Tag Archives: faith

September 3, 2009 · 2:52 pm

Spiritual Transformation Comes Through the Renewing of Our Minds

Our transformation as the sons and daughters of God comes through the “renewing of our minds” (1).  Our new heart that we receive from God through faith is that fountain of new thoughts based in truth that feeds our minds.  Believing that we have been given a new heart makes our transformation possible.  This process in the Christian walk is called putting “on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (2).

“In the image of its Creator.”  We, His sons and daughters, are being transformed into the image of our Creator!  That is the true walk of the Christian.  As we look at our Savior’s glorious image, and walk in His way by believing Him,  we are changed into that same image through His Spirit in us!  “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (3).

This Is Difficult for Some to Believe

Some will gainsay and resist this truth and say, “No, no one can be changed into the image of God.”  They are speaking for themselves, for those doubt-filled words have sealed their fate.  And “the fearful and unbelieving” will have no place in His kingdom (4). 

But those who believe the report of the true prophets and apostles of God will be changed into His image.  That is the belief and the promise of the Savior and His apostles.  “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (I Cor. 15: 49).  This is the truth that renews our minds, thereby changing us. 

We Are Led by Our Thoughts

Our change starts with our thinking.  We are led by our thoughts.  We started out our earthly walk by thinking naturally, which is thinking derived from the input of our five senses.  Natural thinking says, If I can’t hear it, see it, taste it, touch it, or smell it, then fit must not be real or worth anything.

This empirical thinking would be absolutely correct if that was all life was made up of.  But think on this a minute.  This belief–if I can’t observe it, then it must not exist–this thinking is so prideful, as if they are the supremest of beings, and the whole world revolves around them and their wee little minds.  That is the wisdom of the world, the wisdom from beneath.  It tries to put the invisible God in a black box, stuffed way back in a dank warehouse for the politically-incorrect. 

But millions of lives that He has touched are rising from the graves of their doubts and are putting on their new self, created by His Spirit through belief in His resurrection–in them!  They will rise up and expose the natural thinkers as the liars that they are.  As Ezekiel saw into our day, the bones of His chosen ones are rising up, and they shall come together into one body with one Spirit leading them.  And they will be grateful for their new start, created in His image, transformed by a transfusion of life-giving truth.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

  1. Rom 12: 2
  2. Col. 3: 10
  3. 2 Cor. 3: 18
  4. Rev. 21: 8
  5. I Cor. 15: 49

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August 29, 2009 · 2:49 pm

“Our Conversation Is in Heaven”–The Fruit of a New Heart and New Mind

The sons and daughters of God, His princes and princesses, those born of Him–they will have a new conversation.  They will not speak of the things of their old natural life, for now their “conversation is in heaven” (1).  They are like seedlings freshly regenerated from a once hardened seed; they transcend the earthy grave and reach for heaven’s light.  These children of the most High are “risen with Christ” and now “seek those things which are above” (2).

And they realize that their old life is now dead and that their new life is “hid with Christ in God.”  Their old nature and old self dies with Christ on the cross.  And with it dies “whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed.”  They begin to see themselves changing, being “transformed by the renewing of their minds” (3). 

“The Mind” Is the Key

Our conversation is determined by the thoughts rattling around in our mind.  Whatever we are thinking about–that is what comes out of our mouth.  But what determines our thoughts?  Christ said that a person’s heart will dictate their thoughts.  “Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart…evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (4).  Those things proceed, of course, from an old heart.  So then, a new heart, infused by the Spirit of God will issue forth thoughts of love, peace, harmony, truth, sharing, and giving.  And these new thoughts will manifest themselves in our new conversation.

Based on Faith and Belief

The new heart of love creates in us new thoughts, which in turn, creates a new conversation.  Our spiritual change then hinges on the new heart He has given us.  And it can only come by our belief  that He has given us it.  Faith is the key (5).  Our new heart, our new center core of being, now renews our mind with truth about God, about who He is, what He is doing, and how we fit into that plan.

