Category Archives: Christ

January 15, 2012 · 3:22 am

“You Gotta Die Before You Live”–New Song on the Cross Experience of Christ

People talk about the cross of Christ a lot in some churches, but few teach the central truth about what that experience does in a human life.  Our old sinful self, our old heart, must die with Christ, “who was made to be sin for us.”  We identify and repent of our sinful ways by surrendering to this death on the cross.  Then we “are buried with Him” in an immersion of that old self into His death {water baptism being the type and symbol}.

Then, by believing that Christ literally rose from the dead the third day, we too can be raised from the spiritually dead, and we are then “raised to walk in a newness of life.”

HalleluYah!  This is real biblical way to repent–“by faith in the operation of God that raised up Christ.” This is what this song is about.  I wrote it back in 1975; it speaks of the  great paradox–life out of death–just like a seed buried in the ground.  This is a great mystery “kept secret from the foundations of the world,” and I am blessed to have been given it to share with the world–in a song.”  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

You can see the video and hear the song that contains these revelations here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeDb5WdFHS0

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September 25, 2011 · 9:17 pm

“Heavenly Offspring from God’s Earthly Creation: How God Multiplies Himself”–Chapter 17 of the book YAH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY

Chapter 17     Heavenly Offspring from His Earthly Creation

You believe that God created man and woman. You would not be reading this if you did not. But have you ever wondered why He created us in the first place? Why did He make us the way we are, making decisions, as it were, on matters of life and death, with the power to accept or reject our Maker and His plan for us. You have heard it said, “Why didn’t God just make us robots and spare us all the pain and misery brought on by our own doing?”

The key to unlock the answers to some of these questions comes in Yahshua’s reply to the Sadducees in Matthew 22:30. They did not believe in the resurrection and were trying to stump Him with a hypothetical story about seven brothers who had died in succession, each passing on the first brother’s barren wife to the next brother as each did in turn. They had all had her as a wife, but in the resurrection, whose wife would she be? It was a trick question, so the Master told them that it proved that they did not know the scriptures nor the power of the Creator.

The Sadducees presumed through their earthly thinking that if there were a resurrection, that humans would be mating and having children just like here on earth, for they said, “Whose wife would she be?” But he said in verse 30, “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” After man and woman are made immortal, they will be like the angels who do not marry nor mate. No reproduction will take place by the immortal ones. This takes place after “this mortal shall have put on immortality” (I Cor. 15). When this earthly body is “swallowed up of life,” when this earthly corruptible body of dust is changed into an incorruptible spiritual body, then at that time there will be no more reproducing.

“Marrying and giving in marriage” is synonymous with having children or reproducing. “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth,” is the command to the first earthy Adam. But the “last Adam is the Lord from heaven,” or the sons of God with their resurrected spiritual bodies. And they will not be reproducing or multiplying; they will be like the angels of heaven that way.

Reproducing heavenly offspring from His earthly creation

After the resurrection, some will be changed from mortal to immortal. We will not be of this earth anymore. This earthly body is a temporary housing for the faithful who will receive a spiritual body at that time. God, then, will have reproduced Himself !

We human beings are the only scriptural way that God can reproduce His spiritual body, and have heavenly offspring. He has to do it here on earth. How ironic! How it seems to be one way and it is really another. How it seems that we have our own little earthly life and we reproduce and take much satisfaction and joy in our children, and eventually we return to dust, and our children do the same, and theirs also, and very few human beings are remembered in history. And that is that. How it seems to be that way. But in reality, God is with great patience actually in the process of reproducing heavenly offspring out of His earthly creation!

How God Multiplies Himself

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it die, it brings forth much fruit.” John 12:24. Yahshua the Savior was the seed, the corn of wheat, that came to earth and died, that through His death much fruit will come forth; many spiritual sons and daughters will become like Him and achieve immortality.

