Category Archives: immortality

January 18, 2014 · 4:24 pm

The Five Offices of God–For Our Perfection

Unto man has God “put in subjection the world to come.” Man. That’s us, brethren. In the world to come, the next age, the time in the history of this earth after Christ’s return to rule it for a thousand years—God has ordained that some of us human beings will be rulers with Christ in the government that He will establish (Heb. 2: 5).

To rule and reign with Christ in His kingdom/government—that is the high calling. Brethren, are we ready? Have we grown spiritually that we would be strong and pure enough to take on that mantle of responsibility for the King, to be His administrators, His regents, His arms and hands, His heart and mind in the myriad matters of ruling the King’s earth?

To help us fulfill this “high calling” of God, Christ came “that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (2: 9). And Christ will be made complete and perfect by His act of “bringing many sons unto glory” (v. 10). And this glory is us being glorified, which in turn brings final glory to the King and Master. Christ will be fully glorified when He fulfills His final destiny, which is bringing His chosen ones to full spiritual maturity.

He did say, “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). We are the “much fruit” that He refers to on the road to His glorification (v. 23).

And because we, Christ’s followers, have come out of the matrix of “flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same.” Why? So that He could pave the way for our immortality, made possible by the destruction of the devil. Christ destroys the devil when He destroys sin in our life and gives us a new life by faith (Heb. 2: 14). That’s the foundation to build the temple of God on. Since we are His temple,that is where we start.

And Christ brings us to that full mature spiritual growth by sharing His Spirit with His body of believers. He shares His Spirit with His teachers, and they then impart the necessary knowledge to Christ’s brethren, for “He is not ashamed to call [us] brethren (2: 11).

Why God Gave Us the Five Fold Ministry Offices

In fact, Christ set in His spiritual body of believers five offices: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And Christ established these offices “for the perfecting of the saints [the brethren, us], for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4: 11-12).

Let’s savor this a moment. God has chosen out from among all the Christians in the world a few to be in these offices. Why? What is their purpose? First, they are necessary “for the perfecting” of the members of Christ’s church, which is His body of believers. The Greek word (G2675) translated “perfecting” here means “to be fit, prepared, to be mended and repaired, and ethically, to be complete and perfect, and to make one what he ought to be” (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/lexicon.cfm?strongs=G2675&t=KJV).

The true offices of God will help us by the Spirit within them to become prepared, ready and fit to assume the duties in Christ’s kingdom—royal duties to be assigned to us of our Father. For this is really the “work of the ministry” that Paul refers to here. The “ministry” of Christ is the administration of His government that will fill the whole earth, according to the prophet Daniel in 2: 44 and 7: 18: “But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.” That’s a long time to be in the presence of the King of kings (that’s us with the little “k”). And we “shall take the kingdom and possess it forever.” We. Us. Ruling with Christ the King.

That’s the gospel, my brothers and sisters. That’s the good news that man needs. Getting rid of the corruption caused by the sinful hearts of the leaders of this present world system and replacing it with righteous rulers who contain the Spirit of Christ in their bosoms. That’s the gospel; that’s the good news. It is the “gospel of kingdom” (Matt. 4: 23; Mark 1: 14-15). But how the gospel has been watered down at best by preaching only a tiny portion of His plan! How it has been poisoned by the preaching of false concepts like the prosperity doctrine! Well did the prophets cry, “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, Saith the LORD.” And, “My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray.” But then He promises finally, “I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer 23: 1; 50: 6; Ezk 34: 2; Jer 3: 15).

How Long Will They Teach Us?

These Spirit-led apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in our day will continue to teach “till we all come in the unity of the faith” (Eph. 4: 13). They through the Spirit will teach His pure concepts until we Christians are on the same page, until we have His vision. They will teach by His Spirit until the body has the true “knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man” (4: 11).

They will continue to teach the truth until we are fully grown, walking in the Spirit like Peter, James, John, and Paul did after the Resurrection. “Perfect” here means a completed spiritual life cycle growth. They will teach until we all have the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (v. 11).

But don’t just take my word for it. We must prove all things through study and prayer to see if the things expounded here take root and grow in our hearts—to see if this vision of a royal heritage quickens like a seed in warm rich soil which loses its lonely first state and dies, only to be reborn as a green lively plant nourished by the living waters, alive now to reproduce itself, as the Creator has reproduced Himself in us.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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December 14, 2013 · 3:55 pm

The Royal Destiny of God’s Elect

King David is looking up at the dancing diamond lights in the heavens and writes, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?” [1]

You, God, who created this vast expanse of stardust whose beauty causes us to gasp when we take time to look up—how incomprehensible is Your love for us! You, the Master of the Universe, who controls the destinies of a billion stars and their planets, why would You even think about us down here in the clay pits of the earth? And yet, You think about us all the time.

Your mind is full of us; we occupy your thoughts. And You have “crowned us with glory and honor.” Really?

Really? Glory for homo ignoramus? Honor for man who frets and struts his petty little ego around the yard of his mind? God has crowned man with glory and honor? Man, who grasps at vainglory all the days of his life, earnestly desiring to be the center of attention, does not realize that he is the center of God’s attention. But man wants the glory on his own terms and not his Creator’s terms. And therein lies the problem.

For man in his natural state will die, for God has “made him a little lower than the angels” for the suffering of death in hope that man would turn to Him for life, the crown of life.

Some Will Literally Wear a Crown

For those who can believe it, God has crowned us with glory and honor. God speaks here as though things already were fully actualized. A select few will wear a crown placed upon their heads by God Himself! A crown is made for and is only worn by royalty.

And this is no “hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king” [2]. No, these crowns placed upon God’s elect sons will be their immortal reward for their humble service to their King.

For in the Kingdom of God soon to literally come to this earth, no one will “tell sad stories of the death of kings.” For these kings will be immortal, ruling in their “house which is from heaven,” their new spiritual bodies. Immune from death, they will “rule and reign with Christ” for a millennium, and they “will be strong and do exploits in the land.” They will be like the patriarch Joseph in Egypt, their type and shadow. They will be the administrators and judges and rulers filled with the Spirit of God.

These are God’s elect, His chosen ones in this last generation before He returns to earth. They are the 100 fold spiritual fruit bearers, spoken of by the Master in Matthew 13’s “Parable of the Sower.”

They are the “five wise virgins” who had oil in their lamps and knew the times and were prepared for the Master’s return, unlike the five foolish virgins [3]. The ten were Christians all, but only the former group were accepted for the high calling.

