Category Archives: immortality

December 15, 2012 · 3:39 pm

Add to Knowledge Temperance–On Being Puffed Up

Someone on this earth will sit down on the throne of God alongside our Savior and will be a ruler in the government that the King will establish in all the earth. In fact, a whole company of over comers have been “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8: 29). Fully matured, they will stride this crippled earth after the Great Tribulation. In God’s stead as His ambassadors of the literal Kingdom of Heaven will they rule with Him, for they will have His Spirit fully developed within them. These are the “partakers of the divine nature” who will do the King’s business after the disasters that will smite the earth.

“No man takes this honour unto himself” (Heb. 5: 4). It is God’s doing. He has a plan and He is quite capable of helping them carry out His own plan. And that plan and purpose is to share Himself with His creation. He is Love, and all Love can do is love and share and give.

Those of us who have been called to this “high calling of God in Christ” have been left a textbook explaining how to receive immortality. We now are in the process of studying it and taking it to heart. We need this instruction in order to receive the proper training and education to be an effective ruler with Christ in the soon coming Kingdom of Heaven right here on earth. That textbook is found in the “scriptures of truth,” the Holy Bible, which is God’s letter to us, a guidebook He showed to His prophets and apostles. And He is now showing it to us who believe, who have faith.

Adding to our faith

The apostle Peter instructs those of us who have been called to “partake of the divine nature” (II Peter 1: 3-4). He relates that God promised us immortality, and it is by these promises, that we can get rid of our old sinful nature and receive His divine nature. And God’s nature grows and matures in us to the point that in the end, it will be all Him. The divine nature grows in us through receiving more true knowledge of Him and His plan. And part of that is the additions to our faith.

“Add to knowledge temperance”

The apostle Paul wrote that “knowledge puffs up, but charity (agape love) edifies” (I Cor. 8: 1). This puffing up is the sound of an inflated ego that has no place to go with the knowledge; there is no desire to flow the knowledge on out to others. Agape love, conversely, flows out of its heart of love and shares and builds up fellow Christians, helping them in their walk with God.

The novice in Christ will get the bighead after gaining some of the true knowledge of God. There is an innate tendency in the old nature of man and spiritual babes in Christ to have one’s pride inflated upon receiving this knowledge, which has “been kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 13: 35).

This knowledge flows out of the mind and heart of God and sheds light on the very mysteries of the acquisition of immortality. This information is precious–so rare and fine a treasure, in fact, that “few there be that find it” (Matt. 7: 14). A beautiful four lane highway is leading many to destruction. “But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it” (v. 14 NLT).

Knowledge of these things will puff a person up. Why? Because they are still thinking that they are the object of God’s blessing and not the channel of it.

Therefore, knowledge of the holy things must have temperance added to it. Self control must be added. And the major lesson we must learn is that our little powerless self did not come up with this knowledge on its own. It was not delivered to us for any great thing that we are or have done. No. It is pure grace flowing out of God’s heart to us. It is all Him, favoring and having “mercy on whom He will have mercy” (Rom. 9: 15). It is all Him. It is our privilege to be a channel of this knowledge on out to His people.

Beware of False Teachers

Paul warns in another place about getting “puffed up” by knowledge. He warns new Christians not to get entangled by men who teach a “philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ (Col. 2: 8).

He is saying that men will deceive young Christians through all kinds of worldly earthly thoughts. But Christ is all you need, which is knowledge about who He is and what He has done for His people.

“You are complete in Him” (v. 10). You don’t need mumbo jumbo bells and whistles and gimmicks of worship, as it were. “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily.” And through His sacrifice of Himself, you have been circumcised spiritually. His Spirit invisibly cuts out your old sinful Adamic nature, and He gives you a new heart. “Buried with Him by baptism, wherein also you are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of of God, who has raised Him from the dead (v. 11-12).

False teachers are “puffed up”

One who teaches false doctrines tries to “beguile you,” and is “vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind” (Col. 2: 18). Remember that they “come to you in sheep’s clothing.” They appear as “messengers of light.” They have a little smidgeon of truth, and it has puffed them up as they imagine vain things about God and ways to worship Him.

How does a false teacher or preacher first go astray? He gets all “puffed up by his fleshly mind.” “Fleshly” here is from the Greek word sarx. It is a mind controlled by the “flesh” (sarx). This denotes the old nature, natural thinking man, unregenerate man. He has an earthly mind. “He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaks of the earth; he that comes from heaven is above all…for He whom God hath sent speaks the words of God” (John 3: 31, 34).

The phrase “of the earth” points to the same origins as Adam in the garden, made of the dust of the earth, clueless as to the heavenly destiny for mankind. These false teachers are puffed up with a bit of God’s knowledge, yet remain Spirit-less when it comes to the truth of God.

So, yes, temperance must be added to knowledge. This entails, of course, self-control in all areas of a Christian’s life.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Tagged as faith, immortality, knowledge, temperance, virtue

December 8, 2012 · 5:35 pm

Add to Virtue Knowledge–The Additions to Your Faith

We have seen that some Christians are called to “go on unto perfection.” These are the elect, the ones chosen by God to be “a kind of first fruits” of His glory. They are the trailblazers into that spiritual country of immortality and will serve as princes and princesses in God’s soon coming kingdom that will subdue all of man’s governments and will fill the whole earth.

We have seen that these sons and daughters of God will not be content with “playing church,” but will forge ahead in study and prayer, searching for that hidden wisdom of God. They are the ones who are searching for “a better [country], that is, an heavenly” one. They are on a quest to enter into the heavenly New Jerusalem that will come down here to earth and will be the habitation of immortals, who are those who have spiritually matured.

