Category Archives: Spiritual Life Cycle

January 18, 2014 · 4:24 pm

The Five Offices of God–For Our Perfection

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

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

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

He did say, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it die, it brings forth much fruit” (John 12: 24). We are the “much fruit” that He refers to on the road to His glorification (v. 23).

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

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

Why God Gave Us the Five Fold Ministry Offices

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

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

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

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

How Long Will They Teach Us?

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

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

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

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February 2, 2013 · 7:47 pm

Adding Patience–Enduring All Things

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

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

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

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

So how do we arrive at perfection (completeness)?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tribulation Worketh Patience”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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

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June 30, 2012 · 9:35 pm

The Elect of God–Gifts of the Spirit Are the Identifying Signs

Recently a reader of this blog asked, “But while the sons of God  will know who they are, how will others  know who they are?”

I responded by saying that the manifested, 100 fold fruit bearing sons of God will be the culmination of the Law of Harvest spoken of in Scripture: “first the blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear,” able to reproduce out of itself–some “thirty fold, some sixty, and some  one hundred fold” [1].   These are the levels of growth of the Holy Spirit within the sons and daughters of God.  John refers to these degrees of growth as “children, young men, and fathers” [2].

When “Christ be formed” in them, signs will follow [3].  Gifts of the Spirit will flow, which includes healings, miracles.  Right now God’s timing calls for the first of the gifts of the Spirit to be given through the elect to others: “the word of wisdom” and “the word of knowledge” [4]  Without the truth contained in those first two gifts,  a brother or sister cannot “come out from among them and be separate” [5].  This foundational truth helps to purge the “old leaven” teachings  (contained in the parable of the woman putting leaven in three measures of meal or flour–leaven meaning the hypocrisy and insincerity of the Pharisees and their ilk [6].

I have wrestled with this question: God, why aren’t there more legitimate healings and miracles being done like what happened in the first few chapters of the book of Acts of the Apostles.  Answer:  We need some true men of God like them who have all their ducks in a row spiritually speaking and have “purged out the old leaven from their thinking, which includes all of the old false concepts and teachings and doctrines we all grew up with.  Then I realized how important it is to let the word of wisdom and knowledge flow unrestrained.

When the time comes, God will do something special in their lives–something absolutely astounding in the power-giving category.  All the way through the Bible He did just that.  There is no reason to believe that it will be any other way in these latter days.  After all, He said, “I am the same yesterday, today, and forever…I change not…” [7].

The sons-of-God-to-be, the elect, which means “the chosen ones,” may not at present know their destiny that has been pre-ordained by God.  Right now they may only know that there is this pull to know the truth.  There is this longing for justice and truth that won’t let them go.  Other things of this present world system may tug at them, but a hook is in their jaw, and they are being reeled in by the Great Fisherman, who right now is teaching some how to be “fishers of men” [8].

And they do look just like everyone else.  But to themselves, they are learning to look “after the Spirit” and not the “outward appearance” [9].  By faith they are looking upon the “things that are not seen,”  which is the Spirit [10].  And yes, they will be transformed, but they will go through a spiritual growth cycle as referenced above.

Knowledge of this growth process is lacking in Churchianity today.  The people in the pews want “It” right now.  They are used to instant pudding and mashed potatoes, instant messaging and internet input.  But growth in Him is His growth in us.  It takes time for the seed “to fall into the ground and die” and germinate, and pop through the ground as a perfect little blade of grass, a perfect little “babe in Christ” [11].  And this babe in Christ needs the “sincere milk of the word” that it may grow [12].  But this takes humility in giving up the old life and thoughts and habits.

That is why the Master told us, If you are going to follow Me, you better “count the cost.”  For it costs everything.  It is easier to sell your earthly possessions; it is much more difficult to sell or get rid of your self with its personal materialism, which is idolatry [13].    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1. Matt. 13: 23; Mark 4: 8; 4: 28

2.  I John 2: 13

3.  Gal. 4: 19

4.  I Cor. 12: 4-11

5.  II Cor. 6: 17

6. I Cor. 5: 7; Matt. 13: 33; Luke 12: 1

7. Heb. 13: 8; Mal. 3: 6

8. Matt. 4: 19

9. I Sam. 16: 7; Rom. 8: 1-4

10. II Cor. 4: 18; Heb. 11:1

11.  John 12: 24

12.  I Pet. 2: 2

13. Col. 3: 5; Luke 14: 27-33

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February 11, 2012 · 4:39 pm

God’s Endgame–Where This Life on Earth Is Leading Us

This brutal trek through the evil that “so easily besets us” is the proving ground where we, as new models of the old Adam, are perfected and thus become part of Christ.

