Category Archives: The Lord’s Prayer

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

6 Comments

Filed under apostles' doctrine, end time prophecy, false doctrines, false prophets, false teachers, gospel, kingdom of God, manifestation of the sons of God, old leaven, prayer, prosperity doctrine, Rapture, The Lord's Prayer

Tagged as , , , ,

January 3, 2016 · 5:28 pm

“Our Father”–God Is Everyone’s Creator, Not Everyone’s Father

We have learned that the “Lord’s Prayer” is a blueprint for our communication with God. It is not a  chant nor hollow words mouthed in repetitious recital. It is rather the “manner” that we should speak with our Father. In other words, we should pray with the understanding of the concepts presented in this model prayer.

And the first words that we should speak to Him when addressing Him is “Our Father.” Our Father. As we stop and savor these words, we see that God is the closest of our kin. He engendered us. We have His spiritual genes in our spirit. In our spiritual family tree, He is just above us. He is our closest family member.

Our closest family member. We are not an only child of the King. This is the second big take away in our meditation on the first two words of God’s example prayer. We have brothers and sisters that He loves as much as He loves us. It is a pretty big family.

The Father and the Creator

God is “our Father.” God is not everyone’s Father.  He is the Creator of all, but not the Father of all. The Pharisees claimed God as their Father. They said to Christ, “We have one Father, even God.” But Christ told the Pharisees, “If God were your Father, you would love me…You seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth…You are of your father the devil…a murderer from the beginning…a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:40-44).

We see, then, two spiritual fathers at work in the earth: “Our Father”  and “your father the devil.”  And to help the sons and daughters of God, Christ left us the salutation in His Blueprint Prayer, “Our Father” to distinguish our Father from their father.

Describing their father the devil, Christ said that there was no truth in him, that he is the father of all lies. Earlier, Christ told the Pharisees that the truth–not the lies–would make you free. Free from what? they responded. We’ve never been a slave to any man. Then Christ told them that their slavery to sin and sinning was what the truth would free them from. And that truth was Him (Jn 8: 32-36)   To read more on them, see https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/parable-of-the-tares-in-the-field-who-are-these-children-of-the-wicked-one-part-ii-conversations-with-the-seer 

The words, “Our Father,” also signify an engendering by God, begetting several spiritual offspring. The LORD (Yahweh in the Hebrew), told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee” (Jer. 1:4-5).  God knew Jeremiah before his earthly conception and gestation.  And God chose him and ordained him a prophet before he “came forth out of the womb.”  Jeremiah was “born from above”–begotten by God long before coming to earth.  Jeremiah was in the very heart of God–and so were we, His sons and daughters, before the time of our earthly, fleshly sojourn.

Our Father “has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).  He knew us before and has predestined us “to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).   He has given us a destiny to be like Christ before the world was ever founded.  This is nothing less that God’s purpose–reproducing Himself.

And so the cycle goes: seed time and harvest.  God the husbandman has great patience waiting for His children to grow up until they are “conformed to the image of His Son.”  He will endure the “vessels fitted unto destruction” in order to create His “royal priesthood,” His ruling offspring.  This is our destiny, ordered for us by “our Father.”

For make no mistake.  Christ told it like it is.  He warned that in the last days, many will be deceived by false prophets and false teachers who lead the sheep through the wide and broad gate to destruction.  They are wolves in “sheep’s clothing.”  They show themselves as God’s spokesmen, but are really modern day Pharisees, whose father is not “our Father.”

And to the many who are deceived by them Christ warns: “Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name done many wonderful works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:13-23).  Let’s see: God knew Jeremiah–even before he was born. But these He never knew. He knew all things with foreknowledge and knew that they would not believe Him and His words. And yet they mouthed a bunch of half-truths about Him, but they didn’t do the will of our Father “which is in heaven” (v. 21).

There is a lot in the phrase “Our Father.” We must begin to pray with the understanding of His words.  It is a great privilege to call Him “our Father.”  Not everyone truthfully can.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

2 Comments

Filed under Christ, false doctrines, false prophets, false teachers, knowledge, sin, sons and daughters of God, sons of God, The Lord's Prayer

Tagged as , , , , ,

December 26, 2015 · 3:34 pm

The Lord’s Prayer–God’s Blueprint for Building His Temple–Us

The Lord’s Prayer is a blueprint showing us how to become His temple, which is the habitation of God.  It is not a ritualistic chant.