This is the fertile bed of truth from which our new mind grows.  Our minds are nourished by the truth.  Falsehoods and misconceptions about God choke out the  seedling minds, and they are left to wither and finally decay for lack of real spiritual food and water.  This is why we are admonished to “purge out the old leaven that the lump may be holy” (6).  This is why we are admonished to beware of false prophets and teachers who will bring in “damnable heresies” (7).   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

  1. Phil. 3: 20
  2. Col. 3: 1
  3. Col. 3: 3; Rom. 12: 2
  4. Matt. 15: 18-19
  5. https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/without-faith-it-is-impossible-to-please-god-but-how-do-you-walk-in-it/
  6. I Cor. 5: 7
  7. II Peter 2: 1

 

 

 

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August 25, 2009 · 12:19 pm

Without Faith It Is Impossible to Please God–But How Do You Walk in It?

Faith.  Belief.  Without it, we will never please the Creator, which should be our foremost thought. 

If we are only alive to please our selves, then which god are we serving?  For make no mistake about it, to quote Dylan, “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”  

And the only way to serve the Creator is by faith.  We are shut up to it.  Why?  Because God is invisible, and since He is an invisible Spirit, we must believe Him, having never seen Him with our eyes.  And that takes faith.

And then someone will say, “Well, I believe in God.  I must have faith and am all right, then.”  Not exactly.  For even the devils believe in one God and tremble (1).  The prophets tell us that we must believe on Him “as the scripture has said.”   The “rivers of living water,” which is His Spirit, will only flow out of those who believe on Him the way the scripture has actually portrayed God (2).

How to walk with God by faith

Every step we take on our spiritual pilgrimage back to our Father is done through faith. The first step is the renunciation of our old sinful life.  God commands that we put it to death on the cross with Christ–not literally, but spiritually.  We have to let it die in order to receive a new life and a new heart.  “We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.  For he who has died is freed from sin.  But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (3).

The scenario goes like this.  Some will get sick and tired of doing bad things (sinning) and can’t in their own power stop.  Their conscience bothers them.  They want to stop sinning, which is breaking the ten commandments, but an evil unseen force overtakes them, and the good they want to do, they cannot do.  And the evil things they don’t want to do, they can’t stop doing (4).  This is the state of an unregenerated human being prior to the cross experience.  His old nature is still present.  So how does one put the old sinful heart on the cross to die with Christ and then to be “raised to walk in a newness  of life”?

The Reckoning

How do we do it?  How do we let the old self die and our new life in Christ begin?  We reckon it done by faith/belief.  We have to “reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through  Christ” (5).       We’ve got to reckon it done!  The word “reckon” is #3049 in Strong’s.  It means “to account it, to count it as such.”

God wants us to reckon it so, but He does it first!  He has already reckoned our change done.  When we believe Him, then He counts us righteous in His eyes even in our imperfect state.  It is His nature to “call those things that do not exist as though they did” (6). If He is this positive, then He would want His children to be the same.

He wants us to follow in His footsteps!  God “accounted”  righteousness  to  Abraham  because of his belief—before Abraham was righteous!  “Accounted” here is the same word as the one translated “reckon.”  We are commanded to RECKON some things done.  Now we have to reckon our sinful self gone—by belief—as though it were already done—for that is how God looks at it!  By belief!  Reckon it done through Him and His faith.  He said it.  Let it be done.  For what saith the scripture?  Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.  Rom. 4:3.  Yahweh imputed or reckoned to Abraham the ability to live in a upright manner, keeping Yahweh’s laws and  not  sinning, by just believing that Yahweh had done it!  We make it so hard through our hard heart of unbelief.  He is looking for childlike faith, the belief of a small child.  All we have to do is just believe that Yahweh has provided a way for us to actually put the old life to death and start living a new life in Him. 

The Churches Won’t Touch This

But the “Christian” denominations don’t believe it is possible.  The pastors won’t touch this, for it will get them fired.  The people in the pews don’t believe it, for they have been told all their life by those very pastors that they are sinners and that they will die a sinner.  The pulpits present no hope of ever really changing the heart.  The “deliverance” they preach is window dressing.  Just come to church, pay your tithes and offerings, and don’t rock the boat.  But the people in the pews still sit there in their private sins, undelivered.  But the future sons and daughters of God will long for more and will come out of her. 

They will take this first step by faith, by reckoning it done.  Then, by faith, they will take the next step, and the next, and they will begin to walk in the Spirit. 

But someone will say, “But we just can’t live without sin.”  Of course , we can’t.  That’s why we have to die on the cross with Christ and by faith receive a new heart, His heart, His Spirit.  We who do this have the victory–victory over sin and sinning.  For if we are still sinning, where is the victory?  Our faith is our victory (7). 