We have the treasure of His Spirit hidden in our earthly bodies, and we are bombarded daily with stimuli and temptations of the flesh.

Evil is all around us and is necessary, much like, to continue the automobile metaphor, rough and pockmarked roads are needed to drive over when testing the undercarriage of the latest car or truck.

The evil out here in this world is necessary to be there for us to overcome.  When swamped with evil of any kind–loss and heartbreak, deprivation and longing, regret and remorse–whether of our own choosing or randomly foisted upon us by fate as it were, His children call on the great Spirit Father, who is waiting for them to contact Him.

And He heals them emotionally and physically, and they draw nearer to Him thereby, and their old way of thinking melts away into Christ’s thinking.  Then the evil that surrounds them disipates, for they have overcome it along with its purpose.  They will have attained the victory over the enemy–especially the “last enemy”–death.

Then comes the end–the end of evil and its usefulness to God’s purpose, which is to multiply Himself until all His creation is actually, well, Him.

It is like when I asked the Seer the inevitable question.  “Why didn’t God just create us perfect at the beginning and be done with it and spare us all the pain?”

To which he replied, “God could have created us that way, but then He would have so many humanoid robots on His hands, who had no choice in the matter.”

“At least they wouldn’t be hurting.”

“Yes, but that would not be reproducing Himself, would it?  Which is what His eternal purpose is all about.  All He would have are creations that could not further His plan of reproducing Himself.”

I think at this point I literally scratched my head.  “How’s that?” I asked.  This was getting way out there.

“Look.  God is producing creators like Himself.  That is what this life here on earth is all about–whether a person gets it or not.  Some will and they will see this vision of sonship–for themselves, which is to say–for Him.  Remember the Master’s statement: Blessed are your eyes for they see.”

The Endgame

So, “then cometh the end,” it says.  What end?  What is God’s endgame?  Simply put, Christ is the end.  He did say, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22: 13).  “That God may be all in all” (I Cor. 15: 24-28).  The end is God.  The beginning of life is God.  The end of our toil here on earth is God.  In the end it will be only Him.  That’s it.  All of the squabbling and pettiness and imbecility and selfishness and smugness and any other human foible–all of it shall be done away with, and all that will be left is God living at peace with His children.  That’s it.

Christ is the end.  His Spirit multiplied and living in many vessels, who shall populate the heavens as seed sown into the corners of the universe.  It will be all Him.  That is His Endgame.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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September 1, 2010 · 6:57 pm

Churches Calling for Fire from Heaven–But Be Careful: God Is a Consuming Fire

Thousands of sincere people in churches across the land are asking every week, crying aloud to the heavens, that God would send His fire down, igniting a revival in the church.  Not just charismatic, pentecostal, full-gospel, and bible-churches are doing this, but many main stream denominational churches are, too.

But do they know exactly what they are asking?  God is not just a fire; He “is a consuming fire” [1].  Most of the sheep in the pews do not realize that the judgement of this fire first falls on them; it starts with the house of God, His body, His church.  The apostle Peter warns us of the fiery trial of our faith: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” [2].

“The fiery trial” is when God comes to us to purify us, which means that there is something in us that needs to be gotten rid of. 

God is fire; He is also the Word made flesh.  So the fire is His word.  And He will send His word through His five fold ministry offices.  These are His true apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  They are a gift of God to congregations for their perfection and edification, “till we all come in the unity of the faith…unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” [3].

And God will speak through them, and His word, like a fire shut up in their bones, will blast as a refining fire burning away the dross and impurities.  This will be a fiery trial–the getting rid of the childish things that are clung to.  Eventually, the blankies, pacifiers, and rattlers must be put away on the road to spiritual perfection.

Just like the prophet elijah

Elijah is a type of this.  He came and exposed Israel’s sin and corruption at the highest level, demanding them to repent.  But they just could not “abide the day of his coming” [4].  He was a fire burning up their impurities.  But what did the children of Israel do to him and other prophets?  They hunted them down like dogs, tortured them, and chased them into “dens and caves of the earth” [5].

They were persecuted by the very people they were trying to help.  For few want to change so badly that they will submit to the correction of God’s word of fire–especially spoken through just another man, who they feel is really no better than they are.  Anyway, “who made you a ruler and judge over us, Moses?” [6].

God, the consuming fire from heaven, wants to burn out the impurities of false doctrines, concepts and teachings about Him and His plan.  We are told to “purge out the old leaven that the lump may be holy.”

