Tag Archives: faith

February 26, 2009 · 5:27 am

Don’t Let “The Cares of This Life” Choke Out God’s Vision of Sonship

With so many things screaming at us today–unemployment, recession, depression, the stock market collapse, mortgage crisis, layoffs, bills, family problems–no wonder it is difficult to keep the center of our thoughts on God’s plan and purpose.

Most do not know His eternal purpose, but even if they did, that knowledge would be drowned out by the “cares of this life” (Matt. 13: 22-23).  And His vision for us on earth is choked out by fears.

But His eternal purpose remains steadfast.  We must keep reminding the sheep of His pasture of their calling as His heirs–His sons and daughters. For His eternal purpose is that He is “bringing many sons unto glory.”

For if we keep His thoughts in mind, we shall never fall to the evil conspiracy that runs amok on every level of earthly existence.

You Shall Know the Truth

But our adversary, the devil, does not want us to glimpse the truth, for he knows it will make us free of the fear that is flung into every heart on this earth.  Still Christ’s own promise is this: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8: 32).

What truth is He talking about?  He said, “I am the truth.”  So let’s examine Christ (the Truth) a moment so that we can know just what truth really is.  Yes, He is the Son of God, but He promised that we, too, would be His sons and daughters.  “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name (John 1: 12).

Two points here that we must keep in mind in order to overcome the negative onslaughts that undermine us.  First, God will give power to those who receive Christ–power to become just like Him, a son and daughter of God.  Second, these will believe on His name.  Very important.  His original Hebrew name is Yahshua (like the patriarch’s English name “Joshua”).  And this name has a specific meaning–a meaning that we need to believe!

The Meaning of the Savior’s Hebrew Name

“Yahshua” means, “The Eternal Self-Existent One (YAH) is the Savior (SHUA).  The “Truth” is this:  Yahweh dwelt in and walked around in the man known as Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  And He, Yahweh, is the Savior (II Cor. 5: 19; Isa 43: 11).

They are one.  And that is exactly what Christ said.  “I and my Father (Yahweh) are one.”  The Father resided in the body of the Son.  Now we are the Son’s body, and by the Spirit’s presence, the Father now resides in us.

This is how “The Truth,” Christ, is being multiplied in a body of many people.  The apostle Paul said that we will be glorified, and that this whole earth is waiting for this very event–“the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8: 18).

Heirs of God, Joint Heirs with Christ

The vision that we shall be His heirs in His kingdom, clothed with a new spiritual body like Christ’s–this is the great theme of Paul and the other apostles’ writings.  Some will become like Christ!  There–I said it.

So the question then becomes this:  Who of all the six billion on earth will answer this “holy calling” of sonship?  Who will “lay their hands to the plow and not look back?  Who will “sell all they have” in order to make their “calling and election sure”?  Who will tell Him, “It is I, Lord, send me”?  Who will “study to show themselves approved”?  Who will be feeding His lambs and sheep the true spiritual food when He comes back to earth to establish His government?  Who will “stand in the gap” and lay it on the line, unafraid of what man can do to them?  Who will be found worthy in the end to do the “greater works” that Christ spoke of?

The future sons and daughters of God are in the earth today.  The last question we need to answer is this: Am I going to be one of them?                 Kenneth Wayne Hancock


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February 12, 2009 · 6:48 pm

We Were with God in the Beginning–Part II

Why This is Hard to Believe

The children of God were with their spiritual Father in the beginning, so declares the holy scriptures {see Feb. 9, 2009 post).  This message is difficult to receive when a person, dwelling on the earth and its pulls, is full and fat, and is “doing great,” and is living high-on-the-hog.

He has need of nothing, he thinks.  But he does not know that as a selfish earthbound mortal, he is really blind to the heavenly way.  He is wretched in his blindness to spiritual matters, for he can never be happy being earthly-minded.  He is poor, for he lacks the Spirit that was in the beginning.  And he is naked, strutting blindly on the earth, willingly ignorant of the truth about what is really happening “on earth as it is in heaven” (Rev. 3: 17).