They will understand that to fully partake of the “divine nature,” they will have to go beyond that initial flush of faith we Christians have all experienced. These will see that the full spiritual maturity calls for additions to their faith. Just possessing in one’s heart a strong conviction that God is real and working in one’s life is not the nutrient that will foster the spiritual growth, which leads to the harvest called “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

And make no mistake, brethren, glorification is where the elect are heading. It is in the mind of God; it is already done in His books. We need to embrace this truth and make the necessary sacrifices that will bring about this maturity.

We have seen that in order to go on with Him on this path, we must add certain spiritual attributes to our faith. Peter tells us to “add to your faith virtue,” which is that quality that helps us be proactive and not passive in this walk. Virtue is that warlike energy that takes the fight to the enemy. It gets us off the couch and into the fray. It is the very strength and power of God’s Spirit [For more see these two articles https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/add-to-your-faith-virtue-gods-strength-and-power-2-peter-1-5/ https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/the-additions-to-your-faith-prerequisites-of-receiving-immortality/ ].

Adding knowledge to virtue

The second addition to the faith is adding knowledge to virtue. God does not want us running out there cutting and slashing with the “sword of the Spirit” at just any old thing that pops up. Nor does He want us to be gullible and believe everything we hear about God. We must have knowledge added to the zeal.

Many “little children” of God, energized with their new found faith, want to get out there and change the world. So they rush out and tell everyone they meet about their experiences in God. This universal reaction comes out of a heart that means well. But like Paul says, “They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10: 2).

There is a “knowledge” then that young Christians need to be in agreement with. If we strike out on our new found Christian walk without this knowledge that the apostle refers to, then we will wander off onto a path that detours us away from the road to the celestial city.

Some detours

What are some of these detours? They are imaginations; they are false teachings about the plan and purpose of God. The apostles and prophets continuously warn us about not believing false teachers and preachers.

One detour takes an unsuspecting young Christian to “Neverland.” It is the mythical concept that just accepting Christ grants us a ticket to heaven and not to the bad place. They are promised by their teachers that they will go to heaven and stay in heaven forever with God. That’s about it. They are never told that Christ is coming back here to earth–what a stupendous event! And He is bringing all the dead in Christ with Him. They have never considered it. And what about those who are alive when He touches down on the Mount of Olives? What happens to His followers who are alive? And what happens to the people who survive the Great Tribulation Period? What happens to them here on earth? All this never enters their minds.

Another detour that hinders Christian growth is the false promise of a rapture. Total escapism. Not going to happen. But people rush out in their zeal and believe this because it sounds good and logical. Yet, they never study it out and prove it one way or another to themselves. It is tricky. They have a zeal for God, “but not according to knowledge” [for more on this go here https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/?s=rapture ].

So what is this knowledge Peter’s talking about?

To answer that question, we must be prepared to dig deep into the scriptures of truth. Knowledge is a noun translated from the Greek word gnosis (#1108) meaning “knowledge.” We see it in the English words “diagnosis” and “prognosis.” The verb form of this word (#1107; #1097) means “to make known.” So the noun means “that which is made known.”

But there is a lot of “knowledges” out there. Which knowledge is he talking about?

So what has been made known? What exactly is this knowledge that the apostles were so keen on? First, God has “made known” to us through Christ’s resurrection the “ways of life,” as in the path we will take to arrive at a state of immortality or everlasting life. Literally. Not “crystal blue persuasion,” “floating around heaven all day.” No. God has given us the knowledge on how to obtain immortality. That is how big this concept is. There is a true way into His kingdom/government as His elect sons and daughters. We can see this in the book of Acts where Peter is quoting David, “Thou hast made known to me the ways of life” (2: 28).

Christ’s resurrection, where His earthly body did not remain in the grave–this is our hope, that as He promised, we, too, can receive immortality. But there is so much of this knowledge to learn. True knowledge of how we will attain immortality does not come willy-nilly. If our earthly jobs require a modicum of seriousness and sobriety to master and perform, how much more does our training to be His fellow rulers in His kingdom?

After all, Christ promises this to some: “To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also over came, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Rev. 3: 21). You mean some of us will literally sit on the throne with Christ? Somebody will, and He said, Whosoever will may come. Kings and queens sit on thrones. But to be sitting on the one and only throne designed by and for immortals. That’s getting out there. Need more faith? Maybe we need these additions to the faith, to grow it, to feed it, to enlarge and strengthen it.

What else is God “making known” to us? “That He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory.” Some human beings that He calls “the vessels of mercy” He has already prepared to receive “glory.”

Nothing more glorious than everlasting life. The “glory that He has for us is immortality. He is making known this knowledge of these true spiritual riches that some will be glorified with Him at the end of this age! That is what He is making known right now (Rom. 9: 23).

He is making known the mystery of His will. “That God would make known what is the riches of the gloryof this mystery…which is Christ in you, the hope of glory…even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations but now is made manifest to his saints (Col. 1: 27, 26).

This “glory” spoken of here is spelled out in Romans 8: 18-31. It speaks of the adoption, where we mortals shall be redeemed by God through resurrection and receive a new spiritual body that cannot die like this earthly body that is physically corruptible. God gave us a destiny unto this glorious state beforehand, that we would “be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (v. 29). And if we are, indeed, one whom He has predestinated, then He has called us, justified us, and He has also glorified us (v. 30). This “glorification” is all about receiving an immortal spiritual body. [Read more in I Cor. 15 and here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/the-high-calling-of-god/ ].

There is so much more that He has “made known” to His children. We are told to add this knowledge of His plan and purpose to the virtue/zeal and on to the faith. Adding knowledge then is all about first learning His true plan and promises and incorporating them into our thinking. This takes true teachings, much study, and much communication with our Savior. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[To read my books go to the top of this page. Just click “Ebook…”]

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Filed under apostles' doctrine, children of God, elect, eternal life, eternal purpose, false doctrines, glorification, immortality, manifestation of the sons of God, princes and princesses of God, Rapture

Tagged as elect, faith, glorification, knowledge, predestination

December 2, 2012 · 12:16 am

Add to Your Faith Virtue–God’s Strength and Power (2 Peter 1: 5)

We must add certain spiritual qualities to our faith in God if we are to grow up into the manifested sons and daughters of God. We found that out in II Peter 1. Our faith in God needs to be shored up; it needs to become stronger in order to conquer and “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” We will only “partake of the divine nature” if we add these things. And the first to be added to our faith is virtue.

