Category Archives: faith

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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Filed under belief, faith, Sacred Names, Yahshua, Yahweh

Tagged as healing, power, Sacred Names, Yahshua, Yahweh

February 20, 2011 · 12:19 pm

“God Is Love”–Our Aching Need to Be Loved

Love is the great magnet that attracts us, that draws us to others. We need only to look back in our lives to see that we are drawn to and “like” those who take an interest in us, who approve of us, who make us feel special. We are drawn to people who we believe like us.

We love God because He, who is Love, “first loved us.” When a person comes to the knowledge of His Love for us, then we are drawn like a magnet to Him, even though we cannot literally see Him.

The Universal Need

To be loved by another, then, is the universal need. “Nobody gets too much love anymore,” someone once sang truly. And so it is. To be loved is the need that equalizes mankind. It does not matter if you are rich or poor, black or white, or anything in between–that aching need deep down in our hearts to be loved still throbs and longs to be quieted.

Of course, we speak of the higher love, the divine love, the unselfish love that negates mere earthly lust/love and religates it to the ash dumps of the lowly earth. Many marriages and relationships go out like fading embers because the original fire which ignited it was the false flames of lustful passion, and never did it transcend the “weak and beggarly elements” of those carnal desires.

“Youthful lusts” can never satisfy the spiritual man in the end. And so we continue to look for this divine love, this love from above, which is the only satisfying kind.

God has placed into our hearts this need to be truly loved, and so we seek for it. Realizing that this divine, agape love is God Himself is a life-changing revelation. For we then will see that the love we crave from everyone we see can only be satisfied by Him who is Love itself. We seek love from God’s image–human beings–instead of from the source of Love–God Himself.

And how does this God, who is Love, reach down and touch us and give us the wonderful feeling of being truly loved? How does an invisible Spirit (Love) reach down through the ether and show us His heart of Love?

He does it through His visible Son. The greatest love that one can show is to give up his life for others. Does it not touch our hearts, bringing tears to our eyes, to see reports of firefighters, policemen, and soldiers laying down their lives in efforts to save another? These we call heroes. “Everybody’s looking for a hero.”

But the ultimate Hero is God-in-human-form, God’s Son, called Jesus in English and Yahshua in His original Hebrew language. God loved us so much that He yielded up His son, the only perfect man, so that we could feel what true love is and respond by doing likewise. Christ is our example. He provided the way at the cross for us to get rid of our selfish little heart and receive His heart of love. And that same Spirit of Love now is shown through us. God wants us now to give up our selfish lives in service to the King and to His subjects, our fellow human beings.

This is it. This is the answer that mankind is seeking for. For we all seek to be loved. Now we must realize that we are loved by God, who is Love. And now we share this love. Mankind must channel God (Love) through their actions to others.

Tapping into this Love transforms us into the loving and the loveable. The change is astounding. We become that fountain of loving waters that quenches other people’s thirst to be loved. In so doing, God is multiplied and magnified by Love’s very transformational spiritual properties.

Perhaps you have already started this change. We now are left the challenge to “go onto perfection,” perfecting His love within us. We do this by loving. For Love is an action verb, not just an idea/noun. Now let Him give His gifts to others through us. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Tagged as agape love, love

July 11, 2010 · 2:24 pm

His Faith–Once Delivered to the Saints

We have seen that we are to look upon the invisible things and not on the things that are seen with our earthly eyes. Faith is one of those spiritual things that is invisible. But there are many misconceptions as to what faith really is. Everyone has their own imagination as to what faith is.

But faith is an invisible spiritual thing that has already been given to God’s elect. It is a special gift from Him to His future sons and daughters that will help them grow up into Him.

It is the “faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Faith is a spiritual commodity that has been delivered to the people of God. Who delivered it? The Creator Yahweh did. Faith is not something that has to be mustered up by us His people. We rather must receive it from Him. It is something that originates from out of His nature and is given to us. “For every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.” That includes faith.

It is His faith that is transplanted into our hearts. It is not something we manufacture out of our own will and effort that leads us to finally believe in Him. His faith in us is the first part of His divine nature to enter into the human heart. But what is it exactly? Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1.

