Category Archives: prayer

January 16, 2016 · 8:52 pm

“Hallowed Be Thy Name, Yahweh”–More from Christ’s Example Prayer

The so called Lord’s Prayer is not an incantation, to be repeated like a chant. It is a model prayer, each phrase having great revelatory truth to be used in our communication with our Father. Our Father’s name is Yahweh–if we consider ourselves children of the Hebrew God of the Bible.

“Hallowed be Thy name.” Christ is saying in the “Lord’s Prayer” that the Father’s name is “hallowed,”which is holy and extremely special.  How can Christians appreciate it and sanctify it if they don’t even know what it is?

Not many know that the Hebrew God of the Bible was known by Moses, Daniel, Isaiah, and all the rest of the prophets and apostles by His name Yahweh.

“The Hebrew national literature centres in the thought of God. It is Yahweh who is all and in all, the father, the leader, the hope, the hero of his people” ( www.1911encyclopedia.org/Christianity ).  This quote is from the article “Christianity” in the Encyclopedia Britannica, entirely on-line at this link.  There are 142 others articles that mention Yahweh (www.1911encyclopedia.org/index.php?q=yahweh&title=LoveToKnow_1911%3ASearch&site=1911&fulltext=LoveToSearch ).

We’ve been told that “God” is His name.  But “God” is a common noun that has been capitalized.  “GOD, the common Teutonic word for a personal object of religious worship. It is thus…applied to all those superhuman beings of the heathen mythologies who exercise power over nature and man…The word “god,” on the conversion of the Teutonic races to Christianity, was adopted as the name of the one Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe” (www.1911encyclopedia.org/God).  It was adopted, but God is not the name of the Father.  Yahweh is His name.  “This is my name forever,” Yahweh said to Moses (Exodus 3:15).

Some think that the Father’s name is “LORD.”  But “LORD” is merely a title of the Father.  This started when the King James translators substituted “the LORD” for the Hebrew name “Yahweh” over 6,700 times.  Only once did they leave “Yah” (the shortened form) in Psalms 68:4: “Sing praises to his name…Jah.”  The editors of the New King James Version corrected “Jah” to “Yah” ( https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/book-yah-is-savior-the-road-to-immortality/ ).

When Christ teaches us how to pray by saying “hallowed be thy name,” He wants us to revere, keep holy, consecrate, and venerate the Father’s name.  That is what the word “to hallow” means.

But first the Father’s name must be restored to our knowledge.  We cannot truly make His name holy and consecrated in our hearts if we don’t know His name.

And the Father’s name is Yahweh.  We must keep this in our minds when we communicate with Him.  For His name is extremely important to Him.  So it should be of extreme importance to us His princes and princesses.  Or how else could we address the King? When we do this, we will join the ranks of the Biblical men and women of God who prayed to Yahweh and spoke His name.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Creator Himself remembered us and wrote down our names and thought of us in a special way? He will do just that for a few. Who will they be? “Then they that feared Yahweh spake often one to another: and Yahweh hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared Yahweh, and that thought upon His name.” That thought upon His name. Those of us who are in reverential awe and that speak and think upon His name–those He will remember (Malachi 3: 16). He is saying, Those that are not ashamed of My name and will remember me by using it, then I’ll remember them. He will set an open door that no man can shut before those who “have kept my word, and have not denied my name” (Rev. 3: 8). But He will shut the door on those who deny His name through unbelief, and great shame will be their reward. Just ask the “five foolish virgins” (Matt. 25: 1-13; verse 10 especially).

Armed with this knowledge, the scriptures about His name will open to us.  It is a key.  But be forewarned.  The knowledge of the Father’s name is a pearl, a gem.  And Christ warns, “Cast not your pearls before swine, for they will turn and rend you with it.”  Be careful who you share this with.  It is dynamite knowledge and needs to be handled carefully.  You will be vilified and derided for sharing this knowledge–usually by those close to you.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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January 9, 2016 · 7:08 pm

Lord’s Prayer–“Which Art in Heaven”–He Is from Above, Not Beneath

Our Father is the God of heaven. That is a profound thought that is easily passed over. In other words, the true God is not born of the imagination of earthly man.  This is what we are to take away from the words in the Lord’s prayer, “Which art in heaven.”  There are “gods many, but for us there is only one God.”  These “gods many” are conjured up by natural unregenerated man–“cunningly devised fables,” false conceptions of Christ.

