Category Archives: love

May 14, 2016 · 4:48 pm

The Vision of How God Fulfills His Purpose of Reproducing Himself

To walk in Jerusalem just like John, to speak the thoughts of God as the prophets and apostles did–that is our destiny, after all. But to do what they did, you and I must learn of God’s vision of His plan in establishing His government that will fulfill His purpose of reproducing Himself. And His purpose is composed of the Thoughts of His Mind, and they are poured into the Word and transformed into the Seed. And the Seed is the Word.

And the Seed was made flesh and dwelt among us. And the Seed was God, and the Seed was Love. For Love is the very nature of God; it is God. His purpose has always been to reproduce Love, which is Himself. He does  this by sowing the Seed of Love, His Son, into the earth. For the earth is the only place that a seed will grow. Faith in His resurrection germinates in the fertile soil of good and honest hearts, where it will grow and grow and grow until it fills the whole earth with Love.  “Until Christ (Love Incarnate) be all in all,” said the apostle Paul. And this is all contained in the Mind of the Son of God. And you and I are told to “let this mind be in you that was in Christ…”

Comprehending and understanding just how God will do this reproduction of Himself is  seeing the vision of God; it is being privy to the very secrets of God Almighty.  However, to be a “seer” of the  vision, an initiation of sorts must first be accomplished by the seeker of truth.

The Initiation

Natural man, the first Adam, cannot see the spiritual vision of God’s plan to fulfill His purpose. It can stare him right in the face. In fact, it is written in plain English and sits on a shelf in half the homes of this world, and yet, the Bible remains a dusty tome, mostly unintelligible. To understand what God is all about first takes a new heart and with it a new way of thinking and living.

The Word says that we must first be “born again,” which in the original says “born from above” before we can even “see” or “enter” the kingdom of God (John 3: 3, 5). The kingdom of God is the spiritual and physical environment in which God animates and enacts His plan to fulfill His purpose. Moreover, until the seeker experiences this spiritual rebirth, he remains blind to what God is doing and how He is doing it.

Being “born from above” begins with one experiencing his own spiritual death, burial, and resurrection in revelation on the cross with Christ. For we know that our old nature was crucified with Christ and then was buried with Him. And then by believing He was raised from the dead after three days and three nights in the tomb, we, also, are “raised to walk in a newness of life.” Our old selfish sinful heart spiritually dies with Christ, and that seed of faith, provided by His Love for us when we were down, begins to grow. And with this small step of faith, we begin to see and enter His kingdom. God is leading His children into these greener pastures, and He will send them a teacher with the vision who will explain to them the vision. We need only to seek with a hungry sincere heart, and God will not give us a stone, but the bread of life.

The cross experience must happen first. This is what the true “come to Jesus” moment is all about. This is the only place where we may strip ourselves of petty ego and let the old self die–with Christ (Romans 6). The only place. It is the only sacrifice now that God will accept from us. It is the only way to get right with Him. It is the crucible of true repentance from sin and faith toward God. This is the initiation that separates the sheep from the goats, the pretenders from the contenders. This is where a Christian must put his hands to the plow and not look back. This is where one sells all that they have, especially the delusions of self-glorification.

Once this has been done, the following pages explaining the vision of His plan to fulfill His purpose will begin to make sense. His true doctrine will enlighten our sojourn through the “valley of the shadow of death.” But Christ holds the key that unlocks death’s inevitability. And He will help our eyes to see and help our feet to walk on by faith in this invisible Spirit of Love.

Contemplating His Love

After these opening first steps of repentance from sin and faith toward God takes hold, we then can begin to comprehend His love for us. For we cannot help but wonder about why He loved us–warts and all–even before we met Him at the cross.

And then we realize that He is Love. He is agape, selfless Love, and all Love can do is love. And Love’s nature is giving and sharing with no ulterior motives.

And if He gives us insight to go all the way back to the beginning with God, we will see that Love is like a seed. Love gives itself, and the receiver of that love then begins to love. It is like planting a seed in a garden; it germinates and grows into a plant that will produce its own seed.

And so God in the beginning, of course, knew all this. In the infinite essence of His Love, He knew that He needed something to express His Love to. It would not be a beautiful planet, star, or galaxy, for they could not respond to the Love. To the contrary, it would be  a living being capable of receiving and feeling the love. Moreover, He would create a being especially designed to be touched and moved by Love, with a heart that could serve as the matrix for the further reproduction of agape Love. That being would be the human being, a being wonderfully made by his Creator, made to be the “glory of God.” The human being was created for this purpose of duplicating and multiplying God.

And so, in the beginning, because His nature was Love, God arrived at His purpose, which is to share this love and to multiply His nature of love. In a word, His purpose is to reproduce Himself.

To carry out His purpose, God formulated a plan to reproduce Himself. He would create a human being, and He would make them male and female. They would serve as a crucible for each other, forging through the fires of the human condition a purification, thus implementing His plan for their perfection in His love.

Furthermore, He would choose Him a family of people, picked from Adam’s lineage, to be a living metaphor and symbol of His plan in action. He would call out Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jacob’s twelve sons and their families to literally act out in a reality the past, present and future of His plan, thereby unfolding His eternal purpose for all His creation to see.

The above is rarefied knowledge and constitutes the vision of God. This is the vision that He shared with a few Hebrew prophets, offspring all of the aforementioned patriarchs. We have their writings in the Holy Bible. They tell us of God’s vision in small doses and scenes and insights and revelations, fashioned from the lives of historical persons.

