Category Archives: belief

January 24, 2012 · 10:59 pm

The Manifestation of the Sons of God–Christ Outlines the Way in John 14-17 in “Conversations with the Seer”

“What have you been studying?” the Seer asked me when I came into the meeting room.

“I’ve been reading in John 14 and 15.”

“Are you understanding what you’re reading?” he asked.

“Some parts I do. But there is so much to it.”

“Yes. Chapters fourteen through seventeen are the Master’s last instruction to His disciples, and they, of course, are extremely important. You noticed that He withheld this teaching until Satan in Judas Iscariot left them after the Last Supper in chapter thirteen.”

“Yes, that is right.”

“What Christ had to say was to those faithful ones; He would not cast His pearls before swine. Although there are things in His words for all of His followers, this last discourse is not for babes in Christ. It is actually a putting together of all the puzzle pieces that, once completed, shows us a picture of how the sons of God will be manifested.”

“I’ve heard you speak many times of the manifested sons of God coming on the scene,” I said.

“Christians must begin to realize that God’s plan and purpose entails a much grander vision of what will take place on this earth than what is being taught in most every church in the world.”

“What is the grander vision?”

“The whole creation doesn’t realize it, but it is “groaning and travailing,” waiting for the “manifestation of the sons of God.” [Rom. 8: 22]. This is when upon Christ’s return He changes us. It is when we receive our new bodies. These old decaying earthly shells will be swallowed up by our new spiritual bodies, bodies that will live on eternally. This is what mankind has dreamed about, what every culture’s philosophers have written about. This is the fountain of youth that will quench every person’s inate thirst to live forever. This is it!  Christ is expounding the key points on the way to this grand event.”

“You are talking about immortality.”

“Yes. It is the deep longing of mankind. And there is a way, and that way has been mapped out in Christ. He not only has the answers, but He is the answer, for He in His glorified form now contains the Eternal Spirit that we call God–the Creator.”

“So what prevents everyone from seeing this vision of how to obtain eternal life or immortality?” I asked.

“This vision of immortality for mankind is like a jigsaw puzzle. Many pieces to this true picture of God’s plan lay scattered about the table of man’s knowledge. But there are many other pieces to other puzzles scattered in among God’s pieces. Other visions of what is the truth, false visions, false puzzle pieces, litter the landscape. They sometimes have the same color and appear to be like the true pieces to God’s puzzle, and they deceive the people. “For many false prophets and teachers” have run to and fro on the earth deceiving themselves and others with their half baked false conceptions of Christ’s plan and purpose.”

“I know. They sound so convincing.”

“Yes, because they take a snippet of scripture and build whole doctrines out of passages taken out of context. But the fact is that the truth is out here to be found, but we must seek diligently for it. He said, Seek and ye shall find. Find what? Find the truth. We must winnow the wheat from the chaff of false teachings.”

“How does this fit in with the manifested sons?” I asked.

“The concept of the manifested sons of God can’t be clearly seen until one’s eyes are open to the Parable of the Sower. This parable shows us God’s great secret in how His Spirit grows in us His children. Especially how His Spirit will yield in us a certain amount of spiritual fruit.”

“What do you mean? We are all Christians, children of God–those of us who have been born again,” I said.

“Of course. But there are spiritual differences in the body of Christ. It’s just like in a literal field of corn there will be some of the seeds yield more ears and grains on those ears than another for whatever reason–more water or fertilizer or just richer soil. Or maybe the weeds choke some plants and not others. The fact remains that like corn in the natural world, we, too, in the spiritual world bear the fruit of the Spirit at different levels. As He said in the parable, some will bring forth ‘some thirty fold, some sixty fold, and some one hundred fold.”

“What does that mean in a practical everyday sense?” I asked.

“It means that there will be some Christians who will be more Christ-like than others after their growth here on earth is completed. There were many Christians in the New Testament days, but after the resurrection, there were not many like Peter, James, John, and Paul. These one hundred fold followers of Christ did great works, just like Christ! And so can we, if we are to be one of those one hundred folders.”

“I can hear them saying now, ‘Nobody can be like Christ!”

The Seer smiled knowingly.  “Yes, they will say that–their doubt-filled minds gushing forth their negative thoughts. But to them I will say, If you won’t let me be like Christ, is it all right if I be like Peter and Paul? They raised the dead and healed the sick–just like Christ! That’s close enough.”

“Hold it. I can see that what prevents some from being hundred folders is doubt and unbelief.”

“Precisely. And why do you think that they have such doubt and unbelief?”

I thought a moment. “Because it disagrees with what they have been taught?”

“Exactly. Those who will not and cannot grow up into the fullness of Christ as a hundred fold fruit bearing Christian are those who have been fed lies and misconceptions, which have stunted their growth. So much so that they cannot come to a place where agape love helps them to ‘believe all things.’ In other words, it takes truth nurturing them to a point to where they can believe the vision God has for us–to be just like His Son.”

“What can be done to help them believe more?”

“All we can do is walk on in this truth, sow the seed, the word of God, and let God be God. He is the great Architect. He is building His spiritual house, which is us. Those whose destiny is to become a manifested son of God, He will bring into His fold. He is faithful and true and quite capable of bringing His sons unto glory.”

“Some people will say that God is not fair–to have some followers remain children and some be like Peter and Paul.”

“What can I say to the gainsayers? They did not create the world according to a specific plan and purpose. ‘Let God be true and every man a liar’ who does not agree with Him. No. God is right. It is a grave responsibility to be a manifestd son during these end times. A lot will be required of them, and not everyone has the physical and spiritual strength to make ‘this calling and election sure.’”

“I want to be one of them. That is why I moved out here.”

“It is a worthwhile goal in this life–to aspire to the ‘high calling of God in Christ.’ But it is a paradox, for although we must study and pray to make ‘our calling and election sure,’ God chooses whomsoever He will for this honor. No man takes this honor unto himself. It is only by His grace that we can run this race.”

“I see what you mean,” I said.

“So, knowing about the manifested sons is the first of the puzzle pieces that we need in order to become one of them. We have to have knowledge about something first before we can ever hope to obtain it. Christ in John 14-17 elucidates several more puzzle pieces that we need. He lines them out as a kind of stepping stone path to glorification.”

“What’s the next piece to the puzzle?” I asked eagerly.

“I’ll share more with you a bit later,” the Seer said turning to greet the others coming in the door.

The next morning I came early to the morning men’s meeting. We would all meet every morning at the small hall we had built with the salvaged lumber we had taken from old buildings and houses. The Seer was sitting next to the old box wood heater. I could not wait. I sat down and asked, “What is the next piece to the puzzle?”

“Once a person learns and then believes that there is growth in God that matures into the same level of spirituality as Peter, James, John, and Paul–and yes,like the Savior Himself–then they are ready to actually begin to walk on unto perfection, or complete spiritual maturity. As Paul exhorts us all, ‘Let us go on unto perfection’” (Heb. 6: 1).