But who will be able to bear it–the correction, instruction and reproof–that the fire brings?  This is what the fire-word of God brings.  It cleanses and purifies His children, until they are no longer alive just to receive God’s “feel-good spirit.”

Joy, peace, and love will come, for they are the fruit of the Spirit.  But the true fruit of the Spirit takes time to develop, grow, and mature.  And few modern Christians have any aspirations to wait very long for it.  And so that is what keeps them coming back week after week, crying out for God’s fire, thinking that it is a feel-good spirit, not knowing that His word is like a fire that purges out all unrighteousness. 

But that is the nature of children.  They are mostly alive for what they can receive from their Father.  As Paul said, “And yet I show unto you a more excellent way” [7].  It is the way to complete the life cycle of God in you–the way to perfection.  KWH

  1. Deut 4: 24; Heb. 12: 29
  2. I Pet. 4: 12, 17-18
  3. Eph. 4: 11-13
  4. Mal. 3: 2
  5. Heb. 11: 34-38
  6. Acts 7: 27
  7. I Cor. 12: 31

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November 15, 2009 · 12:22 pm

Conversations With the Seer–Becoming the Temple of God

(Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.  I Samuel 9: 9)

“I’m trying to comprehend God’s plan and purpose about making us His sons and daughters, but it boggles my mind.  I can’t seem to take it in.”

The Seer looked at me and told me the truth, even though he knew that  it would sting.  “It is because your heart, your spiritual core, is small and unable to contain at present what the Creator wants to do with you.”

“How do I make my heart bigger?”

“You cannot make it bigger.  It is so typical of natural man, to think that it all depends on  his actions.  You can’t enlarge it to contain more of Him.  Even though you sincerely desire to please God, you cannot just will it so.  You cannot run the race according to your own specifications, win the prize, and then trade the prize for a bigger heart to receive more of Him.  It doesn’t work that way.  He is the One who draws you to Him. He shows mercy to whomsoever He desires to reveal Himself to.  He is sovereign; we are not.  He is the Potter; we are the clay.  We have to remember that it is His ballgame, His rules, His ball park, and His ball.”

“I really do want to play,” I said.

“I know you do.  He has led you here.  He has placed a thirst for the truth in you.  It is Him drawing you.  He has His hands on you.  But you must first meet Him in that special place.”

“Where is it?”

It Is Not a Church Building

“It is not in a building with colored glass windows depicting events that were written down thousands of years ago.  That special place I speak of is not inside the walls of a physical building.”

“You are talking about churches.”

“Yes.  The true church is not a building where people go twice a week to worship.  Nor is the church those people necessarily.  The church is His body, which is the temple of God.  And this only occurs when humans have His Spirit inside them, leading them in their daily walk.  The Holy Bible tells of this.  It is a letter to us from our Father.  Its thoughts are inspired by His Spirit.  But without His Spirit breathing life into its words today, it is only black ink and white paper. Without God’s Spirit breathing truth afresh as to what it means, then it sits alone and mute, gathering dust in the houses of America and the world.

“Don’t get me wrong.  It is God’s written word to us, and in those pages are spelled out how to get to where we need to go.  But the world needs someone with God’s Spirit to bring it to life so that it can bring its light to others.  It speaks of God’s glorious plan, but without a human picking it up and believing it, its greatest power rests in being a witness against those who do not study their copy of it.”

“The Bible tells us how to get to that special spiritual place.”

“Indeed.  But our perspective must change.  It is not a place that we go to, to meet Him.  But rather, you become that special place.  Or better put, the lack of you becomes that special place.”

The ‘Lack of You’

“Wait a minute.  I don’t get it.  What do you mean, ‘the lack of you becomes that special place'”?

The Seer became energized.  He was conducting a symphony of knowledge that was now reaching a crescendo.  “The ‘lack of you’ means that you must cease and desist.  Your old life along with its vestiges must decrease to a point that ‘you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.’

“How does that work?”

“I told you before that it is His ballgame and His rules.  And rule number one is ‘Obey His rules.’  He calls us while ‘we are yet in our sins.’  He commands us to repent of our sins.  We can’t clean up our mess by ourselves, no matter how hard we try in our own strength.  But He has provided a way.  The Great God of heaven, that great Spirit that created all things, came down and walked with us here on earth for a few short years.  He provided for us His own earthly body as a sacrifice that will cleanse us from sin, which is the breaking of the Ten Commandments.