And the masses are deceived.  “Satan deceives the whole world.”  How can he do that?  “For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.  Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness” (II Cor. 11:14-15). But every “Christian minister” will tell you that they are a teacher of the truth. Just ask them. But they all cannot be right because they disagree so wildly in their doctrines. So we must ask ourselves: Who then are Satan’s ministers who speak about Christ and yet deceive the whole world with their teachings? Since there is no idle word in God, somebody is fulfilling this word right now!

Wait a minute.  Paul has just said that Satan will come as a messenger of truth and light by having priests, pastors, and preachers bringing forth sermons about Christ and His righteousness!  Satan’s ministers will be preaching about Christ in the last days.  But it will not be the true “gospel of the kingdom of heaven.”  It will be “another gospel” other than the one that the apostle Paul preached.  It will not be from heaven, but it will be from beneath.

It will be a gospel concocted by the vain imaginations of natural thinking men.  It will be based on “what God can do for you,” and not “what God can do through your vessel.”  They will claim to be His servants, but at the end, He will say, “Depart from me you workers of iniquity.  I never knew you.”  You wanted prosperity instead of Me. You wanted your spin on the end time and not My timetable.  You wanted a rapturously easy way out of the hard times ahead and not “to endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ.”

This false gospel from beneath will emanate from an “earthly, sensual, and devilish” wisdom and not from heaven above.  This false gospel will spout “in Jesus’ name” but their hearts will be far from the God of Heaven and far from His heart.

This false gospel comes in many colors and flavors.  Most people shop around until they find a church with their kind of “Jesus” in it.  Most depend on the pastor to do their studying for them.  Few dig deep and “prove all things” with the Spirit’s help. This false gospel of Jesus is not from our Father, which is in heaven.  It is not from above, but from beneath. {Note: Church is a way station only on our pilgrimage to the Holy City.  We must eventually leave the way station, grow out of it, etc.}

Our Father and His plan of reproducing Himself in His sons and daughters is from heaven, not from sinful man’s imagination of what they thought God meant.  No, our Father emanates from the finer spiritual dimension we call heaven.  He is far above the selfish, conniving imaginations of un-spiritual man trying to be religious, leaning to his own understanding.

His thoughts are not our thoughts.  “It is a heavenly vision, a heavenly faith, a heavenly destiny, a heavenly plan, a heavenly purpose, a heavenly blueprint, 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”   (quoted from The Unveiling of the Sons of God  https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/ebook-the-unveiling-of-the-sons-of-god/ ).

We must keep this in mind in our communication to Him because He is “Our Father, which art in heaven.”  He’s from above and not from beneath.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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December 12, 2015 · 8:35 pm

The Lord’s Prayer Is Not a Chant

There’s no magical powers in repeating the Lord’s Prayer.  And let’s face it.  It has been reduced to a chant, to a ritual of repetitious words with the intent that –poof!–magically our sins are forgiven or our requests are granted.

Chanting the Lord’s Prayer is taking his blueprint for prayer and using it as a “verbal charm” to enchant God into giving us what we want from Him.  Doing this is using an enchantment (which God forbids) and is the very definition of “incantation.”

“incantation–the chanting or uttering of words purporting to have magical power; a spell or charm”   <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/incantation>

“incantation–ritual recitation of verbal charms or spells to produce a magic effect; a conventionalized utterance repeated without thought”  <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/incantation>

“Repeated without thought…”  Isn’t that what’s being done with the Lord’s prayer?  Reducing it to a chant?  Definition of “chant”:  “The use of religious phraseology without understanding or sincerity; empty solemn speech, implying what is not felt; hypocrisy.” <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chant> )

To mindlessly repeat the Lord’s Prayer “without understanding” its profound depths of meaning is cheapening it; it is futile and vain.  In fact, Christ warns us to not do this very thing. “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matthew 6:7).  Heathens use incantations, enchantments, sorcery and spells.  “Be not ye therefore like unto them” (v. 8).