“But what does spiritual maturity mean?”

“A few are destined to reach this maturity, this perfection in Christ. Actually it has to do with Christ being “formed in you” (Gal. 4: 19). His Spirit comes down into us by faith in His resurrection in us. We receive a new heart from Him. Then by receiving pure seed and watering it with His word, we grow from children into the fully matured sons and daughters of God.”

“But, perfection?”

“Yes. Have you not read where Christ commands his followers, Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect? Anyway, if someone has enough faith to get this far, then they may begin to receive the next big teaching found in John 14-17.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“It is to believe in the oneness of God.”

“Everybody believes that there is one God.”

“They may say they do, but when pressed to the wall they believe there are two or three of them sitting up there in heaven on different thrones. Even staunch trinitarians, although they say “three in one,” when pinned down, they ‘see’ a Father figure and a ‘Son’ figure up there in heaven sitting on their respective thrones.”

“In order to be one of His elect manifested sons of God, to be just like Christ in these latter days, one must get the correct concept of the Godhead. It is here in John 14, that Christ sets the record straight. He flat out commands all manifested sons-to-be, saying this: “<em>Believe Me. </em>Believe Me that the Father is in Me (John 14: 10).”

“Is that it? Just believe Him?” I asked.

“Yes, it is really very simple, and yet, man’s inate unbelief hardens his heart where His word, like a tiny seed, cannot get down into it and grow. We all start out in early childhood with soft and tender hearts, eager to believe what we are told. We are vulnerable and trusting and are able to believe the truths about God readily. This is why Christ told us to ‘become as little children’ or we will not be able to “enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 18: 3). Unfortunately, this world system is cruel and the little children become disappointed and disillusioned with life and soon their hearts grow cynical, for they become convinced that no one is sincere.”

“But God gives us another chance, doesn’t He?”

“Yes, He does. Through His mercy, we can become His spiritual children, and we can soften our hearts and receive his truth and grow in Him. And so we are told by Christ, ‘Believe Me that the Father is in Me.'”

“We just need to trust  Him, don’t we?” I asked.

“We need to trust His word when He says that the Father is in Him. How can that be? It is because the Father is an invisible Spirit (I Tim. 1: 17). And Christ is the ‘image of the invisible God.’ In other words, the invisible Spirit, who is the Father, dwelt in the Son, who is visible, who always said that the works that He did were really done by the Father inside of Him (John 14: 10). Christ said that the miracles He performed were proof that the Father dwelt inside of Him.”

“But I haven’t seen any of those kind of miracles,” I said.

“When was the last time you looked into the mirror? You are one of the miracles the Father has performed through His Son. You came here hopelessly addicted to drugs, and now the mouth that cursed every other breath speaks sweet words. He has made a most miraculous change in your life. You are your own greatest witness that the Father raised up Christ from the dead, and in so doing through faith, you, too, are raised up to walk in a newness of life'” (Romans 6: 4).

“I cannot deny it.  I have a new life!  That is a miracle!”

“Yes.  Your new life in Him is proof that the Father lives in Christ and did perform the miracle on you.  Indeed. The oneness of God is extremely important. Without our belief in this concept, we cannot grow into full maturity, which is His desire for us. Christ commands us, ‘Believe Me that the Father is in Me.’ When we do this then we realize that the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ (Col. 2: 9).,

“Why is believing that the invisible Father was inside the Son of God so important?” I asked.

“This is a very good question that leads us to the very next statement Christ made in John 14.  In verse 11, He said, ‘Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.’  In other words, These miracles that I am performing prove that the Father God is in Me, for only He can raise the dead and heal the sick.  Then after we believe Him that the Father is in Him, He says in v. 12: ‘He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also.'”

“You mean the miracles He did we can do, too?”

“Yes.  Those who really believe that the Father is in Christ–the ones who really get it–they are the ones who can go on unto perfection, or full spiritual maturity, which entails raising the dead and healing the sick–the very things He did.  Christ goes on to say that they will do ‘greater works’ than what He did.  These will be the 100 fold fruit bearing manifested sons of God.”

“Wait a minute,” I said.  “How can they do anything greater than raising the dead?”

“Because they will number in the thousands, doing miracles all over the earth in His name” [Revelation 14].

“How can this be?” I asked.

“You see, Christ was the Seed-Son, who fell into the ground and died, and during the time of the end, He will reap the harvest from that one Seed.  A harvest of many thousands of manifested sons of God will grow up to be just like Him” [John 12: 24].

“Wow.  That is some calling.  I doesn’t seem possible.”

“With men it is impossible, but with God’s direction and grace, it is possible” [Mark 10: 27].  That is what He said.  We again just need to believe it.  That is what the walk of faith is all about.  Believing having not yet seen.  We believe His word first, then the works, the miracles, will come.  Starting first with the miracle of our own new life in Him.”

That evening after work, I went to the Seer’s cabin.  He invited me in and made some hot tea for us.  We sat down around the fire, and with little small talk, I asked, “Could you go over some of the things we were talking about yesterday concerning the manifested sons?”

“Sure,” the Seer said, the question obviously energizing him.  “The Savior lines out the path to sonship in His last major teaching in John 14-17.  First, a future manifested son must know and believe that there is such a thing in God’s plan as sonship.  And to fully comprehend this, one has to know and believe the secret of the growth of the Spirit in us as lined out in the Parable of the Sower, the parable that actually opens up our understanding of all the parables.  They will then realize that there must be a harvest of the firstfruits before the big harvest can take place.  Many preachers will speak of a ‘harvest of souls,’ but they rarely mention the manifested sons of God being the first into perfection in our day.  The ‘last shall be first,’ Christ said.  The last of G0d’s sons will be the first harvested in this end time generation.”  The Seer stopped a moment, and then looked at me and asked, “Are you seeing all this?”

“Yes, I am getting it.”

“You see, the parables, after all, are the ‘dark sayings’ that God has hidden His secrets in for millenia and that they are spoken deliberately to prevent some from knowing His secrets. This Parable of the Sower shows us that there are different levels of spiritual growth–the ultimate, of course, being  the manifested sons of God.

“Second, because the Son of God is the Seed, we cannot have His likeness harvested in us without believing in Him and His words to us.  He reassures us that He is preparing a place for us and that He through His Spirit will come to us and help us to get through the long, lonely days of our spiritual sojourn here on earth [John 14: 1-3].  He tells us that He, Christ, is the way, the truth, and the life.  And He is the only way to come to the Father’ [v. 6].

I asked, “Why do so many people say that there are many ways to get to God?  You’ll hear them say that Allah and Vishnu and others are all just different names of the same Supreme Being and that there are many ways to get there.”

“No.  Don’t believe them.  They do not know God at all.  Christ is the way to the Father for one very simple reason.  The Father is in Him.  The Father was in Him then some 2,000 years ago, and the Father is still in Him, for He lives forever and is alive now making intercession for us to God, who dwells within Christ.”