The Overcomers Are Coming

“Many are called, but few are chosen” [4]. What distinguishes the elect from Christians who don’t mature? They will have overcome all things and endured all things and will have added to their faith those attributes of the divine nature that the apostle spoke of (II Peter 1: 4-7).

They are coming. Thousands will break through the suffocating conventions of churchianity and armed with the knowledge of their destiny and how to arrive at it, they will overcome all of the roadblocks and purify themselves with the cleansing power of the Spirit.

These overcomers have a stupendous destiny to fulfill. It is a future forged in the fires of Yahweh’s creative energy, fired like fine pottery to make vessels of quality, vessels worthy to contain the fruit of God’s ultimate vintage, His Spirit.

And these elect chosen ones will walk humbly with their God and with mortal men. For God requires the utmost humility, and only a few thousand humans in this age will be counted worthy to “go on to perfection” [5].

These are the elect of God—His princes and the future monarchs of His kingdom. To these God will delegate authority during His 1,000 reign of peace, for they will have proven themselves worthy of this glory and honor. Just like King David said earlier, they have been crowned “with glory and honor.” For “they were redeemed from among men” [6].

The Plot of a Fantasy Novel

These few words about them serve as a preface to a book being written now, a book whose working title is The Destiny of the Chosen Ones. In its pages the plan of God reads like the plot of a 1,000 page fantasy novel. It is fantastic if you look at the Bible story with fresh eyes and take it at face literary value.

Picture it. The Supreme Being in another dimension/world desires to reproduce Himself. But He happens to be an Invisible Spirit/Force of Love. And the greatest love in the universe is laying down your life for another.

But the Supreme Being, this wonderful Force of Love, cannot show His great love because, well, He is invisible, and He is immortal. He can’t be seen, and He can’t die for another.

So He first creates a prototype vessel, composed of Spirit, that looks like what will become a human being. He creates a world, a planet called earth, and He forms Adam’s body out of the dust of this planet. And Adam and His offspring are mortal.

The plan is that these mortal men are to be redeemed by their Creator from a life of bondage to an evil spirit being. This fiendish adversary has seduced these mortals into committing selfish dishonorable acts all their lifetime. And they are mired in a pit of degradation until they are lifted up and saved by their Creator. He does this by incarnating Himself in a body, a son of Adam, that can die. He then suffers death for their ransom, thus demonstrating the greatest Love—to die for another. He raises from the dead, and He buys them back and delivers them out of the pit of despair, and they remember no more their guilt for past iniquities.

And He cleans them up and trains them in the wise ways of the prophets of old who were placed in the earth to preserve the path that leads from death to everlasting life.

And these redeemed ones apply themselves to the teachings of the apostles and prophets who were sent in earlier ages to light the way to immortality. And they now believe with grateful hearts what their Master has prepared for them, and they grow in this newfound belief.

And they set their sights on this new vision and quest of becoming one of the Master’s princes. They humble themselves and learn the true teachings, enrolling in the School of the Prophets, and it transforms them. Old petty thoughts and desires melt away like tired and dirty snowbanks in the afternoon sun.

And that same sunlight begins to shine through their lives, and love and care for those still in the chains of darkness begins to grow until one day they hear a knock on the door. And they ask, Who is it? And the voice says, I am come to speak with you. And they recognize the voice as their Master’s, and they open the door, and their Master comes in, and He breaks bread with them, granting them His ultimate stamp of approval. He grants that they sit with Him on His throne [7].

That’s the destiny of the overcomers. That’s the destiny of the kings of the Kingdom. That is The Destiny of the Chosen Ones.

How Will We Know?

But one will ask, Who of us will these future kings be? Who will He choose? For we know that “few there be to find this way of truth.” The way to mortal mediocrity is broad and wide and many will enter it [8]. And the path to His immortal throne is narrow and fraught with spiritual sufferings that the masses will choose to not go through. These are the very sufferings that are used by God to burn out the dross in the lives of His chosen ones.

So who will they be? And how does one know that they are chosen? One thing is certain; you can’t work for it and earn it. It is a gift from Him. Christ gives us the answer. “He that has ears to hear, let him hear” [9]. Some will have their ears predisposed to be able to understand this high calling that He is speaking about, and some will not. Those that do, He is telling them to take it in and hear it and do it. For “unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them” it is not given.

If all this makes sense to you, then you may be one of those called to His throne. It will take a massive overcoming for us. Part of that overcoming is outlined in the growth levels we are to overcome in the seven church ages. Each of these overcomings are prefaced by this call: “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches: To him that overcometh…” (Rev. 2 and 3).

I would like to think that some of us reading this right now may be these future monarchs.

  1. Psalm 8: 1, 4-6
  2. Shakespeare, Richard II
  3. Matt. 25: 1-13
  4. Matt. 22: 14
  5. Hebr. 6: 1; Rev. 14
  6. Rev. 14: 4
  7. Rev. 3: 20-22
  8. Matt. 7: 13-14
  9. Mark 4: 9, 11

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October 5, 2013 · 3:45 pm

The Vision of God–Let Us Speak of Eyes

Vision is not man looking through his own eyes at God executing His will on earth. Nor is it us looking through God’s eyes. But rather vision occurs when God looks through our eyes. When our eyes are but His oculars through which, unclouded by the stains of earthly wisdom’s tainted presumptions, He assays His creation, and broken-heartedly sees the need for justice, love, and mercy. And He sees that from these three pools of water must He now use our hands and hearts to minister moisture to a parched and famine infested land.

For “where there is no vision, the people perish.” Where no man gives his eyes that He may peer our sad present world, then the vision is dim and the people suffer. But after He has made His abode in many, then in the presence of choiring angels He at last will stride forth across the domain of His kingdom here on earth, righting wrongs held seething in hearts for ten thousand years.

But first, those called to surrender now the regal aspirations for their selves, their dreams of their own greatness must be abdicated and thrown on the dung heap, as our brother Paul has admonished. For in comparison to their calling to be one of God’s sons, seated fittingly on the throne with Christ, their present vainglorious dreams do futilely fade.

For the dreams of mortals are not worthy thoughts for the immortal children of the Immortal King. Surrendered eyes, directed by allegiant hearts bring vision to the earth. For the King will then see through our unencumbered eyes the needs across the land. The need for love and balm and a gentle touch to heal the sores of many nations and peoples will He bring through the unveiling of His offspring. For they are His princes and princesses, full of His Spirit, soon to be immortalized with their “house from heaven,” their spiritual body.

In preparation for that glorious day, these elect of which we speak must educate and consecrate themselves by holding to John Baptist’s adage. They “must decrease, and He must increase.” The Spirit must increase to a point that it would no longer be them that looked out of their own eyes, but the Spirit of Christ.