“Things hoped for…” What does Yahweh hope for? What are the desires of His heart? What has He purposed? Long before we were ever born, He saw us in our down-trodden state of sin and misery. He also saw us rise with Him by His Spirit to vanquish sin and death in our lives. He believed that this was a reality—that this was substance—having not yet seen it come to pass. He believed and so therefore spoke and said that it was so. He believed the best about us and His plan—not having seen the evidence yet of its fruition. We as changed individuals are evidence that the invisible Supreme Being is real. We are His witnesses that He is God. And if He believes in His work in us before it comes to full fruition, then we should, too. He is our example.

His divine nature is positive, full of faith and power. All of His promises are “yes.” Nothing negative flows from His heart. He is positive; His attitude is positive. In fact, He calls those things that are not, that do not exist as yet, as though they did exist. He said that He will be all in all eventually. We should then, right now, begin to walk around as if He already is all in you and me. This will take belief that “it is no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me.”

He is positive, giving “life to the dead and calls that which does not exist as existing.” This is He. This is how He thinks. He is positive about His capabilities. He has absolutely no doubt about His reserves and His resolve to get done what He wants done. And what He wants done is the multiplication, the reproduction of Himself, within His creation. He is an invisible Spirit; He wants to see Himself in action in human form. This is the witness that He talks about in Isaiah. We are to be His witnesses that He is the invisible Spirit/God. His faith believes that not only we can change, but that we will change—that we are changed! He seeks people to worship Him in this spirit and attitude and in this truth. He needs people to worship Him in this way—to believe the way He believes.

A key scripture regarding the nature of His faith is Romans 4: 17. It sometimes is advantageous to read it in several translations. God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. KJV. God, who gives life to the dead and calls that which does not exist as existing. The Scriptures. God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. NIV. God who brings the dead to life and whose command brings into being what did not exist. TEV.

Nothing good exists within us—except His Spirit, if so be that we have received His Spirit. By believing that He is—not only that He exists, but also that He is where He hopes, intends, and expects to be—in us.

Tapping into this faith of His will bring His Spirit down into us. You cannot receive the Spirit by just keeping the law, or trying your best to keep the law. Human effort in trying to keep the law (the ten commandments) will not bring His Spirit down into us. The work of our selves, of our flesh, profits nothing in the end. After all, it would be just us trying to accomplish a spiritual law made for a spirit to keep. It is the spirit that makes alive…the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak, they are spirit and they are life…Does God give you His Spirit because you observe the law or because you believe what you heard? Gal. 3: 2. NIV.

Paul is trying to tell the foolish Galatians that no amount of us trying to keep the letter of the law will bring His Spirit into us. Trying to keep the law in our own strength will never perfect us. Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? 3:3.

No. We shall receive the Spirit by believing what we heard—by faith. We have to be like Abraham, who believed in the promises without wavering. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. 3:6. Abraham believed the promises. But what promise? “I will walk in them and will be their God and their sins I will remember no more.” Hebrews 8:12. The promise we are to believe is the promise of God giving us His Spirit.

Some of us are so afraid of being like “them”—the mainstream denominations with their cheap grace. But Yahweh is saying to us that you are not like them. You have respect to my laws and ways and precepts and you know my name. But although your conscious effort to keep my laws and honor my sabbaths are good intentioned, that alone should be the fruit of the state I want you to be in. And that state is a state of your old nature not being there in the temple of your body, but rather my Spirit, my presence. I have promised you my Spirit, my presence. That is all you need. When I am there in you, I’ll keep my laws in you. If any man have not the Spirit of Messiah he is none of His. You do not have to worry about that. My servant Paul kept the feasts and preached law keeping. He forbad sinning. Shall we continue in sin that grace (favor) may abound? God forbid. Romans 6:1-2.

It is absolutely not the way to go to try to keep the torah and 10 commandments without first seeking to receive the promise of His indwelling Spirit. The law, the torah, was given 430 years after the promise to Abraham—the promise that God would live in us and help us live righteously and godly. And the law cannot “set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise…” (Galatians 3:15-18, NIV).

