Tag Archives: godliness

September 21, 2025 · 10:04 am

Beware of the Prosperity Doctrine

The prosperity doctrine is everywhere. It’s like a spiritual virus floating in the ether. That means that all of us should watch out that we are not infected by this insidious doctrine. Some will say, “Well, I don’t follow those TV evangelists who promote the prosperity doctrine.” That’s a good start. But just examine your prayers. See if they are petitions for material things instead of spiritual things.

God spoke about this false doctrine through the prophets of old. He allowed false teachers to bring in terrible heresies. And one of them is “supposing that gain is godliness,” or the prosperity doctrine.

A good example is found in John 6:26, where Christ tells the people that they are only seeking Him to get material things, things like the earthly bread He provided for them. They did not seek Him because of the spiritual miracles that He had performed. They wanted earthly bread, things for their own earthly life, not spiritual things.

Nothing Has Changed

And so it goes today. The masses have been lured into the prosperity doctrine. This doctrine teaches them to “Get all you can get from God.” Get more money, houses, cars, phones. Get anything in this 3-D material world.

“God wants you to prosper!” the preacher will tell them. All you must do is give to this ministry, and God will pour out a blessing to you one hundredfold! More money than you know what to do with!” This is a perversion of the spiritual law of harvest. The 100-fold that Christ promises in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 is spiritual increase, not the earthly increase of things in the third dimension.

These purveyors of material prosperity promote God as a genie, who is there to meet all their wants and needs. They do not exalt God who has a plan for those who trust Him.

They will quote III John 2: “I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health…” The false teachers usually stop there and don’t quote the rest of the passage: “… even as your soul prospers.” The apostle John makes it clear in all his writings that it is the spiritual things and not the material things that we should seek. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things [earthly things] shall be added unto you,” Christ said.

These false shepherds promise prosperity and charitable blessings to the flock yet leave them trapped in their sin. While portraying themselves as benefactors, they funnel millions into their own ministries. They preach abundance but fail to lead the sheep to the cross—where true transformation begins, and the old sinful nature is surrendered in exchange for a life led by the Spirit.

Instead of guiding the flock toward God’s eternal purpose, these shepherds appeal to the carnal instincts like self-gratification and material desire. They encourage the sheep to chase worldly gain, rather than walk the narrow path of truth and glory that leads to redemption.

This teaching reflects what Scripture warns against—“perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, who suppose that gain is godliness” (1 Timothy 6:5-6). It promotes the idea that material wealth is evidence of divine favor, suggesting that if you’re prosperous as a Christian, it’s proof that God is actively blessing your life. Furthermore, it claims that by supporting or participating in their ministry, you too will become wealthy because you’re advancing God’s work. Such a doctrine is deeply misleading and spiritually dangerous. We are clearly instructed to turn away from those who preach it. It is not of God—it is a deception born of darkness.

The prosperity doctrine is insidious and evil, for it seems so right, and yet, it ultimately leads to destruction. “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is the way of death.”

The followers of Christ need to take heed because “many have been slain by her.”

What are  your beliefs concerning these sheep in wolves clothing and how they operate in the 21st century? Leave a comment.

[And please forgive me for being “out of touch” lately. I have been dealing with roadblocks in the material world, like building and moving to a new retirement home. No stairs to climb but having trouble finding anything. Hitting a bit of writer’s block for the first time in 28 years. I asked our Savior the other day, “What do you want me to do? Immediately, as fast as a ray of light, this thought crystalized and came back saying, “Tell them who I AM.” I will endeavor to do that.] kwh

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January 9, 2022 · 3:44 pm

Patience, Godliness, and Wisdom—Their Relationship

Our spiritual growth in God does not happen accidentally. We have a part to play. A seedling plant must strive to break free from the clutches of the clods of hardened earth to get to the light.

So it is with God’s offspring, you and I. To grow and to fulfill God’s purpose for each of us, we must first gain knowledge of his plan, and then execute it. He is “bringing many sons [and daughters] unto glory.”

How is he doing this? He has several spiritual programs to accomplish His will. They are laid out in black and white in the Holy Bible. The programs for our growth are hiding in plain sight. But you won’t hear about them in the church houses, even though the early apostles wrote glowingly about their secrets. Their pastors, priests and preachers have closed their eyes and ears to anything new. Yet God’s programs are full of “new creatures, new testament, new hearts, new lives, where all things are become new.”

Some of the Programs

We should not think that once we profess Christ, it is all done. The Apostles’ Doctrine, the title of my 2019 book, expounds on one of God’s programs that shows us how to become like the early church. The apostles walked in the seven teachings that Christ taught them. Their doctrine was Christ’s doctrine/teachings. To be like the early apostles, we need to do what they did; they “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine,” and then power was given to do mighty works in the land.

Another of Christ’s programs to help us grow spiritually is what I am writing now–The Additions to the Faith. We must add, through much study and prayer, certain facets of God’s divine nature to His faith that now resides in us. But we cannot add them if we have no knowledge about these attributes of God.

We have seen that in order to fulfill God’s purpose of fully walking in his divine nature, we need to add to our faith certain attributes of that very divine nature. We see that we are to add patience to temperance. The problem has always been understanding these English words. We are dealing with three words: patience, godliness, and wisdom.

They are all scriptural, taken from the King James Version. All three are difficult to comprehend because of man’s traditional definitions and connotations placed on them. To get a clearer picture of their meaning, we go to the Greek texts.  “Patience” means endurance. “Godliness” means to love and revere God. Wisdom is to fear Him, or to be in reverential awe of Him.

