Category Archives: glorification

August 20, 2009 · 12:26 pm

“Repent and Be Converted”–Returning to Our Previous State with the Father

“Repent and be converted…”  How these words of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost have been watered down by mainstream Churchianity today.  “Repent” has become “feeling sorry,” and “being converted” now means “coming to church.”

“To repent” is rather the changing of one’s mind, from the Greek word metanoia.  “Godly sorrow does work repentance.”  Ie, feeling sorry for our past sins to God will bring about a change in our thinking.  But for the mind to really be changed, we must go through the “cross experience”  whereby our old heart and mind are “crucified with Christ,” buried with Him, and finally raised up in newness with Him.  We then receive His Spirit, His heart, and His mind.  We then are poised to be “transformed by the renewing of our mind.”  Old thoughts of selfishness are “passed away.”  “Behold, all things are become new.”

Being Converted–What It Really Means

“Converted” is from the Greek word epistrepho, meaning “to revert, to return, to come again” (1).  “To return” inherently means that we were there before.  “To return to St. Louis” means that we have been in that city on a previous occasion.  Therefore, “being converted” to God means returning back to Him–reverting or going back to a spiritual position we had with Him before.

Truly becoming a child of God means that we have received His Spirit.  For “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8: 9).  We become a “new creature” with the Spirit we had with Him in the beginning now residing in our earthly bodies.  “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”  And this treasure is a portion of His Spirit, a bit of Him that we shared with Him before the worlds were framed.

If We Can Just Believe…

I know that is “getting out there,” but if we can believe  that we are returning to a spiritual state that we already had with God, then it will become easier to believe that we now have the great Eternal Spirit, Yahweh Himself, walking in us now.  For things are always easier to do, if we have done them before.  Can we with humility say, Been there, done that?

The Returning Prodigal Son

In the parable of the prodigal son, he returned to his Father.  He was once with his Father, but went to the swine pens of this world.  We, like him, have made a complete mess of our old lives, and are now returning, reverting to our prior position with the Father.  We are the prodigal sons and daughters of God, repenting from our old life and being washed from the slop and mire of sin.  We now in spirit have returned to our Father to the standing we had with Him before this wearisome walk on earth began.

“The Jews took up stones again to stone Him.”  Christ asked them, Which good work from my Father are you stoning me?  They said, Because you make yourself out to be God and you are only a man.  Christ then quotes from Psalms, “Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods”?

The word “gods” is translated from the Hebrew word elohim, which is the exact word translated “God” over 2,000 times in the Bible.  Christ said that we are elohim.  That portion of His Spirit that He has given us was with Him in the beginning.  Remember when He said in Genesis, “Let us make man in our own image…so God created man in his own image” (1: 26-27). 

But we must not make the mistake in thinking that our old man Adam is God.  No.  Our old self must die, thereby blotting out our sins.  Only after believing in His resurrection can we receive His Spirit.  It is His Spirit that is God.  We are mere clay vessels that He has chosen to reside in.  It is all Him, not us in our natural thinking. 

This is difficult to comprehend when we look at this “after the flesh” and not “after the Spirit.”  Most still circle that same old mountain of sin in their lives, not believing that God is quite capable of “blotting out” our sins (Acts 3: 19).  Most will not believe Him and truly repent of their sins.  Sadly, most will not believe that “He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin” (I John 3: 5).  Their preachers don’t teach it, and most will depend on them for their spiritual food.

But a few will believe and repent and follow on in the Way.  They will receive Him into a new heart, and they will grow, and He will grow in them, “till we all come in the unity of the faith…unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4: 13).  These will be His fully manifested sons and daughters of God in these latter days.

We need to help them fulfill their calling.  In so doing, “there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior” (2 Peter 1: 11).