“The Father is in Him,” I repeated, for my mind was straining to grasp these concepts.

The Seer looked at me and smiled.  “Pretty intense, huh?

“Yes,” I said.

“And that brings us to the third major point of Christ’s teaching in John 14-17.  He told them that they had already known and seen the Father.  And they questioned that and said, Show us the Father.  And Christ said to them, He that has seen Me has seen the Father.  It is the Father in Me that does all these miracles.  And then He commands them: Believe Me that the Father is in Me” [v. 9-11].

“This is where the oneness doctrine takes shape,” I said.

“Yes.  He gives us a new commandment here to believe that the invisible Father Spirit is inside Him.  And then, in His very next breath, He gives us the fourth major point that builds upon the previous three that I have just outlined.  ‘He that believes on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works that these shall he do.’  In other words, those that believe that the Father was in the Son doing the miracles will someday do those same miracles and even greater miracles than Christ did!” [v. 12].

“That’s exciting, but how do we get from here to there?”

The Seer rephrased my question.  “How do we begin to get the power to work miracles and thus do the ‘greater works’?  Excellent question. And I will give you a profoundly simple answer.  We have to ask Him for the power.”

“Just like that?  Just ask Him for it?”

“Of course there is a bit more to it than that.  In the very next breath after He promises that we will do the greater works, He says, ‘Whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son'” [v. 12-13].

“I’ve heard that verse quoted in Sunday School and sermons many times.”

“Yes, people run with it, taking it out of context.  But let’s look at it closely.  In verse twelve He promises that we will do greater miracles than what He had done.  And in the very next verse, He says that He will do whatever we ask in His name.  ‘Do’ is the very same word.  The point is that He will do the greater works in and through us.  It won’t be us doing the miracles; He will be doing them.  His Spirit in us will be doing them.  Our part is to surrender our hearts, souls and minds to God so that He may come down into us and perform the miracles by His Spirit in us.  Us asking in His name, first, humbles us, for we acknowledge thereby that we of our own power cannot do the miracles.  We will realize when we are in this growth that we are a part of the body of Christ, part of the Son, which fulfills the last part of John 14: 13: ‘That the Father may be glorified in the Son.’  But the point is, we have to ask Him to do the greater works through us.  And this won’t happen if we just ask Him any old way.  Father, can I do a miracle today?  No.  We must ask in His name.”

“People do that all the time.  ‘And we ask all this in Jesus’ name, Amen.’  Millions of prayers go up like this every day.  People are doing this already,” I said.

“Wait a minute.  Not so fast.  People are saying these words as a formula without the deeper knowledge.”

“What deeper knowledge are you talking about?” I asked.

“Consider these two points.  What is being asked for and what name is being asked in.  And this brings us to the fifth piece to the puzzle–asking in the Savior’s name for the greater works to be done through us,” said the Seer.

Asking in the Savior’s Name–His Hebrew Name: The Fifth Piece to the Puzzle of Being a Manifested Son of God

I have this impetuous habit of blurting out what pops into my brain, and so I asked,”The Savior’s name.  Why is it so important?  I know that sounds terrible, but ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'”  How did Shakespeare ooze out of me at this moment?  I could not escape my past; I was an English literature major through and through.

But instead of biting off my head, the Seer discerned that I was maintaining some semblance of sincerity, and so he replied, “In man’s way of thinking, names hold little revelance to one’s destiny.  This is because the word ‘rose’ does not hold any profound meaning in and of itself.  But this is not the case with the Savior’s name.  His very name means something very important.”

“What does it mean?”

“Christ’s Hebrew name Yahshua means ‘Yah is the Savior,’ or ‘Yah is Salvation.’  It’s meaning actually explains to us just who He is and what His nature is.  His name declares His purpose and speaks volumes as to the nature of the Godhead.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“It is a fact that the Hebrew names of biblical characters have meaning.  ‘Daniel’ means ‘judge of God.’  ‘Sarah’ means ‘princess,’ and so on.  So now it is time for the future manifested sons of God to know the Hebrew name of the Savior, and that name is Yahshua.  Very much like the English name ‘Joshua.’  In fact, the Savior’s name and the patriarch’s name who carried on for Moses is the same name in Hebrew–Yahshua.  It is not just a tag.  His name is something to be believed.  It states the truth that we are commanded to believe what it means.”

“What does it mean?”

“The first part of His name is ‘Yah.’   It is the shortened form of the very name of the Creator Himself–Yahweh.  It means ‘the self-existent One.’  ‘Shua’ is Hebrew for ‘Savior’ or ‘Salvation.’  Together, both parts of the Savior’s name means ‘The Self-Existent One is the Savior.”  The apostle Paul says that ‘the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ.’  And ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.'”

“Can you simplify that for me?” I asked.

“In other words, the message in His name to be believed is that the very Creator Himself resided in the man Christ and was the One doing the saving.  Through Isaiah Yahweh says, ‘Beside Me there is no savior.’  Yahweh saves through His Son.  That is what the Son’s name means.  That is the message we are to believe.  And when we do this, then great things begin to happen.

The Great Things that God Makes Happen When We Believe the Message in His Name

“What are these great things?” I asked the Seer.

“If we believe on the name, then God will answer our prayers, and even more shall He do for us.  The biggest thing is that God Himself through His Spirit will come and take up residence in us.  After all, we are the temple of God, are we not?

“That is what the Bible says,” I said.

“This is what He means when He promises that if we ask anything in His name that He will do it.  And the first thing is that He will come down into us and abide and stay in us.  He calls the Spirit our Comforter Advocate.  The Spirit of truth will come down and reside in us to help us through the ‘dark night of the soul’–to help us on down the treacherous path of earthly existence.  This is a cruel and deceiving world system that we have been brought up in.  This earthly walk is hard on the future sons and daughters of God.  So God in His infinite wisdom knew that we needed a Helper.”

“What all does the Comforter do” I asked.

“The most important thing that the Holy Spirit does for us is encourages us that we are not alone in this universe.  The Spirit also leads and guides us into all truth.  Be aware that the Comforter is the exact same Spirit that was in Christ.”  The Seer turned back over to John 14: 16.  “Christ will interceed to the Father for us that God would send us another Comforter.”

“What does He mean ‘another?’

“The Spirit, the Comforter, dwelt bodily in the Son of God.  He was their helper and comforter as long as He was with them in the flesh.  That’s the reason He said that He had to go away so that He could send the Spirit down to us to abide in us.  He promises to send the Spirit to live inside us if we keep His commandment about believing that the Father, Yahweh Himself, was inside Him” [v. 16].

“It keeps coming back to believing God,” I said.

“Yes, without faith and belief in what God says, there is no way to please the Creator.  The concept of believing God is easy; it is our hearts that are hard.  Anyway, some will achieve His abiding presence through faith or belief in His word about these things and about keeping Christ’s commands about believing that the Father dwells in Him.  He said, ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him’ [v. 23].  He does this by the Holy Spirit of Love coming down and staying within us in our hearts.  This Spirit of God will be sent to us in Christ’s name” [v. 26].