But what exactly does this word “virtue” really mean? It is an English word, after all. We could look it up in Webster’s Dictionary, but we would only find what it means to the English speaking mind, distilled down through the centuries. We would see that it is from the Old French virtu, which came from the Latin virtus, meaning “strength, courage, virtue.” It has come down to us meaning “moral excellence…active quality or power…manly strength or courage; valor.”

And so we dig still deeper, believing that this study is important and expedient, for we simply must know what “virtue” means. We are trying to “study to show ourselves approved unto God,” as we are admonished to do. Without study, we will not be approved.

The English word “virtue” was translated, of course, not from Latin, but from the Greek. So what was that Greek word that the King James scholars translated “virtue”? The Strong’s Concordance shows us that it was arete, #703 [http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G703&t=KJV]. Consulting Thayer’s Lexicon on that page, we see that arete denotes power stemming from moral excellence and goodness. It relates to God’s power, perfection, and excellence.

We get a further picture of “virtue” by looking up “virtuous” and “valor” in the Hebrew [http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H2428&t=KJV]. We see “strength, power, might.” The Hebrew word #2428 is used many times in the phrase “mighty man of valour.” Also, it is translated as “host” as in a large army of mighty warriors. It is rendered “strength” in David’s prayer to God, “For Thou hast girded me with strength to battle” (II Samuel 22: 40).

We need to stop and reflect here and not pass over this lightly. These words in II Samuel are inspired. They are the Scriptures of truth that Paul studied, and he said by the Spirit: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness…” Why? To what purpose do we need those old books back there in the “Old Testament”? “That the man of God may be perfect…”

Perfect. Complete spiritual maturity. These passages, like this one in Samuel, teach us lessons that will help us add the “divine nature” to our faith in God. It is for the same purpose of perfection and glorification, which is the fulfillment of His promise to us of immortality.

Looking at the Picture that “Virtue” is Painting for Us

We see “virtue” as not just power. No. It is the strength and power of God, emanating right out of His very heart through His Spirit into ours. It is He; it is a part of His divine nature; it is all about His strength and power stemming from His excellent goodness. This then is His power, which gives us now the strength and ability to go on the offensive against the devil and his tricks that block our road to immortality.

Let’s go back to David speaking to Yahweh. In this song of praise, David thanks God for His strength and power in overcoming mightily all of his enemies. He thanks God for His goodness, and then details in much “war” imagery his exploits over the enemy. This picture of a warlike attitude is a real key for us in understanding just what virtue is. David’s inspired prayer shows us the spiritual application through his physical earthly accomplishments.

The First Step

First, David declares his complete trust in Yahweh, recalling how he called on Him in his despair and how God answered (verses 1-17). David says that God did deliver him, but it was “according to my righteousness…and cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me” (v. 21). David first had to be right with God, on the same spiritual page, “a man after God’s own heart.” “I kept the ways of Yahweh, and have not wickedly departed from my God” (v. 22). That is the first step that we need. Walk on in His faith. Trust in Him. And then get ready to go on the offense like King David does in the following verses.

And now the war imagery looms as David spiritually attacks his enemies. “God is my strength and power…I have run through a troop…He teaches my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. Thou hast given me a shield of thy salvation…I have pursued mine enemies [read: doubt, fear, unbelief, impatience, et al], and destroyed them (v. 31-38).

Wait. Let’s savor this. “Pursued mine enemies.” He went on the offensive! He did not just sit on the couch waiting for fear and doubt and unbelief to maybe take a holiday. Would you please leave me alone, guys? I don’t appreciate these ugly thoughts I have been having lately.” No!

David “pursued” those negative thoughts and “destroyed them”! Furthermore, David “consumed them, and wounded them, that they could not arise…” Wouldn’t that be wonderful–to have all negativity consumed and wounded so that it just was not able to rear its ugly head up in our minds ever again?

That’s adding virtue to your faith.

But David’s not through. He knows where the strength and power is coming from. “They are fallen under my feet. For thou hast girded me with strength to battle.” It was Yahweh that subdued his enemies under him (v. 39-40).

And finally, David says, “Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O Yahweh…and I will sing praises to thy name” (v. 50).

Our Spiritual Application

This song of David is so rich, reaching even unto prophetic strains that depict a vision of the Kingdom Age in all its glory. And yes, we are in that vision. But we see here now for our present edification a picture of just what virtue does when added to our faith. “Faith without works is dead.” Without virtue added, faith/belief/assurance just sits passively on the couch “waiting for the world to change.” To the contrary, we His sons and daughters must “put on the whole armor of God” (Eph. 6: 11-18). This same war imagery is used by Paul in Ephesians, that we “may be able to withstand all the wiles of the devil.” We must put the armor of the Spirit of God on and take the fight to our adversary.

“Add to your faith virtue…” This first addition to the faith, then, is an offensive weapon given to us by God to go with our trust-faith-assurance in Him. “Virtue” then is that quality of valor, that makes us like the mighty men of war as David was. They were men of strength. Mighty men. Strong men and women in the Spirit, pro-active in their attacks on the enemy. This all comes in realizing that it is God Almighty who does all this conquering–not only for us, but also in and through us.