Yahshua said that He was the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He created all things while He was in His original form, the pattern in whose image man was created. But just like the literal seed grain must die and thereby lose its identity and its initial life in order to bring forth much fruit, so did the Word, the Seed. The First, the Original Form, Yahshua, divested Himself of His celestial, spiritual body and poured His Essence into a word, into a sentence (“In the beginning was the Word”) that was to be carried and pronounced by one of His messengers into the ear of a maiden name Miriam (Mary) of Bethlehem. Because He was a Spirit Being and not material, the pre-existent Yahshua could pour Himself into a word (“The words I speak, they are spirit and they are life”). And that word, carried by the archangel Gabriel entered her ear and it took root in her heart and in her womb by faith, and she became with child of the Spirit. And He would grow up and eventually give His life for us that we might be His offspring—immortal heavenly children, made right here on earth by His resurrection.

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August 6, 2011 · 8:16 pm

”John the Baptist–The Forerunner of Yahweh”–Chapter 14 of the book YAH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY

The central revelation of scripture is that Yahweh of the old books came in human form as Yah-Is-Savior or Yahshua, known to the world as Jesus Christ.  To further prove this, we need only go to the Messiah’s forerunner, John the Baptist.  Everyone knows that John came in the spirit and power of Elijah and pointed the multitudes to the Messiah.

We learned earlier that the Spirit of the Messiah was in the prophets.  His Spirit speaks through them.  The voice of John was crying in the wilderness telling the people to prepare Yahweh’s way in the earth.  “The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40: 3.  We definitely know that this is speaking of John the Baptist because Matthew quotes this passage in his gospel.  “For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 3: 3.

Examining this we see that John was saying for them to prepare “the way of the LORD.”  Matthew quotes Isaiah who wrote down the original prophecy that John would fulfill.  We have already proven above that “the LORD” is the title that the translators chose to substitute for “Yahweh,” the Hebrew name of God.  Yahweh is, in fact, the very name of the Creator, our Maker, the Ruler of heaven and earth (see above in Ex. 3: 15 where Moses was told that Yahweh was His “name forever and is my memorial unto all generations”).  Now let us read this passage that John was fulfilling again: “Prepare ye the way of Yahweh (the LORD).

John the Baptist, when he fulfilled this prophecy in Isaiah, knew perfectly well who was arriving on the scene.  He certainly knew who he was announcing.  I was none other than Yahshua, the Anointed One, the Messiah.  He was saying, Prepare the way of Yahweh.  He is coming in human form–in a human flesh body.  Yahweh is come to save His people from their sins.  Yah-in-human-form is Yahweh’s way to give man hope in the resurrection.  The appearance of Yah in a human flesh body, is the way Yahweh makes Himself known to His creation (“I and my Father are one…If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father”).

John the Baptist was that voice of one, the forerunner of Yahweh and His coming in human flesh.  “Prepare the way of Yahweh.  Make His paths straight.”  Those are Yahweh’s paths, where He would be walking literally in human form.  Jesus/Yahshua (Yah-Is-Savior is what it means in Hebrew) is His way; He is the way, the path, the course leading us from death to life, from mortality to immortality.  Yahshua/Yah-Is-Savior is The Road to Immortality, which happens to be the title of this book.

John was the forerunner of Yahweh.  He was the last of the old testament prophets, for he announced the blessed appearance of Yahweh in human form.  He was the herald of the fulfilling of all the prophecies of all the other prophets of olden times.  He was more than a prophet, for it was John who bore witness to Yahweh’s coming as the Messiah.

Everyone will tell you that Isaiah 9: 6 speaks of the Messiah, the one they call Jesus Christ.  “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”  The Everlasting Father?  The Christ child would grow up to become the “Everlasting Father”? 

Everyone will tell you that John was the forerunner of Christ the Messiah.  And all will tell you that Isaiah 9: 6 speaks of Christ.  Therefore, John was the herald of “The Everlasting Father,” Yahweh Himself–in human form!