Repentance and being converted to Christ has a deeper meaning than some think.  But knowing and doing the truth about them will bear fruit.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock 

(1) Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for epistrephō (Strong’s 1994)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 17 Aug 2009. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G1994&t=KJV > 

“converted” —  http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/translationResults.cfm?Strongs=G1994&Criteria=be+converted%2A&t=KJV

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August 15, 2009 · 2:27 pm

Conversion to Christ–Just the First Step Towards Glorification

God’s offspring, His future manifested sons and daughters for these last days, will realize that conversion to Christ is just the first step on their spiritual journey back to their Father’s heart. 

Their conversion, yes, is an astounding miracle performed by the Spirit of God, whereby their old heart is cleansed from sin and sinning, as they stand before the King justified by their faith in Him and His power to change lives.  This true conversion experience is giddy-wonderful, filling our souls with an inexplicable peace and love.

Charles G. Finney  described this experience of justification in his memoirs: “I felt myself justified by faith; and, so far as I could see, I was in a state in which I did not sin. Instead of feeling that I was sinning all the time, my heart was so full of love that it overflowed. My cup ran over with blessing and with love; and I could not feel that I was sinning against God. Nor could I recover the least sense of guilt for my past sins. Of this experience I said nothing that I recollect, at the time, to anybody; that is, of this experience of justification” ( http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/conversion.html ).

Justification (just-if-I’d never sinned) is truly wonderful.  It is our ticket to Immortality and a Life in the presence of the King of the Universe.  But it is just the first step.  And it is here that many “babes in Christ” remain, for they are taught that this is all there is by well-meaning, unenlightened teachers. [For more see https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/the-manifested-sons-of-god-overcoming-the-law-of-sin-and-death/ ]

“Be Converted”

The sons and daughters of God will see that conversion is something even more grand than justification.  Being converted to Christ sets our feet on the path “to the glory we had with Him before the world began.”  Through it we revert back to what we had with Him before the worlds were ever created.  We are “called unto glory and virtue.”  After being “justified by faith,” we are to “sanctify ourselves,” setting ourselves apart for His purposes.  In turn, those who become sanctified may enter the rarified realm of glorification.

Yes, a few of His followers will be glorified, just as our example was.  The apostle Paul wrote of “the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  A few will complete Christ’s spiritual life-cycle; they will “suffer with Him” now, that they “may be also glorified together” (Romans 8: 17-18).  Yes, some of His followers will grow to the point that they will be “glorified together” with Christ!  You can read it in plain English in any translation; they all say the same thing. 

These that are “glorified together” with Christ are manifested sons and daughters of God (v. 19).  This is the “high calling.”  There is no greater calling on this planet than to be one of these.  For they will “sit with Him on [His] throne” and will become “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rev. 3: 21; Rom. 8: 17). 

Suffering With Christ

But this calling is only to those who “suffer with Christ.”  They must first suffer their own crucifixion, allowing their old self and old heart to die with Christ on the cross; to be buried with Him into His death, and by believing His resurrection, we believe that we are raised from the dead, from the death sentence caused by all our past sins.  We then receive His Spirit by faith.  This is justification (Romans 6: 1-16).

We then must suffer the Spirit of God to “purge out the old leaven” from our thinking.  We all in our old lives have been taught erroneous doctrines and teachings.  Coming off of these things that we were taught and believed our whole lives is difficult, but very necessary.  Difficult because of what friends, family, and acquintances will say.  We will suffer rejection from loved ones as we make a stand for truth.  They will not understand and will try and talk us out of our newfound beliefs.  It is all in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.  All false doctrines and concepts must be gotten rid of.  This takes much prayerful study.  This also takes humility to learn from someone else who knows the way and has been sent to help teach the future sons and daughters of God.  This is part of the sanctification experience, the second leg on our journey.  Only those who make it through to the end of this process will go on to glorification.

All this is a process that yields an astounding spiritual transformation in a few good men and women.  They will do the “greater works” that Christ spoke of (John 14: 12).  They will shine as “lights in the midst of a wicked and perverse nation.”  The darkness is thick, but God, who is light, will pierce the darkness through, and will bring in a wonderful new government to earth.  And these manifested ones will rule and reign with Him.  Incredible, I know.  But that is what The Book says.      Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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