Yet, the question will arise in hearts: But how do you add it to your faith? Answer: You add virtue to your faith–by faith. The Master said it simply. “Ask and it shall be given…When you pray, believe that you receive, and you shall have whatsoever you ask.” Now that we know what “virtue” is, we “reckon it done,” for in God’s mind, He already sees us having it. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

{If you liked this article, hit the “like” button. Please make a comment. I will answer them all. And be sure to send for my latest book The Royal Destiny of God’s Elect; it is totally free. Just send me your mailing address to my email: wayneman5@hotmail.com If you appreciated this article, you will be thrilled with the new book. I wrote it for you. You need this book if you want to grow spiritually and be like Peter, James, John, and Paul.
“Greater works” we will do with His help and guidance.}

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Filed under armour of God, belief, glorification, immortality, King David, manifestation of the sons of God, sons and daughters of God, Yahweh

Tagged as divine nature, faith, strength, virtue, Yahweh

November 27, 2012 · 8:43 pm

The Additions to Your Faith–Prerequisites of Receiving Immortality

Just having faith in Christ is not enough. Now, wait a minute. Hear me out before you jump.

Some have said, “Faith in Christ is all you need.” To get into the first level of a walk with God, that is true. But things must be added to the true faith in order for us to fully manifest God’s divine nature in us, according to the apostle Peter.

He says that we must make certain spiritual additions to the faith, so that we can be “partakers of the divine nature…Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity (agape love)” (II Peter 1: 5-7).

Peter goes on to say that if these additions “be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren (idle) nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus (Yahshua) Christ” (v. 8).

In other words, without these additions, we will not grow up “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4: 13). Nor will we without these additions “be filled with all the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 3: 19). Why? Because the person without these additions listed above “is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” (II Pet. 1: 9). These additions, then, serve as a kind of eye salve that anoints our eyes that we may see the spiritual road ahead of us.

In fact, the way we “make our calling and election sure” is to add these very things to our faith! That is why this is so important to the overcomers of all things. For if we add these things to our faith, we “shall never fall” (v. 10). The addition to our faith of these things is the key that unlocks the door to the “entrance…into the everlasting kingdom” of our God (v. 11).

Who was Peter writing to?

Peter is writing not to everyone, but to those “that have obtained like precious faith with us” (1: 1). He is writing to “those who have already received by divine allotment” this equally honored and precious “conviction that God exists and is the Creator and Ruler of all things, the Provider and Bestower of eternal salvation through Christ” {Thayer’s Lexicon}.

It is God who has placed this faith, this “conviction” that He is real, in our hearts. It is not something we “muster up.” It is all Him. It is His grace to us, which is to say, God favors us with knowledge of Him and His plan and word. This brings light to our eyes and strength to our hearts. God gives grace to some during this end time era with spiritual knowledge of Him. This is His grace to us.

Now He gives this grace in accordance to “His divine power” which gives to the recipients “all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him” (1: 3). For He “has called us to glory and virtue.”

Glorification = Immortality

God has tapped us on the shoulder in some way to bring us to the stage of spiritual growth called “glorification”! Yes, this spiritual road we have begun to walk down is leading us into being glorified with Him! This is sonship; this is rulership with Him in His kingdom.

We have to add these things listed by the apostle Peter, if we are to fulfill our calling to be His manifested sons and daughters, His ruling family that He has called us unto. That’s how important they are to Him, first, and should, therefore, be important to us. Important enough to seriously study them out.

But the big take away of this opening chapter of II Peter is this: This conviction that God is and is in control through Christ–this faith, this conviction must have other attributes added to it, in order for us to fulfill our calling as His sons and daughters, the princes and princesses, sitting with Him in His throne.

Peter knows full well what it takes to “make our calling and election sure.” He knows that our initial experiences based on God’s favor and grace in showing a bit of Himself to us and thereby “calling us out of darkness into His marvelous light”–he knows that those early experiences and revelations will not take us across the finish line in this race “for the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3: 14).

And it is through this knowledge of the holy things of God that we are given “exceeding great and precious promises” (II Pet. 1: 4). God has promised to give unto us His followers immortality, or eternal life. Immortality is it. It is the biggest gift, the greatest promise the Immortal One can give to a mortal. There is nothing greater for one who will die than to be granted eternal life.

And this immortality that God has promised us is what the aforementioned “glorification” is all about. And Peter says by the Spirit of God that we are called “to glory and virtue.” And God promised this to us from time immemorial. “In hope of eternal life, which God, which cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1: 2).

All of this notwithstanding, in order to receive this precious promise of immortality, we must add certain spiritual components to our faith, to our conviction that God is real and true. These additions are the elements of the very nature of God Himself.

How do we do this? First we must study them out and receive the knowledge of just what they are, and then, reckon them added by faith.

Two points are worthy encouragers for us on this road to immortality. First, He said of us in His prayer in John 17: 22: “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” In His mind, it is a done deal. He is saying, I have already given them glorification, which is immortality. With this, they are one with the Father and Son. It is also good to know that “He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” He has full confidence in His plan, which includes us. But the first step is to add to our faith virtue. What virtue is comes next time. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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Tagged as eternal life, faith, immortality, knowledge, love, virtue

September 22, 2012 · 11:51 pm

The Manifestation of the Sons of God–When?

The “manifestation of the sons of God” is what the whole creation is waiting for–whether they know it or not (1). And with these powerful Christians striding the earth like the pattern Son Christ, great miracles will be performed as a magnificent witness to the errant inhabitants of the earth*.

These 100 fold followers of Christ will do the “greater works” that He promised some of His followers would do (2). “He that believes on Me, the works I do, shall he do also; and greater works shall he do,” He said.

Greater Works than Christ?

Greater works? What works did Christ do? He performed mighty miracles that are legendary now–raising the dead; healing those with palsy; curing severe cases of insanity and leprocy–you name it. And his early apostles did the same, for they had His same Spirit and growth.

But how can anyone do any greater things than what Christ and a handful of His early apostles did? The answer to this question lies in the harvest time of this world age. What they did was fruit borne after the “early rain” or “former rain” of the Spirit just after the Resurrection. The fruit after the “latter rain” of God’s Spirit poured out of the mouth of His sons during the time of the end of our age will be abundant (3).

