“Our Father”–God Is Everyone’s Creator, Not Everyone’s Father

We have learned that the “Lord’s Prayer” is a blueprint for our communication with God. It is not a  chant nor hollow words mouthed in repetitious recital. It is rather the “manner” that we should speak with our Father. In other words, we should pray with the understanding of the concepts presented in this model prayer.

And the first words that we should speak to Him when addressing Him is “Our Father.” Our Father. As we stop and savor these words, we see that God is the closest of our kin. He engendered us. We have His spiritual genes in our spirit. In our spiritual family tree, He is just above us. He is our closest family member.

Our closest family member. We are not an only child of the King. This is the second big take away in our meditation on the first two words of God’s example prayer. We have brothers and sisters that He loves as much as He loves us. It is a pretty big family.

The Father and the Creator

God is “our Father.” God is not everyone’s Father.  He is the Creator of all, but not the Father of all. The Pharisees claimed God as their Father. They said to Christ, “We have one Father, even God.” But Christ told the Pharisees, “If God were your Father, you would love me…You seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth…You are of your father the devil…a murderer from the beginning…a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:40-44).

We see, then, two spiritual fathers at work in the earth: “Our Father”  and “your father the devil.”  And to help the sons and daughters of God, Christ left us the salutation in His Blueprint Prayer, “Our Father” to distinguish our Father from their father.

Describing their father the devil, Christ said that there was no truth in him, that he is the father of all lies. Earlier, Christ told the Pharisees that the truth–not the lies–would make you free. Free from what? they responded. We’ve never been a slave to any man. Then Christ told them that their slavery to sin and sinning was what the truth would free them from. And that truth was Him (Jn 8: 32-36)   To read more on them, see https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/parable-of-the-tares-in-the-field-who-are-these-children-of-the-wicked-one-part-ii-conversations-with-the-seer 

The words, “Our Father,” also signify an engendering by God, begetting several spiritual offspring. The LORD (Yahweh in the Hebrew), told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee” (Jer. 1:4-5).  God knew Jeremiah before his earthly conception and gestation.  And God chose him and ordained him a prophet before he “came forth out of the womb.”  Jeremiah was “born from above”–begotten by God long before coming to earth.  Jeremiah was in the very heart of God–and so were we, His sons and daughters, before the time of our earthly, fleshly sojourn.

Our Father “has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).  He knew us before and has predestined us “to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).   He has given us a destiny to be like Christ before the world was ever founded.  This is nothing less that God’s purpose–reproducing Himself.

And so the cycle goes: seed time and harvest.  God the husbandman has great patience waiting for His children to grow up until they are “conformed to the image of His Son.”  He will endure the “vessels fitted unto destruction” in order to create His “royal priesthood,” His ruling offspring.  This is our destiny, ordered for us by “our Father.”

For make no mistake.  Christ told it like it is.  He warned that in the last days, many will be deceived by false prophets and false teachers who lead the sheep through the wide and broad gate to destruction.  They are wolves in “sheep’s clothing.”  They show themselves as God’s spokesmen, but are really modern day Pharisees, whose father is not “our Father.”

And to the many who are deceived by them Christ warns: “Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name done many wonderful works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:13-23).  Let’s see: God knew Jeremiah–even before he was born. But these He never knew. He knew all things with foreknowledge and knew that they would not believe Him and His words. And yet they mouthed a bunch of half-truths about Him, but they didn’t do the will of our Father “which is in heaven” (v. 21).

There is a lot in the phrase “Our Father.” We must begin to pray with the understanding of His words.  It is a great privilege to call Him “our Father.”  Not everyone truthfully can.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

The Key to Answered Prayers–from “Conversations with the Seer”

“I don’t get why we have to pray all the time.  Pray without ceasing?  Who can do that?”  I asked the Seer.  In his teachings each week at the Mission he had been stressing the importance of prayer. 

“You are right.  A man can’t do that,” he said.

I was shocked that he would concede this point so quickly.  “I know the word says that we are to be ‘praying always,’ but I’ve tried, and I just can’t do it.” 

“You won’t be able to do these requests that the Father has made of us concerning prayer,  in your current way of thinking,” the Seer said.  “That is why you are perfectly correct when you say, ‘I can’t do it.  Nobody  can.'”

“Then why does God tell us to do something that’s impossible to do?”

“Ah,” the Seer said knowingly, smiling kindly at me.  “This is where the error of your thinking manifests itself.  The Master Himself said, ‘With God all things are possible.’  Also, the apostle Paul said, ‘I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me.'”

“I don’t get it.  You have taught that the last piece of the armor of God in Ephesians 6 is ‘praying always.’  I just don’t see how it works.”  He could see, I am sure, my frustration, for I really had tried  to do it.

“Look.  You left out the most important part of that verse.  It says, ‘Praying always…in the Spirit.’  Christ is alive evermore and He through His Spirit is interceding for us all.  He is the High Priest, and His prayers will be answered, believe me.  But Christ is not just praying for us; He desires to pray through us.  When you  let go of the sensation that it is you that’s doing the praying and believe that it is Christ in you who is doing the praying, then you’ll get somewhere.”

