problems with urges of a sexual nature and couldn’t see that one could really be totally successful in combating those urges.

You wanted some help concerning this.  I did too many years ago, when a wise man shared with me this truth.  In fact, this truth was life-changing, initiating a personal transformation of a miraculous nature.

He told me that my old self, the old nature that I was born with–it had to die.  “Wayne, you’ve got to voluntarily surrender it and place that old selfish heart on the cross and let it die there with Christ.  When He, the sin sacrifice  died, your old self died; when He was buried, your old nature was buried; when He was raised from the dead, you were raised from the dead, too.”

Although I wanted to get power over the flesh and the sin driving my actions, this truth hit me hard.  I knew that it was game, set, match.  It was over.  God won.  There was no excuse for me to continue the selfish sinful way I was living.  “How do you do it?” I asked him.

“It all boils down to belief in the resurrection.  Not that just Christ was raised from the dead.  Many believe that fact of history.  No, you are the one that needs to be raised from the dead along with Christ.  You must believe that Christ is raised in you, in your body!  By faith in the operation of God who raised Christ from the dead, you, too, can walk in a newness of life {Col. 2:11}.”

It was not the easiest thing to do, but I had a great support system to help the new “babe in Christ”–me.  It was a life-changer, and I’ve walked on from there those many years ago.”

I hope this helps.  This is what you need–to get it settled, where you can confess, “I am dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God.”

I’ve written more about this on my blog, “Immortality Road.”  Check it out at https://ImmortalityRoad.wordpress.com or check out my books at http://yahwehisthesavior.com/ God bless you in your search,                                               Kenneth Wayne Hancock