For tens of thousands of sons of God will do the miracles. That is how His followers will do “greater works” than Christ did. The sheer number of miracle workers will be how those greater works will get done. There will be 144,000, to be exact. There will be 12,000 from each of the lost tribes of Israel (4). They will be the first humans to receive immortality and have God’s glory revealed through them. They will be immortal, striding the globe healing the hurts of suffering mortals (5).

Harvest Time Is When the Manifested Sons Will Come

They will come onto the scene in our age, right on time–the time of the end. It will be harvest time. The present world system, the evil “vine of the earth,” will be uprooted, squeezed, and burned (6).

Great calamities will bring this world system to an end, and many people in many lands will be hurt thereby. This time is called in many books of the prophets “the day of the LORD,” or more correctly put, “the day of Yahweh” (7). It is mentioned 31 times in the O.T. and speaks of a day of God’s vengeance and the utter darkness at the heighth of man’s government on earth. God will reign down heavenly missiles onto the earth, and the rich men’s futile attempt to rule the world will come crashing down (8).

God Taking Vengeance

But this day of vengeance wreaked upon mankind by Yahweh is so heart wrenching, so utterly unspeakable that few talk about it; it is that depressing. In fact, Christians in most denominational churches have gladly received the false doctrine of a rapture that they believe will preserve them and prevent them from going through the Tribulation Period, which is that seven year “day of the LORD.”

We are talking about the demolishing of mankind’s godless socio-economic-political system. It will be coming down, not as much through man destroying man, but through the trumpets and vials of wrath that pummel the earth in that day. Movies and television have served as a kind of herald of the coming disasters, as we see on screen the asteroids hitting earth. It is coming. And Christians will have to go through it (9).

God will be wreaking vengeance on the ungodly of this world system called “Babylon the Great” (10). It will fall by God’s own hand though mankind will try to thwart its destruction. But man never could prevent “acts of God.”

Right now, things are changing rapidly. Few can keep up with the technology which will usher in the counterfeit new world order. As Thomas Friedman wrote in his The World Is Flat, the technology of the last 10 years ios shrinking the planet. And as it gets smaller, it gets easier to rule from a centralized government.

One World Government and Ruler Must Come First

Make no mistake. The new world order, the one world government, must come first to this earth before Christ comes back to set up His government, the Kingdom of God. It must come first, as the counterfeit in His plan always comes first. And the Anti-Christ, the false Messiah must come first, as well, before the true King Jesus Christ, Yahshua Messiah, returns.

100, 50, even 20 years ago the satanic kingdom could not stretch around the globe, but now it can. The Information Age will usher in satan’s rise to total centralized dominance. Power will be given to one man to rule the entire world system. He has man names other than the Anti-Christ: the devil incarnate, Satan incarnate, “the man of sin,” the “king of the north,” the Assyrian. He will be the apex of satan’s power in the earth’s history. Many types have foreshadowed his rise to power: Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Hitler, to name just a few. But it was not the time. They all had that same spirit of satan; they were kith and kin of him, but the time of their rise prevented them from worldwide dominion.

That time is now. And because satan’s kingdom is divided, many want-to-be’s are vying for world dominion. Western Europe/U.S.A./Zionist Israelis are at war with the Islamic fascists, and much more in-fighting will take place before the Anti-Christ steps out of the smoke and ash and takes center stage for seven years. It is at this time, when God is raining down hailstones and asteroids, that satan will make his play at being very God. Good news is he won’t succeed. God will bring Him down.

The Sons of God Come on the Scene

All the countries of the world will be going up in smoke, “men’s hearts failing them for fear.” It is during this seven year tribulation period that God will bring forth His manifested sons. They will be that glorious witness to all human beings from God. They will be nothing less than the saviors of mankind. God in His infinite mercy will do this for us all. The world and everyone in it will literally be brought to their knees, humbled to their core. It is then that God can reach them, and He will do it through His manifested sons at that day–the “day of Yahweh.”

These immortal sons are God’s firstfruits of the great harvest of God’s offspring. There is always a firstfruits in God’s plan. These sons are the first to receive their new immortal bodies; the first to “not taste of death,” the first to dwell in a heavenly spiritual body, where “no weapon formed against them can prosper” (11). God’s very nature is formed in them.

They will go out all over the planet bringing forth glad tidings of God’s government coming. They will “preaching good tidings to the meek. They will bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim libery to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (12). And they will give those suffering “beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”

But this beauty will come out of the ashes of a destroyed man’s world system. This is God in human form times 144,000. It will be a powerful dose of love, joy, and peace for the earth and its lowly inhabitants.

And why does all this destruction come to the earth? God says that He will take vengeance on the evildoers. In so doing, His children will be broken hearted when they see the world wide destruction, and in their brokeness, they will turn to the Rock of their salvation, and they will be healed. It has always been that way. Moses warned the children of Jacob/Israel about getting too fat and sassy and turn from God’s laws and ways to serve other gods. Then when they got conquered and lost everything, they would “cry unto the LORD,” and what? He would raise up men of God to lead them out of the misery.

This is what the Bible stories from Exodus through Kings and Chronicles is about–examples for us to learn from.