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March 18, 2011 · 1:41 am

The Parable of the Leaven Hidden by the Woman

Things in this world are not what they seem.  Our perception, or lack thereof, causes us to see only what we have been told was there.  So we only see what we expect to see.  The rest of what really is available to see lays dormant to the eye.  It waits for someone to perceive what was there all along.

Take reading the Bible, for instance.  Every person who reads it, reads it through a matrix of past teachings and doctrines that they sat under, making it difficult to see it with fresh eyes.  Every denomination has pet doctrines that serve as a prism for their followers to see through.

It is the “leaven that the woman took and hid in three measures of meal” (Mt 13:33).  “Leaven” in scripture is hypocrisy.  “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1).  The key word here is “to hide.”  Leaven is hid during the kingdom of heaven years after the resurrection and ascension.  It is hid in the food that the followers of the Savior are to eat for their spiritual sustenance.  Leaven is hid through false teachings about God.

False Doctrines Multiply

And “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (Gal 5:9).  A little false doctrine multiplies like a bit of yeast in a lump of bread.  It soon spreads throughout the whole lump of dough.    That is what the false religious system, symbolized as the “woman,” has done.  Their false teachings cloud the truth so that the truth cannot be seen.  They hide the truth with smoke and mirrors and spread confusion and a false sense of security.  The Savior in the next verse after His warning about the leaven of hypocrisy says, “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.”  False teachings about God hide the truth from the eyes of casual onlookers.

You mean things really are covered up where the average person can’t see them?  Yes, according to the Messiah.    We are doctrinally to partake of the “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” Paul says.  That would then make leaven insincerity and falsehoods.  Bread is a symbol for sustenance.  “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”  So leavened bread, spiritually speaking, is not the true word of God, but another doctrine.

Many say, “Doctrine is not the important.  Just loving Jesus and each other is the important thing.”  This is some of the old leaven we are to purge out.  The apostle John was strong on the importance of sound doctrine.  “Whosoever transgresses and abides not in the doctrine of Christ, has not God.  He that abides in the doctrine of Christ, he has both the Father and the Son.”  Doctrine is translated from a Greek word that simply means “instruction.”  We, then, are to abide, or to continue in the teachings and instruction of Christ, the Messiah.  If we do not continue in them, then we “have not God,” according to the apostle John.

That is how important the doctrine of God is.  But this takes us full circle to this dilemma: What is the teaching/instruction/doctrine of the Savior?  If we have been eating of a tainted, leavened bread that seems to be truth, but is actually hiding the truth as seen above, then how will we be able to see the truth?

It is here that many will balk.  They will think in their hearts that the old wine is better; the new wine we can’t trust because it is new. “I already know the truth.  I’m set.  Many will go on their way and not delve any deeper into this area.

But wait!  Don’t throw this aside! I want to prove to you that there are things hidden right in your own Bibles that you have read a hundred times or more and never saw.  How can I say this with conviction?  Because I just experienced a profound revelation of truth in the Bible—a truth that was always there in black and white—literally there, but I had never seen it.

I was reading Paul’s writings in I Corinthians 10:4-9—what he said about the children of Israel in the wilderness.  “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”  A footnote loomed out at me on the word “followed.”  It said, “that went with them.”  In other words, “They drank of that spiritual Rock that went with them…”  The children of Israel drank in the words of Christ, for He went along with them on their journey in the wilderness.

This intrigued me, so I turned to Exodus 17 to read about this.  We have all heard of the story of the miracle of Moses smiting the rock and water coming out to quench the thirst of the people.  In that passage, the children of Israel chided Moses for bringing them out “to cause us to die of thirst.”  Moses then cried to YHWH and YHWH responded by saying,  “And Yahweh said unto Moses, Go on before the people and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go.  Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.  And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel” (Ex 17:5-6).  Okay.  Moses smites the rock and water comes out of it. A great miracle, indeed, but we have all read this passage many times.  What’s new?