What was the purpose of the torah (the law)? It was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. We are that seed—rather Christ in us is that seed. When we believe, the seed germinates and grows within us. The promise is receiving His Spirit by believing that He has given it to us—as we follow on in His steps.

We do this by faith. We do this by believing His word about His faith, His nature. His faith works both ways. If He has confidence in us before we ever bring forth the fruit, then we should believe in Him even though we have not seen Him in the flesh. This is our trial of the faith. Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. I Peter 1:8.

And during the time of our sojourning here on earth, we are to add His divine nature to the faith that He has delivered unto us. His divine nature is built upon His faith. No wonder not many have added it, for they have tried to add it to their own faith in Him instead of adding His divine nature to His faith. Peter says that we are “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

The Word is the seed. And that seed is growing in us by us believing His word that says that His word is growing in us. This is the faith once delivered to the saints. This is the way He thinks about His power to change our lives—by His Spirit. Now we walk in His faith/belief when we believe the same thing about ourselves that He believes about us. That is His faith. That is His faith which was once delivered to the saints. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[This is Chapter 19 of my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God. To read more go to the top of this page. Just click “Ebook…”]

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Tagged as divine nature, faith, torah

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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Tagged as baptism, death, ego, faith, resurrection

March 21, 2010 · 3:43 pm

Abraham, Father of MANY NATIONS–But Which Nations Are They?

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The Lost Tribes of Israel have to be in the earth today. They are only lost to those who do not have an ear to hear and an eye to see.

Scholars say that after being taken into captivity around 720 B.C., they were totally dispersed and never heard from again. They say that they melted into all of the other peoples of the earth and that they no longer exists as the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (whose name was changed by God to Israel).

That simply cannot be true, for many prophecies in scripture say that these descendants of Abraham would become nations. And not just any old run of the mill nations either. For Abraham was told by God, face to face, “Thou shalt be a father of many nations” (1).

But Abraham had just one little problem; his wife was barren and he had no heir to fulfill this prophecy. And he was running out of time, for he was about 100 years old, and his wife Sarai was 90 and well into menopause. It was difficult to believe, but “he believed the LORD (Yahweh); and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness (2)

From then on, God looked on Abraham as His righteous son. Here is the first seed lesson of what God’s faith can do–just believe God–the thing hardest for man to do. And in that same passage God gave him and his offspring all the land from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates.

Now, he just had to get this family started. Still no first born son…until that day when God yet appeared to Abram again. This time God made a covenant with Abram. In fact God changed his name to Abraham, “for a father of many nations have I made thee.” Many nations. And I will be your God and “establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant,” or agreement (3).

And it was then that God blessed Sarai and changed her name to Sarah, meaning “princess,” and told her that He would give her a son “of her,” and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.”

And their miracle son that God promised them came a year later as spoken. And they named him Isaac. And this great promise of nations and kings was renewed by God to Isaac. And then Isaac blessed his son Jacob with these words: “And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land…which God gave unto Abraham” (4).

Later God appeared to Jacob to renew His covenant of nations with him. “And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins”.

Who are these “many nations”? “Declare if thou hast understanding.” In the seed book of Genesis, prophecies spoken by God to Abraham declare that he will be the father of many nations. Can we discover who these nations are? Did not Christ say, “Seek and ye shall find”? Can we read the other prophecies about these nations that developed out of the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel and come to the knowledge of just who these nations are in history?

Scripture cannot be broken, for God cannot lie. He spoke of many nations out of Abraham. This could not be the Jewish Israeli state, for it is only one nation, and the Jews have not been a nation since 70 A. D. But it was “nations.” Christ spoke of the “Lost sheep of the House of Israel.” They are so important that He said He was only sent to them (6). We must find out, for they are the key that unlocks the prophetic utterances for these last days. KWH…to be continued

1. Genesis 17: 4

2. Gen. 15: 6

3. Gen. 17: 7

4. Gen 28:3-4

5. Gen 35: 11].

6. Matt. 16: 24

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Tagged as Abraham, Christ, christianity, end time prophecy, Lost Sheep of the House of Israel

December 20, 2009 · 8:39 pm

The Armor of God–Conversations With the Seer

(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)

“The last time we talked, you mentioned the armour of God. I have been thinking about it a lot lately. And I’ve been studying it out. But I’m really having difficulty grasping what it means, ‘to put on the whole armor of God.'”