This is the state of mankind now in this prosperous 21st century.  And the only thing that will wake up God’s people to Him is that He allows the engineering of an economic fall–one that will strip the toys and gadgets from the lost sheep of the House of Israel.

In the Old Testament stories, it was always an economic collapse brought on by crooked politicians that finally pierced through the hard hearts.  When they became destitute, “then they cried unto the LORD (Yahweh).”

And He heard them and came down by making His Presence known to a prophet, who in turn, led His people away from the moral and spiritual abyss and led them back “to the beginning”–back to the pastures of the Father’s heart.

How to Get Back to the Beginning with Him

We will be restored back to what we had with Him in the beginning.  How?  We believe that we receive His Spirit–after we surrender our old self on the cross and let it die with Christ, who was the sin sacrifice (Romans 6: 1-6).  This is the first step.  Then through just believing God and His love granting us a new life, heart, and spirit, we begin to walk in this new life–His Life now incarnated in us.

We believe that His Spirit within us now cauterizes eventually all connections to our earthly past.  And then by faith (belief), we leave the bars and chains of earthly thinking with its negative demands, and we begin to walk in the Spirit, in the spiritual state that we already “had with Him before the world began.”

The Truth

For the truth is that we were with Him in the beginning.  The “We”  here is the portion of His Spirit that we are now, not our earthly body.

For after receiving Christ, anything we are is “new” to our current earthly reality, but “old” in that our new existence in Christ is one we shared with Him before time as we know it began.

A person instructed in the Kingdom of God will, consequently, “bring forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Matt. 13: 52).  The “old” is our spiritual relationship we had with Him before our earthly sojourn began.  The “things new” is living now through His Spirit within our hearts–right now here on earth.

This sin-free spiritual walk in Christ is “new” and rare, for few have been priveleged to glimpse this; few have been given the eyesalve to anoint the earthen eyes that they may see.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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February 9, 2009 · 1:39 pm

We Were with God in the Beginning*

{Order your free copy of The Unveiling of the Sons of God or my new book The Royal Destiny of God’s Elect. It is totally free with free shipping to my readers. Just send your mailing address to my email address: wayneman5@hotmail.com   Specify which one.}

When we partake of His Spirit, we are drinking into what we had with Him in the beginning.

His Spirit in us transforms us day by day into what we were when we were with Him back then.  We are restored by faith, back to that relationship we had with Him before the worlds were ever formed.  Before the earth was ever made, before the seven day creation week, before the sabbath day was instituted–we, His children were there with him in spirit.

For what are we really without Him?  Our bodies without His presence within are so much earth and dust.  When we receive a portion of His Spirit, we receive into these earthly shells a spark of the divine One.

He who was from the beginning now takes up His abode in our earthly bodies, and the only “I” now is His Anointed One (Christ) in us.  For after our own cross experience with Him, it is no longer the old  selfish “I” that lives, “but it is Christ that lives in me.”

As we continue to walk this way, we can pray as Christ prayed, “Father, glorify me with the glory I had with You before the world ever began” (John 17:5).

We Must Go Back

But we must go back, back, back into time–before the temporal, before the temporary shackles of our earthen bodies, before the clamor of the flesh’s demands and desires, before the worlds were ever slung into their ethereal pinnings–when we sat around with our Father, rejoicing with Him about the beauty of His plan, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38: 7).

We must go back there, before Satan was ever commissioned by the Father to be the “accuser of the brethren.”   Before Satan became the prince and power of the air, sent down to try us and force us ultimately back to our Father for deliverance.

For we have all strayed like sheep away from our Shepherd.  We have strayed from the spiritual pastures we had with Him before He created the pastures of earth.

When we return and let Him gather us and restore us back into His heavenly-minded fold, then we will know what it means to have “our conversation in heaven.”

Passing the Test

When we walk in this truth–that we were with Him in the beginning–then we have passed the test–the test to see if we will believe the lie that we are only animal and not children of God, or believe the truth that we are only temporarily in a mortal state before our change to immortality comes.