We can all agree that we need more wisdom. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom…” (Proverbs 4:7). God has made it seemingly simple for us to get wisdom. Just ask Him for it, the apostle James tells us (1:5). But we cannot waver in unbelief (verse 6).

Why would we waver? Those that waver will not get wisdom (verse 7). I always thought that the wavering happened because of our weak faith in not believing at the outset that God would give us wisdom. But now I see that we waver when we don’t understand how overcoming trials produce wisdom. God tests our faith; going through these trials shows us just how awesome our great Creator is. We will see his great love for us in correcting us, getting us ready to sit with him on his throne. We have a lot of changing to do. Trials bring those changes about.

We still are talking about adding patience, and to patience godliness. Many early Christians had, no doubt, complained to James about the trials that they were going through. He gets straight to the point. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (1: 2 NIV). Joy? The heathen are hunting us Christians down like dogs. How do we see this as bringing happiness? At first glance, it is difficult to see, but a profound revelation hides in the shadows of our disbelief.

How Trials Bring Joy

How do trials bring joy? These trials test our faith. This testing of our faith “develops perseverance” (verse 2, NIV). It “works patience.” Trials of the faith develops endurance/patience/perseverance (verse 3). Overcoming trials develops spiritual muscle needed for us to endure all things thrown our way.

When our Father tests, chastens, and corrects us, we tend to not understand just how blessed we are. That is why we are admonished to “let patience have her perfect work.” In other words, we must allow endurance and perseverance do the job of bringing us to spiritual maturity. This is what the additions to the faith is all about: The spiritual maturity of becoming like Christ and his apostles. “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete” (verse 4 NIV).

It is here at verse five that we receive an astounding revelation. The previous four verses show us  how  God gives us wisdom. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God who gives liberally…”

But we must ask, “What does wisdom have to do with patience/endurance? What’s the tie-in?” First, we are admonished to ask for wisdom, not knowing how or from where it comes to us. God then gives us wisdom through orchestrating trials for us to overcome in our lives. These trials, as we have seen, produce endurance/patience. Then, on the other side of the testings and trials, we see that it produces in us a love and reverence for God in all His marvelous ways of creating us in His image. Love and reverence for Him is the very definition of wisdom. “The fear of the LORD, that is wisdom.” “Fear” in the Hebrew means “reverential awe.” Reverential awe of Yahweh, that is wisdom. Wisdom and patience/endurance combine to bring godliness to be added to patience. And the kicker is this: Godliness in the Greek means “a love and reverence for God.”

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Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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January 3, 2022 · 3:42 pm

Adding Godliness to Patience

To bear the spiritual fruit that we are to bear in these last days, to be found worthy to sit with Christ on His throne, we must add to our faith certain spiritual attributes (II Pet. 1).

We are to add patience to temperance. And patience is endurance, as seen in the Greek text. We must “endure unto the end,” enduring persecution and tribulations, enduring “hardness as a good soldier” of Christ (Matthew 24:13; II Thes. 1:4; II Tim. 2:3). We must “endure all things for the elect’s sake,” especially “sound doctrine,” which are those Christ-borne teachings that attack man’s traditions that we have all been taught since childhood (II Tim. 2:10; 4:3).

And perhaps the most difficult thing to endure is the chastening of God. We must endure His correction when He begins to purge out the false teachings about Him and the immature ways we carry ourselves.

God will scourge us and prove us. He forewarns us: “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by Him.” For He chastens those He loves. “If we endure [this is the adding of patience/endurance] chastening [correction, disciplining], then God deals with us as sons and not bastards. When we have passed the tests, He receives us as his heirs, “that we might be partakers of His Holiness” (Heb. 12:5-10).

God endures our immaturity and our weakness and we, in turn, endure the maturing process. Understanding, accepting, and finally, welcoming these things that we must overcome—this brings spiritual maturity.

The Beginning of Godliness

Adding patience/endurance to our faith is the maturing process. Going through this maturing process brings about a reverence for God. We begin to revere Him for what He is doing and how He is including us in his plan of reproducing himself. Revering Him is adding godliness to patience/endurance.

Many say that “godliness” means “God-like-ness. It sounds good, but the word “godliness” is translated from the Greek word eusebeia (G2150), meaning reverence or respect. This Greek word is derived from eusebes (G2152), which comes from sebo (G4576), a verb meaning “to revere, to worship” (Strong’s).

We now are living by the faith of the Son of God (Gal. 2:20). There’s only one faith—Christ’s (Eph. 4:5). We are now building on His faith as we endeavor to add to it. Belief first, yes. But faith/belief alone is not enough. For “even the devils believe in one God and tremble.” Virtue and then knowledge must be added, then tempered, and then endurance is added as we overcome hardships.

As we begin to comprehend the magnitude of this heaven-directed spiritual life cycle that God has called us to, then love, devotion, awe, and reverence begin to grow in our hearts toward our Father. This is the beginning of us adding godliness/reverence to our faith. We do love Him because He first loved us. And the love of God is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”

This reverence for God comes when we first know about his plan. And then, as we walk in it, we endure the tribulations and chastening on the road to sonship and daughtership. Then we begin to see that we [are] receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved.” He is favoring us with this knowledge that “we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” [reverential awe] (Heb. 12:28).

Who Will Add Godliness/Reverence to the Faith?

So, all of this creates questions: Who is going to step up? Who are these people who will do the seven additions that the apostle Peter wrote to us about? They are out there. These articles are a tiny light flashing faintly in the ocean of mankind. I believe that “this little light of mine” is shining. Its rays will reach whomsoever He directs them to. Who are they? How will we know them? We will know them by their fruits. More next time.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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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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