The Seer smiled at me and said, “It is difficult to grasp the heavenly things with a mind that is thinking on an earthly plane, and next to impossible to comprehend spiritual things with a finite mind. It is difficult to understand because of unbelief.”

“But I believe,” I blurted out.

“You want to believe desperately,” the Seer said. “I will grant you that, and that is good. But wanting to believe and actually believing are two different matters. Belief in the armor’s efficacy brings the ability to grasp its power. It all goes back to trusting in His word.”

I was really confused now. “Well, what is the armor of God exactly?”

“First, the armor is spiritual. The apostle likens it to literal devices like shields, armor, a breastplate, a helmet, and a sword. Through this extended metaphor, we take away the idea of a spiritual, protective layer. It is the armor of God (Eph.6: 11-18). And God is Spirit [1]. He is also truth. Therefore, it is the armor of the Spirit and truth and light. And we are to ‘put on the armor of light [2].'”

“And what is light?” I asked.

“Light is the life of God. If you want to see light, then look at the Light in action by studying Christ. Because ‘in Him was life; and the life was the light of men’ [3]. God dwelt in the Son of God fully [4]. God is life and ‘this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life'” [5]. When we truly receive this truth in our hearts, then we receive the secret to answered prayers [6].”

“Wait a minute. I didn’t get all of that. Let me see if I got this right. God is the Spirit of Truth, which is light and life. And the fullness of life and light dwelt in the Son of God. And if we believe that, then we receive the same light and life of God, too.”

“That’s right,” the Seer said. I don’t know if I was seeing things or not, but his smile radiated a glow of inner light. He continued, “For, you see, since God dwelt fully in Christ, if we reject the Son of God, we reject the Father, as well, because the Father was inside the Son” [7].

“But how does all this tie in with the armor of God?”

“The armor of God is not some equipment that God possesses that He wants to give to us. No.

“The armor of God is God Himself! It is a spiritual protective covering comprised of the invisible Spirit of God Himself. Since His Spirit is truth, when we know and then believe the truth, we are believing God. And by believing, God comes down into us. When you believe the truth, the truth (God, Spirit) takes up His abode in us, and we become one with Him. In other words, by believing all this truth how that the Father dwelt fully in the Son, giving light and life to the world–this truth is God, and through faith or belief of this truth, the Spirit of God comes into our hearts and minds. This is the armour of God–God’s Spirit in our hearts and minds.”

We just sat there for what seemed an hour. Finally I said, “I understand it now, but why haven’t the preachers told us about all this?”

“The only part of the apostle John’s writings they quote is John 3: 16. They stay clear of the rest of his gospel and his three letters to the churches.”

“But why? Why don’t they preach it?”

“Either they don’t know what is in John’s writings or they don’t have it in their hearts because they don’t believe it. Either way, they will have to give an account to God about it. I would like to think that the vast majority have not been taught these truths. They have been taught old leaven from a hundred years ago. There is no new light in them. They are still preaching what their grandfathers did in the 1950’s, and they are proud of that fact. Spiritual stagnancy is equal to spiritual bankruptcy. However, ‘when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth’ [8]. But there I go quoting more of John’s gospel–the part they don’t like to read or quote.”

“He will guide you into all truth?” I asked.

“It is the ‘unsearchable riches of Christ’ [9]. ‘All truth’ are these unsearchable riches. And if those preachers are not leading their flocks into more and more astounding and fresh truth, then it is safe to say that the Spirit of truth does not reside in them. Because that is the sign that a person has the Spirit of truth. At least that is what John said. And I’m sticking with him.”

“This is a lot to take in,” I said.