This is the crux of the matter.  When we are stripped of everything and reduced to our lowest state, do we believe that we are His spiritual children, with all the rights and responsibilities or do we believe the lie?

For this lie must be refuted by our walk on earth.  Others must see “our good works and glorify the Father.”  They will see that, yes, there is a God, for only God can shine the light of joy and love through a person like that.               Kenneth Wayne Hancock

*{“…and your old men shall dream dreams…”  Received in a dream, Feb. 8, 2009}

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January 25, 2009 · 4:55 pm

Add to Your Faith–How to Make Your Calling and Election Sure

After obtaining “like precious faith” with the apostles of Christ, we must make several additions to that faith in order to be fruitful in God’s plan.  These additions are spiritual additions and can only be added by His in-dwelling Spirit within you.

It is by adding these certain spiritual traits to our faith that we can make “our calling and election sure.”

God has promised us that we can be “partakers of His divine nature.”  To secure these promises we must add these spiritual attributes.  If we don’t add them, then “we will be barren and unfruitful.”  We will not show that heavenly power and light through our vessels if we don’t.

What are these additions? They are found in II Peter 1: 5-7.  To faith, add virtue; to virtue add knowledge; to knowledge add temperance; to temperance add patience; to temperance add godliness; to godliness add brotherly kindness; to brotherly kindness, add charity, which is agape love from above.

Those that lack these spiritual additions to their faith in Christ are blind and have “forgotten that they were purged from their old sins” (v. 9).  In other words, the guilt of sin and ungodliness will haunt them.  His salvation lies dormant in them, and they are subject to negative thoughts hurled through their minds by our enemy Satan, the ruler of the air waves.

But if we make these additions to our faith, we find an “entrance…into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Yahshua) {v. 11).

To comprehend virtue, the first addition, we must study it out, and then apply it, calling upon Him for His strength, for it is only by His Spirit that we can accomplish anything.          Kenneth Wayne Hancock

For more read my books found here:       http://YahwehIstheSavior.com

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October 21, 2008 · 11:14 am

Wisdom Is the Fear of the LORD

     Wisdom is the main thing, but what exactly is it?  It seems so mystical, so ethereal, so other-worldly. It is just a little bit intimidating and mysterious when you try to figure out what wisdom is according to man’s conception of it. 

     Job 28:28 states, “…Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”  It couldn’t mean to be afraid of God, so I consult a dictionary and find that “fear” means reverential awe and respect.  “Awe” is defined as an emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired as by authority, genius, great beauty, or might.  So then, the scriptures say that the main thing, the principal thing is to be in awe of our Maker.

     When we realize just who He is and how powerful and wonderful He is, then more awe will come over us. Solomon, who had it all as far as worldly riches was concerned, summed it all up in Ecclesiastes 12:13:  “Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Be in awe and respect Him and keep his ten commandment law, and you will be doing your duty.

 

     Awe and respect of God—that is wisdom, and that is the key to open the door to God’s heart.  But what are we humans in awe of?  Movie stars, sports stars, beautiful women, handsome men.   Hollywood is awesome? Sports stars and music stars of pop and rock are awesome?  We humans have sold out to very poor gods who cannot deliver.  These movie and music idols offer nothing to their worshippers.  But they are modern mankind’s idols.  Isn’t it amazing that modern man idolizes personalities who make millions by being something other than what they really are?  Our movie idols are phony; they are not real.

 

Our god is

 who we are in awe of

 

      Our god is who we are in awe of. Man has it built into his makeup to be in awe of something.  It is man’s nature to think that something or someone is awesome.  Sometimes it is a star; sometimes it is himself.  But man is in awe of something or someone.

 

     To be in awe, then, is the first step in worship. So, it turns out that man is in awe of almost everything except God.  Humans will go onto a mountaintop and exclaim how awe-inspiring the view  is  and  how  the  waterfall  in  the  distance  is awesome.  Man is in awe of things of the earth and this world.  Therefore, man just doesn’t have any true wisdom from above because to be awestruck of the LORD (Yahweh) is wisdom.