The words of the vision given to them have been “closed up and  sealed till the time of the end.” The time of the end is now upon us. Their words of truth are dots that are now being connected by the Spirit of truth. “None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12: 9-10).

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Comments

Filed under agape, belief, Bible, calling of God, children of God, cross, crucified with Christ, death of self, elect, end time prophecy, eternal purpose, faith, kingdom of God, knowledge, love, Love from Above, repentance

Tagged as , , , ,

April 30, 2016 · 1:30 pm

Finding Our Way Back Home to the Beginning

Our spiritual walk as Christians is about finding our way back home. We began our journey in the Mind of God eons ago. We proceeded forth from a thought in His Mind in the beginning. For the Word-made-flesh told us, “For you have been with Me from the beginning”.

We were  then deposited onto this terrestrial plain with no initial recollection of our spiritual origins–for a purpose–His purpose.

Our immersion into sin early on in our earthly life sent us on a quest for peace with our Maker. We needed to be free from the guilt and sorrow  that our first life provided. That was God’s purpose in allowing us to wallow in sin for a season–to send us on our search for His redemption. We would not have ever sought His solace without the misery and debasement that sin brought to us.

So we broke down and got real and humbled ourselves to our Maker, and He answered us in giving us a new life in the form of a new seed beginning that when watered, will grow into the same thing we had with Him before the foundations of the world (John 15: 26-27; Isa. 40: 21). And with this new life, we grew to not only appreciate God and His mercy in delivering us from degradation, but also to just plain loving Him.

It is this love that God, who is Love, is after–for us. His desire is to reproduce His nature of love in human beings, which are the only beings capable of reproducing His spirit of unselfish love. We are, after all, created in His image; we are a vessel to contain and to pour out God onto a thirsty land.

And the seed of this love for God grows from that appreciation we exhibit when we acknowledge God’s love to us. His love toward us is all in the plan to use His Son as the sacrificial Lamb that “takes away the sins of the world.” God’s self-sacrifice at the cross showed us the greatest love. There no greater love than that.

When we believe the testimony of the Seed/Son, we receive a new life in a seed, energized by the Spirit, which erases all our past sins along with the guilt.

We are made free, and as the ex-slaves of sin, we exalt our new Master who has delivered us from death. We love Him and appreciate Him. His life now through the resurrection affords us that same life inside us. And His Seed of Love is growing and growing, both in our own hearts and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

Christ is the Seed of a new beginning for us. When we believe His testimony, we receive the seed of faith into our hearts. There is no spiritual growth without the true seed being received into the ground of a fertile heart, a heart that’s honest and receptive and in need.

It is this internalization into our hearts of His resurrection power that generates within us the new life.

The Father/Creator/Spirit/Love/Light has poured His complete plan, purpose, essence and life into His Son. Consequently,  we cannot thrive in our brief moments here on earth if we do not believe God’s testimony of His Son.

When someone rejects the Son, they reject the Truth of the ages, and in so doing, they lose their own souls. If the doubters do not surrender to God’s plan as seen in His Son’s life, then their brief moment of self-aggrandizement will molder in a forgotten shallow grave. But if we walk in the Light, we shall overcome all things and bask in the glory we had with him in the beginning (Heb. 2: 10; 1 Pet. 1: 7; Rom. 8: 18).     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 Comments

Filed under agape, belief, cross, death of self, eternal purpose, faith, glorification, humility, light, love, Love from Above, manifestation of the sons of God, sons of God, truth

Tagged as , , ,

April 16, 2016 · 3:11 pm

Exploring the Mind of God–His Love, Purpose, and Plan

Distilling the mind of God into the ink of a single page is like trying to put a cloud burst into a coffee cup. After the torrent, we see a bit of the water of heaven captured in a small finite vessel, a symbol of the moisture poured forth on the thirsty land.

That cup of truth may satisfy the parched souls of only a few pilgrims who stop for refreshment. Hopefully this cup of rain reminds them of the firmament from which it fell.

The mind of God. How do we begin to consider and relate such ethereal thoughts? Perhaps when our finite minds decrease and His infinite wisdom increases in them.

The Hebrew God has left us a record of His thoughts that emanates from His mind as revealed to His prophets of old. This record of His thoughts were written down and miraculously preserved through the millenia for us in the last days. They are called the “scriptures of truth,” or the writings of truth.

Thousands of years ago, God spoke His mind to His people using the prophets, who wrote it down. Now God speaks to us by His Son, the heir of all things, the King of God’s Kingdom (Heb. 1: 1-2). The prophets knew the mind of God because the “Spirit of Christ…was in them” (I Pet. 1: 11). These prophets “spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (II Pet. 1: 21). They had the Spirit of Christ in them and were longing for our day, the day when the Spirit of Christ is multiplied and reproduced into a body of “many sons [and daughters] unto glory”–right here on earth!

The Spirit of Christ in the prophets of old longed for that time about 2,000 years ago for the Father Yahweh’s Son to come on the scene. For with His arrival, the Seed Son then could be planted in the earth. They knew that there could be no great harvest without the planting of the Seed Son into the earth. Christ, reflecting on His date with death, said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12: 24 NKJV).