“We will save some for later,” the Seer said.

“There’s more about the armour?”

“It’s the unsearchable riches. Remember?”

John 4: 24
Romans 13: 12
John 1: 4
Colossians 2: 9
I John 5: 11-12
I John 5: 14-15
I John 2 23
John 16: 13
Ephesians 3: 8

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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Filed under belief, faith, light, prayer, princes and princesses of God

October 16, 2009 · 4:25 pm

Conversations with the Seer–Heirs of God and Joint-heirs With Christ

(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)

I asked the Seer, the Teacher of Righteousness, “The Scriptures say that we are now heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (1). How do we become that?”

“It is all in Him. For in the end He will be all in all (2). We must decrease; He must increase in us to the point that He is all (3). At that time it will only be Yahweh in His fullness walking around in us here on earth. There will no longer be any more ‘us’ involved.”

“We will cease to exist?”

“In essence, yes. For we now have the same testimony as the early apostles when we say, ‘It is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me’ (4). We now live by His Spirit of the anointed truth dwelling within our new hearts.”

“How does this happen?”

The Seer looked into my eyes and on down into my heart, searching for sincerity. Having found it, he answered, “It is by faith. By believing, having not seen as yet.”

“How do we step out in faith?”

“We must reckon it so. We must count it as done (5). The Creator has revealed His truth to us. He has said that our old sinful lives are a thing of the past. They are crucified with Christ on the cross. We must reckon it so by faith in what He said, even if we don’t understand it fully. The understanding and comprehension of how it happens takes place after we reckon it done.”

“You mean, Just like that! Reckon it so and it is done?”

“When we reckon the truth of God accomplished in our lives, we are merely doing what God has already done. For He had faith first in His own plan and ability to accomplish it in our pathetic little earthly lives (6). He gave us this destiny before of old, before we ever came forth from our mother’s womb. He knew us and pre-destined us for this very purpose: to work out a glorious future in our lives, guided by His very Spirit” (7).

“So we count it done in our lives?”

“Whatever He said in His word concerning our walk with Him on this earth–we have merely to believe it by reckoning it done by His Spirit, not by our own power. And He will, like He did for Abraham, account it unto us for righteousness.”

“Abraham, the father of our faith.”

“Yes. But why was he the father of our faith? Because he believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness by God (8). God said that He could live a righteous life right here on earth, and Abraham just believed Him, and it was so. Many promises are made by God to His people, but they don’t believe it, and therefore, it never happens.”

“Like what?”

“Man’s wisdom teaches that a person cannot stop sinning, but the Spirit spoke through His apostles and taught the opposite. The truth says, Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin (9). Man limits God’s power through his unbelief in what God said. They have no faith. They believe what fearful and unbelieving man says and not what God says. They believe that man is still a sinner because they teach that natural man with his old Adamic heart retains that old heart after his ‘conversion.’ They never get to the root of the problem. They never get old Adam to the cross where their old heart can die with Christ.”

“But they say that they believe God.”

“Yes, but their words betray them, for they only say, and do not. They do not believe the simplest of His words, ‘With man it is impossible. But with God all things are possible’ (10). Even to live a righteous life. For you see, we must realize that Christ was made to be sin for us (11) so that we could recieve His Spirit and walk with Him. They don’t teach the truth of how we must identify our old sinful heart with Christ that day, die, and through faith in the operation of God that raised up Christ from the dead, walk in a newness of life–new in that it is a life that is free from sin and sinning (12). When He died, our old self died and the sinful core of our being with it.

“Since they never teach the truth that old man Adam dies out at the cross, then they can’t fathom a person living without sin in their lives. When actually it is no longer our original sinning self that lives, but now the Spirit of Christ that lives in these mortal bodies! This is what they don’t believe.”

“So then, those that don’t believe this first principle cannot be the heirs of God?”

The Seer looked at me and smiled. “Precisely. A vessel cannot inherit God while still thrashing selfishly about the earth, interested only in pumping up their own ego.”

“The heirs of God, then, reach that spiritual plateau through humility.”