 

     So how do we get wisdom?  “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering…” James l: 5-7.  Faith is assurance that He will do what he said He will do without you having to see or feel it beforehand.  Faith believes and is assured before you receive whatever you ask for.  When you waver, you are not totally sure that He will do what He said He would do.

 

     So, we then ask Him for that emotion of being in awe of Him, instead of some worldly figure or thing–and we ask with assurance.

     This may sound like a dumb question, but one may wonder just who is He and what has He done to warrant such awe. Go outside on a clear night and count the billions of stars.  With the new Hubbel space telescope, the astronomers have reported recently that there are 12 billion galaxies like ours!  That’s galaxies like our Milky Way which have hundreds of millions of stars—one of which, of course, is our sun.  Now I know why the Great Creator was perplexed by the ancients’ worship of the sun. The sun is small fry—very small potatoes.

 

      We’ve got to get back to the Supreme Power that created all of this flabbergasting universe.  And when we begin to get a tiny glimpse of the majesty of this kind of power that created all things, then that’s the beginning of wisdom.                           Kenneth Wayne Hancock

(from Chapter 2 of my book  Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality  found here: http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yah.htm )

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September 9, 2008 · 2:26 pm

“Faith Toward God”–The Second Apostles’ Doctrine

    We are told to repent from our old life in the first apostles’ doctrine, but how do we do it?  How do we really change our old selfish ways, and let the old self die?  The second apostles’ doctrine teaches us how to do it. 

     How do we get rid of the old sinful life and get into the new life in Christ?  We reckon it done by faith/belief.  How do we start walking in a brand new life?  We reckon it done by faith.  Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ (Yahshua Messiah). Rom. 6:11. 

     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! When we turn to 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.” Rom. 4:17, NKJV. 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, 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 (read more from my book on this subject at   http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/yahch30.htm ). 

     When Christ died, our old sins died with Him that day.  When He was buried, we were buried.  And when He arose, we arose with Him.  It is already done in God’s eyes.  We just have to receive this new life by faith and belief.  It hinges on our belief in Christ’s resurrection.  By us believing that He was raised from the dead, we are raised with Him to walk in a newness of life. 

      The old ministers of centuries past knew this and  preached and wrote about this–Luther, Wesley, Murray, et al.  But in the last days, there will be a departing from the faith–the faith that reckons it so, believing in the life-changing power of the cross experience.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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September 2, 2008 · 10:40 pm

The Apostles’ Doctrine–Curriculum of God’s True Teachers

Teachers of God will expound His way, while false prophets and false teachers lie to the flock of God.  The true teachers are gifts to mankind from God (Ephesians 4: 11).  They are precious and very few in number.  If we seek, we will find one, and we will hold them dear.

But how can we tell the true from the false?  The true teachers will have a grasp of the apostles’ doctrine (Acts 2:42).  They will know how to explain in detail how one repents, how faith works in us receiving a new heart.  In short, they will have true knowledge of the “principles of the doctrine of Christ” (Hebrews 6: 1-2).

Yet they will also know that one must leave those first principles in order to “go on unto perfection.” The Spirit that is within them will “lead us into all truth.”  They will know that it is Christ in them who actually is the real Teacher.

Many in “church circles” talk about wanting the same life as the early church in the book of The Acts of the Apostles.  They see the miracles and wonders performed and long for that same divine power to hold sway on the earth today.  They want, however, to circumvent the procedure used in those enlightened days right after Christ’s resurrection.  They want to accept Christ, be baptized, and then they want to set the world on fire with God’s power.

Before the miracles come from God, pre-requisites must be done. “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.  And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles” (Acts 2:42-43).  Here you see the progression of things: the doctrine, fellowship, breaking bread, prayers, fear of God, and then came the wonders and signs.

“We Don’t Want Doctrine–Just Jesus”

It was the apostles’ doctrine that the early converts stayed in.   They did those teachings.  For “doctrine” is translated from the Greek word didaskalia, which means “teaching; that which is taught.”  Beware of those who will say, “We don’t want doctrine, we just want Jesus!”  If they could only realize that the Savior Himself was referred to as a “Didaskalos,” meaning “Teacher, Master.”  The same root word!  People who say, “We don’t want doctrine” are really saying they do not want the real Christ and what He taught.