Go back to where Yahweh is speaking, “Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb…” I will stand before you there upon the rock in Horeb! Yahweh stated here that he was about to stand on the very rock that Moses was to smite.  Picture it!  God Almighty, in His glorified human form, the one He spoke through in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve, the one who appeared to the patriarchs and prophets—Yahweh said that He will stand on that rock that Moses would smite for water, and He would stand there in the sight of Moses and the elders of Israel.  And Paul, getting the revelation of this wrote that the children of Israel saw and heard Christ; they drank for that spiritual Rock that went with them through the wilderness, and that Rock was Christ.  The Anointed One was there in the wilderness.  He is the arms, the legs, the body of the invisible God, Yahweh.  Yahshua is the “expressed image of the invisible God.”  When Yahweh said, “I will stand on the rock,” He would use His glorified form, Immanuel.   Invisible Yahweh poured fully into His glorified form standing there on that rock that Moses struck!  What a sight!  What a glorious moment in the history of this world.  The children of Israel had no excuse for acting the way they did, for He went with them and stood before them, His feet above where the water was gushing out!

I never saw that before.  I have never heard this or read this before.  This revelation was a complete utter gift that God gave to me for no merit of my own.  I share this so that, yes, others may see the glorious appearing of the Savior in Moses’ day.  But more importantly, I share this so that we all can see that there is more to all of this truth than what we first thought.  It is the “unsearchable riches of Christ.”  We all have not even scratched the surface.  His works are so grand and glorious that John said that “if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25).

Consequently, we must remain open to new revelation.  We must open our minds and hearts and pray that God would lift the fog of old leaven teachings that conceal and hide the truth of what God is doing and will do in the earth shortly.

THERE IS MORE! The old teachings of the old denominations won’t get the job done in this day.  God is doing something new in the earth.  He is calling forth a group of men and women who will remain open to new revelations.  He said, “Behold, I make all things new.”  That’s a “new covenant…a new heart…new wine…new bottles…new testament…new cloth…new commandment…new doctrine…new creature…all things are become new…a new man…new creature…a new and living way…new heavens…a new earth…a new name…a new song…and a new Jerusalem.”

If there is nothing new in our spiritual life, then we are missing out on God’s work in the earth.  And He will do all of this as He restores all things that He spoke through His prophets since the world began.  What a God!  KWH

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November 8, 2010 · 5:20 pm

“God Is a Spirit” Dwelling in Human Form (the Son)

 Step Three that we are taking is obtaining the knowledge of what the essence of the Godhead truly is. We absolutely must know in a fuller way just who the true Supreme being is. We may think that we already know who He is, yet Paul says that godliness is a great mystery. If “few there be that find this way of truth,” then where does that leave the countless hundreds of millions of professing Christians who can’t agree on anything? Which “few” amongst the hundreds of millions are right?

We can sit tight thinking we have a pat hand when it comes to the knowledge of who He is, or we can remain open to further revelation. The former is truly dangerous, for if we think we have arrived and have not, and seek no further, we just may come up short. If we remain open, however, then even if we have all knowledge of Him, we cannot be hurt.

The Savior Yahshua said in John 7:37: “He that believes upon Me, as the scripture has said (the way that the written word really portrays the Savior), out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” The next verse states that He was talking about the Spirit that believers would receive after He was glorified. The Spirit just doesn’t come and manifest Himself if we have not believed on Yahshua the way the scripture has said that He really is. Then the Spirit will make Himself known, flowing and gushing out from within our innermost being like a mighty river. But we must know Him as He is truly portrayed in the scriptures. Those of us who do not come to the full truth of what He is like, who He is, and how He operates, will not have the privilege of the Spirit streaming out of our mouths, pouring out salvation unto this troubled world. We must seek to find out who He really is.