But we have to want this new life.  We have to pant after it like a desperately thisty deer.  We have to throw ourselves upon His mercy and break–break our hard hearts, and so He will come and comfort and heal us by giving His very Spirit into us, giving us a new heart.

Our part is to believe that “with God [in us] all things are possible.”  Even to live a life without sin and sinning.  Impossible, you say?  Not with Christ, for He said,  “And nothing shall be impossible to you…All things are possible to him that believes” (8).  And again, “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God” (9). 

Somebody is going to pick up the Book, believe its contents, and change the world.  By faith.   And He wants it to be us.       Kenneth Wayne Hancock

  1. James 2: 19
  2. John 7: 38
  3. Romans 6: 6-8
  4. Romans 7: 15-20
  5. Romans 6: 11
  6. Romans 4: 7
  7. I John 5: 4
  8. Mark 9: 23
  9. Luke 18: 27

{You can read more on this in my book, here:  http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yahch30.htm

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August 20, 2009 · 12:26 pm

“Repent and Be Converted”–Returning to Our Previous State with the Father

“Repent and be converted…”  How these words of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost have been watered down by mainstream Churchianity today.  “Repent” has become “feeling sorry,” and “being converted” now means “coming to church.”

“To repent” is rather the changing of one’s mind, from the Greek word metanoia.  “Godly sorrow does work repentance.”  Ie, feeling sorry for our past sins to God will bring about a change in our thinking.  But for the mind to really be changed, we must go through the “cross experience”  whereby our old heart and mind are “crucified with Christ,” buried with Him, and finally raised up in newness with Him.  We then receive His Spirit, His heart, and His mind.  We then are poised to be “transformed by the renewing of our mind.”  Old thoughts of selfishness are “passed away.”  “Behold, all things are become new.”

Being Converted–What It Really Means

“Converted” is from the Greek word epistrepho, meaning “to revert, to return, to come again” (1).  “To return” inherently means that we were there before.  “To return to St. Louis” means that we have been in that city on a previous occasion.  Therefore, “being converted” to God means returning back to Him–reverting or going back to a spiritual position we had with Him before.

Truly becoming a child of God means that we have received His Spirit.  For “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8: 9).  We become a “new creature” with the Spirit we had with Him in the beginning now residing in our earthly bodies.  “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”  And this treasure is a portion of His Spirit, a bit of Him that we shared with Him before the worlds were framed.

If We Can Just Believe…

I know that is “getting out there,” but if we can believe  that we are returning to a spiritual state that we already had with God, then it will become easier to believe that we now have the great Eternal Spirit, Yahweh Himself, walking in us now.  For things are always easier to do, if we have done them before.  Can we with humility say, Been there, done that?

The Returning Prodigal Son

In the parable of the prodigal son, he returned to his Father.  He was once with his Father, but went to the swine pens of this world.  We, like him, have made a complete mess of our old lives, and are now returning, reverting to our prior position with the Father.  We are the prodigal sons and daughters of God, repenting from our old life and being washed from the slop and mire of sin.  We now in spirit have returned to our Father to the standing we had with Him before this wearisome walk on earth began.

“The Jews took up stones again to stone Him.”  Christ asked them, Which good work from my Father are you stoning me?  They said, Because you make yourself out to be God and you are only a man.  Christ then quotes from Psalms, “Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods”?

The word “gods” is translated from the Hebrew word elohim, which is the exact word translated “God” over 2,000 times in the Bible.  Christ said that we are elohim.  That portion of His Spirit that He has given us was with Him in the beginning.  Remember when He said in Genesis, “Let us make man in our own image…so God created man in his own image” (1: 26-27). 

But we must not make the mistake in thinking that our old man Adam is God.  No.  Our old self must die, thereby blotting out our sins.  Only after believing in His resurrection can we receive His Spirit.  It is His Spirit that is God.  We are mere clay vessels that He has chosen to reside in.  It is all Him, not us in our natural thinking. 

This is difficult to comprehend when we look at this “after the flesh” and not “after the Spirit.”  Most still circle that same old mountain of sin in their lives, not believing that God is quite capable of “blotting out” our sins (Acts 3: 19).  Most will not believe Him and truly repent of their sins.  Sadly, most will not believe that “He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin” (I John 3: 5).  Their preachers don’t teach it, and most will depend on them for their spiritual food.