An architect’s blueprint contains blue lines and white paper that to the trained eye reveal what the building should look like.

The Lord’s prayer is a spiritual blueprint that shows us what the temple of God looks like and how to build it. Christ said that His house “shall be called of all nations the house of prayer” (Mark 11: 17).  And in His example prayer to us, we understand what those prayers consist of in His temple.  And His temple is us (I Cor. 3:16).  We, His sons and daughters, born from above, born of the King, are now His princes and princesses in training to rule with Him.  “To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Rev. 3:21).

So what do we do with a blueprint?  A building contractor would not stand around repeating the dimensions found in the blueprint. By merely reading and repeating the words and figures found on the blueprint, the edifice would never get built.  Rather, he has to study it, visualize it, believe in the vision of the architect for the building, and get to work in order to make it a reality.  This is what God’s children need to be doing–studying out His example prayer and understanding what it means, and then do it.

To illustrate, the disciples asked Jesus (Yahshua in Hebrew–the same name as the anglicized name “Joshua”… <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/joshua> ).  “Teach us to pray.”  And He told them, “After this manner pray,” and then He spoke the model prayer.

“After this manner…”  After this way.  Make your communication to God based on these precepts I’ve given you in this example prayer, He was saying.  And the precepts are based in selflessness.

But many prayers that are offered up to God are shameless petitions for self–asking for material things.  These prayers cannot penetrate the brass of heaven’s dome.

To be heard by the Almighty, we must get on His wavelength.  And God’s all about reproducing Himself.  We are now “born of that incorruptible seed, the word of God.”  But that is just the start.  We must grow up into him, no longer content to be little babies in Christ, always wanting something from Him.

We must study to unlock the secrets of His kingdom, secrets held close to the heart of God, secrets that He will reveal to them that are in awe of Him, secrets encrypted in a spiritual blueprint called “The Lord’s Prayer.”

So, let us dig into it, line by line, phrase by phrase, extracting His thoughts about how He is going to get Himself down into His temple, us.  This I hope to do in the next few posts, beginning next time with “The Lord’s Prayer–Our Father.”  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

3 Comments

Filed under children of God, church, eternal purpose, God's desire, The Lord's Prayer, Yahshua

Tagged as , , ,

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}

2 Comments

Filed under eternal purpose, prayer, The Lord's Prayer

Tagged as ,

September 3, 2011 · 2:40 pm

The Mind of Christ–What Are His Thoughts?

We are told to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Yahshua)” [1].  We are then to have His thoughts, to think the way He does, to meditate on subjects that fill His mind.

So what fills His mind?  What is He thinking about right now?

We get a thumbnail sketch of His thoughts in His model prayer for us, the so-called “Lord’s Prayer.”  In it Christ mentions the Father’s name, the Kingdom of God, His will to be done in earth, the spiritual bread, forgiveness, deliverance from evil, and a need to surrender to the Father’s majesty.

These subjects in Christ’s mind are vast “that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” [2].  So I want to address just one aspect of one of them–the Kingdom of God.  

The “good news” is the “gospel of the kingdom of God” [3].  The true gospel that Christ spoke continually of is the good news that His Father’s kingdom is coming to this earth.  He is speaking of a real government that will replace all of man’s governments.  Righteousness, peace, and joy will replace crookedness, war, and misery that is plaguing the planet at this present time.  That is the good news that filled Christ’s mind. 

We have been told since childhood that the gospel is something else–that it is salvation.  Salvation is important as a first step, for one cannot enter the kingdom of God, the government of God, without it.  It is, however, only the first  baby step.  God wants us to grow up and be His governors in His literal kingdom that is soon coming to fill this whole earth.  There is so much more to it than what most churches teach!

The Thousand Year Reign

Where do we think we will be during the millenial reign of Christ?  He is returning to earth to establish God’s government here.  Are we going to be with Him here, or will we be “rolling around heaven all day”?  Will His offspring be playing harps on streets of gold in some mystical place, or will we be rolling up our sleeves and doing the work of “building the old waste places” of the earth–the aftermath of the great tribulation period?

If the overcomers are to “sit with Him on His throne,” then when will that happen?  Again, Christ is  coming back here to earth to rule and reign for 1,000 years.  His throne will be here, and the overcomers will be sitting with Him on His throne [4].  To those same overcomers “will I give power over the nations” to rule over them [5].