To be fruitful and attain this heavenly vision, the elect must add attributes to God’s faith within them. Outlined in II Peter 1, these are not spiritual things about God, but rather are integral aspects of His divine nature that when added, He will then feel welcomed to come into us and make His abode with us and look through our eyes.     KWH

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September 21, 2013 · 4:19 pm

Immortality–Bringing “Life and Immortality to Light”

To live on.  To not have to die.  It is the common thread tying almost all cultures, religions and philosophies together.  Is it not what every nation has clamored for?

The furtive longings of a billion souls from a thousand civilizations have whispered their desire for it.  The baked clay tablets of Mesopotamia speak of it.  Fragments of Egypt’s fragile papyrus pages still share the dream.   The Gilgamesh Epic of Babylonia around 2,200 B.C. chronicles the hero’s quest for immortality.  The ancient Greeks thought that immortality was attained through courageous effort on the battlefield.  Shakespeare imagined immortality coming through the longevity of the lines he wrote.  The Philosopher’s Stone, with its lead-into-gold alchemic dream, symbolized transcending our leaden mortal existence into a golden immortal elixir of life and rejuvenation.  Time would fail us to include the Egyptians’ mummies, the Indians’ nirvana, and on down to our present day where actors and directors try to immortalize themselves in celluloid.

Each of these attempts have flickered and failed.  But the thirst for immortality will not be quenched.  Is it not the most important possession one could ever attain in this life?  To live on and silence the tears shed at your passing.  To trump and triumph over Death.  To laugh at Death’s rude intrusion into all you hold dear.  To negate Death’s mayhem.  To expose him to be a liar when he says that your expiration date is a welcomed conclusion to the human condition, and his boast that he is a friend to the infirm and decrepit.

And Then a Man Came on the Scene

Though a universal longing, all these attempts have collapsed in the dusty halls of darkness.  And then a man came on the scene some 2,000 years ago–a man said to have “brought life and immortality to light.”  He brought good news, announcing the way to conquer death.  He would know, for He defeated Death.  For He was raised from the dead Himself after “three days and three nights” in the grave, seen by hundreds of witnesses.

“After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1: 3, NIV).  He taught them during that time how to become citizens of His immortal kingdom.  In a word, He taught them how to become immortal.  He, of course is the Savior of mankind, known to the English speaking world as Jesus Christ and known to those very early disciples as Yahshua, which means in the Hebrew, Yah is the Savior.

He shared His Hebrew name with the Hebrew patriarch Joshua, the Anglicized rendition of Yahshua.  Many biblical scholars admit that their names are interchangeable [http://www.blbclassic.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2424&t=KJV].

In fact, the angel of Yahweh told Joseph to name Him  “Yah is Savior” because “He shall save His people from their sins.”

The Words He Spoke…

Now many have a problem with Him, but all that know of Him will at least say that He is a wise man, a great teacher, and a prophet.  If He was such a great prophet and spiritual teacher, then why don’t those same people believe His words?

And it is the words He spoke about life and immortality that tests us in our search.

What did He teach?  He taught us that the Father Creator is an invisible Spirit, that He is Love, that the Father has a kingdom and a government, that there is a way to enter that kingdom of God and become the children of the Father God, and that He and only He is the way to eternal life, which is immortality.

He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No man comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14: 6).  Anybody who comes up another way is a “thief and a robber.”

He also taught a duality–that there was an enemy Satan, who has a kingdom here on earth, and that he and his evil spirits are warring against God and His children’s kingdom.

Christ taught that sin is the breaking of the Ten Commandments (I John 3: 4-6).  And we humans break the law early on in our lives because of the old nature we are born with.  And He taught that it is this sin nature in us that causes our death.  We are mortal because of the sin within our hearts.  Sin brings on death.  Plain and simple.  “But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin” (v. 5).

“He shall save His people from their sins,” said the angel.  He “takes away our sins,” says the apostle John.  So if Christ takes our sins away, then we are free from sin, which opens up the way to immortality because it is sin that brings on our death.

Summing up, Christ “has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light” (II Tim. 1: 10).  He has “abolished death.”  He has abolished death by abolishing sin in our lives, and thus, He brings immortality to us.

He came to “save His people from their sins” by destroying sin in their lives.  But how does He do this?  It is through His death, burial and resurrection.  He took on our sins upon His sacrificial body, and He died.  He died, we died; our old sinful self died.  He was buried; we were buried.  He raised from the dead; we are raised from the dead–by faith in His resurrection [for much more on how He takes away our old sinful heart, see Romans 6: 1-12 and https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/life-out-of-death-the-ultimate-paradox/ ].

So the Savior destroyed the sin in our life, and thereby destroyed death, thus bringing “life and immortality to light.”  He destroyed sin and death, “for the wages of sin is death.”  Destroy sin and you destroy its after effects–death.

But He also said that most would not comprehend and do His teachings.  He said that broad is the way that leads to destruction and many will enter that wide gate.  But narrow is the way to eternal life, and few will find it.

And that last clause–“and few will find it”–should give us great pause.  He said, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  Oh, to be one of His chosen, chosen to sit with Him on His throne, helping Him rule the nations during the greatest reign of peace this earth has ever seen–ruling alongside of Him for 1, 000 years, ruling as one of the immortal princes and princesses in His kingdom.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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August 24, 2013 · 7:39 pm

The Elect–The Key to Understanding Christian Growth

These words I write, though now published and available to all everywhere, are really intended for a certain few.  Those are the few who are able to perceive the things of the Spirit, for not all can.  The Master spoke “to him that has ears to hear, let him hear…”  He was speaking to those who had ears that could understand His sayings.  For it is given to them “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them–the vast majority of mankind–it is not given at this time (Matt. 13: 11).

The Savior talks a lot about “the few.”  He said that “few” would find life (Matt. 7: 14), that the laborers for the final harvest are “few” (Matt. 9; 37), and that “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22: 14).  Interestingly, here we have both the “few” and “the chosen” in the same passage.

These few that He speaks of are the elect, His chosen ones.  Some take offense at Christ’s words.  They don’t like it when He says, You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bear much fruit (John 15: 16).  The chosen ones will bear “much fruit.”  The scriptures speak of Christians bearing three amounts of fruit: fruit, more fruit, and much fruit (John 15: 1-8).

To the worldly ear, trained up in the all-inclusive ways of our post-modern politically correct society, the Master’s message about His elect falls like another tired stone in the unenlightened pond of prejudice.  But God says that “my ways are not your ways.”

God has revealed His way in the “scriptures of truth,” and a few will without pre-conceived ideas and pre-judged beliefs about what the Bible actually says in black and white–those few will walk with Him in white during the last go round, the time of the end.