But a few will believe and repent and follow on in the Way.  They will receive Him into a new heart, and they will grow, and He will grow in them, “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” (Eph. 4: 13).  These will be His fully manifested sons and daughters of God in these latter days.

We need to help them fulfill their calling.  In so doing, “there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior” (2 Peter 1: 11).

Repentance and being converted to Christ has a deeper meaning than some think.  But knowing and doing the truth about them will bear fruit.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock 

(1) Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for epistrephō (Strong’s 1994)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 17 Aug 2009. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G1994&t=KJV > 

“converted” —  http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/translationResults.cfm?Strongs=G1994&Criteria=be+converted%2A&t=KJV

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August 15, 2009 · 2:27 pm

Conversion to Christ–Just the First Step Towards Glorification

God’s offspring, His future manifested sons and daughters for these last days, will realize that conversion to Christ is just the first step on their spiritual journey back to their Father’s heart. 

Their conversion, yes, is an astounding miracle performed by the Spirit of God, whereby their old heart is cleansed from sin and sinning, as they stand before the King justified by their faith in Him and His power to change lives.  This true conversion experience is giddy-wonderful, filling our souls with an inexplicable peace and love.

Charles G. Finney  described this experience of justification in his memoirs: “I felt myself justified by faith; and, so far as I could see, I was in a state in which I did not sin. Instead of feeling that I was sinning all the time, my heart was so full of love that it overflowed. My cup ran over with blessing and with love; and I could not feel that I was sinning against God. Nor could I recover the least sense of guilt for my past sins. Of this experience I said nothing that I recollect, at the time, to anybody; that is, of this experience of justification” ( http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/conversion.html ).

Justification (just-if-I’d never sinned) is truly wonderful.  It is our ticket to Immortality and a Life in the presence of the King of the Universe.  But it is just the first step.  And it is here that many “babes in Christ” remain, for they are taught that this is all there is by well-meaning, unenlightened teachers. [For more see https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/the-manifested-sons-of-god-overcoming-the-law-of-sin-and-death/ ]

“Be Converted”

The sons and daughters of God will see that conversion is something even more grand than justification.  Being converted to Christ sets our feet on the path “to the glory we had with Him before the world began.”  Through it we revert back to what we had with Him before the worlds were ever created.  We are “called unto glory and virtue.”  After being “justified by faith,” we are to “sanctify ourselves,” setting ourselves apart for His purposes.  In turn, those who become sanctified may enter the rarified realm of glorification.

Yes, a few of His followers will be glorified, just as our example was.  The apostle Paul wrote of “the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  A few will complete Christ’s spiritual life-cycle; they will “suffer with Him” now, that they “may be also glorified together” (Romans 8: 17-18).  Yes, some of His followers will grow to the point that they will be “glorified together” with Christ!  You can read it in plain English in any translation; they all say the same thing. 

These that are “glorified together” with Christ are manifested sons and daughters of God (v. 19).  This is the “high calling.”  There is no greater calling on this planet than to be one of these.  For they will “sit with Him on [His] throne” and will become “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rev. 3: 21; Rom. 8: 17). 

Suffering With Christ

But this calling is only to those who “suffer with Christ.”  They must first suffer their own crucifixion, allowing their old self and old heart to die with Christ on the cross; to be buried with Him into His death, and by believing His resurrection, we believe that we are raised from the dead, from the death sentence caused by all our past sins.  We then receive His Spirit by faith.  This is justification (Romans 6: 1-16).

We then must suffer the Spirit of God to “purge out the old leaven” from our thinking.  We all in our old lives have been taught erroneous doctrines and teachings.  Coming off of these things that we were taught and believed our whole lives is difficult, but very necessary.  Difficult because of what friends, family, and acquintances will say.  We will suffer rejection from loved ones as we make a stand for truth.  They will not understand and will try and talk us out of our newfound beliefs.  It is all in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.  All false doctrines and concepts must be gotten rid of.  This takes much prayerful study.  This also takes humility to learn from someone else who knows the way and has been sent to help teach the future sons and daughters of God.  This is part of the sanctification experience, the second leg on our journey.  Only those who make it through to the end of this process will go on to glorification.