“Precisely,” said the Seer. KWH

[If this has blessed you, please make a comment, bookmark this site, pass it on to someone else, or subscribe to this blog]

Romans 8: 17
I Cor. 15: 28; Eph. 1: 23
John 3: 30
Gal. 2: 20
Rom. 6: 11
Eph. 1: 12
Eph. 1: 11
Gal. 3: 6
I John 3: 9
Mark 9: 23
II Cor. 5: 21
Col. 2: 12

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Filed under crucified with Christ, death of self, faith, humility, perfection

Tagged as belief, Christ, christianity, faith, heirs of God

August 25, 2009 · 12:19 pm

Without Faith It Is Impossible to Please God–But How Do You Walk in It?

Faith. Belief. Without it, we will never please the Creator, which should be our foremost thought.

If we are only alive to please our selves, then which god are we serving? For make no mistake about it, to quote Dylan, “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

And the only way to serve the Creator is by faith. We are shut up to it. Why? Because God is invisible, and since He is an invisible Spirit, we must believe Him, having never seen Him with our eyes. And that takes faith.

And then someone will say, “Well, I believe in God. I must have faith and am all right, then.” Not exactly. For even the devils believe in one God and tremble (1). The prophets tell us that we must believe on Him “as the scripture has said.” The “rivers of living water,” which is His Spirit, will only flow out of those who believe on Him the way the scripture has actually portrayed God (2).

How to walk with God by faith

Every step we take on our spiritual pilgrimage back to our Father is done through faith. The first step is the renunciation of our old sinful life. God commands that we put it to death on the cross with Christ–not literally, but spiritually. We have to let it die in order to receive a new life and a new heart. “We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (3).

The scenario goes like this. Some will get sick and tired of doing bad things (sinning) and can’t in their own power stop. Their conscience bothers them. They want to stop sinning, which is breaking the ten commandments, but an evil unseen force overtakes them, and the good they want to do, they cannot do. And the evil things they don’t want to do, they can’t stop doing (4). This is the state of an unregenerated human being prior to the cross experience. His old nature is still present. So how does one put the old sinful heart on the cross to die with Christ and then to be “raised to walk in a newness of life”?

The Reckoning

How do we do it? How do we let the old self die and our new life in Christ begin? We reckon it done by faith/belief. We have to “reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ” (5). We’ve got to reckon it done! The word “reckon” is #3049 in Strong’s. It means “to account it, to count it as such.”

God wants us to reckon it so, but He does it first! He has already reckoned our change done. When we believe Him, then He counts us righteous in His eyes even in our imperfect state. It is His nature to “call those things that do not exist as though they did” (6). If He is this positive, then He would want His children to be the same.

He wants us to follow in His footsteps! God “accounted” righteousness to Abraham because of his belief—before Abraham was righteous! “Accounted” here is the same word as the one translated “reckon.” We are commanded to RECKON some things done. Now we have to reckon our sinful self gone—by belief—as though it were already done—for that is how God looks at it! By belief! Reckon it done through Him and His faith. He said it. Let it be done. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Rom. 4:3. Yahweh imputed or reckoned to Abraham the ability to live in a upright manner, keeping Yahweh’s laws and not sinning, by just believing that Yahweh had done it! We make it so hard through our hard heart of unbelief. He is looking for childlike faith, the belief of a small child. All we have to do is just believe that Yahweh has provided a way for us to actually put the old life to death and start living a new life in Him.

The Churches Won’t Touch This

But the “Christian” denominations don’t believe it is possible. The pastors won’t touch this, for it will get them fired. The people in the pews don’t believe it, for they have been told all their life by those very pastors that they are sinners and that they will die a sinner. The pulpits present no hope of ever really changing the heart. The “deliverance” they preach is window dressing. Just come to church, pay your tithes and offerings, and don’t rock the boat. But the people in the pews still sit there in their private sins, undelivered. But the future sons and daughters of God will long for more and will come out of her.

They will take this first step by faith, by reckoning it done. Then, by faith, they will take the next step, and the next, and they will begin to walk in the Spirit.