Without Christ’s death and resurrection, there would be no harvest of “grain,” no reproduction of seed. By definition, grain is reproducible seed. And in this case, Christ is teaching us that by believing Him, we become just like the original Seed that was planted. The harvest is not a harvest of little immature seedlings. No. It is a harvest of seeds, like the original, ready to be planted for their own harvest.

With Christ’s planting of Himself literally in the tomb in the earth, we have the inevitable harvest of Seed just like Him! That is what He said. And He is speaking the mind of God. He is speaking the thoughts of God about His purpose, which is this: God is reproducing Himself in a group of people called and chosen for this purpose.

That is worthy of repeating over and over in our finite minds. God is reproducing Himself in a body of people from all over the earth. He is calling them and choosing them. It is all His doing. It is all Him. They did not work for this honor. To the contrary. He has chosen the weak, the foolish, the low, and the despised of the earth to bring to nothing the world and its thinking (I Cor. 1: 27).

The Plan Is Found in the Scriptures

If you peel back all the layers of the Seed, you will find the seminal heart to be Unselfish Love. God is Love, and Love cannot by its very nature do anything but share. God is sharing Himself.

And in the very beginning, God, of course, realized this about Himself. He knew that the wonderful thing that He is is Love, and Love shares and magnifies and expresses and ultimately reproduces itself. That is what unselfish love, the love from above, is.

So this reproduction of Himself, which is Love, became His Purpose and Life. In His Mind of Love He created thoughts comprised of words. And with these words and thoughts He created the Plan to make His Purpose happen.

Using His thoughts, comprised of words, He created the  concept of “seed time and harvest.” And He made the original Seed His Word, and He made it incorruptible (I Pet. 1: 23).

We must pause a moment and realize that this whereof we speak was in the beginning before this dimension in which we breathe existed.

God created the Plan to carry out His Purpose of Reproducing Himself (Love). And this Plan is laid out in the scriptures of truth. To the prophets and apostles He revealed a precept here and a precept there, but we now have the privelege of seeing all the pieces to the puzzle spread before us. And with the Spirit of Christ within us, we through His help can comprehend the mysteries of God’s Plan.

His Plan, which is expressed in words, becomes the Word, the Logos. And this entire Plan of His Purpose of Reproducing Love is all poured into the Son of God. “And the Word (Logos) was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory…” (John 1: 14).

The Plan and Purpose is all in the Seed, who is the Word, who is the Son of God. The Father, whose thoughts we have endeavored to explore, poured His everything into His Son–His very nature, His purpose, His plan. It is all there in Him. That’s the reason the apostle Paul says, “He is before all things, and by Him all things consist (Col. 1: 17-18).

And Christ is our Head, and we are His body. He now needs His body to agree with His Mind, the Mind of God. And God’s Mind becomes our mind when we agree with His thoughts.      Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 Comments

Filed under agape, belief, Bible, body of Christ, Christ, church, death, elect, kingdom of God, love, Love from Above, manifestation of the sons of God, mind of Christ, resurrection, sons and daughters of God, sons of God, Spirit of God, spiritual growth

Tagged as , , , ,

March 27, 2016 · 6:30 pm

36 Hours from Good Friday to Easter Morning–Not 3 Days and 3 Nights

Millions today have gone to sunrise and Easter services and have reverently endeavored to commemorate the Resurrection of the Son of God. Millions have observed Good Friday, also, and they will feel assured that their efforts are pleasing to the Most High God.

However, very few are aware that this 36 hour time frame comes up about 36 hours short of the only sign that God has given us as to who is the true Messiah. When the Pharisees demanded a sign from Christ, He said, “There shall no sign be given…but the sign of the prophet Jonah: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12: 40-41).

Some will say, So what is your point?  Tomayto, tomahto. 36 hours, 72 hours. No big deal, right? Perhaps if it were not the only sign that we have of the true Messiah. For there were and are many “messiahs” out there, as there are many concepts of the Messiah. Perhaps, it would not be a big deal if the prophecies had declared that the Messiah would rise from the dead somewhere between one and three days after the crucifixion. But they did not.

How Did This Happen?

Something is off somewhere. We need to dig into it. After all, aren’t we told by our very own Savior and Teacher to dig deep and build our house upon the rock. We must go deep, for if we just build our spiritual house on the earth and not dig down to the rock, our  house will not stand the floods of trials that will come, and great will be our ruin (Luke 6: 48-49).

How did this one and one half day gap come down to us in the 21st century? The same way we found out when  to observe Good Friday through Easter services. Somebody told us that those were the days to worship. Our parents said to us, Let’s get dressed up and go to church. It’s Easter! And, of course, we did not question it just like they did not question the pastor, preacher, or priest when they put out the call to worship on those days.

For all ministers were once  children who were told about this Easter weekend. And so, on and on it goes, back, back, back through the centuries to the days of the early church, to the time when somebody in power instituted these dates. And the vast majority, perhaps 99% of Christians have never pondered these things, nor the importance of them.

And so we must ask, Are the times for the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ  important to God? We know the current set up is important to the church organizations and the merchants who sell their candy bunnies and eggs and Easter bonnets, et al (That’s a whole other can of worms you can open and dig into by googling “Easter bunnies or Easter eggs”).

Is all this important to God for His people? We need only remember that He is holy and wants us to be holy and set apart for Him, that He is jealous, that He wants His people walking in the truth, that He does everything decently and in order and will not allow any strange incense on His altar, incense being a symbol of our prayers to Him.