We need to have Christ’s mind, to think like He thinks.  And He thinks big!  On a world wide scale–like a worldwide government.  His true followers will He appoint to “have authority over ten cities” as He mentions in the parable of the pounds [6].  This parable, which as all parables reveal mysteries “kept secret from the foundation of the world,” is a snapshot of what His true followers will be doing during the 1,000 year reign.  They will be rulers–kings, if you will–over geographical areas of the earth. 

He did say that He was the “King of kings and the Lord of lords” [I Tim. 6: 5].  Look up “king” in the Greek and it is “leader of the people, prince, commander, lord of the land, king.”  “Lord of the land”?  What land?  The earth during the 1,000 year reign.

If you are reading this and seeing this, then “blessed are your eyes, for they see.  For many prophets and righteous men have desired to see these things and have not seen them” [8].  Why?  Because they saw the Kingdom afar off.  And it is for our time.  Oh, they will be with us in the kingdom.  In fact, we will sit at their feet and honor their faith that has been such an inspiration to us and that has helped us in our walk. They now sleep in the dust of the earth until Christ returns and resurrects them to be a part of His entourage at the beginning of the new wondrous age of peace that the Prince of peace will bring to this crooked, starved planet.

Oh, there is so much more that He wants to reveal to us, which is what He is thinking about, which is what is on His mind.

But the shame of it is this.  Many who claim to know God don’t know what His thoughts are.  I want to believe that this is the case.  For if they know about the true gospel of the kingdom and don’t share it with others for what ever reason, then–let’s just say–God will be most unpleased with them. 

And so I have to ask the question: How can you “know God” and not know His thoughts, not know what is in His mind?  When you know a person, you know what they are about.  You know whats on their mind because they will speak their thoughts.

In any event, we haven’t even scratched the surface of what is the Mind of Christ, which is the Mind of the Father.  “For eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those that love Him” [9].

These are the “unsearchable riches of Christ.”  But then, He also told us, “Seek and you shall find” the “hid treasure” in the earth, which is the Kingdom of God, which is “the mind of Christ.”  KWH

  1. Phil. 2: 5
  2. John 21: 25
  3. Matt. 4: 23; 9: 35; 24: 14; Mark 1: 14
  4. Rev. 3: 21
  5. Rev. 2: 26-27
  6. Luke 19: 17
  7. I Tim. 6: 5
  8. Matt. 13: 16-17
  9. I Cor. 2: 9; Isa. 64: 4

1 Comment

Filed under calling of God, children of God, end time prophecy, false teachers, kingdom of God, mind of Christ, sons of God, The Lord's Prayer, will of God

Tagged as , , ,

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”]

Leave a comment

Filed under armour of God, belief, old leaven, prayer, sons and daughters of God, The Lord's Prayer

Tagged as , , ,

August 7, 2008 · 11:54 am

“Thine Is the Kingdom, Power, Glory”–Surrendering to God

     It is all His, and we’ll surrender to Him when we believe it.  Because in the end, it will be all Him.  It is the Father’s kingdom rule that will hold sway to the furthest speck of the universe. 

     His power will permit what He desires and will permeate the will of mankind.  He will share His glory with the humble, with those who have abdicated and renounced themselves unworthy to rule their own lives, and have surrendered to His majesty for ever.

     Here lies a paradox.  There is nothing in the plan of God for us humans, and yet, if we surrender to Him, we inherit all things!  How can this be?

     Christ is teaching us His disciples in this closing line of the blueprint prayer to realize that it is all about the Father.  In the end, after our fitful demands and childish schemes, all of us humans will fall into one of two categories: vessels surrendered to Him or unsurrendered to Him.

     “Surrender” implies a fight that has taken place.  We see in the natural a little child throwing a fit, fighting the will of his parents.  It is his will versus his parents’ will.  And so it is spiritually with us adults.  We have our own will initially that fights against God’s will for our lives.  And His will is for us to see that His way is best and surrender to it.

     For He, of course, already knows “the end from the beginning,” and in the end, it will be all Christ.  The Spirit of Christ will be all, and will fill all (Colossians 3:11). 

     When we surrender to Him, we receive His Spirit into our hearts (“that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”–Ephesians 3:17).  He begins to make His abode in us; He takes up residence in our hearts, and His Spirit in us grows as we water the Seed through study and prayer.  He actually fills us with His goodness.