So these words are about those few, in all probability many who are reading this now.

Though many millions are destined to believe on Him and bear fruit in these last days, only a few thousand will  be chosen by God to bear “much fruit.”  These are the 100 fold fruit-bearing elect.  The elect are chosen by God for a special calling: “to not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom” (Matt. 16: 28; Mark 9: 1; Luke 9: 27).

The elect’s calling is not only unintelligible to the masses; they just will not believe that it is possible.  They will not be able to believe it because they have swallowed the insidious error-filled teachings of the false prophets and false teachers “who have brought in damnable heresies” that have subverted the faith of the many (II Pet. 2: 1).

But the elect will be led by the Spirit into all truth (John 16: 13).  And a big part of the truth is this concept of the elect, who are forming His company of many sons and daughters to be manifested in these latter days.

The key that unlocks this mystery, thus enabling us to believe these truths about His chosen ones, is understanding the Parable of the Sower and the different levels of Christian growth found therein (Matt. 13).  Some Christians will remain “babes in Christ,” little children in their spiritual growth, bearing only what Christ calls “30 fold fruit.  Some will grow to be stronger spiritually; these He calls “young men,” bearing “60 fold fruit” (I John 2: 13).  And then a few Christians are called and chosen to bear “100 fold fruit.”  They are the ones that the whole creation is “groaning and travailing” for.  They will do the “greater works,” greater even than the Son of God [His words, not mine], for there will be a few thousand of them raising the dead and healing the sick, and preaching the kingdom of God.  Understanding this is the key, Christ said, to unlocking all the mysteries contained in the parables of God (Matt. 13).

The elect, the future manifested sons of God, those who will do the greater works, they are forming right now.  God is speaking to their hearts, calling them out, preparing them through the joys of revelation and the despair of heartbreak and betrayal.  For “all things work together for good to them that love God, and who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8: 28).

They can’t help it.  The mighty hand of God is moving upon them just like He moved on Moses, David, Gideon, and all the patriarchs and prophets and apostles.  “No man takes this honor unto himself,” as Paul said.  “It is God’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”  The elect will not be the mighty men of this earth according to the flesh, for “He has chosen the weak things to confound the mighty” (I Cor. 1: 27).  We will be powerless, and yet possessing the reins of the very seat of the Power of the Universe.  It’s all Him.

And the elect, the chosen few, will “make their calling and election sure” through the study and prayer of a grateful heart (2 Peter 1: 10).

We may not fully realize it yet, but the stage is being set for the exciting climax of the Book of Life, poised to begin as we write this.  For the elect, the chosen ones of God, are its protagonists.  They are the living word of God, incarnate and living out what the Author and Finisher of the Book has written of them.  The stage is set; the curtain will rise shortly on the last act.  The players are learning their lines–Satan and his men, and God and His sons.

It is going to be good, for we have already read the script.  We win–in Him.

May God bless you all, that we might be used to bring Him glory during this final act.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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June 24, 2013 · 1:22 pm

Be Still and Know that I Am God–After the Heartbreak

It has been a bumpy ride for most of us who have been called by God to be His children in these last days.  Most of us have been a part of a church, fellowship, or Christian organization that did not end well.

On our trek to the Celestial City, we stop at way stations until sometimes we are forced to move on to our next ordained experience.  Through much anguish and tears we often leave the fellowship of Christian brethren.  So many congregations have split and fractured, along with our own hearts, and we are left wondering why.

Why, God?

Why, God?  Why did it end the way it did?  Disillusioned and hurt some thirty years ago, my family and I stumbled into the next phase of our life.  I could not understand how the Christian brother that had helped me find Christ and His deliverance from drug addition was the one who ran me off fourteen years later.  My world was shattered and torn, and I wandered aimlessly, listlessly, not seeking succor from God at all.

After five years in which my wife Linda and I finished our Bachelor degrees and teaching certificates (for we knew we were called to be teachers), a kind of a spiritual renewal of sorts began in my heart.

Any of us who have gone through a rocky spiritual transition have horror stories, and I wince for all who endure these disillusioning changes.  God is not forgetful, however, of our sufferings; He knows that betrayal by those you love is the sharpest knife.  Of course, few of us know at the time that “all things are of God”—even the betrayal of His loved ones, us.

And yet our initial question persists: Why, God, did it have to end?  Five years after the breakup, I started to get an answer to this question.  It is God and what He’s doing in the earth, and it has not ended.

For me, that initial phase of spiritual boot camp had ended, but God was not through.  Then, as a babe in Christ, I needed a drill instructor to prod and push me to serve God the way they thought He should be served.

No, His love for us was not expended.  That good thing that He started in us all shall be performed with His help.  He’s not finished; us trying to serve Him by constraint is.

Maybe that’s why it took me five years to start to put some things together.  No one was prodding me anymore to seek God.  The mentor, tutor and governor was gone.  The words of the old song came to mind: “You gotta walk that lonesome valley.  You gotta walk it by yourself.  Nobody else can walk it for you.  You gotta walk it by yourself” [chorus of “The Reverend Mr. Black” sung by the Kingston Trio].

It was up to me and God.  Only now it was better because of the knowledge base we had been taught.  And I was taught among many things, these two things:  “If it is a plan of men, it will come to naught.”  And, “Prove all things.”  Don’t take anyone’s word for it.  Prove it out in the word with two or three witnesses.

It had been five years of wandering (at least it wasn’t forty), and it was now time to reprove everything.  I had to find out what went wrong at the “mission,” that way station that we served in for fourteen years as everyday missionaries during half of our twenties and most of our thirties.

So where does one start to pick up the spiritual pieces and examine every one of those pieces?  I decided to begin my meditations at the beginning: God, His plan, and His purpose.

Be Still and Know that I Am God

That very winter night in January 1990 I laid out under the stars and marveled at Orion and Cassiopeia and the Little Dipper and witnessed the evening star bright in the west.  And realized that every star was just where it was five years ago.  They had all hung there like dazzling pinpoint paintings on the walls of heaven, immutable, constant, symbols of God Himself.

And my dog Zack, my faithful “chopped ’57 German Shepherd,” was there, seeing only me.  He couldn’t appreciate and take in the stars in all their orderly glory.  It wasn’t for him to know anything about the heavenly realms and who created them.  That was my domain.  His was to know and love me, and he was content to accompany me into the field and lay with me in the grass while I mused about the Creator and His creation.

And it was then that I realized the very special place in the creation that man has—the thing about us that makes us so special above all other beings on the face of the earth: man is the only creature specifically made to not only appreciate God, but also be like Him.  I had known that, but hadn’t thought about it in years.