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“We must go back to the meaning of Christ’s Hebrew name, Yahshua.  Knowing the meaning of it and believing it–that is the key to understanding how the Spirit is sent to us in Christ’s name, which is ‘Yahweh is the Savior.'”

“It goes back to believing that the Father lived inside the Son.”

“That’s it,” the Seer said.  “You are getting it.  He will send His Spirit–and this is a promise from God Himself and He cannot lie–He will send His Spirit down to take up residence when we know and believe what His name means.  That is when the Father sends the Holy Spirit in Christ’s name.  And Christ promises that the Spirit will ‘teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.  This is the abiding of the Spirit of God within us.  Those that continue on in this full abiding presence will grow to full maturity into the manifested sons of God.'”

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June 4, 2011 · 8:14 pm

“In His Name”: What Does It Really Mean? Chapter 9 YAH-IS-SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY

One of the most trite and worn-out expressions in the English language is “in His name.” What does it really mean? All through our Christian walk to date we have uttered that phrase or a variation of it. “In the name of Jesus.” “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

We learned, of course, to say these phrases watching and listening to others. We have sincerely believed that it was important to say them. We ended most every prayer that we’ve ever prayed with a form of “in His name.” We have recited it almost as an incantation, as if it had magical qualities that would bring healing and comfort. “In His Name” has become for us a verbal talisman swinging from our lips, knowing that somehow, if we do not say these special words, our prayers will not get through. In saying these words, we were doing the best we could; we were walking in the light that we had.

Now let us investigate and study these three words in a new light. “In His name…” In, inside, within the true name. He is pointing us to go into His name. Take His name, Yahshua, and go into that name and extract the meaning from it.

As we have already seen, the Savior’s true name is Yahshua. This name means literally, “Yah is salvation” or “Yah is Savior.” But to all who received him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become the children of God. John 1:12, RSV. Here, “receiving Him” and “believing in His name” are synonymous.

A message in His name to be believed

“Believing in His name” implies that there is a message to be believed, a truth inherent in His name. We have seen that Hebrew names are prophetical. We have seen that the Savior was named Yahshua because “he shall save His people from their sins.” And Yahshua means “Yah is Savior.” So what is the message contained within His name? That message is “Yah is the Savior.” The name “Jesus” has no message in it at all. It does not have any meaning.

But the name “Yahshua” is loaded with meaning. Inside that name is the meaning and efficacy needed to bring a person into the Spirit of the Father and to bring the Spirit into the person. “Believing in His name…” The children receive the Spirit by believing in what His name means (by believing in His name). We believe the meaning of His name—that Yahweh or Yah, the Eternal Spirit, came down to earth and poured His essence into a specially set apart human form to sacrifice Himself so that we could take on His spiritual nature. That is believing in His name, Yahshua, which is receiving what His name really means—YAH-IS-SAVIOR. For I am Yahweh thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour…I, I am Yahweh, and besides Me there is no savior…Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. Isa. 43:3, 11; 45:15.

Yes, Yah did hide Himself well in a flesh body some 2000 years ago. But He makes it very clear from the above passages in Isaiah that He is the Savior; He is the Creator. The apostle John makes it very clear that the Spirit-filled human flesh body that he had walked with for three and a half years did the creating. In the beginning was the Word…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made…He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…John 1:1, 3, 10, 14.

Believing what His name means

There is no contradiction here. Yah did the creating, the forming, the redeeming and the saving. And Yah, clothed in human flesh, took the name “Yahshua,” Yah-Is-Savior. The very name of the Messiah points to the fact that it is the Father Yahweh who is doing the saving. Yah was in that vessel, the Messiah, reconciling the world unto Himself. The Spirit, Yah, pours Himself into His temple and works out of it to the world.

When a person believes in the name of Yahshua, he is believing what that name means—that Yah is the Savior in human form. In fact, the act of believing in the name of Yahshua is a miniature of the Creator’s plan of kingdom redemption.

If one has really received Him, that person will have believed in His name, which is to say, will have believed that the Father Yah was in human form, and that combination, Yahshua, is bringing salva- tion to the world.

Believing in Him is believing in His name

He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:18. When one does not believe in the Messiah, he is not believing in the meaning of His name. For He said, “He that rejects Me, rejects Him that sent Me.” If you reject the Son, you are rejecting the Father that dwells within the Son, for that is exactly where the Father Yahweh is. “Know ye not that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” He asked.

The unbeliever in the Messiah is already judged for one reason: he has not believed in the Name of Yahshua, which is saying that Yah was not in him, saving mankind through His death, burial, and resurrection. Not believing in Messiah’s name, then, is equal to not receiving the Spirit of the Creator.

Not believing in the meaning of the name of Yahshua is equal to rejecting the light that is come into the world, and cleaving unto darkness, saying, I have no need for Yah in human form to save me (see John 3:19).

The phrase “in the name,” then, has profound meaning and carries a weighty message. First, we cannot believe in His name if we do not know His name. If we seek, He will reveal to us His true name. This knowledge, in turn, is an important key that will unlock the door that is keeping us from continuing our journey down the road to immortality.

The Savior’s name is Yahshua, Yah-Is-Savior. To believe in His name is to believe what His name actually means: Yahweh, the self-existent One that cried through Isaiah, who appeared and spoke to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and many others, offered up His perfect human incarnation and became the Author of eternal salvation for His people.

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May 6, 2011 · 4:16 pm

YAH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY CHAPTER 5 “The Importance of His True Name YHWH”

Every year here in southwest Missouri in November, an onslaught of hunters converge into the tens of thousands of acres of hardwood forests in hopes of bagging a prize buck.  Imagine yourself in the middle of a 2000 acre tract alone in a deer stand.  You hear the sounds of other hunting parties, for many have the same thing in mind as you do.  You hear the word, “Daddy,” faintly off in the distance, and then it fades into the whisper of the wind in the leaves.  You don’t pay it much mind.

     I dare say that if you had heard your name coming through those trees, be it ever so faint, it would have gotten your attention.  It would have generated thoughts immediately!  Who could that be?  Is that one of my kids?  What are they doing out here?  Are they hurt?  Do they need me?  And chances are that it would have sparked a search for that voice until you had found that person who had called your name.

     Are names important?  In this scenario a certain name is.  The use of our name gets our attention.  It could have been anybody’s daddy from anywhere, but when our name is uttered, we perk up.

     I can’t help but think of our Father in heaven.  We have been made in His likeness, in His image, both physically and emotionally.  If our attention is corralled, galvanizing us into a desperate action by the mere mention of our name, could it be that His attention could be gotten in the same manner?  Could it be that if only we could call upon the Creator and our Father using His real name, His given name, the name He said was His name forever—would that perk up His ears to our prayers, to our requests, to our cries?