     He in His surrendered vessels is how He multiplies Himself.  This is the role that we His followers play.  For we become more than just followers.  We become His dwelling place, His temple, His body.

     The “Father of glory” glorified Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15).  The Father unleashed His power and glory to be channeled through Christ.  And He has opened it up to the likes of us.  To us, who were so far removed morally from His purity, has He provided a way “to partake of His divine nature” (II Peter 1:4). 

     If we surrender to Him.  And those who do will become His body, His very dwelling place, which is “the fulness of Him that fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23).  Full of His power, full of His glory, and full of His regal aspect.  Wow.  That is all I can say right now.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

1 Comment

Filed under body of Christ, church, prayer, The Lord's Prayer, will of God

Tagged as , , , ,

July 26, 2008 · 7:25 pm

“Overcome Evil With Good”–Forgiving One Another

     Been betrayed lately?  Lied to?  Cheated on?  Robbed?  Beaten up?  Victimized?  Abused mentally or physically?  

     Have you ever wondered, Why do good-hearted people suffer at the hands of evil ones?  It is the age old question explored in the Book of Job in the Bible.  Why do the righteous suffer?

     The short answer: God allows it.  For a very good reason.  He wants us to be like Him, but to be like Him, we must have something to forgive.  If this does not make much sense, we need to remember that “HIs ways are not our ways, His thoughts not our thoughts.”  We must look through His eyes to comprehend the answer to this one. 

     His eternal purpose is what He is about from the very beginning before time as we know it.  And it is this: He is in the process of reproducing Himself.  He is the Seed, the Word, and He is multiplying Himself in us. 

He Is the Forgiver

     We receive His Spirit within our hearts and begin to grow.  One of His major traits that He is keen on passing on to us is that He is the Forgiver.  “To forgive a wrong” is an attribute of God, for only He can do it; only He has a heart big enough for it. 

     We, in order to be His sons and daughters, should now forgive.  The English poet Alexander Pope wrote, “To err is human; to forgive is divine.” 

     But it is not in the old nature of man to forgive.  We hold on to things that people do to us.  We hold grudges and forge weapons of revenge, or harbor little agonies about wrongs committed aganist us.  

     And since forgiveness is not a natural human trait, we then are forced to go to God and ask Him for His Spirit-of-forgiveness to be channeled through us to the one who wronged us.

     This has a powerful impact on both the forgiver (us) and the forgiven (them).   We will have contacted God and witnessed His Spirit of forgiveness flowing through us, and the forgiven knows now that something greater than a victim stands there–in peace.

     This is how we are delivered from the evil done to us by others–when we forgive their sins toward us.  We have that power with God.  In fact, He wants us to forgive others, for it shows the world that we are His offspring.

     We are to “be partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4).  By forgiving, we show His godly nature in us.  This gives God glory.

     Forgiving will not put an end to “people hurting people.”  The old nature will sin against others. But we can transcend this lower, earthy, devilish cycle of hurt-for-hurt and an eye-for-an-eye.  With God’s help, this we can do to end the cycle of sin.  We forgive and thereby join the ranks of God’s princes and princesses who have now partaken of His divine nature–the nature of forgiving.

6 Comments

Filed under forgiveness, prayer, sons and daughters of God, The Lord's Prayer, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 22, 2008 · 12:00 pm

“But Deliver Us From Evil”–From the Evil Within the Heart

     Evil comes in three sizes: the personal, the inter-personal, and the national/inter-national size.

     Christ is teaching us here in the “Lord’s Prayer” to ask the Father for deliverance from all evil, beginning with the evil that lurks within the heart of natural man.

     Christ spoke sharply about the spiritual state of those who do not have the Spirit of God within them–those who were not re-generated by His Spirit. 

     He exposed the religious hypocrites who asked Him why His disciples ate with unwashed hands and not “according to the tradition of the elders.”  He told them that it’s what comes out of the man that defiles the man, not what goes into the man.  “For from within, out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit…blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:20-23).  In a word, these sins come from within the heart of the old nature.

     The prophet Jeremiah knew of the treachery of the old Adamic heart when he wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?

     This old heart is natural man’s dirty little secret; it is what propels people into doing evil things that they don’t really want to do (See ch. 27 of my book Yah-Is-Savior: The Road to Immortality at http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yahch27.htm ).  The apostles call it “being a slave to sin.”