The utter simplicity of it.  Lay down, look up, be still and know that I am God.  Do not corrupt the simplicity of Christ.

The simplicity.  “God is a Spirit,” and “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

And there I had found my starting point in reproving the teachings and doctrine of Christ.  I would no longer blindly take the word of someone without proving it out first.  His word speaks of a time that you would have no need that a man teach you, for the Spirit of truth shall be with you and dwell in you.

God is an invisible Spirit of love and those born out of this spiritual essence are spirit.  I would now study the scriptures with no preconceived dogma, doctrine, or ideas.  I would study it much like I did as an English major–reading the literary works as they are and telling it like it is without prejudice or preconceptions.  I would dig deep and build it on the Rock, looking unto the eternal things and not the physical, temporary things.  The quest in earnest had begun.

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May 18, 2013 · 2:16 pm

Believing the Resurrection in Us–How the Holy Spirit Comes Down Into Us

The everyday pressures and the stress of just living on this planet causes us much grief.  The demanding bosses, the irate public, the disgruntled co-workers, the incessant bills, and the constant drain of having to deal with earthly things all day long is just too much to cope with.  With all this confusion going on, the children of the King begin to feel like spiritual paupers instead of heirs to the throne.

Yes, the Father allows this to happen to His children because He wants us to finally get our fill of it and call upon His name for deliverance.  He has made us “subject to vanity.”  He created us, in other words, in our original earthly state to feel the futility of living on earth no matter how much material wealth we may have.  “All is vanity and vexation of spirit.”  Simply put, we’ve got to get sick of it.

So enough of this world’s insanity already!  The answer?  God, we need more of Your Spirit working inside of us.  We need more of Your love abiding in us so that we can return love to those who slight us out here in this world system.  We need more of You in us, more of your Spirit welling up in love, joy, and peace.  We need You, God, to fill us like you filled your chosen people in the days of the early church.

Yes, that is our need, but how do we get more Spirit into us?  What did You say in your word about this?  It all boils down to believing in the Resurrection.

Paul lines this out in Ephesians.  He is saying to them that through God’s mercy, which is based in His infinite love towards us, He has made us alive where once we were dead in sin.  He has done this through the power of the resurrection of Christ.  When the Father infused that dead sacrificial body of the Lamb and raised him from the dead, all sinners who believe this were raised up together with Him.  “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ…and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Yahshua Messiah” (2:4-6).

This miraculous turnaround from the darkness of sin and sinning to light and righteousness in a person’s heart can only be realized through belief. [I know what some are thinking: “We’ve been hearing about the resurrection and righteousness and sin and belief all our lives in church.  You are not telling us anything that we don’t already know.”]  If what we’ve heard all our life were enough, then why are we so weak spiritually?  Why aren’t we walking in the joy and victory that God has promised those who follow Him? Why?  “Because of your unbelief,” the Master said.

The transformation to power in our lives is by believing what God said about the resurrection and us—that if we believe that our old life died with the Lamb 2000 years ago, that if we believe that we were buried with Him, and if we believe that God raised Him up out of the grave after three days and three nights—if we can just believe this, we can also ourselves be “raised to walk in a newness of life” (Romans 6:4-6).

We are delivered from depression and death by believing what He said He did through the resurrection and how it regenerates our hearts and consciences.  For His Spirit comes into us by believing the truth of His word to us about our being raised up with him to walk in a new life.

A new life is what He has promised us.  However, if we are still thinking the same way we did before our experience with God, if we are still doing the same things we did before our “conversion,” if we still are the same earthly-minded person, then how is that a new life?  How does it differ from the old?

Let’s cut to the chase.  If we are still lusting after women, how is that a new life?  If we are still desiring another person’s material things, how is that new?  If we put our own self before others, how is that new?  If we are breaking any of the commandments, then how is it a new life?  We were breaking them before we came to God.  So what has changed?

If we are still sinning, or breaking the Ten Commandments, then we have not died, been buried, and been raised from the dead-in-sin.  We have not actually believed it yet. Our need is for the Spirit of Christ to live in us.  But how do we abide in Him and He in us?  “That Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith…” That the Spirit of God may live in our hearts—but how?  By just believing it!  It is God’s word!  It is the truth!  Believe it before you feel it.  You have to believe it first!  Then the evidence of the reality will come.  The trouble is that unbelief is such a part of the human condition, the human heart, that we have trouble believing what we see.  “I can’t believe my eyes,” is a common statement.  God is asking us to believe before we see.

We attain this righteous state not by us trying to be righteous and keep the law.  No.  It is a gift from God.  We cannot attain the righteous state by working for it.  Faith attains it and then the works we do with the help of His Spirit within witness to the fact that He in us is righteous.  “By grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).

Actually, we in our newness of life, in our newly received righteous state with Him, are a product of His work—not our own work.  “For we are His workmanship…” (v. 10).  And God’s work through His own faith in us is good.  He said, “Let there be light, and there was light, and He said it was good.  We are His doing, His creation.

He definitely knows what He is doing.  He through this new life derived by Him raising His chosen ones up with the Messiah—He has through this new life created a new creation—the second Adam, the second man.  And He has created us in Christ unto good works (v. 10).  I repeat: We have been created in Christ with the expressed purpose of producing good works.

Not some good works through us and some bad works.  No.  He has spiritually created us anew “unto good works.”  We need to believe this.  He has not created us unto bad works or corrupt works.  No.  He has made us in our new life to bear good fruit.  The Master said, “ A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bear good fruit.  You will know them by their fruits.”

“We are his workmanship, created in Yahshua the Messiah unto good works” (v. 10).  And the kicker is that God has already foreordained for us to walk in the spirit and thereby do these good deeds.

And this great treasure-life is opened to all that our God has called.  For He took all the sin of the whole world upon Himself and became sin for all of us, and when He died, all of the sin of the whole world died with Him.  That’s your sinful heart and my old sinful heart.  And by His shed blood we all were brought close to Him.  So close, in fact, that all who believe this and respond are “one new man” (Eph. 2:15).  And all believers, whoever they are, through Him “have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (v. 18).

And we all are spiritually built upon the “foundation of the apostles and prophets, Yahshua the Messiah Himself being the chief cornerstone.”  We are a building made by God Himself, built on this foundation.  He is building us up; we are growing into “an holy temple in the Master, builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (v. 22).  God will inhabit us His temple.  He will live in us through His Spirit.

Later Paul reveals the mystery of how God is opening up His Spirit to come down on whomever can receive it—be they Gentile or Israelite.  Paul prayed (Eph. 3:15-19) that God would grant to the Ephesians power and strength by His Spirit in their “inner man.”  Power, strength, and might, Paul knew, were needed in the spiritual new creation within the heart of each new believer.