Father is God (Elohim)
We look to Yahshua to tell us truthfully about the Father, for grace and truth came by Him. He shared some major truth about the true nature and worship of the Father in John 4 to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He asked her for a drink. When she hesitated because He was not from those parts, He said that if you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would have been asking Him for the rivers of living water, the Spirit. You would have asked…v. 10. He thought that she should have known that one needs to ask, and it shall be given. He modeled that behavior of “asking” by requesting a drink of her. He was thinking that if she really knew God, how He operates, then she would have asked of Him, and she would have received the Spirit, the living water. And once having drunk of the Spirit, it would have grown into “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (v. 14). It would have eventually led to immortality.

She then gives fleshly, conventional, non-spiritual wisdom as to the way man worships God. She says that her family has always been _________________ (you fill in the denomination, religion, organization, or affiliation). And we’ve always worshipped this way. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. V. 20. “Mountain” denotes a physical location, place, or situation. You say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Again, we see a division into two camps, two traditions, two physical locations, two dogmas. Both are utterly devoid of spiritual truth; both are looking on the temporary fleshly things of man’s concept of worshipping and not His true way of worshipping Him.

The Savior then straightens her out and tells her that the Father is not worshipped in either geographical location. In fact, “you worship what you do not know,” but we know what we worship, for the truth was delivered to Jacob/Israel (v. 21-22; Psm. 149:19). “True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father also does seek such to worship Him (23).” The Father, we now find out, is the one to worship (“We know what we worship…true worshippers shall worship the Father…”). The Father is seeking and searching for someone to worship Him in spirit and in truth. He is aching for someone to cut through all the garbage of false concepts and truly know who He is.

God is Spirit 

In His very next breath Yahshua lets us know more fully who the Father is. God (Elohim) is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. 4:24, NEB. Wait a minute. In verse 23 it is the Father who is worthy of worship and is seeking true spiritual worshippers. Now in this verse Yahshua tells us that God is Spirit and we need to worship this Spirit in a true spiritual manner. Therefore, the One who we should worship is the Father, who is God the Supreme Being, who is Spirit. THE FATHER=GOD=SPIRIT.

Now we have established that the Father is God and that He is Spirit. Yahshua the Messiah is the image, the likeness of the invisible Spirit/God, who is the Father. And all fullness and all completeness of the Spirit (God) dwelt bodily in Yahshua. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. Col. 1:19. Fullness and completeness is all there is. Therefore, all of the Godhead resided in the Messiah. All the fullness of Deity was there inside of him. God (the Spirit), who is the Father, dwelt bodily in Yahshua. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Col. 2:9. “Fullness” is defined as the state of being complete or full. The fullness of a gallon of milk is exactly 128 ounces. If the fullness of that gallon is poured into another container, then all of that gallon is in the other container. There is not any more anywhere else. All of the Godhead was in the Messiah. Yahweh, the Spirit/God of the Hebrews was in the Messiah. That is what made Yahshua the Messiah—all the Godhead/Spirit/Father—dwelling bodily within.

“For there is one God,” who is invisible, who is our Savior, and one mediator between this invisible Spirit-Father-God and men: Yahshua the Messiah. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen…For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour…For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Yahshua Messiah. I Tim. 1:17; 2:3, 5.And this God, the Spirit-Father, “was in Messiah, reconciling the world unto Himself.” II Cor. 5:19. Yahshua is the mediator [#3316, mesites, a go between, a mediator = one who stands between two sides, who is the medium for conciliation between the two]. The two here are Spirit and man. That is why God (Elohim), who is the Father and Spirit, poured Himself fully into a human vessel, and that Lamb “through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God” and thus cleansed our consciences so that we could serve and worship Him in spirit and in truth.

[This is Chapter 13 from my book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality.  For more go to the top of this page.  Just click “Ebook…”]

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June 5, 2010 · 8:24 pm

My Mother’s Prayer and Testimony of Her Vision of One God

God, our Father, please help me write this.  I love You and want to be a good  witness for you.  I thank you for keeping me all these 84 years.