     Secular humanism, however, teaches that the human being, though flawed, inately has the answer to his own problems–already within himself.  It has made a man’s SELF his god!  It teaches that the human being is its own physician and savior. 

     But try as people may to clean up their old sinful self, eventually “the screaming blue monkey” crashes into their minds, demanding that they do what they know they shouldn’t, demanding that they take the path of darkness, a trail that leads them to guilty shadows of loneliness far from the light of the sun.  This monkey is the selfish little bastard-child ego, incessantly wanting to be worshipped by all.

     This evil presence in unregenerated human beings is not being dealt with in the vast majority of churches.  It is too raw of a confrontation.  And many lives are being destroyed “for lack of knowledge” of these things.

     It takes honesty and humility to take that old self to the cross.  This “personal evil” in one’s heart has to be crucified with Christ, or it will always flare up.  It must be recognized, renounced, hated, and crucified (in spiritual revelation).  Then buried with Him, and then raised with Christ’s Spirit now within, thereby becoming a new creature.  “He that is dead is freed from sin” (Romans 6:3-7) {See post “Love from Above–Down and Through” at https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/love-from-above-down-and-through/ }.

     The old heart and old spirit of man keeps God’s Spirit away, for He will not dwell in an “unclean temple.”  We are, after all, to be God’s temple.

     But God has provided us a way to do away with the personal evil within at the cross.  But other evils still exists.  And we are to pray to be delivered from them as well.      Kenneth Wayne Hancock

2 Comments

Filed under cross, crucified with Christ, death of self, old self, The Lord's Prayer

Tagged as , , , ,

July 16, 2008 · 3:20 pm

“Lead Us Not Into Temptation”–Being “Led by the Spirit of God”

     God does not tempt us.  When we desire worldly things, we are lured away from the spiritual heavenly things.  This is temptation, and Christ is reminding us of this in the Lord’s prayer.

     “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed” (James 1:13-14).  Those without the Spirit of God dwelling in their hearts fall prey to these thoughts and desires as they conceive and bring forth sin (Thou shalt not covet) and death (1:15).  Those with the Spirit are spared this, for they have a new heart.

     Our example in the Bible of how not to act are the Israelites in the wilderness.  They lusted after the food and creature comforts of their old homes in Egypt, and those desires took root in their hearts and led them to perdition.  We are specifically admonished to not do what they did (I Cor. 10:6-13).

     No, God will not lead us into temptation.  He is our faithful Shepherd, as David sung, “He leads me beside the still waters…He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Psalms 23: 2-3).  And yet, God gets blamed for our foibles and trials. 

     God, rather, leads His sons and daughters into unspeakable realms of glory by His Spirit.  “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons (and daughters) of God” (Rom. 8:14).  He has given us the downpayment of His Spirit through our belief in His resurrection in us.  His Spirit that now resides in us is leading us on down the path to an immortal reign with Him.

     As we continue reading Romans 8, we see that we have received from Him the “Spirit of adoption” instead of our old spirit of fear (v. 15).  He is our Father and we cry out to Him as such.  We are His children and His heirs.  He is the King; we His children are His princes and princesses–heirs to His throne (v. 15-18). 

     The whole world is groaning, waiting for the “manifestation of the sons of God” (v. 19-22).  This unveiling of God’s soon-to-be immortal offspring is the final act of the play called Life As We Know It (read more in my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God  at http://yahwehisthesavior.com/unveiling.htm ).

     We all want to live on, but we are entrapped by a body of fragile flesh that is destined to expire.  We are rushing to our “expiration date” because of the physical corruptability of our bodies.  Most have little hope. 

     But Christ our Shepherd will lead us through our faith in Him.  For we know that it is all going to work out, for we love Him.  We have been called by Him according to His plan and purpose (see post “Nature Teaches God’s Plan of Reproducing Himself” at https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/nature-teaches-gods-plan-of-reproducing-himself/ ).  

     He knew us and gave us a destiny to become His sons and daughters long before we came to the earth–a destiny “to be conformed to the image of His Son…the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8: 28-30).

     He is leading us down this path to His throne as we write this.  Believing this gives us great confidence, for we will never ever be separated from the love of God, which is in Christ (8:39).

Leave a comment

Filed under prayer, princes and princesses of God, sons of God, The Lord's Prayer

Tagged as , , , ,