We as His sons and daughters must press in, dig deep, and seek to know what He’s saying to us in the Lord’s prayer and to use it as a blueprint in our communication to Him and for Him.

A blueprint is a “detailed outline or plan of action.”  His model prayer contains God’s thoughts, plan, and purpose.  And we are to pray in accordance with its precepts.

Prayer is communication with God.  So God wants us to first know His thoughts, plan, and purpose so that we can commune with Him on what He wants to accomplish here on earth.  And He wants to use us.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

{To read more on this, check out ch. 13 of my book, The Unveiling of the Sons of God found at the top of this sites homepage}

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September 5, 2015 · 4:43 pm

Living in the “Now”–Having the Mind of Christ

Now is the only sliver of time we have to actually live the life God wants us to live.  Right now is when we really live in the Spirit.

Yesterday is but a memory of a “now” long past, an aging “now” that was already lived. The “past” is a fruitless tree for the hungry pilgrim today.

And tomorrow is a hoped for “now.” It is a dream of what a future “now” might be. But tomorrow’s promise is empty for most, for it rarely delivers our desire of what we would have the future hold. It usually does not work out as anticipated. So when “tomorrow” finally comes, it becomes “today.” It becomes a “now’ that is disappointing, for it rarely measures up to our imaginations of what it should be.

And so today’s “now” does not satisfy individuals who ponder their pasts and futures. Their “now” becomes blah. And because their present moment is not fulfilling, their minds race yet again to the past and future.

Monitor your mind for thirty minutes, and you will see it jump to thoughts of things and situations that have already occurred or things that might occur in the future.

So there is only one thing to do. Right now we should open our eyes and see the sun’s rays reflect light off of the trembling leafy mirrors of the pear tree. We must inhale the song of the boisterous blue jay clothed in myriad shades of azure. We should listen to the bubbling of a toddler’s joy, reaching down to hold their trusting hand. In a word, we should experience our own “now” with its accompanying sights and sounds and tastes and smells and touch.

It is this “now,” which is free from the fears, frustrations, regrets, and anxieties of our pasts and futures, that is the only environment in which we may hear that “still small voice” of God. He will not try to compete with the cacophony of nonsense our thoughts portray. They will drown His voice out every time. It is only the quiet mind, listening in the “now,” that He will speak to.

For prayer is not just us speaking to God, but it is a conversation. He would like to speak a word to us, too. He wants to speak to us right now, but we can’t hear Him if we are thinking about our pasts and futures.

Radio Noise

Our minds are like a radio, receiving thought-signals constantly. If we are listening to the trivial worldly signals, our lives become a worldly broadcast. If we train our minds to block the thoughts of our pasts and futures, then we quiet our minds to live in this very moment. And it is in this very moment, that God can speak to us.

Other voices speak out of our pasts and futures. When we listen to these interior monologues, we cannot hear clearly God’s transmission to us. We cannot hear the “still small voice,” nor can we hear the “voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD (Yahweh).”

As Christians, we are to “let this mind be in you that was in Christ.” He was not thinking about our pasts and futures.” We are to “arm ourselves with the same mind” as His.

Gaining the knowledge of what was in His mind is half the battle. The other half is arming ourselves with His very thoughts about His plan and purpose, free from worldly imaginations and “old leaven.” This is putting “on the whole armor of God.” And this starts with the purging of our old thoughts and replacing them with Christ’s thoughts, which can only be added in the “now.”    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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November 15, 2014 · 4:51 pm

Simplifying Worship–Offering the “Calves of Our Lips”

How does God want us to worship Him?  The biblical answer is really very simple, but humans lean to their own understanding and make it extremely complicated.