To those who minimize the importance and inadvertently quote a current candidate for President by saying, “What difference does it really make? We are celebrating the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ”–I would say this: Would the following scenario be important to you?

You have gone to great expense to plan a wonderful three day vacation, 72 hours of family fun in the sun. You have purchased all the food and refreshments and paid in advance for the beach house rental with all the extras. You love your parents and siblings and their families, and this is your way of showing your love for them.

Every thing is paid for and provided beginning from Thursday at noon to Sunday at noon. So what happens? No one shows up until late Friday afternoon. You can’t believe it. You ask them, Why? And they say, We just thought this would be a better time. We’re here, so what is the problem?

You just shake your head and say, The problem is that I sent you all invitations with the dates and times clearly stated, and you led me to believe that it was all settled, but now….

You fill in the rest. I dare say that it would make a big difference. I think that it makes a big difference to God, as well.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 Comments

Filed under Christ, Easter, false doctrines, false prophets, false teachers, love, resurrection, Uncategorized

Tagged as

February 27, 2016 · 7:44 pm

“All You Need Is Love”–God Is Love

“Nothing you can do that can’t be done.” That famous line from the song “All You Need Is Love” flashed through my mind today.  I then thought of these biblical passages: “God is Love” and “With God all things are possible.”  With Love, then, all things are possible.  Or, with God’s Spirit (which is love personified) in us fully, all things are possible.

It’s possible for Christ’s Spirit (Love) to fully reside in us.  This is the “more excellent way” that Paul wrote about in I Corinthians 13, the “Love” chapter.  For this way is how God comes down and through us to others.  He desires to use us to spread His love.

As I wrote in my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God, this is agape love, from the Greek.  And Paul outlines just what God’s nature of love will look like in us in I Corinthians 13 (“charity” being from the Gr. word agape, which is “God is Love” [https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/ebook-the-unveiling-of-the-sons-of-god/ ].

This agape love is all we need.  It is what every heart is hungry for–the unconditional love that can only come from the Unselfish One. The need to be loved is universal, and only one Being can satisfy that longing, and that is He who laid down His mortal life for us.  kwh

1 Comment

Filed under agape, cross, death of self, love, Love from Above

Tagged as , ,

October 10, 2015 · 4:32 pm

Everyone Wants to Be Loved

Everyone wants to be loved–to be cared for, thought of kindly, smiled upon, approved of, praised as worthy.

Everyone wants to be loved. It is the universal spiritual need that stares us all in the face. When our eyes meet, we witness simultaneously the same longing ache that we see when we peer into a looking glass and see the loneliness reflected in our own two wells of tears.

Everyone wants to be loved. We spend much of our lives searching for “the one”–the one who can fill that longing. A cosmic vacuum exists in the human heart, and no one is there to fill its aching need for love.

And there is only one earthly organism on the planet that is specifically designed to channel the kind of love that we all need. Only one being on earth that is capable of loving another the exact way that they want to be loved. And that is the human being.

We are all human. So then, why can’t we simply meet the need and fill the vacuum and just love everyone?

Someone will say, Well, I love people. Yet, Christ tells us, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” Whoa. You mean we are to love everyone? He continues, “But love your enemies, and do good…and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest” [1].

Everyone wants to be loved. But natural man has an irrational fear of rejection. It is irrational because  even a two year old teaches us its folly as they unconditionally embrace us and drown us with wet kisses. They have no fear of rejection, for innately they know that everyone wants to be loved.

So what happens to us? After our brief taste of the victory of fearless love as toddlers, what prevents us from giving what everyone wants?

If we can agree that the Creator made us this way–both with the need for love and the capacity to selflessly channel it–then we must realize that He has made a way for us to do it–to be the riverbeds of the living waters of the love from above that will fill the vacuum.

God is this love–this agape love. He through His Spirit will flow this selfless love and help us fulfill our destiny as His conduits, channeling His love to those who need it. For everyone wants to be loved.

The Price

But to be one of the “children of the Highest” who will love everyone like their Father does, there is a price to be paid. It costs something. And we should “count the cost,” as He admonished us to do [2].

It costs us our old life and all of our allegiances to the people and things we deemed important. And to pay the cost, we must bear our own cross and follow Him.

How do we do that? We must let our old spiritual heart die with the Son of God on His cross. We must die with Him, be buried with Him, and be resurrected with Him. This happens when we believe that God raised up Christ from the grave. We, too, now are resurrected “to walk in a newness of life” [3].

It all starts at the cross–now our cross. We, like Christ, show the greatest love when we lay down our lives for another [4]. There is no greater love. He did it, and now as the “children of the Highest,” we do it. And then God’s love will flow through us. Then we will be used by our Creator to be His fountain of fearless love, His essence, agape love. For “God is love” [5].

Then we will conquer the fear of being rejected. For “perfect love casts out fear” [6]. With our old selves dead and gone, we will be able to channel Christ’s Spirit of love back to God by loving others.

