Tag Archives: love

March 25, 2008 · 2:55 pm

“Fruit of the Spirit” : Why the Love Stops Flowing

     We’re spiritually going great.  The love, joy, and peace, “the fruit of the Spirit,” is flowing down and through us on out to others.  After a great day we get some sleep, wake up the next morning, and then–the blahs hit us.  Other thoughts begin to enter into our mind about worldly pursuits, obligations, responsibilities, money matters, and before we know it, we are sitting there wondering, “What happened to me?”

     We think, “I thought His presence would last forever.  I don’t feel too loving and kind right now, and I don’t like it.”  At this point, we need to realize that the Love-from-above stops flowing down and through us because we simply run out of the Holy Spirit.

     To illustrate this point we look to the Old Testament Tabernacle, which is a type of our spiritual experience today.  Inside the Tabernacle there was among other furniture a golden lampstand (candlestick).  The Levitcal priests were responsible for refilling the olive oil so that the light would not go out.  They literally went to a barrel of olive oil daily and brought enough to fill up the lamps on the lampstand.

     What’s that got to do with us?  Those priests are a type and shadow of us, the sons and daughters of God in this era who have the Spirit of Christ.  We are “a royal priesthood” according to the apostle Peter.  The olive oil is universally accepted to be a type of God’s Spirit.  The light from the lampstand’s burning oil is a type of the love, joy, and peace that our bodies exude when the Spirit is flowing in us. 

     The point:  The Love-from-above can stop flowing through us if we do not go and get more oil (Holy Spirit) to supply our vessels.  We must pray and ask God for more of His Spirit to come down and into us so that we can continue to channel His love to others.  He wants us to have His Spirit, but we His children must request it.  He has promised to give us His Spirit when we want it to give to others. 

     The Love-from-above can stop flowing at times, but we only need to ask Him for more of His Spirit to get it started again.  If a hungry little child asks us for some jelly and bread, are we not going to to give it to him?  How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?  Luke 11:13                         Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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March 4, 2008 · 12:57 am

God’s Desire: To Reproduce Himself–in Us

     In the last post we saw that the Creator has a will that will prevail.  His will is His desire or His wish for His creation, humankind.  Humans are strongwilled; most desire things for number one.  And their number one usually is not God, although it should be.  If we have any other desire for what is to happen in our bodies, other than what He wants, we struggle against His wishes.  This is where frustration comes from. 

          What is his desire for us His crown of creation?  He has magnificent plans to actually reproduce Himself in us!  Nothing less.  Let me repeat this important point.  According to the prophets and apostles who wrote the scriptures of truth, what God wants is that He magnify Himself in a “body of many sons” and daughters.  All the other religious catch-words that we have heard like “salvation,” “faith,” “hope”–these are facets of the diamond, but reproducing Himself in His people–this is the precious gemstone of truth as to what God is doing.

     It is up to us to get into the flow of the Creator’s desire and wish.  To do this, we must relinquish our meager little desires, putting our old spiritual nature on the cross and die with Christ (Romans 6:6).  We must spiritually sacrifice our selfish desires and take on His desire, which is to use us as His temple, His dwelling place on this earth.  Then we must bury our old self with Christ in the grave, identifying our sinful core with the sin sacrifice that He made for us.  And then, by believing that He was literally raised bodily from the dead after three days and three nights in the tomb, we, too, “can walk in a newness of life.”  He arose; we arose.  This is first step in becoming a new creature in Christ.

     We, then, “as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word” so that we can grow up into Him until “Christ be formed in you” and I.  Wow!  In His eyes we are already there.  He sees us as His sons and daughters, His princes and princesses, His future kings and queens in His soon-coming kingdom.  That is a big wish, a big desire, a big will, a big heart.

     God’s not messing around.  He is calling out a body of sons and daughters that will lead the way for the rest of humankind.  And “whosoever will may come.” 

     What can we do to be of service to Him and His wishes?  First, we need to surrender to Him and His will, desire, wish.  And in due time He will grow up in us, and He will speak through us as He did in the prophets of old.  His Spirit will flow down and in and through us out to others, and He will multiply Himself by “bringing many sons unto glory.” 

     We just need to get with His program.  If we are on the same page as He, then we can ask what we will, and He will grant it.  Why?  Why wouldn’t He answer the prayer of one of His children who is asking for more of His Spirit so that His wishes can be carried out.

   It’s all in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven.”  That’s one prayer that will be answered.  It’s going to be done.  We need to search it out and do it.