They put worshipers in the bondage of certain conditions and offerings and meetings three times a week where you have to come to the ‘house of the Lord’ because no other place will do and money, money, money and pilgrimages and forced prayer times and hocus pocus rituals and incense and holy water and fastings and observances and physical sprinklings and beads and prayercloths and sundayschool and bar mitzvahs and idols and images that ooze and gotta-read the Bible everyday and giving our children to be brainwashed into another man made religion  and, and…

Is that what God wants us to do to worship Him?  To blindly follow what others have imagined that we should do? To throw every conceivable ritual against the wall and hope that something sticks?

God does not need us to give Him or His “ministry” money; He owns the whole earth and everything in it.  The only thing that He does not have is our grateful heart.  And that is all He wants.  He wants us to just sincerely thank Him and praise Him for all that He has done for us.

Why do we not thank Him?  It is because we do not believe that He has delivered us and saved us from a disastrous and futile existence.  He has already done this; all we must do is believe it.  He has delivered us from sin and from sinning.  All we need do is walk in His grace and mercy.  Those who do this will thank Him, for they know what a deep pit they have been lifted out of.  And they are thankful to Him for His love to them.

And so they continue to call upon Him in “the day of trouble,” and He delivers them, and they thank Him, and in so doing, together they create a circle of glorification of God.  God is glorified through us thanking Him (Psalm 50: 15).

We are admonished to “offer unto God thanksgiving” (v. 14) and to “offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually..the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name” (Hebrews 13: 15).

The thanksgiving and praise we give to God are the sacrifices we give to Him now in this present age.  Our offerings should not be money but thanks and praise.  We now should offer “the calves of our lips” instead of the animal sacrifices under the old testament (Hosea 14: 2).

We simply thank Him now, sincerely from a “broken and contrite heart.”  And He hears us and has compassion on us and is near to us.  This is worshiping Him in Spirit and in truth.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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July 28, 2012 · 6:56 pm

How Miracles Happen: By Faith

Chapter 31 of Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality

Miracles defy earthly laws. The Spirit of God supersedes all of them. Laws of matter, energy, gravity, and inertia are subject to His every wish. He is not a man that He can be held to earthly expectations. All physical laws that men spend their lifetimes seeking to prove become null and void in the face of the Spirit. Just like earthly man is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be. For the first man, the earthly man is not spiritual, is not operating in the way, the avenue of the Spirit. Neither is the Spirit limited by earthly laws.

Because the fullness of the Spirit dwelt bodily in Yahshua, He was able to perform miracles that were absolutely impossible with men and their natural, earthly, physical laws. Biologists say that there is a certain molecular structure of every substance. The water molecule is different, say, from the molecule of grape wine. Yahshua is not limited by what man comprehends or says can be done.

With men it was impossible to change water into wine (John 2:1-11). The power of Yah was a mightier thing than mere earthly molecular cell structure. The Word-made-flesh made molecules, and He can change them right here on earth when He wants to because He was before the earth and has power over the earth and the things in it. By this miracle, this changing the water into wine, He made known his glory. And the fruit was that his disciples BELIEVED on him. This kind of power definitely yields belief. And this was a showing forth of His glory.

The glory of God does miracles. The glory of God overcomes death, hell, and the grave. It overcomes all laws of the earth. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. I John 5:4, NIV.

He said, “And nothing shall be impossible unto you…All things are possible unto him that believes…Believe and doubt not in your heart…” There are so many sayings of the Master about faith overcoming the world and everything in it. Let’s examine a few.

Faith is believing Him, and it pleases God. Faith localizes God. Faith is the evidence that God is true and real—that the invisible God is present with power to do his works here on the earth. Faith will have works to prove that God is real.

“Why could not we cast him out?”

The disciples were unable to cast out a devil that was vexing a child who had fallen into the fire. The Master then came and cast the devil out. Later they asked Him why they could not cast it out. Yahshua told them that it was because of only one reason: unbelief. He had rebuked with words the devil in the child, and it had come out. Again, it was the power of the spoken word of faith that did it. Unbelief hindered them from doing the work.

These disciples were no greater than any of us, and He told them, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

In other words, He was saying that a tiny speck of heavenly faith is more powerful than an earthly mountain. It is a heavenly faith, for it originated from heaven. And that heavenly faith is spiritual. When we believe, we are doing what God did, what the Spirit did in the beginning. Yahweh had faith and assurance in His own Word and that things would go right.