And this strength was to be given how?  How do believers receive this strengthening?  “By His Spirit in the inner man.”  But how does this spiritual power come from His Spirit into our inner being?  It comes by faith.  “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.”  This spiritual anointing comes to us by us believing it. Because He said it, spoke it, and His prophets wrote down His inspired words about the power coming, we need only to believe that He is good to His word about Him giving us more of His Spirit.

We have to believe that the invisible Spirit is giving us strength, and now is the acceptable time for this to happen.  We’ve got to believe it before we feel the strength.  Believe it because He said to believe it, and the strength and power will come.  “All things are possible to him that believeth,” the Master said.  “Have the faith of God,” He also said.  God believes it already about us; why shouldn’t we?

He said in Eph. 2:21 that we are the spiritual building of God, and we are in Him and He in us, and we are growing “unto an holy temple” of God.  This strengthening that He does on us in our inner man is the growth of the Spirit with us.  We grow in His love in us, and we grow spiritually out to others.  This spiritual growth ends up with us being “filled with all the fulness of God” (3:19).

We are to finally through humility “grow up into Him in all things” (4:2).  We are to be “renewed in the spirit” of our mind, “putting on the new man” wherein we walk in love and forgiveness one to another.

Paul is saying that by believing it so, we can walk in His Spirit.  We can leave the pride and arrogance of the old life and walk as obedient children.  His Spirit can live within us and can grow in us—if we believe.  For it all happens by faith—by believing what He said about it.  That is what makes it so.  It is not believing in something that is not there.

This new life that God has declared is already a reality in His eyes.  Our new life in Him is not an illusion, some figment of our imagination.  No.  Our new life in His Spirit is a reality already spoken into existence by our God.  We need only believe that it is real. Through us believing it, we actualize it and witness it.  It is like the priests with the Ark of the Covenant stepping out upon the Jordan River and the waters peeling back for them that they go over on dry ground.  God said it; they believed it, and they achieved it.  A miracle happened that day at the Jordan River.

And a miracle was done in our hearts when we believed that He had taken the old one out and had given us a new one.  This is how miracles are done.  Miracles will come through believing that they are already foreordained to come.  The disciples asked why this impotent man was lame.  Was it his sin or his parents sin that put him in this pitiful shape?  The Master said, No, because of neither, but that the glory of God could be seen when he was healed by one of God’s believers.

This is not believing this life of strength and power into existence.  No.  This new life He has for us is already in existence.  Our new life in Christ’s Spirit already exists.  It is His with Him.  When we believe His resurrection, that power is witnessed in us again and again.  We then have the witness within our own selves.  This is a miracle of transformation.  Let the miracles continue.  Let us all walk on, believing what He said He would do for His children and through His children.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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April 12, 2013 · 5:33 pm

Forgetting Those Things Which Are Behind–Answering the High Calling

Life is a paradox.  We must forget our past before we can fully remember what we had with God before the world began.  The future manifested sons and daughters of God will have to do just that.

For us there is only one thing left to do in this old world.  Once we have seen through the confusion and subterfuge and lies put forth by the powers of this world, what else is there to do but put all our energy into becoming God’s offspring.  What prevents us from growing up into Him are the memories of the past life that intrude into our minds every day.

Consequently, to answer our calling, it takes a forgetting, a conscious determined effort on our part to see our past carnal lives as mere childish attempts at chasing the wind.  We must realize that God designed it all to happen.  Our selfish first lives on earth are futile attempts at happiness, and they are fruitless and vain.”

Why design it that way?

God designed it that way in hopes that we would turn to Him to fill the void.  Many have experienced this already.  We finally became weary of fighting the constant bombardment that the enemy dropped on us.  And so we began looking for something more substantial than the usual band aids of alcohol and drugs, churches and civic organizations, clubs and hobbies.  The elect, the ones God has called and chosen for a deeper walk, will tire of these way stations in life, for they will not give them the peace that they long for.

God has designed this scenario to draw His chosen ones.  And make no mistake; He does the choosing.  Remember Christ’s words: ‘You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you’ (1).  This is personal to Him.  And He should be very personal to us, for He is very much a part of our lives.  And someday we all will realize that He is our life.  That is what we are striving for, and that is why we are to forget the old life we once led–the old haunts, the old memories, the old doubts, the old misgivings.  He has forgotten those things about us; now He is waiting for us to forget them.  “Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more, ” (Heb. 10: 17).

How do we forget the old life?

We’ll learn to forget from the apostles of old who are our teachers, for they saw and listened to the risen Christ.  Even the apostle Paul, as he said, “And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time” (2). These apostles heard Christ speak

about the kingdom of God (3).  We must realize that it is all about the kingdom of God.  We in our new lives in Christ as His elect chosen ones in our day–we are about the kingdom of God.  Or should I say, the kingdom of God is about us its future kings!  In fact, because the Spirit of the King of the Kingdom lives in us, we are a part of the Government of God that will soon come to this earth in a fullness.

The future kings?

Yes.  Its future kings!  For Christ is the ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.”  And we are the offspring of the King of glory, which makes us princes and princesses (4).  We are to think on these things.  That will help us to forget the past.

For it’s all in the mind.  That is the battleground.  That’s why Paul the apostle said, “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (5).  We forget the past and all of its futile implications when we pursue the goal of sonship and daughtership.  No greater calling.  That is the pinnacle of human development–being the manifested sons and daughters of God.  We simply must fill our minds with these thoughts, which are the steps along the way to sitting with Him on His throne” (6).  For He said, “To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”

“To him that overcomes…“  Overcomes what?  We must overcome being lukewarm toward God, of being smug and self-assured, thinking that what our “works” in service toward God and men is sufficient. Many in the end time generation believe both spiritually and materially that they are “rich and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and they are not aware that they “are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev. 3: 15-17).

This lukewarm spiritual state must be overcome before Christ will grant us to literally sit with Him on His throne.  Many people who consider themselves Christians will be left out in the cold.  For they did not buy the “gold tried in the fire…and white raiment and the eye salve” to cure their spiritual blindness (3: 18).  Yes, it costs to obtain these things needed to prepare us to rule with Him in His kingdom.  It costs our old lives.  And only a few will make it.  Very precious few will pay the price to arrive at the inner circle throne room of God.  “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it”(7).