“‘Christ in us, the hope of glory…'”

“For, you see, the key to praying like God wants us to pray is to believe that it is ‘no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me.’  How does Christ live in us?  By His Spirit that He has given us.  We must first truly believe that we have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in our hearts.  Then we must believe that it is the Spirit of Christ in us praying–not us praying in our own little strength.”

“We’ve got to get out of the way and let His Spirit in us do the praying?”

“Yes, and everything else.  Paul said, ‘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.’ 

“It always goes back to faith in God,” I said.

“Always.  Faith is looking to and believing in the Invisible.  You can’t see the Holy Spirit of Christ in you, and yet, you still believe that He lives within you, and that it is no longer ‘you’ that lives in your body, the temple of God.  Let the High Priest pray through you, intercede through you.  We are to be God’s kings and priests, and this is how you do it.  But it takes faith.”

“Yes.  Lots of it,” I said.

“This solves your original frustration  about how do we ‘pray without ceasing’ and ‘praying always.’  In man’s strength, it is impossible, but the Spirit of Christ lives on, earnestly desiring to pray through another son and daughter of God, yearning for them to get the revelation that through His Spirit, they can be priests unto God in His wonderful kingdom of righteousness, which is reigning spriritually now in the hearts of God’s children, but soon will be expanded upon Christ’s return to the whole earth.  Remember: Christ will definitely get His prayers answered.  Let Him through His Spirit pray through you and you’ll have your prayers answered every time.”

“So what does Christ pray for?”

“It is pretty much summarized through His model prayer, known as the Lord’s Prayer.  But you have to strip away the old leaven associated with that prayer, for the wicked one has made it into a ritual and an incantation.  But more on this later.”  KWH [For more on what Christ prayed for, go to the “Archives” at the bottom of the left hand column under “June and July of 2008”]

“Thy Will Be Done in Earth”–The Coming of the Sons of God

     God’s will is to present His Sons to the world at the end of this age.  It is His wish and purpose, and it will be accomplished “in earth as it is in heaven” (see The Will of God–His Wish and Desire at   https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/the-will-of-god-his-wish-his-desire/ ). 

     God’s will is His game plan.  He will win.  The Kingdom of Light will overtake and destroy the kingdom of darkness.  Like Gideon’s army, He will use human beings that are weak and powerless in their own eyes.  “Not many mighty” according to the flesh will He use.

     His will is to magify Himself in a body of many sons and daughters.  He is the Seed, and there will be a great harvest of “many sons unto glory.” 

     This is what the scriptures are all about–the overcoming of evil, which Yahweh created (Isa. 45:7), by humans who know they need Him to overcome the adversary the devil.

     Through this victory of good over evil, He will receive great glory as He helps His body of sons and daughters do this.  His name will be honored and glorified.  All will know that Yahshua means Yah Is the Savior.  And He shall enact what His very name means as He saves us from destruction in the latter days.  Yah will deliver us out of the ashes of a smoldering world system.

     Christ wanted us to think about this and pray to Yahweh with this understanding.  This is why  He included “the Father’s will” and how it is coming to pass in the earth as it is in heaven.

     But to comprehend His will, one must understand and believe pre-destination and pre-determination.  In short, they mean having a destiny lined out, determined, and known before it takes place. 

     Thus it is with the sons of God.  Being in in His heart, their destiny is all written out in  heaven before it takes place here on earth.  It is scripted.  The book of life has been penned in heaven.  He is the “Author …of our faith (Heb. 12:2).  

     Many will reject this truth because it is not politically correct.  It disagrees with the tenets of secular humanism, the sly opiate that dopes humans into thinking that because they exist, then they must be the center of the universe.  But “my thoughts are not your thoughts,” warns Yahweh.

     The apostle Paul knew that he was an apostle only  because God had willed it.  He starts many of his epistles saying that he is an apostle “by the will of God” (I Cor. 1:1; II Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:1).  He understood that God had ordained and pre-determined him to be “conformed to the image of His Son.”

     Make no mistake about it.  God’s will includes Him purposing in Himself to insure that He multiplies Himself through many offspring. 

     We are “the called according to His purpose.  For whom he did foreknow, He also did pre–destinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:28-29). 

     His will is His purpose in the earth, which is predicated on what He wrote down in the book written before the foundation of the world.  He chooses them because He knew them before, like  He did the prophet Jeremiah (1:5).  He gives these elect a destiny to become a son before they get here on earth. 

     These He calls and justifies through the cross experience.  They grow up spiritually until sanctified.  And finally, He glorifies them.  This process of spiritual growth is encripted in several key scriptural phrases that come in “threes”: “the blade, the ear, full corn in the ear;” “children, young men, fathers;” 30, 60, and 100 fold fruit (Mt. 13). 

     Christ spoke plainly about the Father’s will.  “And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”  He promised us that He would raise us up at the last day!  He would raise up God’s sons; none would be left behind; none would be forgotten, whose names were written in the book of life.