And so now we find ourselves, like our Israelite forefathers, being brought low by the rich international banking cartel, who have devalued our money, taking our silver and gold circulating coins and our silver certificates and giving us an ever shrinking fiat currency, that is not worth much more that the paper it is printed on. And we will be squeezed and squeezed until we either bleed to death or cry out unto our Maker and Savior. Same song, different verse. Except we are fast approaching the end of the song. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

* [see my book The Unveiling ot the Sons of God found at the top of this page. Just click “Ebook…”]

1. Rom. 8: 18-23

2. John 14: 12

3. James 5: 7; Joel 2: 23; Zec. 10: 1

4. Rev. 7: 3-8; 14: 1-5

5. Rom. 8: 18; II Cor. 5: 1-4; I Cor. 15: 51-55

6. Rev. 14: 18-19

7. Isa. 13: 6; Jer. 46: 10; Ezk. 30: 3; Joel 1: 15

8. Rev. 8; Rev. 16; Rev. 17

9. See https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/no-rapture-further-proof/

10. Rev. 16: 19; 18: 21

11. Isa. 54: 17; Matt. 16: 28

12. Isa. 61: 1-5

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Filed under elect, end time prophecy, glorification, great tribulation period, humility, immortality, Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, manifestation of the sons of God, MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, new world order, One World Government, Rapture, sons of God

Tagged as end time, great tribulation period, manifestation of the sons of God, manifested sons of God, new world order, One World Government

January 30, 2012 · 6:01 pm

“Ye are gods,” said Christ–Concerning the Elohim and the Manifestation of the Sons of God

After performing many mighty miracles among the people, Christ was standing in the temple in Solomon’s porch. The doubters began to surround Him and said, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense. If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

Then He said to them, “I have already told you that I am He by the miracles that I have done in My Father’s name. They speak and bear witness of Me. But you don’t believe that the Father lives within Me and that it is He that does the miracles. You don’t believe because you are not of My sheep. You are of another herd and cannot hear my words. As I told you before [John 8: 42-44], when I spoke to you plainly: You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do…there is no truth in your father, the one you are following…for he is a liar and the father of all lies. Your father is a liar, and you are born of lies and are liars yourselves.”

Christ continued. “No, you are not of my flock, for they hear my voice and believe and follow me. And they will never perish, for they have eternal life. The Father has given them to Me. And no one can take them from Me, for I and My Father are one.”

“Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.”

Seeing their anger and the murder in their hearts, Christ said, “I have showed you many miracles from the Father. Which miracle are you stoning me for?”

“We are not stoning you for a miracle that you have performed, but for blasphemy because you are a man, and you are making yourself out to be God.”

And it was at this juncture that Christ dropped a bombshell on them, saying, Wait a minute. Is it not written in your law, the law that you take so much pride in, where I said, ‘You are gods.’ The Father called them gods. The very ones to whom He was sending His word back in the days of the patriarchs and prophets–those He called gods. The very ones who needed a Savior, who needed the law and the testimony, who needed help from their Creator to get right–those He called gods! And now you are going to tell the one who the Father has sanctified and made holy and sent into the world–you are going to tell Him that He blasphemes because I said that I am the Son of God?

But there was no reasoning with them. They “sought again to take Him, but He escaped out of their hand” [John 10: 22-39].

Christ was too much for them. They could not understand Him, for “had the princes of this world known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

The Mysterious “Ye are gods” Statement

This confrontation is the backdrop for one of the most enigmatic statements that God-with-us ever made. “Ye are gods.” What does He mean that we are “gods”?

We must first go back to the passage of scripture that the Savior quoted in Psalm 82: 6. The word “gods” is translated from the Hebrew word elohim (#H430 in Strong’s Concordance), also translated “God” in hundreds of places. Christ said, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are the children of the most High.” He’s saying that some had a spiritual existence with Him in the beginning. He’s saying that there is more to the sons of Adam than just their earthly purposes.

Man, a spiritual being, created by God to house Him fully, in vain tries to live a fulfilling life by the acquisition of earthly things, when earthly things cannot suffice a human being, a being designed to be the glory of God, who is an invisible Spirit.

Yet, unregenerate man slugs on in the slop of misguided desires and lusts. These passions are for things that will not satisfy nor endure.

The sons and daughters of God, however, realize that they were put here by a Being that is not of this earth. They see their reality is not earth-based. They realize that they cannot see true reality by looking through earthly eyes. Man can only endure by seeing things other than earthly things.

It is a heavenly vision, a heavenly faith, a heavenly destiny, a heavenly plan, a heavenly purpose, a heavenly blueprint, a heavenly design, a heavenly way, a heavenly thought of a heavenly Father, who is above all this on earth and is in us whom He has called.

To even get out of the old and to get into the new life, we must believe in a spiritual being who does the saving. We have to believe in a Being we cannot see with our earthly eyes. We must believe in someone who is invisible, who is not of this earth, someone who calls us somehow with a calling that is not of this earth, calls us with a heavenly calling, and urges us in mysterious ways to appear to choose His heavenly way against the ‘better’ judgment of our earthly unbelieving senses—a someone who brings us into a place where we will repudiate all that we see here on earth and “count it all as dung” that we may win an invisible race for an invisible heavenly spiritual Supreme Being.

An enlightened man takes in this light—light that nothing earthly is as it seems. Everything is tricky here, slippery, treacherous, hypocritical, deceiving. Man is crooked, undependable, self-centered and prideful.

Nevertheless,there is a group of human beings who are beginning to realize that this walk here is a spiritual thing and not an earthly thing. They realize that they are in the world but their spirit is not of the earth. They realize that they are really strangers here on earth, that they are not really from the earth, that they are heavenly and spiritual, that they have become blind to the earthly desires and temptations.

They realize that they are looking for their home which is a four square city full of light that has 12 foundations where it never gets dark. That city, the New Jerusalem, is their home, which one day will come down out of heaven and set down right here on earth. And they believe this having never seen it with their earthly eyes [Quoted from Chapter 8 of my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God which you can find at the top of this page. Just click “Ebook…”].

In a word, they begin to “walk in the Spirit.” They begin to believe what the written Word says and not what sinful man says that it says. And it tells us that God has “blessed us with all spiritual blessings and chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,” and that He foreknew us and has “predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” And that He has called us, justified us, and glorified us (Eph 1: 3-4; Rom 8: 29-30). Yes, God’s faith in His ability to make all this happen is strong. It is such a sure thing in God’s heart and mind that our spiritual maturity culminates in our glorification with Him, even to the point of us sitting with Christ on the throne of God! That is faith! We need His faith in us working in our lives–not our puny faith where we try to muster up enough to do whatever. He believes that we will come to full fruition as His manifested sons and daughters. He believes and says that we are gods! Incredible faith!