The true teachers of God will teach true repentance from sin in one’s life and how faith works to give us a new heart and new spirit that pleases God in not sinning against Him.  And this is just the first principles “of the doctrine of Christ” (Hebrews 6: 1-2).

This is not a new thing that I write about.  Read it for yourself in Martin Luther’s writings, “The Sermon on three-fold Righteousness [http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/3formsrt.html ; in the sermons of John Wesley (  http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/sermons/040.htm ), founder of the Methodist Church; from Andrew Murray, 19th Century Scottish Missionary and author  http://www.victoryoversin.com/murray/like/lc24.htm ); or in my book The Apostles’ Doctrine [free copies available].

So, turn away from anyone who doesn’t teach the apostles’ doctrine, that says that you cannot be a righteous son or daughter of God.  Don’t believe them.  They will try to drag you down into the same spiritual slop that they are stuck in.  Find yourself a true teacher and study out the apostles’ doctrine, for those are the teachings of Christ.      Kenneth Wayne Hancock

* “Sermon on Three-fold Righteousness” at  http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/3formsrt.html

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July 19, 2008 · 9:19 pm

Parable of the Mustard Seed–How God’s Government Grows

     This parable reveals the secret of how the Kingdom of God grows.  It starts out as a tiny seed of faith in the hearts of His believers and then multiplies and spreads its rule to fill the whole earth.

     Two things to remember about the parables of Yahweh.  First, they reveal hidden secrets to only those who are supposed to “get it.”  Second, they are about the “good news” that God is the King of His kingdom, and it is coming to this earth with a vengeance, literally (See post  “Parables Conceal the Mysteries of God” at https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/parables-conceal-the-mysteries-of-god/ ).

     And this parable is how it grows into planetary dominance.  “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (Matt. 13:31-32).

     The key to understanding this parable is found in another statement by Christ about a mustard seed.  “If you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove” (Matt. 17:20).  Here He links “faith” to a mustard seed.  The literal seed is small, and our faith/belief is small at first, also.

   Here’s the breakdown:

  1. A man took mustard seed and sowed it into his field = Christ placed the word, the seed of faith-in-His-resurrection into our hearts which is in our earth-ly bodies.  “The field” = the world (Mt. 13:38).  So now God’s children have His faith in them and they “are in the world, but not of the world.”
  2. The mustard seed grows = our tiny little belief in Christ grows.  Our testimonies win others and help others know Him.  More people are born of His Spirit and enter His spiritual kingdom.
  3. And the mustard seed grows into a tree = The children of the kingdom of God grow into a strong entity, governed by His Spirit.
  4. And the tree filled the whole earth = Here the kingdom of God, who is a Spirit living in our hearts, will grow and grow until someday soon Christ will literally return and set up the throne of His father David in the earth.
  5. And the birds of the air shall lodge in its branches = These birds are the worldly goat nations who will not have fully accepted Christ as their King.  The prophets speak of a time during the 1000 year reign of Christ when nations who do not give honor unto the King will have their rain withheld until they learn to humble themselves in His presence.

     When Christ returns to His true followers, He will set up rule through them over the whole earth.  All the prophecies point to it.  This kingdom is the gospel proclaimed by Christ and His prophets throughout the ages.  This is the stone kingdom “not cut out with man’s hands” that shall smash all of man’s corrupt governments.

     His kingdom starts with a new spirit and new heart that He gives to those who willingly allow their old self to die with Christ (see http://www.yahwehisthesavior.com/sonsintro.htm “Our Old Nature Must Die on the Cross”). 

“The kingdom of God is within you” because His Spirit now abides in His children and governs them.  When we receive Him in our heart, the Kingdom of God comes to earth!  His Spirit in us is the “seed beginning” of His earth-wide rule and reign.

Yes, it is small now, like a grain of mustard seed.  Christ is that seed growing in us, growing into a mighty kingdom wherein dwells righteousness.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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July 9, 2008 · 10:02 pm

“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”–The Bread of God

     We are to ask for the heavenly bread–not physical bread.  Christ told us specifically to not ask for food.  “Do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it” (Luke 12:29, NIV). 