     So, when we pray, Christ want us to have the Father’s will in mind about the coming of the sons of God, encapsulated by these words: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”  KWH

Hallowed Be Thy Name, Yahweh

Your Father’s name is Yahweh–if you consider yourself a child of the Hebrew God of the Bible. 

Christ is saying in the “Lord’s Prayer” that the Father’s name is “hallowed,” holy and extremely special.  How are we to appreciate it and make it holy if we don’t even know the Father’s name?

 Not many know that the Hebrew God of the Bible was known by Moses, Daniel, Isaiah, and all the rest of the prophets and apostles by His name Yahweh. 

“The Hebrew national literature centres in the thought of God. It is Yahweh who is all and in all, the father, the leader, the hope, the hero of his people” ( www.1911encyclopedia.org/Christianity ).  This quote is from the article “Christianity” in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition, entirely on-line at this link.  There are 142 articles that mention Yahweh (www.1911encyclopedia.org/index.php?q=yahweh&title=LoveToKnow_1911%3ASearch&site=1911&fulltext=LoveToSearch ). 

We’ve been told that “God” is His name.  But “God” is a common noun that has been capitalized.  “GOD, the common Teutonic word for a personal object of religious worship. It is thus…applied to all those superhuman beings of the heathen mythologies who exercise power over nature and man…The word “god,” on the conversion of the Teutonic races to Christianity, was adopted as the name of the one Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe” (www.1911encyclopedia.org/God).  It was adopted, but God is not the name of the Father.  Yahweh is His name.  “This is my name forever,” Yahweh said to Moses (Exodus 3:15).

Some think that the Father’s name is “LORD.”  But “LORD” is merely a title of the Father.  This started when the King James translators substituted “the LORD” for the Hebrew name “Yahweh” over 6,700 times.  Only once did they leave “Yah” (the shortened form) in Psalms 68:4: “Sing praises to his name…Jah.”  The editors of the New King James Version corrected “Jah” to “Yah” ( www.yahwehisthesavior.com/sonspreface.htm  I’ve published two books on the subject.  I’ve placed both on-line; they can be read here free).

When Christ was teaching the disciples (us) how to pray by saying “hallowed be thy name,” He wants us to revere, keep holy, consecrate, and venerate the Father’s name.  That is what the word “to hallow” means. 

But first the Father’s name must be restored to our knowledge.  We cannot truly make His name holy and consecrated in our hearts if we don’t know His name. 

And the Father’s name is Yahweh.  We must keep this in our minds when we communicate with Him.  For His name is extremely important to Him.  So it should be of extreme importance to us His princes and princesses.  Or how else could we address the King?

Armed with this knowledge, the scriptures about His name will open to us.  It is a key.  But be forewarned.  The knowledge of the Father’s name is a pearl, a gem.  And Christ warns, “Cast not your pearls before swine, for they will turn and rend you with it.”  Be careful who you share this with.  It is dynamite knowledge and needs to be handled carefully.  You will be vilified and derided for sharing this knowledge–usually by those close to you. 

Share your thoughts with me about this or any topic addressed on this blog.  For it is your platform, too.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

    

The Lord’s Prayer Is NOT an Incantation, Chant, or Ritual

There’s no magical powers in repeating the Lord’s Prayer.  And let’s face it.  Churchianity has reduced it to a chant, to a ritual of repetitious words with the intent that –poof!–magically our sins are forgiven or our requests are granted.  Please.

Chanting the Lord’s Prayer is taking his blueprint for prayer and using it as a “verbal charm” to enchant God into giving us what we want from Him.  Doing this is using an enchantment (which God forbids) and is the very definition of “incantation.”

“incantation–the chanting or uttering of words purporting to have magical power; a spell or charm”   <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/incantation>

“incantation–ritual recitation of verbal charms or spells to produce a magic effect; a conventionalized utterance repeated without thought”  <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/incantation>

   “Repeated without thought…”  Isn’t that what’s being done with the Lord’s prayer?  Reducing it to a chant?  Definition of “chant”:  “The use of religious phraseology without understanding or sincerity; empty solemn speech, implying what is not felt; hypocrisy.” <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chant> )

   To mindlessly repeat the Lord’s Prayer “without understanding” its profound depths of meaning is cheapening it; it is futile and vain.  In fact, Christ warns us to not do this very thing. “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matthew 6:7).  Heathens use incantations, enchantments, sorcery and spells.  “Be not ye therefore like unto them” (v. 8).

   We as His sons and daughters must press in, dig deep, and seek to know what He’s saying to us in the Lord’s prayer and to use it as a blueprint in our communication to Him and for Him.

   A blueprint is a “detailed outline or plan of action.”  His model prayer contains God’s thoughts, plan, and purpose.  And we are to pray in accordance with its precepts.

   Prayer is communication with God.  So God wants us to first know His thoughts, plan, and purpose so that we can commune with Him on what He wants to accomplish here on earth.  And He wants to use us. KWH

{To read more on this, check out ch. 13 of my book, The Unveiling of the Sons of God found at the top of this sites homepage}