     The scriptures say that if we humans know how to give good gifts unto our own children, how much more will the Father give to those who ask Him.  If we could respond to a faint cry of our own name in a deep forest, is it a big stretch to believe that the Almighty God, who is Love, could not be moved in His heart by hearing His own name expressed by one of His little ones?  

The substitution of  titles for YHWH

     Now we know His real name.  YHWH, pronounced “Yahweh,” is not a new revelation unto man.  The name of the God of the Hebrews has been known for many centuries, but the translators have deliberately substituted the titles “LORD” and on occasion “GOD” and “JEHOVAH” for “Yahweh.”  This is despite the passage quoted above, “Yahweh is my name forever.”

     But Yahweh already knew that men would try to change  His  name throughout the ages.  That’s why He said that it was His name forever and how we will remember Him.  His name is His memorial unto all people in all times.  You know His real Hebrew name, and you will begin to remember Him.  His name  Yahweh  has  been  set  up  from  the ancient times as a way for His people to bring Him back into their memories. The Hebrew word for “name” is shem, #8034, meaning “reputation; memory; renoun.”  It was sometimes used as a synonym for “memory” (“Name,” Vine’s Expository Dictionary).  

Believing in His Name 

     Just how important is the name of the Supreme Being?  “But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons (children) of God, even to them that believe on His name,” (John 1:12).  Two major points are to be considered from this passage.  First, when we receive Him, we are given authority and power to become the Spirit-Creator’s children.  A comma sets off the second part of the verse.  It is set up like an appositive, which renames what just went before in the verse.  The second part of the verse says, “even to them that believe on his name.”

     In other words, those who receive Him are those to whom He gives power and authority to become His offspring.  And these are equal to those who believe in His name.  His name is very important then.  Those believing in it are equated with those who have received Him, who have received His Spirit (“I will come to you,” He says in John, speaking of the Comforter, the Spirit).  Those believing in His name are  those  who  are  to  become  His  children.    The  Creator  came  in  human  form;  the Word was made flesh.  “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”  He came unto His own people and they did not receive Him.  But some will.

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April 30, 2011 · 8:04 pm

The Elect of God–The Seekers of Truth

It is like we, the elect of God, are down here on earth where God has placed within our hearts a thirst and hunger for the truth.  We have to know the truth.  This search for truth is what keeps us going.  It is the only thing seemingly that matters to us.  Everything else is just cosmetics and window dressing. 

“Great is the mystery of godliness,” the scriptures say, God being the greatest mystery of all.  And so the seekers search Him out.  And throughout the expanse of the earthly years that He has given us, we discover little bits of truth like pieces  to the puzzle.  We are like children adding a crystal to our tin box that it might lay with a seashell or a discarded brass key.  We know these bits of truth are a special treasure and we hold them dear.

And these little bits of truth, if we endure, begin to add up and, like a jigsaw puzzle, begin to take shape.  A picture of the landscape of spiritual reality emerges as we put things together. 

We begin to see this panorama of God’s purpose and plan to reproduce Himself inside His sons and daughters.  And then we begin to walk in it, thereby exercising His Spirit in us.  And then He smiles, pleased with our belief, and says to those around Him, “See there.  They are getting it!  They are believing my word, and so I will answer their cries and grant their requests.”

And so our faith grows as we see that God really is real and personal.  It is no longer just book learning intellectualism.  No.  He is real, and no one can take that away from us.

And so our appetite for the truth about who God is and why we are here is whetted, and our hunger is unabated.  We need more of Him, who is the Truth.  That is it.  That is the truth.  I am the way, the truth, the life…Thy word is truth…God is truth…

God has placed within us this unquenchable need to know the truth, which is Him and His plan, which entails the heavens and earth and all that is therein.  This need for truth within us was placed there by God.  It is His doing.  And someone will say, What about the others who are not desperately seeking the truth?  To that we must say that we are not to judge another man’s servant.  They were created by God for His pleasure, and although our eyes are dim as to all mysteries, we will continue to trust Him that He knows what He is doing.  He is our Father, and we are His children.  We will submit our finite thinking to His mind, which is magnificent.

For it is all His doing.  “His ways are past finding out.”  Just knowing that it is all summed up in His name, which is holy and is to be reverenced.  For the secrets of His universe are expounded in His name–His original Hebrew name–Yahshua, “for there is no other name given whereby man must be saved.” Find out what it means and you’ll have the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.   KWHancock

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March 26, 2011 · 4:27 pm

“Yahshua”–Believing in the Meaning of His Name

The  disciples are looking up into the serene face of the risen Savior.  They have been with him for forty days now—witnessing the glory in His every word and movement.  He has taught them precious things “pertaining to the kingdom of God.”  He has also instructed them to stay in Jerusalem and “wait for the promise of the Father.”  He has told them to wait for a spiritual baptism in which they will be immersed in God’s very own Spirit.  No water like John’s baptism—this time the power from on high will come upon them.

This promise to them must have been difficult to believe because instead of asking questions about it, they ask a question concerning the kingdom.  Thinking He was talking about a political government, they ask, “Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?”

He responds by saying that the times and seasons of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel rests in the Father’s power.  Shortly, you will be given some of this power from the Father.  That is the first step in the restoration process.  You disciples must begin to receive some of the Father’s power so that you can be witnesses of Me, not only locally, but throughout the whole world.  First receive the power of the Father, and then He will restore the government to Israel in due season.

This account in the first chapter of Acts begins the talk of the restoration of all things in the post-resurrection era.  Peter picks up this thread in Acts 3: 21 when he tells the crowd on the day of Pentecost that   “the heaven must receive” the Savior “until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.”  In other words, the Savior Yahshua will not be returning to set up the kingdom of God here on earth until all things are restored.

Restoring the Knowledge of His Name

And one major piece of the puzzle that God is restoring is the knowledge of His name.  First, we must become aware of His original Hebrew name.  But that is only the beginning.  The secrets of God’s power are locked up inside the holy name of God—secrets to His power, secrets about receiving answers to our prayers, and secrets about how to have Him flow through us to heal, which, in turn, shows that the Father is alive and well and living in His sons and daughters.

Clues to the Power in His Name

Peter gives a clue to this healing power found in His name five verses before in Acts 3:16.  Peter and John had, of course, just received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire on the day of Pentecost.  They go to the temple; a lame man asks alms from them.  Peter then delivers his famous line.  “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Yahshua the Messiah of Nazareth rise up and walk.”  And the man was healed!

And he starts to walk and leap around in the temple, praising God for healing him.  And everybody standing around knew this crippled man, and “they were all filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened to him” (v. 8-11).

And Peter, looking around, realizes that the people think that they had healed him somehow.   So he straightens them out and tells them that it was the Holy One who had healed him.  In fact, he gets even more specific about just how the man was healed.  “And his name through faith in His name has made this man strong.”

Wait a minute now.  Let’s not just pass over this lightly.  It was “His name through faith in His name” that infused that poor man’s legs with strength.