And then great joy will be ours, for we will have the capacity to fulfill everyone’s desire. For everyone wants to be loved.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

[For more:  https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/what-the-world-needs-now-is-agape-love/ ]

 

  1.  Luke 6: 27-35     2.  Luke 14: 27-33     3.  Col. 2: 11-12; Rom. 6: 1-12               4.  John 15: 13     5.  I John 4: 8             6.  I John 4: 18

 

 

3 Comments

Filed under agape, baptism, children of God, Christ, cross, crucified with Christ, death of self, faith, forgiveness, love, Love from Above, repentance, resurrection, Spirit of God

Tagged as , , , ,

September 26, 2015 · 4:35 pm

The Law and the Testimony of Love That Fulfills It–How to Prevent Backsliding

“Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Which law? The Ten Commandments, the breaking of which constitutes the definition of sin (I John 3: 4; Rom. 13: 8-10).

Which “love” is it then? It is the love from above–agape love. It is only through agape love that the law can be kept. Natural man without this love cannot keep the law, no matter how hard he works to keep it. It is spiritual, and it takes a new spirit from a brand new heart to keep it.

This divine law is the standard that man can and must attain unto, but it will be only through God’s Spirit helping him. In fact, that is precisely the point. The only way that a man stops breaking the Ten Commandments–stops sinning, in other words– is by receiving a new spirit from God.

The Greatest Love

In order for this to happen, one must visit the source of agape love. The source is God Himself and what He did for us. He gave us His Son. Yahweh was in Christ, “reconciling the world unto Himself” (II Cor. 5: 19). It is the laying down of His life on the cross that is the greatest love. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15: 13).

When we believe this love that Christ showed, when we are grateful and appreciative for this selfless act, and when we do what Christ did, then this great agape love that He exhibited in dying for us is transferred into and through us to others. We then become a channel of God’s love, which is His essence, for “God is love” (I John 4: 16).

This agape love is the essence of His Spirit, which He gives to us. And this love inside our new hearts in the form of His Spirit, now courses through us.

We must see that Christ “was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Cor. 5: 21). And we must identify our old sinful law-breaking selfish nature with Christ on the cross. We must believe that when He died, our old sinful nature died with Him. Same goes with His burial. And–HalleluYah!–when we believe that He rose from the dead, we rise, also, to walk in a newness of life! He is not our substitute; He is our example.

It is all lined out in Romans 6. Our old sinful Adamic nature must die with Christ on the cross. And be buried with Him. And through belief that He arose from the dead, God will raise us up with a new heart! For which is easier for God to perform–raising Christ from a three day death or giving us a new heart that is free from sin and sinning?

This is the crux of the matter. This is the rock solid foundation that will never be shaken. Just feeling guilty about the sin in one’s life and walking down to the front of a church building will not sustain a young convert to Christ. How many have we seen “back slide” into the slop and vomit of their old lives?

The crux? Do we believe that Christ was raised from the dead? Not just the historical resurrection some 2,000 years ago. It is believing that Christ, when He arose then, now arises IN US. Do we believe that? For that is the crux of the matter. Even the devils believe in one God and tremble (James 2: 19). So believing that Christ’s historical resurrection is not enough. It is believing that His Spirit is resurrected in us–that is the important thing. That is the solid Rock in us that cannot be moved. That is what prevents backsliding into the old life of sin.

When this Spirit of agape love, now in us, begins to flow through us to others, then the law is fulfilled in us. Love fulfills the law in us. This is the testimony of God’s Spirit incarnate once again in us.

And now the old scripture passage becomes clear. “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8: 20). Those that speak of this law and the testimony that keeps the law through divine love, have the light of God. If they don’t speak in agreement with the law and this testimony of what fulfills it, then beware of them, for there is no light in them.     [For much more on this visit here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/category/light/ ]

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

2 Comments

Filed under baptism, belief, cross, crucified with Christ, death of self, faith, light, love, Love from Above, old self, repentance, sin, Spirit of God, Yahweh

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 17, 2015 · 8:47 pm

What the World Needs Now Is…Agape Love

Life is really all about love. Rather, a fulfilled life is all about love. Books, songs, poems, and most artistic masterpieces have as their major theme something about love. It is “what the world needs now.”

So we have the thinkers and poets penning down for the masses the hidden longings of the heart, for love. Although they may not realize it, mankind’s longing for love is really a desperate desire for God on some level. For there is only one entity in the universe that actually is love, and that is God, for “God is love” (I John 4: 16).

Thus, mankind’s search for love ends when he finds God. Seeking to be loved from another individual is seeking an earnest of God that He has placed in man and woman, who was created in His image.

The Hebrew prophets and apostles speak of just these very things. The Son of God Himself spoke of love, living it out dramatically through His Passion. He is Love incarnate, for He exhibited the greatest love that a mortal can ever do–to lay down his life for his friends.

This act of self-sacrifice for another instantly touches the human heart like no other act. The Son of God presented Himself the sacrificial Lamb for our deliverance, and now He asks His followers to do the same. But this time we are “to present our bodies a living sacrifice.”  Through this humble service to our King, we will not become self-centered proteges of this world system, but we will be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” We will change into His image through thinking His way, by His Spirit. (Romans 12: 1-2).

Now His Holy Spirit of Love multiplies and abounds in us when we do what He did, which is lay down our lives to help save mankind from a life without love (God). It is not so we can escape hell and go to heaven. That is not why He laid His life down. To follow Him, we must do it for the same reason.

How Do We Lay Our Lives Down Like Christ Did?