When we exercise faith, when we say, “Yes, I believe God is hearing me this instant and is answering my prayers,” when we believe His promises, then THAT is God’s Spirit within us in action! Faith, the heavenly faith, has then been localized! It is the faith once delivered to the saints!

It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak…II Cor. 4:13, NIV.

Paul of Tarsus, who was called and taught literally by the risen Savior, tells us that the spirit of faith is this kind of action. The spirit of faith believes and speaks because of that belief. Speech of the word of God comes after one believes. This is the same Spirit of faith that happened in the beginning. And it comes right out of the mouth of the believer. When we believe, the words like rivers of life-giving waters, will come out of our mouths. All this is what the Spirit does through us which they (at that time before the Day of Pentecost) were to receive, for Spirit was not yet given because Yahshua was not yet glorified.

Faith speaks the word. The Master taught that if we had faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, we would say unto a mountain, Be removed and cast into the sea, AND IT WOULD OBEY YOU! We are to be like God insomuch that we should call those things that be not as though they already were! Do before you get it as you would if you had it. Belief! Faith! Faith knows that God is, without having to see it first.

Faith speaks. The spirit of faith produces words. Say unto this mountain. I’ve wondered in the past about my puny prayer life. I wouldn’t speak to God because I didn’t have enough faith. For the spirit of faith speaks–speaks to God in prayer, speaks to humankind about the One whom we address in prayer, speaks to ourselves in psalms and admonitions. And that is the Spirit of God in action.

What does the Spirit of God do? How do we know if the Spirit of God is present within us? Rivers of living water will flow out of our hearts (this he spake of the Spirit). And how does the Spirit grow within us? It grows when we hear our own self speak about God, and we hear God’s words come through our mouths, and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God—coming, not only through the lips of another, but out of our own mouths. Faith praises God for what He has done, is doing, and will do for us, our families, and mankind. This then is how to add virtue, or power, to our faith, and thereby begin to add the divine nature of God into his temple, his body, us.

The power (virtue) is in the word. The word of faith by the word of His power. He spoke the word and healed them all. “Speak the word only and he shall be healed.” Jesus hadn’t seen that great of faith in Israel. Speak the word! Just say it and doubt not in your heart, and it will be done.

But some man will say, “All this power to do these miraculous great works like Yahshua did and the apostles did was just for their time. There is no indication that we in our dispensation of time can do these mighty deeds like they did.” In John 14:12 Yahshua is speaking: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” Yahshua did not qualify this as to a certain time frame of history. He said, “He that believeth on me…”

“Through their word…”

And to further clarify just who He was referring to, He is still speaking during that same discourse in his prayer of intercession in John 17:20: Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word… He has included all who come to Him through the witness and words of the disciples. That they all may be one; as you, Father are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me. That He would include the likes of us who have sinned against Him so many times to be at one with Him.

In Matthew l7:14-21 the disciples did not really believe that the devil would come out of the boy. They were not convinced that God would do it. They did not have that assurance that what He had said over them in Mt.10:1 was going to happen: “…he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” They did not trust Him, that what He said would come to pass. They did not trust that the Spirit would meet them there and back them up. They would learn. They did not get this faith to do miracles all in one day. It took time for them to grow up in this belief. Watching them in the book of Acts doing the very miracles that the Master said they would do is faith-building for us. It gives us hope, for He said that we who believe on Him through their word would do the same mighty works.

And one of the greatest miracles is when He changes one of us.

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April 17, 2011 · 1:52 pm

YAHWEH IS SAVIOR: THE ROAD TO IMMORTALITY CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3

  How to Receive Wisdom 

But as we saw in James 1:5-7, the obtaining of this awe and reverence and respect is tied to our asking Him for it in faith, in full assurance that He will answer our prayer.