Times have been hard, but I never wanted to give up.  I loved the feeling of your reminding me to hold on.  I am so sorry for the times I was not waiting for your reminders of what you had done for me.

I realized I was in need of more of your truth to be taught to me.  But the others around me were in the same shape as I, and they were not able to teach me more of your truth. 

Through all the dark days and hangups, I finally realized I couldn’t depend on anyone but You.  I realized finally that all of us need those rough times in our lives in order to feel a greater need for You.  Thank You.

As I look back over the past six decades, I’m glad that I kept in your word, for therein is the only true help we can find. 

In the beginning of my journey here on earth with You, times were really hard.  It was the Great Depression.  My mother died when I was two, and without her to guide me, it was difficult.  My dad tried to raise us three little girls.  We were so poor that we had to live in tents in a graveyard at times, living on mostly gravey and bread made by hand.  But we survived.  And we were not the only sharecropper families there in East Texas. 

It was a struggle for our father, but being young children, we didn’t notice it much.  We just knew we were poor.  Later on in life after I came to know You, poor didn’t seem too bad, since Your word taught that we do not “live by bread alone, but by every word” of Your mouth.

As I got older, I wanted to work, but jobs were hard to find.  I got my first job at 15.  That would have been in 1941.  It was working in a laundry in Corsicana, Texas for 22 cents an hour.

Time went on, and I became of age to wed.  So after the War was over in 1945, I married, not knowing what true love was, but willing to learn to be a good wife and mother.  Then you gave me the greatest joy of my life.  You blessed me with a firstborn son.  Right out of your best mold.  Created in your image.  Thank You! 

My son brought great joy to my heart.  When he was five weeks old, we were lying down in the sun, and I was reading to him.  I did not know You or have your word at the time.  My neighbor across the path came over to visit us.  And she spoke to me of You.  I had never heard much about You at 21 years old. 

But You had prepared me to receive Your word from her because of the wonderful thing that happened five weeks earlier at childbirth.  I was under the sleep that the doctor had put me under, and I had this dream.  There was a kind of swinging ladder to heaven, and people were going up this ladder two together, but I was going up alone.  When I reached the top, there was ONE of You holding your hand out to help me get off the ladder.  I then woke up. 

That gave me the truth about there being just one God.  Ever since that day, when I read Your word, I can see one God–even when it reads “and Jesus Christ.”  Once you get the revelation, you can see it.

Well, the great son you gave me also has the truth about one God.  He has a wonderful brain, Father, and I am so happy to serve You with him.

As time went by, I longed for a baby girl.  I so wanted the two children to be not so far apart.  By then I had read about  Hannah and how she prayed for a child, a boy baby.  And God answered her prayer.    So after waiting a year and a half, I knelt by the bed, and I reminded You, Father, that You had given her a boy child, Samuel.  Now I am asking You for a baby girl.  And the very next month she was on the way. 

At that time I was very shy and had never talked to any one about You.  I had studied and gone to church, but I was so shy.  I remember that while I was in the middle of giving birth to her, You stopped everything and asked me if I had witnessed to anyone about You.  And, of course, I said no.  You very distinctly told me that if I was not going to be a witness for You that the baby would not finish coming.  So I started saying, “Yes, Lord.  Yes, Lord, I will.”  And suddenly, I was wide awake, and I asked Dr. Mamulia if he knew You.  He thought for a minute that I was out of my head.  And I said, “But do you really know Him?”

And he said, “No, Louise, I don’t really know Him.”  The nurse was very angry with me, but I was really not afraid anymore to speak out about You. 

The next morning the doctor asked me, “Louise, do you remember what you said to me last night?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Oh, she was just out of her head,” the nurse interrupted.

And then the doctor said, “Oh, no, she wasn’t.”