All this is a process that yields an astounding spiritual transformation in a few good men and women.  They will do the “greater works” that Christ spoke of (John 14: 12).  They will shine as “lights in the midst of a wicked and perverse nation.”  The darkness is thick, but God, who is light, will pierce the darkness through, and will bring in a wonderful new government to earth.  And these manifested ones will rule and reign with Him.  Incredible, I know.  But that is what The Book says.      Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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August 4, 2009 · 11:41 am

Christ in You–The Treasure in Earthen Vessels

Every stimulus that bombards our five senses works to prevent us from glimpsing the true Light.  It is no accident that this happens; the great Creator made it this way so that His spiritual offspring would have spiritual struggles to overcome, thereby making them stronger.  This is His doing and not ours; we would not do it this way.  “His thoughts are not our thoughts.”

It is the overcoming of sin that lies at the heart of the Christian experience.  Man’s thought says to us, No one can stop sinning in this life.  This is pure self-projection, for the scriptures of truth speak otherwise.  They speak of a deliverance from sin.  “He that is dead is freed from sin” (1).  And, “He shall save His people from their sins” (2).  And “He that is born of God does not commit sin, for His seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God” (I John 3: 9).

This is what actually distinguishes the children of God from the children of darkness.  I have written extensively about the “cross experience.”  For it is there that one must come and surrender their old sinful selfish ways and just let them die with Christ, who bore them there; and be buried with Him, and be raised with Him.  Or rather, through belief in the “operation of God” that raised Him up, we also can be “raised to walk in a newness of life” (3).  This is “where old things are passed away,” where “all things are become new” (4).  This is bottom line.

For it is His Life that counts.  He doesn’t want a re-directed, re-furbished, re-cycled old selfish life.  No.  Our old life has to completely go, completely die out.  He wants His life taking root and growing up in us.  And finally, God wants His Spirit, the Spirit that is in Christ, to grow and flourish inside of us to the point that we become just like the Son of God.  There it is.  That is His plan and purpose.  But only a few will have the faith to believe it and walk in it.

This is the secret kept from the foundation of the world–the secret that all seekers have wanted to know down through history.  It is the treasure kept hidden in plain sight in this old world, a vast spiritual chest of knowledge much more precious than gold and diamonds.  “And few there be that find it” (5).

Why?  Because one cannot find this elusive spiritual treasure when moved by selfish motives.  For one will not be given the map to find it if one seeks it selfishly.  “Only the pure in heart shall see God” and His purpose and plan to reproduce Himself.

One can even read about this treasure in plain English, like you are reading this right now, and if their eyes have not been anointed with eyesalve, they can read the words, but the message will lay thud-like on leadened ears. 

Here, then, is the secret of this “sacred mystery which up till now has been hidden in every age and every generation, but which is now as clear as daylight to those who love God.  They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendour of his secret plan for the nations.  And the secret is simply this:  Christ in you!  Yes Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come” (6).  And those things include His government and righteousness filling this earth–precious things that we, His children, the overcomers will inherit.  He is our Father; therefore, we are His heirs, heirs of all things!

But before all this happens, we have to get over ourselves and realize that we are nothing; it is all Him, all Christ.  Once we receive that, we can find rest.    KWH

  1. Romans 6: 7
  2. Matt. 1: 21
  3. Romans 6: 4
  4. II Cor. 5: 7
  5. Matt. 7: 14
  6. Col. 1: 26-27

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August 2, 2009 · 1:21 am

Conversations With the Seer–Who Will Do the “Greater Works”?

(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the Seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a Seer. I Samuel 9: 9)

“Christ did say, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also,” I said to the Seer.  We were talking about how followers of Christ today could grow to a point in which they could do the same miracles of healing and raising of the dead that the Savior and His apostles did (1).

“That promise is true,” the Seer said, “but what does it mean, to believe on Him?  Even the devils believe in one God and tremble.  Many believe that He existed, that He was a prophet, that He was a wise teacher.  Although important, it is not enough that we believe that Christ existed, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day.  Christ gives us His followers a commandment: ‘Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.’  Those who go and learn what that means–they are the ones that will do the greater works.”

“How could we do anything greater than healing the sick and raising the dead?” I asked, thinking that would be difficult to top.

“He is bringing many sons unto glory.  Multiply these works by thousands of us doing them—those are the ‘greater works.’”