Now if a person nowadays could channel this power by just saying, “in Jesus name,” then everybody would be healing the sick everywhere  And we know that is not happening.  So there has to be more to it than just speaking a formula, such as “in Jesus’ name.”

And, yet, we have thousands of so called men of God running around the earth trying to invoke the name of God in order to heal someone.  They will say earnestly, “But He said that if we ask anything in his name, that He would grant it.”

Now all of us at one time or another labored under this thought.  We have understood this to mean that if we say the special words, “in Jesus’ name,” that somehow or other God would answer our prayer requests.

But upon further reflection, just saying those words, “in Jesus’ name” tacked onto the end of a prayer, does not guarantee anything.  Our minds, of course, did not know what else those words could mean.  After all, someone supposedly much more knowledgeable about God than us showed us how to say “in Jesus’ name” after our prayer request, and so we, without questioning it, began to say it.  We were young and impressionable.  We did not know any better.  We were spiritual children, “tossed about by every wind of doctrine.”

And then a wonderful thing happened.  We learned about the sacred names.  It was a glorious revelation at the time.  And so we began to replace the name of Jesus with God’s Hebrew names.  And, so, we naturally ended our prayers, asking all “in the name of Yah, or Yahweh or Yahshua.”

But we still are saying the words, “in Yahshua’s name,” at the end of our prayers the same way we did with, “in Jesus’ name.”  We have the name right now, but why aren’t we seeing the fruit of our prayers?  Why are we powerless to heal in His name?

The key:  Believing what His name means

It is time for us to get a deeper understanding of His promise, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do…” (John 14:13).  YHWH earnestly desires to share this with us.  He wants us to have the power to be His witnesses.  So what is the key to understanding what this means: asking anything in His name and receiving it?

The key lies in believing what His name means. Three steps are on this road of understanding.  First, we need to know His name.   Second, we need to know what His name means.  Third, we need to believe in the meaning of His name.

The Hebrew name of Immanuel, God with us, is Yahshua.  There are many variations on the spelling.  Spellings may be different by one or more letters.  Different camps are adamant that their spelling is the correct one.  I’m not trying to be glib here, but until He or one of His heavenly messengers speak His name to us, it is difficult to be sure.  Paul of Tarsus, under the influence of the Spirit, said that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.  Getting to the spirit of His name is more important than the exact spelling, as rendered in a foreign language called English.  Understanding its meaning is the important thing.

Yahshua means “Yah is Savior.”  “Yah” translated means in essence, “The Self-Existent One.”  So, “Yahshua” means “The Self-Existent One is Savior.”  YHWH created everything, says many verses of scripture.  It also says that Yahshua created all things.  “He was in the world and the world was made by Him,” says the apostle John.  “You shall call His name “Yah Is Savior,” for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

Believing in the meaning of His Hebrew Name

It is when we get to this third step that the going gets tough.  Believing in the meaning of His name.  That is the difficult part because one must throw away preconceptions about His name, and there are plenty.  This is the crux of the matter, however.  If it were not difficult to come to this part of the quest for God, then everyone would have the power.

This is what, literally, separates the sheep from the goats, the spirit of truth from the spirit of error.  To believe the message contained in His name, we must believe its meaning.  And it means that Yah, the eternal Spirit, the Father, dwells in a human vessel known as the Son of God, and that entity, called the Holy One of Israel, is the Creator and Savior of mankind.

There are not “two men and a dove” up in heaven somewhere.  There are not two gods in two different forms sitting on two different thrones.  The Father is invisible—period.  If you want to see the Father, you will have to go to the “expressed image of the invisible God.”  In other words, you will have to go to the Son, for He is that very image of God.  And so are we humans, for that matter.  We have been created by the Pattern Himself in His own image.  You want to see what God would look like here on earth?  Just look around at your brothers and sisters walking the globe.  That is the reason that he said, “If you cannot love him who you can see, you cannot love Him who you don’t see.” To love the invisible Father we need to love His visible image.  That would be Yah in human flesh—Immanuel, an invisible Spirit, dwelling in the Son, who is sitting upon the throne.  For He is the First and the Last, and “Beside YHWH, there is no savior” (Isaiah 43:11).  The prophet Isaiah saw into the throne room in heaven; he is a reliable witness to His majesty.  We need to believe him.  KWHancock

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February 27, 2011 · 3:10 pm

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”]

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July 20, 2010 · 2:10 pm

“Greater Works” Comes by Believing Yahweh Dwelt Bodily in Christ

The time was growing short.  The Savior knew that He had but a short time to be with the disciples that He had chosen to reveal Himself to.  He began to comfort them with words that would reassure them that His imminent death was not the end.

He told them to not be troubled.  Just believe in God and in Me, He was saying.  Trust Me.  It is going to get rough, but stay in the ship.  After the crucifixion, I will rise again after three days and three nights.  I’m going to prepare a place for you, and I will come back for you so that you can be where I am.  Anyway, you already know the way to that place where I’m going.

Then Thomas spoke up and said, “We don’t even know where you are going, much less the way to get there.”  Thomas was evidently thinking of a literal geographical location.

“Thomas, I am the way to get there.  I am the truth, and I am the life.  I am not only the way to get there, but I am the destination, as well.  If you realized just who and what I am, then you would know who the Father is and where He is.”

“We will be satisfied if you just show us the Father.”

“After all you have witnessed me do, don’t you realize that the Father is the only one who has done these miracles through these hands?  Look at me.  Look past the flesh, and when you see the invisible Me inside, that spiritual force that lives in my body–when you have really seen Me, you have seen the Father.  For the Father is living inside of Me, and it is He who is doing all the mighty works that you see me do” (John 14: 1-10).

He was reaffirming that the Father is Spirit, or how else can the Father be dwelling in the Son?  You cannot stuff the body of the Father into the body of the Son.  The Father, then, has to be a Spirit who dwells in His Son, which is the Spirit in a human form.

Christ’s New Commandment

Then He gives us a command in v. 11.  “Believe Me.”  Believe what?  “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”  Believe the truth of my words that the Life is living in me, and that I am the way for you to get this Life, who is the Father.

Then He makes a promise in v. 12.  “Whoever believes me when I say that the Father is in me–that person will do what I have been doing.  He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do because I am going to my Father.”  He who believes the Savior’s words that it was Yahweh Himself, the great Eternal Spirit Creator, who was dwelling in Him–that believer will do the same things that the Savior did!  What an astounding promise!

This promise has to be to those people who know and the believe the truth about the Father being an ivisible Spirit residing in His body–us.   “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it that glory will come to the Father (v. 13).

What Are We to Ask?

Two questions arise that need clarification.   What exactly are we to ask?  And what does it mean to ask it in His name?  What are we to ask?  We are to ask Him to do the same things through us that He did in human form!  We are to ask for the greater works to be done by His Spirit in us–that the Father may be glorified.