He wants us to join Him on the cross. The moment just before Christ died, all of the sins of mankind were place upon Him. He wants us at first to join Him on the cross. This signifies that our old haunts and sinful desires and deeds coming out of our old heart die with Him. Our old sinful nature died with Christ that day. And “he that is dead is freed from sin” (Romans 6: 7). We are free from the enslavement to sin and sinning that was our old selfish life! The problem is many just do not believe it. They have not heard of it and are loathe to believe anything “new.” They think that it is impossible to be rid of sin in a Christian’s life. But is anything too hard for God? To him that believes, aren’t all things possible with God? (I John 3: 9).

Dying with Him is the initial baptism or immersion into His death. Then we  believe that we are buried with Him. And then we believe that He was raised from the dead after 72 lifeless hours in the tomb. It is through believing in His resurrection that enables us to believe that we are raised from the dead, too! (Romans 6: 4-5). This is His faith, His belief. When we also believe this great act of the greatest love, then we receive His Spirit of life and love, and we walk “in a newness of life”! And love!

His resurrection power is born of love. For it surges forth after the selfless act of laying down His life for His friends, the greatest love. Our conscious act of following Christ in doing this is met with the resurrection power of love (God), now in us.

Spiritually Growing
And then we, “as newborn babes,” are to spiritually grow in Him. Or rather, we will spiritually grow as the Spirit of Love grows in us.

“Babes in Christ” need the “sincere milk of the word” in order to grow properly. They are, of course, mostly alive in their new life for what they can receive from the Father. Their prayers reflect this, for their petitions  center on their own needs. This is why Christ teaches all of us to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” and all of our earthly needs will be supplied. But it takes a spiritual growth to become mature in Him enough to do this. A growth that the milk and then the meat of the Word will accomplish. For we all must be taught His thoughts, desires, and will, in order to grow (I Peter 2.2; Matt. 6: 31-34).

But herein lies the problem. Instead of the sincere and uncorrupted milk and later meat of the Word, they are fed with half-truths, imaginations, and traditions of men about God and not the “food that is needful for [them]” (Prov. 30: 8). Thus, the little children of God, lamentably, are stunted in their spiritual growth in Christ, stunted by erroneous concepts of the Savior and His plan for this world.

But a “babe in Christ” is like a child fed only with junk food their whole life. When the white sugar, corn syrup, and white flour products are taken away and a wholesome diet is place in front of them, they will say that the old junk food is  better. “And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ” “Wine” is universally accepted to be a symbol of “doctrine” (Luke 5: 39).

Warnings about this problem in the last days fill the writings of the apostles of Christ. All of the New Testament writers, along with the prophets of old, expressed their concerns.

But Some…

But some will break out of the stunted pack, pulled by a strong yearning for the answer to life’s riddle. God has called some according to His purpose. He foreknew and conferred on them a destiny “to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8: 28-29). He has chosen them “in Him before the foundation of the world, that [they] should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Agape Love (Eph. 1:4).

These chosen ones, invisibly guided by His Spirit, will answer the “high calling.” They will decrease so that He can increase His presence in them to the point that Love (God) will express Himself fully to every one on earth–through them.

These He is calling. They have already been chosen. And they will respond and become the over comers of all things like the the corrupted half-truths and traditions of men about God. Fed with the sincere truth of God’s plan, they will grow fully to express Christ in human form again. They will believe Christ’s words: “Greater works shall you do than what I have done.”

They will be the princes and princesses in God’s kingdom, soon to be established earth wide upon His return. Filled with Christ’s Spirit, during the 1,000 Year Reign, they will be His viceroys, governing the provinces of the earth after the dust and ash of Tribulation settle.

How Will They Grow?

This vision of the “gospel of the kingdom” is what will feed and nourish young Christians so that they can spiritually grow to be just like Christ.

And the growth of God within them is the growth of love within them. Christ’s words confirm this: “All men will know that you are My disciples if you have love one to another.”

The last days are upon us. All these promises of sonship are written for our time, brothers and sisters. We are living in the time of the latter rain of His Spirit. Are we the ones who will shake off the chains of Christian mediocrity and free ourselves from spiritual infancy? Will we stand up and answer this highest of His callings–to sit with Him on His throne? Not every Christian will. Consider the five foolish virgins (Rev. 3: 21; Matt. 25: 1-13).

Or will we recede to the rear near the nursery and hide our talents in the earth, only to be chided by the Master, “You slothful and unprofitable servant.”

Sadly, this will come upon some Christians, all because they did not dig deep and prove all things and study for themselves the “new things” presented to them along the way. Christians who don’t grow will never express the greatest love, the love that comes from above, that heals the poor and needy, that rights the wrongs of human depravity, that restores God’s righteous judgements in the earth, thus incarnating God (Love) once again to a love-starved earth.

It is this kind of love that we are to finally add to the divine nature within us now. “Agape love is the bond of perfectness.” It is that last attribute of God’s divine nature that makes us complete in Him. It matures us, for when added, we will have been “conformed to the image of His Son.”  {My readers, I have poured it out for you. Can a brother get an “Amen”? Tell me what you think about these things. Did they make you think? Did they inspire you? Did they make you angry? Make a comment. Let me know your thoughts about these things. Holler at me. I need your fellowship.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock}

 

 

 

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under additions to our faith, agape, baptism, belief, calling of God, children of God, cross, crucified with Christ, death of self, elect, eternal purpose, faith, false doctrines, glorification, gospel, great tribulation period, kingdom of God, love, Love from Above, manifestation of the sons of God, old leaven, old self, perfection, princes and princesses of God, resurrection, sin, spiritual growth, will of God

Tagged as , , , ,

January 12, 2015 · 6:59 pm

Adding Agape Love to Our Faith–The Greatest Love

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” *

Those Christians chosen by God to answer the “high calling” in being His manifested sons and daughters in these last days must add seven things to their faith “obtained” from Him. The apostle Peter clearly lines them out in his second letter. The last one is agape, the divine love that is God Himself [1].