In short, we forget the past by remembering the future–our future: the reign of Christ, the immortality He promised us, the throne that is there to pursue for His sake, the destruction of all evil, buying the spiritual gold, white raiment, and the eye salve–these things and more–thinking on these things will help us forget the past and “press on for the prize of the high calling.”   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1. John 15: 16

2. I Cor. 15: 8

3. Acts 1: 2-3

4. Rev. 17: 14; I Tim 6: 15; Psm. 24: 8-10

5. Phil. 3: 13-14

6. Rev. 3: 21

 

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February 2, 2013 · 7:47 pm

Adding Patience–Enduring All Things

We are admonished by the apostle Peter to “add to our faith” certain divine attributes, calling this procedure, “partaking of the divine nature.”  Yes, right now, we are to do this.  When would he expect us to add these things–after we die?  No, “now is the acceptable time.”  Now is the only time.  Whatever we humans are going to do in our fragile fleeting existence on this planet, we better do it now.

And some of us have been called to “partake of the divine nature.”  “Something (or Someone)” is pulling us, leading us, and yes, even commanding us to seek a higher path.  And so we seek that better way.  And some of us begin to see that that better way is Christ, for He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14: 6).

And some of us now are seeing that we are to become like Him.  That is right.  For we are told by the apostles to “let this mind be in you that was in Christ” (Phil. 2: 5).  And, “Let us go on unto perfection” (Heb. 6: 1).  In fact, the Savior Himself commands us to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5: 48).  “Perfect” here is from the Greek word meaning “full spiritual maturity.”

Our perfection, our maturity in the Spirit, is the main reason that the scriptures of truth have been preserved for us.  “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…that the man of God may be complete (perfect), thoroughly equipped for every good work” (II Tim. 3: 16-17 NKJV).

So how do we arrive at perfection (completeness)?

Our completed growth in Christ is brought about by adding to our faith the attributes of the divine nature that Peter admonishes us to do.

Compared to instant messaging and world wide telecommunications and instant mashed potatoes, the steps toward full spiritual growth and ultimately maturity in Christ take a long time.  “Instantly” is not in God’s vocabulary.  That is one of the main paradoxes in this modern age.  Everything happens in the blink of an eye, except the growth of God’s Spirit in a human being.

We are given but a short space of time here on earth.  Our time on the planet is short lived.  The older we get the faster our allotted time runs out.  And most fritter their precious moments away on ludicrous pursuits.  But those that Christ has chosen will redeem the time, “that they may be made perfect in one (John 15: 16; 17: 23).

Spurred on by the Spirit, they will study, dig, and search out the truth as to what this life is all about.  And when they find out that life is Him, His plan and purpose, and His ballgame, then they will commit themselves to Him–though it take a lifetime.  They will endure any hardships along the way.  That’s the way the elect are built; it’s in their spiritual DNA.  They will endure all things.

And their studies will lead them to that attribute of the divine nature called in the English language “patience.”  But in the Greek (G5281), the word means “endurance, steadfastness, constancy…a patient enduring; sustaining; perseverance” [1].

This word is from the verb (G5278) “to endure.”  I Corinthians 13 lists the attributes of  agape love, God’s nature that is to be matured in us.  It “endures all things” (v. 7).

What things?  We are admonished to “endure to the end” and be saved (Matt. 10: 22; 24: 13).  Trials and tribulation will be endured by the elect.  Christ describes the treachery of the world at the time of the end of this age.  “Brother shall betray brother to death and the father the son.”  Children will betray their parents unto death.  And ones He has chosen to become fully matured in His image–they  will be “hated of all men for My name’s sake–but he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved” (Mark 13: 13).  This is the patience/endurance that Peter is telling us we need to add to our faith.

Because this patience, this endurance, this perseverance that we must maintain speaks of a time of trials and tribulations, and persecutions and betrayals.  As God begins to squeeze the evildoers, they will lash out at the righteous.  We have to know that this is coming.

“Tribulation Worketh Patience”

“Tribulation worketh patience.”  Or, tribulation brings about patience.  Or, more clearly put, trials and tribulations are the very thing that fashions endurance, which is definitely a big part of God’s nature.  Without trials, patience/endurance will not be formed in us.  And without this endurance factor in our spiritual lives, we will not fulfill our calling as His sons and daughters.  For the law of harvest reads, Each seed bears its own kind.

After we are “illuminated” by the light of God’s truth, He has the adversary, the devil, present trials and persecutions to us, to which we will endure “a great fight of afflictions” (Heb. 10: 32).

In fact, Peter warns us about these afflictions.  “Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you” (I Pet. 4: 12).  It is not a strange thing at all, but part of the plan of God for our perfection.  It is in the script.  Already conceived by Him and written down.  After all, Christ is “the Author and Finisher of our faith.”  And all the additions to that faith (Heb. 12: 2).  Yes, and in that same verse, it tells how Christ “for the joy set before Him, endured the cross.”  As our example, He has endured all the sufferings before us.

These “fiery trials” that will try us will come, and we must endure it, for we are “partakers of Christ’s sufferings” (I Pet. 4: 13).  These sufferings are those trials we endure for His sake.  These are “also the afflictions Christians must undergo in behalf of the same cause for which Christ patiently endured” (Thayer’s Lexicon).

So we see that “patience” is much bigger and much more profound as we discover its meaning in the inspired scriptures of truth.  We now see that it is an attribute of God’s presence, and we should seek to understand it according to God’s thought of what it truly is.

Patience is enduring the sufferings needed to bring God’s plan to full fruition.  Enduring at all costs in the face of hardships–God did that first.  It is His “divine nature” we are to add, after all.  He did it first.  He endured the insolence of one of His created angelic beings to provide the sufferings for us all.  He endured the old nature, especially of His chosen people Israel (12 tribes), witnessed in the Old Testament.  He endured the shame of their sins and whoredoms.

And now He asks us, the little flock, who He knows will answer the call, for He has chosen us–He asks us to add this part of His wonderful divine nature–patience, endurance.

Us enduring, enduring, enduring the sufferings entailed in these finite earthly decaying mortal bodies.  As one of their own poets said, enduring “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

We now have been called into the “fellowship of His sufferings,” taking part of the same things He endured (Phil. 3: 10).

Agape love endures all things.  Like putting up with the evil men in control of this world system–that’s part of enduring the sufferings.  Wanting to do something immediately to banish the evil and injustice from this earth, and knowing that we now must wait on Yahweh–who will do this–but in His own time, according to His timetable.  That’s part of the sufferings.

Enduring.  Continuing undaunted in our pilgrimage to the City of Immortality.  Unwavering.  Stedfast.  Unswayed by the temptations to tarry here or take respite there.

Enduring by faith, entrusting our whole earthly existence on the seemingly impossible assumption and belief that somewhere an invisible Creator has life all mapped and charted for all of us.