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January 26, 2008 · 6:04 pm

Sons of God, Daughters of God–His Princes and Princesses

     We who have been born from above have become the “children of God” or the sons and daughters of God.  For we “have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).  And we know that our Father is the “King of glory.”  And we know that the sons and daughters of a king are princes and princesses. 

     We, then, as His children, are the princes and princesses of the Kingdom of God.  This is how God looks at us!  And so now we should look at each other with the love and respect given to an heir to the throne of the King.  In fact, this is our major responsibility as children of the King–to “let the love of God be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” that dwells within us.

     Look–the most practical way that God has of loving humankind on an everyday basis is through us, His princes and princesses.  If we are truly His children, then we will put away all of the selfish pettiness and start loving each other.  And if we have a tough day where the love is stopped up and can’t get flowing, we’ll call on Him and ask Him to melt our hearts and get that love from above flowing again.

     His princes and princesses will lead out by example.  They will exemplify their Father’s personality traits.  They will be faithful ambassadors of Him, showing the world the Love that God is.  They will stride forth matter-of-factly, shining forth as “lights in the midst of the selfish darkness. 

     And those that sit in darkness will look up from the mundane mire and see this light shining into their dark world of no-love.  They will see and hear and feel this light of love-from-above, and they at first will not comprehend it.  But as we keep shining, eventually they will awaken out of the night-slumber and will seek the light of love themselves.

     This is our calling.  He has chosen us for this.  It is His vision for our life here on this earth.  For really, we are his hands and feet; we are his arms and his legs; we are His body here on earth, and He is our head.  And we are beginning to know His mind, His will, and His wishes.  And we are in His mind, for He sees us as His princes and princesses!                                                           Kenneth Wayne Hancock

{If you have a moment, please make a comment below if this article was helpful}

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January 22, 2008 · 12:59 am

“God Is Love”–Agape Love from Above, Down and Through

     “Love from above–down and through” has turned into my motto or credo.  Some may wonder where I got it from. 

     Human beings have one major need: to be loved, especially someone who can give them sincere, pure “love from above.”  The love I’m talking about is agape love, or God’s love.  And so we humans are looking, looking incessantly for someone that can love us with the love from above.

     You take a group of people sitting around over there; they are a microcosm of the entire human race and its condition of “not being loved.”  And so we wait and wait–sometimes impatiently–for someone to love us.  Some wait their whole life for someone to really love them.  And I’m not talking about just romantic love here.  I’m talking about the loneliness and the longing solitude and the sadness it can entail.  I’m referring to the utter frustration of a friendless existence.

         But that is not how it works.  Someone in the circle must break out; they must break the cycle of self-centered-ness.  Someone must step out and stand up and not expect someone else to love them first!  Someone must start reaching out and loving others!   Someone must be that channel of love and appreciation that comes flowing down from above and comes on through them out to others.  Someone must believe and step out on the water and break the currently accepted law that “everyone should wait for someone to love them first before they give love to others.” 

     The old adage is true: “Give and it shall be given.”  In order to really be loved, we must love them first.  Give love to others, and love will be given to you.

     Why is that so universally difficult for humans to do?  Because the “love” we are talking about–the kind of love everyone is craving, is a spiritual thing that is not in a person’s natural state of existence.  Humans cannot love the way they want to be loved because their old nature is selfish.  And herein lies the frustration.  Mankind is subjected to this by their Creator in hopes that they will return to God for an operation (Romans 8:20).

     God is hoping that we will check ourselves into His spiritual hospital and get a heart transplant.  Humans in their original earthly state have an old selfish heart and mind.  It must be taken out and a new heart and a new spirit from must take its place. 

     The Great Physician has a stark operating table for this spiritual procedure.  And just like our hesitance to go “under the knife” in a physical surgery, so we are hesitant to submit to this spiritual procedure.  The operating table is the cross of Christ.  It is there that we die with Him, are buried with Him, and through belief in His resurrection, we receive a new heart and new spirit that keeps His laws. 

     This is how to get that “love from above” flowing on “down and through” us to others.  Every thing that blocks His love from flowing through us–every negative aspect like hatred, bitterness, revenge, fear, selfishness, greed, ungratefulness, desiring other people’s things–all these things must die out and be replaced with His Spirit.  In fact, in God’s eyes they already have died out.  “Knowing this that our old man is crucified with Christ” (Romans 6:6).  And God is raising up His sons and daughters, His princes and princesses, to be the channels of the “Love from above” for these last days–to be the channels of Himself, His very essence.   

Kenneth Wayne Hancock                                                                      

{If you have a moment, please make a comment below if this article was helpful}

                                               

 

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