When added, these seven attributes make us “partakers of the divine nature.” They insure that we will never be “barren nor unfruitful” in Him. Adding them is the way to “make [our] calling and election sure.” In other words, they are extremely important to study out and incorporate into our being.

Adding “godliness” is adding an increased love and appreciation of God. Adding “brotherly kindness” is loving your fellow man as God does. Adding agape love to them is when the very essence of God’s divine nature, which is Love, is placed by Him into His temple, you and me.

“Love, Love, Love”

The poets and writers know that “love is all you need,” that “love is the answer,” that “nobody gets too much” of it. They herald love’s necessity  today as they have since mankind first spoke of their inner feelings. They know that “what the world needs now is love, sweet love.” We hum the tunes and whisper the words of this ancient truth, but how do we tap into and receive into our hearts that divine entity, that attribute of the divine nature that eludes us?

We first look to family for love, to our dear mothers who innately gave of themselves to us. Then to friends and acquaintances we go searching for love and acceptance. Then on to our search for “the one,” the one we will marry, the one who will love us surely; surely they will.

Natural mankind is filled with this longing to be loved. But the very people that he wants love, respect, and admiration from do not know how to give it really. Unconditional love is not man’s forte because it is the divine love that mankind is really craving. For only divine love is strong and selfless enough to forgive  mankind’s sins and shortcomings. Besides, the very person that we seek unconditional love from is limited, also, and doesn’t have the capacity to love like that. Most are bogged down in their own pursuit of love for themselves from others in this world.

And so this unrequited love on all sides seethes oftentimes into a bitter bile of dissatisfaction and dismay. The swirl of perceived rejection and angst can begin to flush one’s mind down into the pit of despair.

Consequently, the real need for us all is to forgive those who have not loved us like we thought they should have. But forgiveness only issues from a heart of love.

Alexander Pope, the 18th Century English poet, was right. “To err is human; to forgive divine.” The water of forgiveness can only be drawn from the divine well of Love. Agape love is the fountain of forgiveness. I cannot forgive you unless I love you because forgiveness is fashioned only from a heart of love.

Where Is This Fountain of Love?

But where do we get that divine love? Where is that rarefied pool of love, the “living waters” that we sojourners may drink and fill our hearts for our journey through “the valley of the shadow of death”?

It comes from God, for “God is love” [2]. Everyone knows that; it’s been repeated over and over down through the millennia. Yet, repeating it will still not fill us with this most ethereal of elixirs, agape love.

The Key

The key lies in answering this question: How is it that “God is love”? How is He agape love? Why is He love? We begin to sip this life-giving love when we finally see it in action. But not just see it. We must believe it, believe in it, trust it, breathe it, and live it.

For God, who is Divine Love, poured His essence of love into a man. Agape love is the Word, and the Word was God, and Love “was made flesh and dwelt among us” [3]. This Divine Love was incarnated in Christ and dwelt with mankind in the form of our Savior.

When we believe Christ’s story of God’s great love displayed when Christ laid down His life for the salvation of the world, we begin to add His nature of divine love to our spirit. When we believe in His death, burial, and resurrection, then through faith (belief) in Him and this very action of love, we begin to tap into that flow of the Spirit of love. He begins to love that hard to love person in our life through us. It is God who is loving them through us. He is the actor, we are the medium.”

Our belief in His resurrection in us localizes God, who is love. Our belief in His resurrection raises up His Spirit of love in us, the divine Spirit of love. This is how God magnifies and multiplies Himself. He reproduces Himself through His spiritual nature of love manifested through us, His offspring.

Christ showed the greatest love in the universe when He willingly laid down His life for us. Meditating on this revelation of the greatest love witnessed on earth in Christ is the key to exponential spiritual growth. It is the key to understanding the Holy Bible. It is the key to solving all the mysteries of God.

It is when we follow Him in His baptism, when we willingly lay down our selfish lives on the cross with Him, when we are buried with Him, and when we believe that we are risen with Him–then that very same Love–the greatest Love of all–flows through us from Agape Love Himself. Our belief in the greatest Love of all is believing in Christ’s laying down His life and taking it back up again. When we follow Him in this, we tap into that Spirit of Love and add it to His divine nature in us [4].     Kenneth Wayne Hancock    [For more information on this topic, I invite you to peruse these articles found here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/?s=additions ]

*John 15: 13

1. II Peter 1: 4-11; Eph. 1: 4.  [Agape is the Greek word that is translated in many versions as “charity.” Because of “charity’s” obvious modern connotation, it clouds the true meaning of the passage.]

2. I John 4: 8, 16.

3. John 1: 1, 14.

4. Romans 6: 1-12

*John 15: 13

Leave a comment

Filed under additions to our faith, agape, apostles' doctrine, belief, crucified with Christ, death of self, elect, faith, forgiveness, love, Love from Above, old self, unrequited love, Word

Tagged as , , ,

March 1, 2014 · 8:15 pm

Self-Sacrifice Versus Self-Improvement in Christian Growth

Life is all about love.  It is about living to love. Life is our time to love.