The night before, after I asked him if he knew You, I crawled off the table with no help.  You made me so strong at the  time.  You gave me a beautiful son and daughter, and I thank you.    [Written by my mother, Louise Billups, last week.  I am so blessed to still have her and be able to talk to her everyday.  Love your mothers while you still can…]

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September 12, 2009 · 11:56 am

In Search of the Ultimate Hero

Much has been said lately about heroes.  And rightfully so.  The rescue workers rushing headlong into the burning towers to save the thousands trapped there come to mind. 

And then we think about our soldiers and marines who “gave the last full measure of devotion” on a faraway battlefield.   Yesterday I attended the memorial service of Pfc. Jonathan Yanney, who was killed in Afghanistan August 18, 2009, by a roadside bomb.  Jon gave up his life for a cause greater than himself and will always be remembered here in our little town as a hero.  And I will remember him, for I taught him in high school and enjoyed his presence, smile, and integrity.  He was my friend.

And so we all are looking for a hero–someone who would lay down their life for us.  That is what touches our hard and, at times, cynical hearts.  We are wired that way–to be touched when we realize that someone was so selfless as to put others before themselves–someone to face the peril of fires and the danger posed by those with dark designs. 

And so it was yesterday that my heart was touched, remembering the 20 year old soldier, who sat in my class just three years ago, and laughed at my antics as I coaxed him and his classmates into learning the lesson of the day. 

And as I sat there in the service, trying to dam up the warm salt water that fell from my eyes, I learned the lesson of the day.  I thought of Christ and realized that He is the ultimate hero.  For He showed us what love really is. 

He had said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (1).  And in order to express God’s nature, which is Love, He would have to “lay down his life” for His crowning creation, Mankind.  That would show them who and what God is. 

But God, the Immortal One, was just that–immortal, and could not die.  So in His infinite wisdom, He anointed a special human being that would house Him fully and would become the sacrificial Lamb of God and mankind’s anointed King of kings. 

This man was the Anointed One, the One appointed by the Father to do a very heroic act.  He would be referred to as Christ–Christos in the Greek, meaning the anointed one. 

Yes, Christ is our Hero.  He showed what love is by laying down His life willingly for us.  It is His selfless sacrifice for others that still touches man’s heart, that still shakes the flimsy foundations of our lives, that still speaks to us 2,000 years later. 

Christ is our Great Hero, for all the prophets testify about Him, that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name (2).  All because He loved us and laid down His life for His friends.     KWH

  1. John 15: 13
  2. Acts 10: 43

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January 28, 2009 · 1:40 pm

“Is Christ Divided?” Asked the Apostle Paul

Obviously  not.  And neither are the true members of His spiritual body, the church.  Yet, in Christendom divisions abound, as they did in Paul’s day.

“We are the true church,” say the Roman Catholics.  “No, we are,” say the Baptists.  “We are the Church of Christ!”  “No, we are following Luther.”  “We are following Wesley.”

Please.  2,600 different denominations, each with a different take on Christ.  Divisions abound.  And they all claim to be following the words of the Bible, yet they do not obey its words: “I beseech you…that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you…that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Corinthians 1: 10).

The same mind.  Whose mind?  The mind of Christ.  Since Christ is not divided, then those who really have His Spirit will not be divided either.  “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom 8: 9).  If we are His, then we will have His Spirit.  And if we have His Spirit, we will have His mind, and we will not be divided.

Because of the divisions, Paul said that he would have to teach them the basics: the preaching of the cross.  This is what is lacking in Christians today.  They have not been taught that they must surrender their own egos to the death of the cross.  They must identify their sin with the dying Christ who took upon Him the sin of the world that day at Calvary.

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.  For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom 6: 6-7).   The old heart dies with Christ, and then He gives us a new heart by faith in His resurrection.  If we can believe that Christ was raised from the dead, can we not also believe that His Spirit is now raised up in us, thus freeing us from sin and sinning?