“Never saw it like that before.  So what does ‘believe on Him’ mean then?”

“Christ was saying this: The Father that dwells in me speaks the words through me and does the works.  The Father is a Spirit; He is everywhere.  The Son is a vessel that walks in this knowledge and also contains the Father/Spirit.   We who have received His Spirit in our new hearts, we, also, are in the Father, and the Father now is in us.

“Christ commands us: ‘Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”  This is a commandment.  In fact, this is one of his new commandments that His apostle John tells us about.  He is saying, The things I do only God can do, so believe what I am saying to you about the Father being present right now in Me.  These miracles done through me—it is the Father in me that is doing them.”

“He did say, I and my Father are one.”

“Precisely.  Those that obey this new commandment and believe that it was very Yahweh, the great Creator, walking, teaching, healing, through the Anointed One Christ—they will do the same works that He did.”

“Just accepting Him as their personal Savior is not going to do it,” I said.

“No, it won’t.  We do the receiving of Him; He does the accepting of us.  Big difference.”

“The Great Creator Spirit poured Himself into the man called the Christ,” I said.

“Believe that and you will be given the Spirit as well.  Speaking of all of His followers down through the ages, He prayed, ‘That they may be one, as we are.’  And His prayers will be answered.”     KWH

(1) John 14: 9-20; 17: 11.

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July 10, 2009 · 8:59 am

“Let This Mind Be in You”–Thinking the Way Christ Thinks

We are to have God’s purpose in mind.  But therein lies the problem.  How do we know what God’s purpose, plan and priorities are?  The answer is found in the writings of the apostles and prophets.  And they speak of “the elect,” “the sons of God,” and of the wonderful works that God will do through them at the time of the end.

God Will Make It Happen

Because it is His plan and He is all-sovereign and all-powerful, He will make it all happen and come together.  He will call out His sons and daughters, bidding them to come away a while and learn of Him.  He will draw them away from the cacophony of man’s thoughts and rumblings and the vain trappings of the Spirit-less life and feed them with wholesome spiritual food.

Putting on the Mind of Christ

Shouldn’t we be thinking on the things that God is thinking about, too?  We are admonished to do this.  “Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus/Yahshua.”  We have to allow His mind to come into us and take over.

What was in His mind?  He knew that He was in God’s form, that His body was the temple of God, the place for God to dwell in.  Christ knew that His Father Yahweh meant all along to come fully into Him and dwell in Him.  He knew that He was the heir, that He would inherit the Spirit of God Himself!  This was in His thoughts and mind.  And we should have the same mind and thoughts as Christ did.

But Christ humbled Himself, knowing that humility is the way a human should walk on earth.  He submitted Himself unto death.  Now we are asked to follow Him in a “baptism into His death,” where sin and its sin nature dies with Christ.

Doing this, we will the become “blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2: 5-15).

Christ is our example, and He was always “about His Father’s business,” which is bringing forth His sons and daughters.  We now should make the “Father’s business” our business.  If we do, you know that He will be pleased.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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July 6, 2009 · 6:16 pm

Abraham Lincoln’s School Book–The Holy Bible

I thought of President Lincoln this morning over coffee and scriptures.  I pondered about how much the Bible played a role in shaping him, both during childhood and his final difficult years.

He was self-taught, and his primer was the Holy Bible.  It is easy to see its influence in his writings.  Practically every thing he wrote exudes the wisdom found in the scriptures of truth.  That is why his words still move us, still inspire us, still cause us to stop and shake our heads and say, “That’s the stuff of greatness.”

His words are great, for their truths are mined from the Rock of Ages.  He quotes Christ’s very own words in the “house divided against its self” speech.  He alludes to the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation and mercy—universal concepts that the Great Teacher taught.

Style and Themes

His literary style was simple, yet elegant.  His word choice often was plucked from the pool of Elizabethan English the King James translators provided, illuminating a clear path of expression.

Themes of brotherly love, unity, fairness, faithfulness, and hope that President Lincoln employed came straight from the “Good Book”—words he read from childhood, words contained between black leather covers, words inspired by God and carefully preserved for all to study and spiritually prosper thereby.  To get to the heart of Lincoln, one must go through the mind of God contained in the Bible.