At present, we are not in our full spiritual elohim state of being, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38: 7). We in our spiritual state were with Him when the “foundations of the earth” were laid (38: 3-6). Those “sons of God” were the elohim–the “us” in “Let us make man in our own image.”

For the time being here on earth, He has “made man a little lower than the angels” in that we are mortal and can very easily die (Psalm 8: 5). “Angels” here is from the Hebrew word elohim again. Man is lower than our first spiritual estate with the Father because of our impending date with death.

And, yet, “you have crowned him with glory and honor.” It is a done deal in God’s mind. And you made him (Adam) to have dominion over the works of thy hands (v. 6). “Works” here are the “great righteous acts of Yahweh, the miracles and wonders. In other words, the sons of Adam, after their spiritual regeneration, have miracle working power. They have dominion over the same powerful acts done by Yahweh of old.

In Psalm 82, where Christ quotes “Ye are gods,” Yahweh is pleading with us the sons of Adam, to wake up to this high calling. He is saying:

You are not just human beings, not just a flesh body. You have a spirit in you that comes from Me. You are my offspring; Spirit brings forth spirit. You are elohim. I am Elohim. You are begotten of Me, and we now are all of One. The same great “works of my hand” shall you do (Psm 8: 6).

But look at you! You are scurrying about the earth as if you are just an intelligent animal! I stand in your presence. You all are My spiritual children and are a mighty congregation! But I am passing judgment on you elohim-gods today, for you are not acting like I act. You are not acting like Me, like I did when I was in the days of My flesh, when I judged righteously and justly. You act as if you are not like Me. We are one, but you act like you don’t believe that. You judge unjustly (v. 2) and you are partial to the rich and powerful and wicked of this earth.

Look out over the earth at all the poor and needy. These are they who do not have the spiritual riches of this knowledge that they are gods, like you do. But you don’t tell them. You don’t inform them of this truth. They are without Me, their Father, and you won’t judge to tell them the truth so that they can escape the clutches of the wicked (v. 3). My other children who are the earth-dwellers, who spend their years on earth with darkness as a constant cloak, without the knowledge and light that they are My spirit-children–they are lost and know not the way (v. 5).

Listen to Me. I have already said that you are gods (elohim), but if you do not change, you will die like the rest of the fleshly Adamites, who don’t have this spiritual knowledge. You are all the sons of the most High (v. 6 NIV). But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler (v. 7), if you don’t start walking like Me in human form. Rise up, my body of sons and daughters, my offspring, and judge the earth with Me, for I am the King of kings and the Master of masters. All the nations are your inheritance…..

He says that we are gods–that we are elohim. With the new heart and spirit that He has given us, we are coming back full circle–back to where we started in heavenly places in Christ. But we must “make our calling and election sure.” We must walk in full confidence after proving all things and study “to show ourselves approved” to be His heirs of the kingdom of God. The 100 fold sonship walk is for those of full age and maturity. It is time that we who are called to this walk put aside everything of the past and prepare our hearts and others’ for the coming of our great God and Savior Jesus/Yahshua, the Anointed One, the Christ. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, that is right.”

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

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

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

“What is the grander vision?”

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

“You are talking about immortality.”

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

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

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

“I know. They sound so convincing.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I see what you mean,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

“But what does spiritual maturity mean?”

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

“But, perfection?”

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

“What is it?” I asked.

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

“Everybody believes that there is one God.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How can this be?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, I am getting it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What does it mean?”

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

“I still don’t get it.”

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

“What does it mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What all does the Comforter do” I asked.

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

“What does He mean ‘another?’

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

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

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

“What does that mean?” I asked.

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

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

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

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Filed under belief, end time prophecy, glorification, immortality, manifestation of the sons of God, Parables, princes and princesses of God, sons of God

Tagged as Holy Spirit, manifested sons of God, Parables, perfection, prophecy, the manifestation of the sons of God

January 15, 2012 · 3:22 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Filed under Christ, cross, crucified with Christ, death, death of self, immortality, kingdom of God, repentance

Tagged as cross of Christ, death of self, new life, resurrection

December 31, 2011 · 6:52 pm

Repentance—Departing from Evil—Pre-requisite of Immortality

Chapter 27 of the book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality

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

You have a mortal, fleshly body at this time, but God Almighty has unlimited power and he is quite capable with the mere power of his word to give you a new spiritual body as it has pleased him in his eternal plan and purpose laid down since before the beginning of the world. (II Cor. 5:1). He will have called many, but few are chosen for this the greatest of all honors—to be one of the many sons and daughters that God is bringing to glory. It is a great love that will bestow this on a select few, for few there will be to find this way of truth. It is quite easy to find the way that leads to destruction, misery, and desolation. A narrow gate awaits those who enter the way that leads to love, honor, and glory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For without God’s Spirit dwelling within us, we are only a member of the walking dead who spend a few nightly whispers with loved ones and then bury their dead and wait to be buried in turn. Without that entity, the Spirit of God, that makes alive whatever it touches and lives in, we are just as good as dead. Without His Spirit, if we are walking around, we do it on borrowed air in an incredibly delicate and fragile shell. And our shell will in a few moments, comparatively speaking, go back to dust from where it came, and our brief stint at self-glory here on earth will not be remembered anymore. Every thing that man says and does without the Spirit of God is vain and of no profit in the final analysis. Kenneth Wayne Hancock

Back to the Father’s Heart–The Eternal Purpose in a Bedtime Story

Chapter 25 of the Book Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality

[I wrote the following bedtime story for my grandson Cody Hancock. I wanted him to know the truth about creation, about the Creator and His plan and purpose.]