But someone will say, “But we just can’t live without sin.” Of course , we can’t. That’s why we have to die on the cross with Christ and by faith receive a new heart, His heart, His Spirit. We who do this have the victory–victory over sin and sinning. For if we are still sinning, where is the victory? Our faith is our victory (7).

But we have to want this new life. We have to pant after it like a desperately thisty deer. We have to throw ourselves upon His mercy and break–break our hard hearts, and so He will come and comfort and heal us by giving His very Spirit into us, giving us a new heart.

Our part is to believe that “with God [in us] all things are possible.” Even to live a life without sin and sinning. Impossible, you say? Not with Christ, for He said, “And nothing shall be impossible to you…All things are possible to him that believes” (8). And again, “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God” (9).

Somebody is going to pick up the Book, believe its contents, and change the world. By faith. And He wants it to be us. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

James 2: 19
John 7: 38
Romans 6: 6-8
Romans 7: 15-20
Romans 6: 11
Romans 4: 7
I John 5: 4
Mark 9: 23
Luke 18: 27

{You can read more on this in my book, here: http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yahch30.htm

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Tagged as belief, cross, faith, new heart, sin

August 4, 2009 · 11:41 am

Christ in You–The Treasure in Earthen Vessels

Every stimulus that bombards our five senses works to prevent us from glimpsing the true Light. It is no accident that this happens; the great Creator made it this way so that His spiritual offspring would have spiritual struggles to overcome, thereby making them stronger. This is His doing and not ours; we would not do it this way. “His thoughts are not our thoughts.”

It is the overcoming of sin that lies at the heart of the Christian experience. Man’s thought says to us, No one can stop sinning in this life. This is pure self-projection, for the scriptures of truth speak otherwise. They speak of a deliverance from sin. “He that is dead is freed from sin” (1). And, “He shall save His people from their sins” (2). And “He that is born of God does not commit sin, for His seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God” (I John 3: 9).

This is what actually distinguishes the children of God from the children of darkness. I have written extensively about the “cross experience.” For it is there that one must come and surrender their old sinful selfish ways and just let them die with Christ, who bore them there; and be buried with Him, and be raised with Him. Or rather, through belief in the “operation of God” that raised Him up, we also can be “raised to walk in a newness of life” (3). This is “where old things are passed away,” where “all things are become new” (4). This is bottom line.

For it is His Life that counts. He doesn’t want a re-directed, re-furbished, re-cycled old selfish life. No. Our old life has to completely go, completely die out. He wants His life taking root and growing up in us. And finally, God wants His Spirit, the Spirit that is in Christ, to grow and flourish inside of us to the point that we become just like the Son of God. There it is. That is His plan and purpose. But only a few will have the faith to believe it and walk in it.

This is the secret kept from the foundation of the world–the secret that all seekers have wanted to know down through history. It is the treasure kept hidden in plain sight in this old world, a vast spiritual chest of knowledge much more precious than gold and diamonds. “And few there be that find it” (5).

Why? Because one cannot find this elusive spiritual treasure when moved by selfish motives. For one will not be given the map to find it if one seeks it selfishly. “Only the pure in heart shall see God” and His purpose and plan to reproduce Himself.

One can even read about this treasure in plain English, like you are reading this right now, and if their eyes have not been anointed with eyesalve, they can read the words, but the message will lay thud-like on leadened ears.

Here, then, is the secret of this “sacred mystery which up till now has been hidden in every age and every generation, but which is now as clear as daylight to those who love God. They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendour of his secret plan for the nations. And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come” (6). And those things include His government and righteousness filling this earth–precious things that we, His children, the overcomers will inherit. He is our Father; therefore, we are His heirs, heirs of all things!

But before all this happens, we have to get over ourselves and realize that we are nothing; it is all Him, all Christ. Once we receive that, we can find rest. KWH

Romans 6: 7
Matt. 1: 21
Romans 6: 4
II Cor. 5: 7
Matt. 7: 14
Col. 1: 26-27

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Tagged as christianity, cross, faith, kingdom of God