And that He has sent us out on this dangerous dark sea, as we trust this invisible Spirit as our Captain to guide our hands on the rudder and sails, believing that He will somehow lead us through the angry storms and deposit us in a warm protected harbor where a wave is a mere warm froth lapping at our toes.

And so we wait.  And endure all things, trusting the Captain by trusting His word, which is the blueprint, the Plan and Purpose.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1.  Thayer’s Lexicon (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G5281&t=KJV).

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January 26, 2013 · 8:09 pm

Patience–Enduring the “Sufferings of This Present Time”

As the sons and daughters of God, we are to add certain spiritual attributes of God’s “divine nature.”  This is how we become “partakers of His divine nature” (II Peter 1: 4-7).  This assures our inheritance as His sons and daughters. These attributes are added in sequence–in layers, if you will.  To our faith we add virtue, and then knowledge onto it.  Then we add temperance to that knowledge.  Then we add patience onto the temperance.

Patience.  Patience.  Oh, how we all need patience in this hurry-scurry world!  This world that careens through our conscious hours robs us of this important godly essence–patience.  The swirling, rushing pace of our 21st Century lives conspire against us in our search for truth.  Patience is needed to even read this simple article on patience.

For all that we see and hear is temporary.  We will be able to temper the appetites of our earthly bodies more easily when we realize how transitory–how utterly perishable our bodies are.  When we believe this and wholeheartedly acknowledge the need for God’s promise of our immortal house from heaven, we will more easily shift our focus from the temporary to the eternal.

The Next Step in Adding the Divine Nature

And that next step is adding patience to the temperance.  But in order to add patience, which is the ability to endure the sufferings of Christ, we must understand just what those sufferings are.  Paul speaks of them when he writes, “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8: 18).  This “glory” is, of course, that destiny of God’s elect after they have grown spiritually to full maturity, which is the evidence of them partaking of the divine nature.

But those “sufferings” spoken of by the apostle is the sojourn we are experiencing in these mortal earthly bodies.  For “we have this treasure [of the Spirit] in earthen vessels” (II Cor. 4:7).  And that is the root of our current spiritual problem.  Our bodies are, alas, mere temporary bottles holding the water of the Spirit.

“This present time” in which these sufferings are being endured is our time now  in our earthly bodies.  Our perishable fragile mortal bodies will too soon return to dust.  Now is our time of waiting with long patience, trusting God will deliver us from the long sleep that awaits us, tucked in dust in the tomb of the earth.

Temporarily housed in our earthly tabernacles at “this present time,” we have a universal thirst that yearns to be quenched.  And that desire is to live on.  And whether cognizant of it or not, we are waiting in “earnest expectation…for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8: 19).

And so we who have a portion of His Spirit, for a dry season at present, find ourselves trapped in a shell that will die soon.  And so we wait for our forerunners, the sons of God to be unveiled first, for they are the firstfruits.  And so we are waiting for these offspring of the Almighty to come onto the scene.

For they will give His other children great hope when they are seen striding this earth–a hope that they, too, can be “delivered from the bondage of corruption,” which is the cruel slavery that our present mortal bodies inflict on us in our new spiritual journey.

Slaves to Our Own Mortality

Our earthly bodies are decaying as they grow older each day, and we are not free to ascend and descend at will.  We are on a timetable, slated to expire, most likely before the age of 80–whether we want to or not.  That’s slavery; that’s being in bondage to our own mortality.  That is the “bondage of corruption.”  In the earthly sense, we are slaves to our own decay and impending death.

In our youth we were not aware of this impending decay of our earthly body.  Hence, we thought ourselves invincible and immortal.  But as we get older and see our bodies deteriorate, we see that we become the slaves to our own bodily limitations.  We begin to admit that we cannot do what we once did.  Our age, brought on by the ravages of time, becomes our master and limits us and dictates to us what we can and cannot do.  This is the “bondage of corruption.”

Aging is the accumulation of many miles and years on the human body.  Aging is that onerous sign announcing our impending physical passing.  But this daily physical decay of our bodies does not work on our spirits.  We can take heart in this, that “though our outward man perish, our inward man is renewed day by day” (II Cor. 4: 16).  And this renewing is the “partaking of the divine nature,” the adding to our faith of which we speak.

So why death?

And so we ask God, Why do we have to die?  Why give us a mortal body, God?  Why subject us to all this suffering?  The short answer: God created us “subject to vanity.”  He deliberately subjected us to mortality in hope that we would be delivered into immortality.  He made us to suffer this mortal existence in hope that we would seek Him, who is Life Himself, and in so doing find eternal life, which is the fulfillment of His promise to them who seek Him and love Him.

God has dangled death ever before us so that we would seek Him.  He reasoned that our looming demise would spur us to seek Him for answers to our dilemma.  Surely we would call on Him, the Giver of Life, to help us solve this problem of mortality if we were confronted with the sadness of first, the loss of loved ones and then, finally, ourselves.

God provided a law ingrained into the universe, as sure as gravity, that if we seek Him for the truth, we would find it.  “Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you,” Christ promised (Matt. 7: 7).

And so, confronted by the sufferings of our mortal worries, we turn to God.  And His words resound through the ages to our hearts and tell us the answer to the riddle of our faint existence.  He tells us that He is the Fount from which the blessing of immortality flows.  And it starts with believing in the resurrection of His Son.  And latching onto that faith in Him begins our own new life, ending in the complete inheritance of a new spiritual body that will swallow up this old earthly one (I Cor. 15).

He seems to be saying, Surely when they see my Son arise from the dead, they will turn to Me in great hope that My resurrection power will one day raise them up as well.

His resurrection is our hope to escape the dusty tombs of death.  And yet, the sufferings continue.  And as He teaches us and helps us to endure all things, we add patience.  For patience is that part of God’s nature that endures.  It lasts.  And as we continue our sojourn in these earthly vessels, He grants to us patience by infusing us with experiences that helps us endure, that gives us rather things to endure.

Yes, “tribulation worketh patience” or “suffering produces endurance” (Rom. 5: 3).  Earthly wisdom shuns all sufferings.  The wisdom from above prescribes it.  That is why He allows us to suffer–so that we can become like Him.  For He planned those very steps of suffering for Himself, and if we want to be His sons and daughters, we must suffer with Him.  That’s a tough one.  That is why “few are chosen” (Matt. 22: 14).  Those chosen are the elect, and they will submit to the plan along with its sufferings, much like those chosen for our Special Forces endure the sufferings that the training entails.  It all comes with the territory.  To reign with Him we must suffer with Him (II Tim. 2: 12).   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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