If all Christians had this experience of deliverance from sin and sinning, then the divisions would evaporate.  We would all join hands in grateful fellowship, sharing His Spirit among us.  For “there is one body, and one Spirit” (Eph. 4: 4).  That one body is Christ’s one body of believers, which have His Spirit.

And that Spirit only comes into us after we believe that our old self  has died on the cross, and then believe that He has been raised up again in us!  That will get rid of all the divisions.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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April 27, 2008 · 12:48 pm

Unrequited Love–The Ultimate Heartbreak

     I have a confession to make.  I cried today.  Unrequited love–life’s great theme seen in our literature, arts, and song.  It gets you every time, this “loving someone and that love not returned in kind.”

     I was listening to Jose Luis Perales and Alejandro Fernandez sing Perales’s “Por que’ esta soledad” (Why This Loneliness?).  I was galloping with the country rock rhythm, at once soaring with the music and yet saddened by the lyrics.  A rough translation of some of the words:

     WHEN I SEE YOU LEAVE AT HIS SIDE/ Cuando te veo ir a su lado/

SMILING SO HAPPY, CARESSING HIM/ sonriendo tan feliz, acariciandolo,

HANGING SHAMELESSLY FROM HIS WAIST/ colgada sin pudor de su cintura…

AND ME, SO IN LOVE WITH YOU/ Y yo enamorado de ti

IN LOVE JUST LIKE THE FIRST DAY WHEN I DIDN’T KNOW THE MOST BITTER SIDE OF LOVE/ AND I ASK MYSELF, WHAT HAPPENED TO US?  ALL THE TENDERNESS I GAVE YOU/

WHY THIS LONELINESS?/  Por que’ esta soledad?

     And at that instant, I thought of the greatest of unrequited loves the world has ever known–God loving mankind, and it not returned in kind.  And that’s what took the catharsis to the next level where my eyes got wet, the tears fell, and the heart broke.

     These words came to mind.  He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not…He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not…(John 1-10-11; Isaiah 53:3). 

     I needed this type of catharsis.  It hurts when our halting overtures of love are not returned in kind.  If we will multiply that pain by one thousand, then perhaps we might get a glimpse into the heart of God, into the ultimate heartbreak.  And that is a good place for us to be.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock     

    

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February 3, 2008 · 7:50 pm

“Doubt Not in Your Heart”–Ripping Off the Shroud

     Belief is the distinguishing characteristic of the sons and daughters of God.  They will just flat out believe God and His word.  Period.  They will rip off the shroud of doubt that lays like a suffocating blanket of death over their own hearts, and they will shout, “No!  He’s alive!  In me!  He is risen in me!”  Because that’s what He says.  That’s what He wants us to believe.

   And then they will look around and see that that same shroud of doubt is smothering their brothers and sisters.  And they will realize that through His truth, God is now using them to peel back the doubt and cast it away.  They will simply believe God and His promises.

     When Christ says, “The Father is in Me,” they will believe it.  And in so doing, the promise of His infilling Spirit shall be kept.  “He that believes upon Me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (this He spake of the Spirit)” (John 7:38).

     The princes and princesses of God will believe that their King divested Himself of all heavenly grandeur and actually walked around here in an earthly body just like theirs.  He died, was buried, and rose again for our justification, sanctification, and glorification.  And by faith–just believing having not yet seen–they will be beneficiaries of His promise. 

     And this promise is that the Holy Spirit, the invisible God, will come down and “abide” in them (John 14:15-17).  “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” (14:23). 

     And by believing His words, the works that He did we shall do also–and greater works shall we do as His sons and daughters!  Why?  Because He said so.  How?  By His indwelling Spirit.  And that’s all we need.  He that believeth on on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do…(John 14:12).

     That’s our destiny.  To just get out of the way and let Him do His work through us–just let Him channel His light and love down and through us to the rest of His creation.  This is our destiny–if we believe.             Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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