The believers in Yahweh-is-the-Savior [“I, even I am the LORD (Yahweh in the original Hebrew); and beside Me there is no savior.”]–believers will do greater works than what He did 2,000 years ago in His incarnation as the Son of God.  The Father, who is that great invisible Spirit, who dwelt in the Son and did the works, the miracles, the wonderful gifts to men of healing and deliverance from demons, wants to do the same works–only on a much greater scale through a body of many sons.  And so we will do the same works by the Father, the Spirit, dwelling within us.  It is not by our might, nor by our strength, by “by my Spirit saith Yahweh” that the works will be done.

The Main Pre-requisite

So it boils down to receiving more of the Spirit, more of the Father within us.  And the main pre-requisite in receiving the Spirit is obeying the Son of God, for He gives the Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5: 32).  He continues speaking in v. 15, “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.”

What had He just commanded the disciples?  He had just told them to believe Him when He said that the Father is in Him.  “Believe also in Me,” He said.  He told them to believe Him and His word as to just Who was in Him.  “Believe Me!”  That was the commandment. 

He was telling them: You believe in God and you know that He is the Father/Spirit.  This is good.  Now believe that the Father is in Me!  Believe Me!  For it is the Father speaking to you right now through my very lips! 

This is the commandment that He wanted us to obey–believe that it was Yahweh clothed behind His special veil of flesh.

After Believing This, What Comes Next?

Immediately after this order to believe that the Father is in him, He says that He will arrange for the Holy Spirit to come down to us, to “be with us forever.”  Forever.  This signifies that once a person really receives the Spirit of truth, who is the Comforter, that He will never depart from us.  He will abide with us forever!

Bottom line: We must believe that “God was manifested in the flesh”–that Immanuel was God with us, walking on this planet in a human flesh body.  The Creator is Yahweh, who is an invisible Spirit that hides Himself behind a veil of flesh.  This is exactly what He did in the man Yahshua of Nazareth.   Now He is asking us to see past the His fleshly body [which has been changed into His spiritual body anyway] and believe that the Father was in Him, residing a brief time in that mortal flesh.  He walked among the special people of His creation.  Yahweh is the Word, and He was made flesh and dwelt among us.  And He has promised that all those who believe this word about Himself will do the same things that the Savior did.  And thousands of sons doing the same works that the Savior did will the “the greater works.”

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June 27, 2010 · 7:52 pm

How the Old Self Dies–Baptism into His Death

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…”]

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June 11, 2010 · 3:55 pm

Repentance–Departing from Evil–Pre-requisite of Immortality

A few of us humans will achieve immortality  when we are given a new spiritual  body  at  the  time  of the resurrection, the time of the Messiah’s return.  But not everyone that says that He is Master of their life will become immortal.  It will only be those who are alive and have the Spirit of God dwelling in them in a reality, or those who had the Spirit of God dwelling in them at the time that their earthly bodies fell asleep, these also will be given a  new immortal spiritual body during the first resurrection.

You have a mortal, fleshly body at this time, but God Almighty has unlimited power and he is quite capable with the mere power of his word to give you a new spiritual body as it has pleased him in his eternal plan and purpose laid down since before the beginning of the world. (II Cor. 5:l).  He will have called many, but few are chosen for this the greatest of all honors—to be one of the many sons and daughters  that God is bringing to glory.  It is a great love  that  will  bestow  this  on  a  select few, for few there will be to find this way of truth.  It is quite easy to find the way that leads to destruction, misery, and  desolation.  A narrow gate awaits those who enter the way that leads to love, honor, and glory.

The sole criteria in achieving immortality is that we receive the Spirit of God somehow into our bodies.  But therein lies the problem for mankind.  The Spirit God will not dwell in unclean temples.  The human body was created for the express purpose to house the Spirit of God, the essence of Himself.  God made  his crowning creation, man and woman, to house Himself.  Mankind is to be His temple.

However, God cannot dwell in the fleshly, earthly tabernacle called the human being until He cleans out the temple first.  The old carnal nature dwells in unregenerated man.  Man in his original fleshly state is abominable before God.

If He were speaking directly to us He would say, “Your actions toward your fellow man make you filthy before God.  The inside of you is dirty.  It is your heart that needs cleansing.  Your nature of selfishness is an abomination before God.  You lie, cheat, steal, kill, commit adultery, want other people’s worldly possessions; even their sons and daughters and wives and husbands.  Nothing is sacred to you humans anymore, but then it was always that way.   I gave you a simple ten point law and you refuse to keep it because there is nothing in it for yourself. You worship other things besides Me, your Creator God.  And you don’t keep the one day that I said to keep holy, the sabbath.  A very simple law, but a very profound law.

“You humans basically worship yourselves, think of yourselves first, put your thoughts for your lives first.  Always first, first, first.  And before you realize it, there is little if any thought for, or even about Me in your thoughts.  You see, your thoughts make the temple, your body, unclean.  Your center is not right, is not on Me the Creator, and so, man and woman live out their little mortal existences, leading their little desperate rut-like lives, never glimpsing the truth of the potential of what could be for them.  And that potential is immortality, never ending life, everlasting life, eternal life, a life of infinite years.

“But man’s problem is that he wants his own life to go on without end.  He wants his own selfish little existence to continue unabated with everyone worshipping him and centering in on his every whim and inordinate desire.  He wants to live forever in his way of getting for himself.  And yet he doesn’t realize that that way of life cannot last forever.  The way of getting selfishly will end up in death.  Labor in the fields of selfishness, and all you are paid is death. In all man’s thoughts these things should not be, but that’s the way of all man’s flesh that doesn’t heed the higher call.  This is man’s grief—that he can’t take it with him.  This is the proverbial vanity of vanities.  No profit under the sun of all one’s labor spent upon oneself.”

So God cannot live in the midst of all that selfishness—a lawlessness that is called sin, for the breaking of the ten commandments is sin.  And God hates sin because it is so against His nature.  He wants to live in man and woman, but He can’t because when man is full of himself, then there is no room for God.  Selfish action is a selfish spirit and  is  the  opposite  of  God’s  Spirit,  which  is the action called Love.

So there again is man’s problem; he wants to live forever, but wants to live his own selfish life forever, and this thinking breeds mortality, the way of death.  In order to gain immortality, man must have God’s Spirit living within him.  But the Spirit of God will not dwell in temples (bodies) that are unclean (have actions done in them that are sinful in breaking the l0 commandments).  Mankind that comes as far as this knowledge on the road of life comes to a fork in the road.  He must chose to either remain as he is and how he has been living, or he must seek a way to repent, to change the error of his ways.  In other words, he must find a way to stop breaking the l0 commandments.

And men have tried in the past to do just that to keep the ten commandments of God.  They have failed miserably, for they have tried on their own strength and power to do so.  It is impossible to keep them without God’s help.  We are created that way, so that we must, in order to please Him, turn to Him for his power and strength to keep His holy law.  The mightiest of body and the noblest of mind found among men cannot obey the law without His Spirit doing it in and through them.