Here we have three extremely important concepts inextricably intertwined: wisdom, faith, and prayer.  Wisdom is the main thing.  And because we all start out lacking it, we need to ask Him for it.  Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.  But we must ask for wisdom in faith, in full assurance in our hearts that God not only hears our request, but also grants our request and gives us awe and respect of him.  That is prayer.  And it is a lovely circle because when He gives us a bit of awe of Him, then that is a direct answer to our prayer of faith, which in turn gives us more awe (wisdom) of Him.  This is a beautiful circle.

James outlines for us in the first chapter some necessary knowledge about wisdom, faith and prayer.  First, he is writing to the 12 tribes which are  scattered  abroad.   He  then  says  that  it  is  a necessary thing that our faith be tried (1:2).  It will be tried by temptations that come.  But we are to look at these temptations as a source of joy because it brings patience into our lives.  Patience is that part of His nature (2 Peter 1:4-7) that helps perfect us. She performs a perfect work, if we let her (v.4). Then in the very next verse the apostle says that if any of us lack wisdom or, in other words, if any of you are not letting patience do the work of perfection in you through a lack of  awe and respect of Him, then, by all means, ask Him for wisdom in faith, and He will give it to you.

In v.14 we learn that every person is tempted when we are drawn away from that guiding awe of the Supreme Being by some desire that we allow ourselves to go after.  And when that lust or desire has conceived it brings forth sin.  There was a seed, a thought, a word of desire of something contrary to the Ten Commandments that conceived, and it brings forth the evil fruit of sin, the breaking of the 10 Commandment law of God.  And death is the final result of sin.

In verse 16:  Don’t err.  Don’t make a mistake in what I’m about to write to you, James is saying to us:  Every good and perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of lights.  We cannot manufacture what it takes to become perfect; we cannot in our own thoughts and work and effort here on earth accomplish the great work that He wants done through each of us who are called with His heavenly calling.  It will come down from heaven through prayer, through fearing and being in awe of such a majestically powerful and loving God.

And then, through moving with fear, we can do the deeds that show that we have the faith and assurance that He is living in us and through us.

We need to get wisdom; it is the principal thing.  Without it we will not get anywhere on the road to immortality.  We must realize that wisdom is to be in awe of the Great One, the One who created billions of galaxies.  We realize our need for wisdom, and then simply ask Him as a little child asks his loving parent.  The child fully expects the mother or dad to give him what he is asking for.  We need to ask our spiritual Father the same way for wisdom.  Father, help me to be in awe of You, You who have created all things in this profound universe.  Help me to realize just how powerful You are and to respect your ways.  Father, will You give me wisdom?

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February 27, 2011 · 3:10 pm

The Key to Answered Prayers–from “Conversations with the Seer”

“I don’t get why we have to pray all the time.  Pray without ceasing?  Who can do that?”  I asked the Seer.  In his teachings each week at the Mission he had been stressing the importance of prayer. 

“You are right.  A man can’t do that,” he said.

I was shocked that he would concede this point so quickly.  “I know the word says that we are to be ‘praying always,’ but I’ve tried, and I just can’t do it.” 

“You won’t be able to do these requests that the Father has made of us concerning prayer,  in your current way of thinking,” the Seer said.  “That is why you are perfectly correct when you say, ‘I can’t do it.  Nobody  can.'”

“Then why does God tell us to do something that’s impossible to do?”

“Ah,” the Seer said knowingly, smiling kindly at me.  “This is where the error of your thinking manifests itself.  The Master Himself said, ‘With God all things are possible.’  Also, the apostle Paul said, ‘I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me.'”

“I don’t get it.  You have taught that the last piece of the armor of God in Ephesians 6 is ‘praying always.’  I just don’t see how it works.”  He could see, I am sure, my frustration, for I really had tried  to do it.

“Look.  You left out the most important part of that verse.  It says, ‘Praying always…in the Spirit.’  Christ is alive evermore and He through His Spirit is interceding for us all.  He is the High Priest, and His prayers will be answered, believe me.  But Christ is not just praying for us; He desires to pray through us.  When you  let go of the sensation that it is you that’s doing the praying and believe that it is Christ in you who is doing the praying, then you’ll get somewhere.”