“It is not just acknowledging that He died for us that cleanses us from all sin.  No. That is not enough.  We must rather die with Him.  For ‘He was made to be sin for us’ [1].  At the moment of Christ’s physical death, your old sinful heart and mine was placed upon Him, so that when He died, our sin died with Him.  When He was buried, our old sinful heart was buried.  And when He arose–this is the crux of our belief–when He arose from the dead, we, too, arise from the sinful dead, and become alive unto God [2].

“And as we grow spiritually in this truth, we begin to sense that it is no longer the original sinful human staring back at us in the mirror, but an entity quite changed.  We begin to see that we are that special spiritual place where God will dwell.  We become that special peaceful location–a place free from a demanding ego that tries to enslave other humans to worship its whims.

“At the end of this seemingly long spiritual growth cycle, we will have the distinct sensation that we are no longer in control or trying to be in control of everything around us.  The monkey chatter drowning our ear will have quieted, and then, we become that special abode for God’s Spirit.”   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

  1. 2 Cor. 5: 21
  2. Romans 6: 1-11

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Filed under Bible, crucified with Christ, death of self, resurrection, sin, Spiritual Life Cycle

September 24, 2009 · 11:00 am

God’s Spiritual Life Cycle–Babes in Christ and What Stunts Their Growth

To fully understand the profundity of the Creator’s eternal purpose in “bringing many sons [and daughters] unto glory,” we must learn of the spiritual life cycle of God’s Spirit in us–how it grows unto full maturity.

This is a great mystery that has been “kept secret from the foundation of the world” (1).  This mystery of the growth of the Spirit within us has been carefully guarded, couched in the criptic words of the parables of the kingdom.  These are the very secrets of the kingdom of God, how He rules and reigns both in His children’s hearts and throughout the earth and universe. 

These parables are not nice little stories to make it easier for all to understand what the Master is teaching us, but to prevent interlopers from receiving it.  They are secrets, after all, and are hidden in plain sight.

Why Parables?

The disciples asked Christ why He spoke to the crowds in parables.  “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand” (2).  They may hear the words, but they won’t understand what they mean.  Those who do not have “ears to hear” will just not get it.

The Seed Is the Word

In the parables, Christ likened this spiritual growth unto a seed that grows.  He refers to a natural seed.  And He explains that this seed in His parables represents the word of God.  He said, “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God” (3).  A seed must die in the ground; it must lose its original identity as a lonely grain of wheat, for instance.  It takes in moisture, which corresponds to the “water of the Word,” and then, as it dies, new life springs out of it, and a blade of grass rises “from the dead” and vaults out into the sunlight.

First Stage of Growth–Babes in Christ

This answers to newborn “babes in Christ,” spiritual infants, who have not matured or grown.  They are like natural children–mostly alive  for what they can receive from their parents.  A little child receives nourishment from their parents and grows.  There is nothing wrong with this, for all new children of God must receive spiritual food from God’s word in order to grow.    Truth plus study and prayer is the recipe for spiritual growth. 

The problem lies in the fact that most Christians stay in this growth as babes and children.  They do not mature, for they are fed with teachings tainted with error.  Even with much study in false doctrines, the child of God cannot grow.  “We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the crafty presentation of lies” (4).  The truth is that “certain men have crept in unnoticed,” (5) and they are teaching lies to the new Christians who are desiring to have their lives changed from darkness to light.

For we are warned of this very thing.  “There will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies”.  “Many will follow their shameful ways…and in their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up” (6).

Thus we see that a newborn babe in Christ is in peril because of false teachers and preachers.  As disease and malnutrition stalks natural babies, false teachings and lies stunt and threaten the lives of the children of God.

So Which Are the Lies About God That Stunt the Growth of Babes in Christ?

How can we tell the false teachings from the true teachings?  Christ gave us the answer.  “By their fruits you shall know them” (7).  Look around and observe the fruits of the various ministries and denominations.  Are the people growing?  Are the flocks changing, or are they still trapped in sin and sinning?   Are the people still mostly alive for what they can receive of God, or are they unselfish?  If they are not changing and growing “up into Him,” if they are remaining selfish, desiring to be blessed and not yearning to be a channel of blessings unto others, then it is safe to say that the teachings they are fed with are tainted.    KWH  

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  1. Matt. 13: 35
  2. Mark 4: 11-12
  3. Luke 8: 11
  4. Eph. 4: 14 (Phillips)
  5. Jude 1: 4 (NKJV)
  6. II Peter 2: 1-3
  7. Matt. 7: 20

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Filed under children of God, false teachers, Parables, Spiritual Life Cycle

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