Reading his speeches and letters, one’s heart soars.  Yet he himself would tell us that this phenomenon is not because of any craft or genius that he possessed, but rather because of all those lonely hours by candle and fireplace light, reading the words of the patriarchs, prophets and the apostles.

But Some Have Turned Away

But now in this modern age, many powerful and influential people in government and the media have turned away from the scriptures Lincoln read.  The same Book sits there on their shelves collecting dust, gilded pages never turned.  They have shied away from it, tossing it into the pile of other “politically incorrect” positions.  And for this, they rarely quote it, nor allude to its glorious stories of mortal man triumphing against all odds through the mercy of its God.

I dare say that if Lincoln were raised from the grave, he would shake his head in disgust at our leaders’ lack in taking “the counsel of the LORD.”  I’d like to think that he would upbraid them as Christ did the hypocrites, who paraded in their pharisaical robes, while inwardly clothed in the filthy garments of deceit and greed.  I believe that Lincoln would be heartbroken and grieved that we, the descendants of a once thankful and humble people, inhabiting the choicest lands on earth, had become “fat and had forgotten God.”

So let us not be ashamed to read and savor the same inspired words that guided President Abraham Lincoln.  If those precepts were good enough and fine enough to steer him through our nation’s roughest seas, surely we of a less noble intellect can harvest from the Bible’s fruited fields, spiritual food able to sustain us during “the perilous times”  that lie ahead–the “time of the end,” spoken of in President Lincoln’s school book, the Holy Bible.         Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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July 2, 2009 · 3:17 pm

Manifested Sons of God Dig Deep and Lay Foundation on the Rock

The sons and daughters of God will grow up spiritually.  They will have “overcome the wicked one” and all his tricks.  Their eye will be single, seeing  only the eternal purpose of their Father and His desire to reproduce Himself through “Christ in us.”

They are “born from above,” of “that incorruptible seed, the word of God.”  They will [dig] deep and [lay] the foundation on a rock,” so that when persecution, harassment, troubles, and others’ unbelief come against them, they will remain unshaken (1).

The depth of their search for truth and their commitment to do what the truth commands–this is what distinguishes them from those who “also ran.”  They not only hear Christ’s sayings, but do them.  This is laying the foundation on the Rock and not the sand.

Concerning the way of truth,  Christ said, “Few there be that find it” (2).  But He also said, “For many be called, but few chosen” (3).  So that opens the door for you and I.

So these elect for these last days will “go deep” and fully answer the call, making their “election sure”.  They will do this by adding virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and agape love to their faith.  This is how they will become “partakers of the divine nature” (4).

In their spiritual journey, they will receive a new heart that contains the Spirit of God.  They will be led by the Spirit, which is a prerequisite of being one of His elect (5).

It’s All About What He Wants

God has an eternal purpose in reproducing Himself, and these chosen ones are at the very core of it.  All of us professing Christians need to put our own personal aspirations and dreams for our lives into perspective.  We need to see things from the King’s point of view.  See what His priorities are, see what He wants done, see what He desires for His creation, and then, put Him and His vision first.

You Would Do This for a New Boss

To be a valuable employee at your new job, would not you be wise to learn what your boss is trying to accomplish and then, keeping that purpose in mind, spend your work day diligently endeavoring to help him do it?

So it is with God and His purpose.  I am trying to get the word out about God’s purpose in “bringing many sons unto glory” (Hebrews 2: 10).  This is what this blog is about–to raise awareness as to what the scriptures say is in God’s heart and what His purpose for us is.

I do not have personal designs on being one of the manifested sons who will walk in 100 fold glory as seen in Revelation 14.  I will be quite content to be used to teach them and nurture them, helping them to grow up into Him.  Everyone must be taught.

The apostle Paul, in fact, laments that there are not more teachers of the truth.  “For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God…” (Heb. 5:12).

I do not know how old the sons and daughters are.  They could be 20, 30, 40, or 60 years old at present.  They may be 10 or 12 years old right now.  But one thing I do know.  We who have this knowledge must, by His Spirit, publish it for them and help them grow up spiritually to become what God wants them to be.

All Christians from all walks of life need to be working with this purpose in mind: to be of service to the King and His desires.  If we do this, He will be pleased and will help us help Him accomplish it all.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

  1. Luke 6: 47-48
  2. Matt. 7: 14
  3. Matt. 20: 16
  4. II Peter 1: 3-10
  5. Romans 8: 14

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