Long, long ago, before the earth or the heavens were, God, the Supreme Being, existed. He was and is the Self-existent One and needed nothing else to sustain His life, for He is Life itself. He was and is the great, wonderful, invisible Spirit. And in the beginning, He realized that even though He was great and all-powerful and magnificent, He was alone.

He knew that He could be any way He wanted to be and make happen anything He wanted to see happen. He could create things only to destroy them and watch the fires consume them, or He could create beautiful things, things with meaning, things that would endure forever. So He had to make a choice whether to be a mean, selfish destructive creator/destroyer or to be a sharing, compassionate, kind and loving creator/sustainer. So He looked inside the core of His Spirit and heart and recognized immediately that there was nothing but Love inside. All He wanted was to share and give and spread around this goodness and peace that was His essence. His nature was Love.

And because He was and is Love, He wanted to share His essence with someone else. That is the nature of true love—sharing and giving. Having all power and able to do anything that His nature of love could dictate, He began His creative power by making the Original Form.

Now this Original Form was a body composed of spirit. Our bodies are made of earth, dust, and clay. His was a body that could not die, for it was made of His essence, which is Life. It was an immortal, spiritual body through which He could speak and listen and make Himself known. He could speak the Word now that would show and express what was His essence. This was the form that He chose to express Himself through.

Through the mouth of His spiritual body He could express in a word what was inside Him. And this word that He could now express was “Love.” In the beginning was the Word and that Word is Love. He could now speak through His own mouth the things in His heart. He could speak into existence the heavens and the earth.

He would create magnificent stars set in a universal expanse so vast and wonderful. He would create a home called Heaven for Himself and the helpers He would create. He would create a special star of undying energy and warmth, a star we call the Sun. He would create on a plane of physical existence a planet that would revolve around that warmth, a planet perfect for a special life He would soon create for His own purposes.

And so He said, “Let the galaxies with their stars and planets appear.” And it happened! And as He framed the worlds and created the heavens and the earth He kept in mind His ultimate purpose for making all things. He wanted to reproduce Himself. He wanted to multiply Himself. He desired to multiply Himself as the seeds of the earth produce their own kind of fruit.

And so He thought and thought about ways in which to express and demonstrate just what was inside His heart. He asked, “How do I show just what I, Love, am about?”

So He looked around at the absolutely astounding heavens that He had created. And He said, “They are good. They are beautiful, but yet, they cannot appreciate who made them and the love wherewith they were made. For they cannot feel, think or love in return.”

And so He thought and thought some more and came up with a plan. “I will create a living creature, a human being out of the dust of one of my planets called earth. I will create him with the mental and spiritual sensibilities and capabilities to be able to comprehend just who I am and what I am about–which is Love.”

And He said, “But I will need helpers, emissaries, and messengers to help me carry out my plan to reproduce Myself. I will create immortal angels, composed of spirit, and they will assist me in ministering to the needs of the human beings.” And so He created the heavenly hosts and instructed them and assigned a third of them to the planet earth to prepare it for His crowning creation. And He called His crowning creation Adam, meaning in His original Hebrew tongue, “to show blood in the face, to flush or turn rosy, to be made red or ruddy.” In our language he is called “Man.”

Over this third part of the angels He sent one of His arch-angels whose name has come down to us as Lucifer. Lucifer knew that God had a plan to reproduce Himself and that the earth was the place for this reproduction. But the archangel said in his heart, “I will ascend and be like the most high God. I want to be like God. I’m already immortal, I’m beautiful, and I don’t see why it can’t be us, who are doing all the work during the heat and length of the day. It is not fair.”

And so Lucifer became Satan and led the angels that were with him into rebelling against the Creator who had brought them into existence and had included them in His plan. These angels made a choice to rebel and so sin entered into the universe. Pride goes before a fall. But God knew beforehand what would happen.

And so they ascended up from earth to heaven to try to overthrow the Creator. Lucifer and his angels fought against Michael and His angels. After the greatest battle the galaxies will ever see, the faithful angels overcame the evil ones, who were cast out of heaven back to the earth.

After the heavenly dust had settled, the Creator went on to the next step of His master plan. He still, however, did not have in place what He needed to express Himself and multiply Himself.

So He thought and thought some more, and He continued His plan. He said, “In order to reproduce my nature of Love, I must testify as to what the greatest Love can be. Now there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends. But I am a Spirit dwelling in a spiritual body, and I cannot die in this form, for I am immortal.

And then it came to Him. He would give up His life on His throne in heaven and would come to earth and dwell with his crowning creation, man, in a human body like theirs! He would walk among them and love them and care for them and show them how to do what He does and show them by His life what He is, which is Love.

He would heal their sick and raise their dead, and He would give them the example they needed in order for them to love like Him. He would be clothed in flesh for a time. He would walk humbly, knowing that it was the Great Spirit of Love within Him that was doing the works of love. And then He would do the ultimate act that would show Love; He would die for his creation; He would give up that human life He was walking in and then three days later, He would raise it from the dead. He would do this willingly and lovingly.

In doing this He would accomplish many things. It would set an example for man to follow. It would provide a perfect sacrifice to atone for man’s sins. And it would defeat His arch-enemy Satan on earth. And God would defeat Satan when God was at His weakest, in a human death. And He would show His most excellent power in raising His body from the dead. And then He would glorify that body that He had walked in and had laid down in death. He would change it into a spiritual body, an immortal body. And He would promise man that if they followed Him in spiritually laying down their lives for others, they would receive immortality also.

Yet the most astounding, beautiful, wonderful thing about this is that this glorified spiritual body of His that He raised from the dead, that body now is the same body that He originally made for Himself in the heavens before the worlds ever were created!

For He is the Beginning and the Ending, the first and the last, the root and offspring of David, the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Kenneth Wayne Hancock