     Christ in the Lord’s Prayer tells us rather to ask the Father each day for the spiritual bread from heaven.  But what is it exactly?  Some churches believe that a round wafer is magically and     mystically turned into the body of Christ, the bread from heaven.  This practice is not found in the scriptures of truth.

     Christ gives a treatise on the heavenly bread in John 6.  The “true bread from heaven” was not manna which fell for the Israelites in the wilderness.  They all died.  But, My Father gives you the true bread from heaven (v. 32).  The spiritual “bread of God is He which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world” (v. 33).

     Physical bread is the staff of a physical life that ends.  But spiritual bread is the staff of the spiritual life that never ends.  This bread feeds the new inner spiritual man; it is our sustenance.

     Then Jesus (Yahshua) declares Himself to be that Heavenly Sustenance.  “I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst” (v. 34). 

     The key word here is “believes.”  It is believing on Him–that is how we partake of His Spirit.  You take into yourself what you believe.  You become what you believe.  You are what you eat. Believing Him and His word about who He is, and what He has done, and what He will do–this is what it’s all about.  Belief.  Belief is not a material thing.  It is a special invisible, spiritual thing.  To believe Him and what His name means is to eat of the spiritual bread from heaven.   

     He would later say that His body is the “bread of God” and encouraged us to eat it.  “Eat” here is to spiritually believe what transpired with His body–the death, burial, and resurrection.  He was saying that His flesh, His actual physical body was going to be presented as the one sacrifice that would purge our sins.  Believing this in truth is eating (taking in) this spiritual, true bread from heaven.

     “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world” (v. 51).  Here we see him giving His physical body so that we could have immortality.

     He was teaching us to pray–not for ourselves with things for ourselves, food, material things.  No.  We are to ask for more of His Spirit, more faith, more belief of what He has done for us.  We should recall and thank Him for allowing our old nature to die with Him on the cross, to be buried with Him, and to be “raised to walk in a newness of life” with Him (Romans 6:3-7). 

     The words, Give us this day our daily bread, contain a profound lesson in our learning to pray.  Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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April 24, 2008 · 5:52 pm

“Be Perfect”–Christ’s Impossible Command?

     Christ gave us this command: “Be perfect.”  And, of course, the kneejerk response comes, “Wait a minute.  With all due respect, that’s not right.  Nobody’s perfect.  Why would He give us a command that’s impossible to keep?”

     This is where some will toss Christianity into the trashcan, never realizing that “Be perfect” is a paradox, ” a statement seemingly absurd yet really true” (Dictionary.com).

     But some will dig down to a deeper level and find that one man was and is perfect–Christ.  And they’ll see that He was perfect because of the Spirit that filled Him.  And they’ll understand that He has now given His Spirit to the sons and daughters of God, who will realize that they can grow in faith where “it is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

     And armed with this knowledge, they will see that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).  They’ll see that the glass is not half empty nor half full, but brim full and running over with the living waters of His Spirit.

     It will dawn on these princes and princesses of God that “no idle word” proceeds out of the mouth of God.  They’ll take this admonition to heart: “Let us go on unto perfection” (Hebrews 6:1-2).  And they’ll learn that there is so much more to God’s spiritual house than the foundation of “repentance from dead works and faith toward God,” which are the first steps of “newborn babes in Christ.” 

     They’ll realize that they have received in their hearts the seed of perfection.  Christ is that Seed.  And now that Seed is growing, for “one plants and another waters, and God gives the increase.”  This growth is likened to a planted seed of wheat or corn.  It comes up, “first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”  And then harvest will come when He will have been perfectly reproduced in us.  And we then in full maturity will have completed the life cycle of God.  And that is perfection.

  The princes and princesses of God will realize this in the command: “Be perfect.”  For they will see these two words as His challenge to “overcome all things” and walk on down His road to the Heavenly City.  They will answer the challenge and embark on this quest for perfection.  Because He said to.              Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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