But it is about great love, selfless love, agape love. For that is what touches the human heart–love. But this the highest love is the giving-up-one’s-life-for-another kind of love. It is that rare selfless love. And that is the part of the Christian story that reaches into the inner recesses of the heart and gently breaks it. It touches us. That’s the kind of love that is great–laying down one’s life for a friend.

And that is where the Christian’s Savior reigns supreme in touching hearts. Hearing of His undeniable love in taking our sins upon Himself and providing Himself as an offering for our sins–for the selfish likes of us–that is what touches us.

The cool untouchable reflection of Buddha does not touch us like Christ does. It is, after all, an exercise in helping one’s self gain peace. The busy petty pantheons of India, Rome, and Greece do not move us like Christ does.

Nor do nebulous new age imaginations touch us, for they all are mere means of self-improvement, not self-denial to help others.

And we humans know too well deep down in the core of our beings that self-improvement of the self is, well, self-centered and self-important and has little to do with worshipping the Creator who needs no improvement. For His ways are perfect; His thoughts are law.

This then should give us Christians pause. For we are warned repeatedly in almost every book in the New Testament that there will be false teachers. And even though well-meaning, they “will bring in damnable heresies.”

And the heretical teaching most damning, that condemns that vulnerable babe in Christ to a stunted spiritual growth is the doctrine of “self-improvement.” In an old tract it was call “The Modern Smooth Cross,” as opposed to the austerity of the “old rugged cross.”

The smooth modern cross does not demand the death of the old self on the cross with Christ, our sin Sacrifice, the Passover Lamb of God. This doctrine merely re-directs ambitions, improves little idiosyncrasies. It never gets down to the real problem–the sin nature that is brought to the church house.

In this modern doctrine of self-improvement, the self is still there. It is never demanded to die with Christ. Therefore, the sinful self is hibernating there under the initial rush and excitement of fellowship, hiding like a cornered wild animal waiting to strike out and wound whoever would pressure it out of its comfortable lair. Some feel quite at home and feel no threats to their current status in Christendom and carry on walking through the wide gate.

The Self-Sacrifice of Spiritual Circumcision

However, we now must remember that we Christians have undergone an invisible spiritual circumcision, “made without hands, in putting off the body of sins of the flesh (Col. 2: 11-13).  For we were already “dead in our sins (v. 13). And now God has provided a way to let that sinful nature die now and avoid the rush. And we have been “buried with Him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead” (v. 12). That is how God sees it and judges it regardless of whether we see it or even feel it. The “we,” the self is dead. He said it; now we believe it.

He died on the cross; our sinful nature died with Him. He was buried; we were buried spiritually, our old sinful nature entombed forever. He was raised from the dead; we are raised with Him and “walk in newness of life (Rom. 6: 4). And we must know this one thing: “That our old man is crucified with  Him [it is already done and over with], that the body of sin might be destroyed [that means dead, caput, no more, totally annihilated], that henceforth we should not serve sin”  (Rom. 6: 6).

So how to do this in a reality? We must reckon it so. We must account that it is done like God has already done. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God” (6: 11). Let the invisible chains of sin’s slavery fall off of you. Just walk off of the plantation. You are already dead, so just let the old sinful life go. Be alive unto God. Walk in a new life through Him and through belief in His resurrection. It is already done. God’s Emancipation Proclamation has gone forth. Just believe it, and walk off of the plantation. You are free. You don’t have to sin anymore. Whether you have been going to church three months, three years, or thirty or more years–you are free now. Just believe it; it is already accomplished. I am proclaiming liberty to the captives. Walk on in the light of His love. Give up your life for others. Sacrifice your self to help save mankind. In a word, be like Christ. That is what He is asking us to do. After he told His disciples of these things, He asked them, Are you sure you want to do this? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

The Effect?

“He that is dead is freed from sin” (6: 7). Very few preachers tell their congregations that they are freed from sin. To the contrary, they tell them how sinful they are, but never tell them how to be free from that bondage to sinning. They proudly proclaim that they are a “sinner saved by grace” and will always be a sinner. Where does the Bible say that? Just read  1 John 3: 9. They will proclaim that they “sin every day.”

But why won’t they tell them that they are freed from the clutches of sin? Because they have not taught them that they must let their sinful old nature die with Christ on the cross. No death of sinful heart=no freedom from its bondage. For “whoever commits sin is the servant [slave] of sin,” Christ said (John 8: 34). He also said that “no man can serve two masters.” You cannot serve God and serve sin. Sharp cutting words, but needful.

But tired old churchianity slogs on, “teaching for doctrine the commandments of men.” Their leaders “cause them to err,” and they will give an account to the Judge who will weigh all their justifications and give His verdict, as they are led from the room muttering, “But did we not prophesy in Your name?”

The message written here will bless the hearts of some, but some will scurry out of its light, back to the friendly confines of modern Christendom’s “Today’s Tips for Self-Improvement. ”   Kenneth Wayne Hancock    {If you haven’t visited my website Immortality Road, please do. There you will find over 300 articles and books exploring the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” all written for you, the elect sons and daughters of God, the future rulers with Christ in His soon coming kingdom
https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com }

2 Comments

Filed under agape, baptism, belief, Bible, cross, crucified with Christ, death, death of self, faith, false doctrines, false teachers, love, repentance, resurrection, sin

Tagged as , , , ,