“‘Christ in us, the hope of glory…'”

“For, you see, the key to praying like God wants us to pray is to believe that it is ‘no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me.’  How does Christ live in us?  By His Spirit that He has given us.  We must first truly believe that we have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in our hearts.  Then we must believe that it is the Spirit of Christ in us praying–not us praying in our own little strength.”

“We’ve got to get out of the way and let His Spirit in us do the praying?”

“Yes, and everything else.  Paul said, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’ 

“It always goes back to faith in God,” I said.

“Always.  Faith is looking to and believing in the Invisible.  You can’t see the Holy Spirit of Christ in you, and yet, you still believe that He lives within you, and that it is no longer ‘you’ that lives in your body, the temple of God.  Let the High Priest pray through you, intercede through you.  We are to be God’s kings and priests, and this is how you do it.  But it takes faith.”

“Yes.  Lots of it,” I said.

“This solves your original frustration  about how do we ‘pray without ceasing’ and ‘praying always.’  In man’s strength, it is impossible, but the Spirit of Christ lives on, earnestly desiring to pray through another son and daughter of God, yearning for them to get the revelation that through His Spirit, they can be priests unto God in His wonderful kingdom of righteousness, which is reigning spriritually now in the hearts of God’s children, but soon will be expanded upon Christ’s return to the whole earth.  Remember: Christ will definitely get His prayers answered.  Let Him through His Spirit pray through you and you’ll have your prayers answered every time.”

“So what does Christ pray for?”

“It is pretty much summarized through His model prayer, known as the Lord’s Prayer.  But you have to strip away the old leaven associated with that prayer, for the wicked one has made it into a ritual and an incantation.  But more on this later.”  KWH [For more on what Christ prayed for, go to the “Archives” at the bottom of the left hand column under “June and July of 2008”]

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October 2, 2010 · 4:13 pm

Simplifying the Worship of God–Offering the “Calves of Our Lips”

How does God want us to worship Him?  The biblical answer is really very simple, but humans lean to their own understanding and make it extremely complicated. 

They put worshippers in the bondage of certain conditions and offerings and meetings three times a week where you have to come to the ‘house of the Lord’ because no other place will do and money, money, money and pilgrimages and forced prayer times and hocus pocus rituals and incense and holy water and fastings and observances and physical sprinklings and beads and prayercloths and sundayschool and bar mitzvahs and idols and images that ooze and gotta-read the Bible everyday and giving our children to be brainwashed into another manmade religion  and, and…

Is that what God wants us to do to worship Him?  To blindly follow what others have imagined that we should do?

God does not need us to give Him or His “ministry” money; He owns the whole earth and everything in it.  The only thing that He does not have is our grateful heart.  And that is all He wants.  He wants us to just sincerely thank Him and praise Him for all that He has done for us.

Why do we not thank Him?  It is because we do not believe that He has delivered us and saved us from a disastrous and futile existence.  He has already done this; all we must do is believe it.  He has delivered us from sin and from sinning.  All we need do is walk in His grace and mercy.  Those who do this will thank Him, for they know what a deep pit they have been lifted out of.  And they are thankful to Him for His love to them.

And so they continue to call upon Him in “the day of trouble,” and He delivers them, and they thank Him, and in so doing, together they create a circle of glorification of God.  God is glorified through us thanking Him (Psalm 50: 15).

We are admonished to “offer unto God thanksgiving” (v. 14) and to “offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually..the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name” (Hebrews 13: 15).

The thanksgiving and praise we give to God are the sacrifices we give to Him now in this present age.  Our offerings should not be money but thanks and praise.  We now should offer “the calves of our lips” instead of the animal sacrifices under the old testament (Hosea 14: 2).

We simply thank Him now, sincerely from a broken and contrite heart.”  And He hears us and has compassion on us and is near to us.  This is worshipping Him in Spirit and in truth.  KWH

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June 5, 2010 · 8:24 pm

My Mother’s Prayer and Testimony of Her Vision of One God

God, our Father, please help me write this.  I love You and want to be a good  witness for you.  I thank you for keeping me all these 84 years.