One would ask then, “What can a person do in order to keep the law?”

First, he must through a broken and contrite spirit and heart be sorry for the way he has treated his fellow man and God.  This sorrow can grow and eventually yield a desire to not do those things again.  He will then repent of his sins, turn away from that way of getting for himself, and throw himself  on  God’s  mercy to forgive him.  God is rich in mercy and wants to receive his creation back into the fold of His plan and purpose.  If they are sincere, He will forgive them and cleanse them from the filth and uncleanness.

We are cleansed by the shed blood of the Lamb, Yahshua, Yah-in-human-form, who gave Himself up in sacrifice for us.

It all hinges on faith and belief in the sacrifice that God has ordained–the only sacrifice that can  take away a person’s sins.  The sacrifice is the Lamb of God, the only one who lived a sinless life.  If you can really believe that your sin was placed upon him the day of His death, that when He died, your sin died with it, and that when He was buried, your sinful life was buried, and when He was resurrected, you also were raised again to walk in a newness of life—if you can believe all this, then you can receive into your body (temple) that same Spirit and power that raised Him from the dead.  It takes belief, faith.

If you ask Him, He will give you a portion, an earnest, a down payment of His Spirit.  And that Spirit will come into you to replace that old spirit and will grow like a tiny seed in a large garden.  You must water it with your prayers and feed it with your study.  And that little portion of His Spirit will grow up into a full-fledged son and daughter of the Spirit who will someday be transformed in a twinkling of an eye and will be changed when immortality will come down out of heaven to swallow up that which can die.

For without God’s Spirit dwelling within us, we are only a member of the walking dead who spend a few nightly whispers with loved ones and then bury their  dead  and  wait  to be buried in turn.  Without that entity, the Spirit of God, that makes alive whatever it touches and lives in, we are just as good as dead.  Without His Spirit, if we are walking around, we do it on borrowed air in an incredibly delicate and fragile shell.  And our  shell will in a few moments, comparatively speaking, go back to dust from where it came, and our brief stint at self-glory here on earth will not be remembered anymore.  Every thing that man says and does without the Spirit of God is vain and of no profit in the final analysis.  KWHancock  [This is chapter 27 of my book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality.  You may read more of this book which you can find at the top of this page.  Just click “Ebook…”]

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November 21, 2009 · 6:12 pm

Conversations With the Seer–About the Need to Pray

(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a Seer.”  I Samuel 9: 9)

Having to pray was becoming a burden and not the joy that I had been told it was.  Something was wrong.  So I went to the Seer and said, “I know that prayer is important; the Bible says that we are to pray.  I’ve been told all my life that I need to pray.  But I can’t seem to find it within me the need for prayer.”

The Seer paused and peered into my eyes and finally spoke.  “When a person feels complete in themselves, when they think that through their own wits they will figure out what needs to be done, when they rely on themselves for the answer to their problems–then, they will feel no need to commune with a Being that is greater than themselves for help.  Where’s the need?  They have believed the lie that it’s all in them, that they innately have within themselves god-like powers that can be tapped, if only they would believe and rely on themselves.”

The Seer set down his cup and waved his arm in a 180 degree pass, as if addressing the entire world.  “But in the end, eventually this misguided human bravado will fail; self-reliance will cease to be the source of strength; and humanism will heave its last gasp as the ‘mighty ego’ collapses under the weight of its own inflated thinking.”

“But I thought that self-reliance was a virtue–you know, depending on yourself, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, working hard, and all that.”

“Yes, but there is a fine line.  If self-reliance squeezes God out of the movie that you are making of your life, what will the final scene be?  I will tell you.  Returning from a squalid night of self-promotion, you go to your vanity and look in the mirror  past the smugness you use as lotion and past the shabby arrogance you use as cologne.  And the image of yourself in the mirror begins to talk to you and says, ‘You are not what you crack yourself up to be.’  And you scream in fright, for you have been found out.  The jig is up.  The illusion of your own grandeur falls like flimsy celluloid onto the film editor’s floor.  And then, hopefully, an epiphany will flash on the screen of your mind in the form of this truth: ‘If a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.’   And then you realize that it is this very self-deception that blinds us to the need for prayer to our Creator and Sustainer.”

“Wow.  And what about those on the opposite extreme?”

“The physically lazy will be spiritually lazy, too.  Those who are too lazy to work with their hands either rely on man’s government for their monthly check or ‘the kindness of strangers’ to make it.  Either way, the lazy are not relying on God.  Accepting steady handouts stunts all spiritual growth, for your god is who you look to for your sustenance.”

“So the proud can be the poor, too,” I said, sensing more light the deeper we delve into the subject.

“Yes.  You don’t have to be successful to be proud.  Poor or prosperous, it is human pride that blocks one’s need to pray.”

“Well, I am prideful, then, because at times I just do not feel the need.  How do I break the pride?”

“There is no  magic formula that breaks human pride.  Unless you want to call ‘obedience’ a magic formula.  Our Creator has told us to pray.  We should just obey this directive.  Understanding comes after obedience.  You must go on, trust Him, and pray to your Father.  This will rid you of that rigid pride.”

“Just like that?”  I was thinking, Surely it couldn’t be that easy.

“Of course, it must be a sincere communication to Him.  It can’t be contrived or constrained.  Constant repititions of canned prayers and praying so many times each day facing in a certain direction–that is not what God is talking about.  Remember–you are talking to your spiritual Father.”

“But I don’t know what to say to Him exactly.”

“Let’s just think in the natural world for a moment.  Let’s say that your earthly father gives you a fine wrist watch.  You see the joy on his face as he hands it to you.  What is the first thing that comes to your mind to say to him–if anything?”

“It would be, Thanks, Dad!”

“There you go.  There you have your answer as to what to say to your spiritual Father.  Instead of a wrist watch, He has given you immortality!  A life with Him forever.  He has promised that you are His heir; you will inherit all things!  You are a prince or princess in His kingdom!  You will sit with Him on His throne!  So what words should  come to mind?”

“Thank you, Father, for loving me.”

“Now that wasn’t so difficult, was it?  You just prayed, communicating a sincere appreciation, for Him including you in His plan and purpose.  Don’t you see that true prayer issues forth from a heart of belief in His promises to us, and from our simple gratefulness to Him for it?”

“I see.” 

“The key is knowledge of His promises.  Then, believing them.  This brings gratefulness that will  come out of one’s heart as words of gratitude.  This is the fount of all prayer, the oracle of all expression.”  After a moment, he asked, “Did that help?”

“Yes, it did.”  I left thinking about the word ‘prayer.’  It is nothing like what man says it is.  Then I thought about the words–promises, belief, gratitude–and realized that I was getting into something much deeper than man and his wisdom.  This wisdom was higher as the heavens are higher than the the earth, and profoundly simple as the blue of a robin’s egg or secrets of the frost and the dew.  I was full of questions, but they would have to wait for another day.  I had enough to munch on from today.                                                          Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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