Times have been hard, but I never wanted to give up.  I loved the feeling of your reminding me to hold on.  I am so sorry for the times I was not waiting for your reminders of what you had done for me.

I realized I was in need of more of your truth to be taught to me.  But the others around me were in the same shape as I, and they were not able to teach me more of your truth. 

Through all the dark days and hangups, I finally realized I couldn’t depend on anyone but You.  I realized finally that all of us need those rough times in our lives in order to feel a greater need for You.  Thank You.

As I look back over the past six decades, I’m glad that I kept in your word, for therein is the only true help we can find. 

In the beginning of my journey here on earth with You, times were really hard.  It was the Great Depression.  My mother died when I was two, and without her to guide me, it was difficult.  My dad tried to raise us three little girls.  We were so poor that we had to live in tents in a graveyard at times, living on mostly gravey and bread made by hand.  But we survived.  And we were not the only sharecropper families there in East Texas. 

It was a struggle for our father, but being young children, we didn’t notice it much.  We just knew we were poor.  Later on in life after I came to know You, poor didn’t seem too bad, since Your word taught that we do not “live by bread alone, but by every word” of Your mouth.

As I got older, I wanted to work, but jobs were hard to find.  I got my first job at 15.  That would have been in 1941.  It was working in a laundry in Corsicana, Texas for 22 cents an hour.

Time went on, and I became of age to wed.  So after the War was over in 1945, I married, not knowing what true love was, but willing to learn to be a good wife and mother.  Then you gave me the greatest joy of my life.  You blessed me with a firstborn son.  Right out of your best mold.  Created in your image.  Thank You! 

My son brought great joy to my heart.  When he was five weeks old, we were lying down in the sun, and I was reading to him.  I did not know You or have your word at the time.  My neighbor across the path came over to visit us.  And she spoke to me of You.  I had never heard much about You at 21 years old. 

But You had prepared me to receive Your word from her because of the wonderful thing that happened five weeks earlier at childbirth.  I was under the sleep that the doctor had put me under, and I had this dream.  There was a kind of swinging ladder to heaven, and people were going up this ladder two together, but I was going up alone.  When I reached the top, there was ONE of You holding your hand out to help me get off the ladder.  I then woke up. 

That gave me the truth about there being just one God.  Ever since that day, when I read Your word, I can see one God–even when it reads “and Jesus Christ.”  Once you get the revelation, you can see it.

Well, the great son you gave me also has the truth about one God.  He has a wonderful brain, Father, and I am so happy to serve You with him.

As time went by, I longed for a baby girl.  I so wanted the two children to be not so far apart.  By then I had read about  Hannah and how she prayed for a child, a boy baby.  And God answered her prayer.    So after waiting a year and a half, I knelt by the bed, and I reminded You, Father, that You had given her a boy child, Samuel.  Now I am asking You for a baby girl.  And the very next month she was on the way. 

At that time I was very shy and had never talked to any one about You.  I had studied and gone to church, but I was so shy.  I remember that while I was in the middle of giving birth to her, You stopped everything and asked me if I had witnessed to anyone about You.  And, of course, I said no.  You very distinctly told me that if I was not going to be a witness for You that the baby would not finish coming.  So I started saying, “Yes, Lord.  Yes, Lord, I will.”  And suddenly, I was wide awake, and I asked Dr. Mamulia if he knew You.  He thought for a minute that I was out of my head.  And I said, “But do you really know Him?”

And he said, “No, Louise, I don’t really know Him.”  The nurse was very angry with me, but I was really not afraid anymore to speak out about You. 

The next morning the doctor asked me, “Louise, do you remember what you said to me last night?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Oh, she was just out of her head,” the nurse interrupted.

And then the doctor said, “Oh, no, she wasn’t.”

The night before, after I asked him if he knew You, I crawled off the table with no help.  You made me so strong at the  time.  You gave me a beautiful son and daughter, and I thank you.    [Written by my mother, Louise Billups, last week.  I am so blessed to still have her and be able to talk to her everyday.  Love your mothers while you still can…]

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