Author: Hank

Welcome to Hank’s Place

Where we are receiving and becoming ROOTED and GROUNDED in the amazing love of Christ. Dear friend, may YOU become rooted and grounded in God’s love.

Everywhere I go it seems Christians, precious saints, who are unconditionally accepted in the Beloved, are struggling with conditional acceptance; they are rooted and grounded in performance based religion rather than the UNCONDITIONAL love of God. And why not? The entire world, and all other religions, base a person’s approval, acceptance, honor, blessings, upon their performance.

In Christianity it’s often disguised as ‘obedience’ – if you obey God you will be rewarded. But you never know if you have fully obeyed, or if you could have done more, given more and so on – you live under a cloud of uncertainty – are you approved, accepted? You feel God has a bit of a disapproving frown, when He considers you.

There’s nothing wrong with obedience – but FIRST: receive the LOVE OF GOD which is UNCONDITIONAL – and walk in it. Obedience to the Holy Spirit will follow.

Remember Col 1:27— the mystery hidden for long ages but now revealed, “how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Obedience? Did they obey? Obey what? Jesus Christ came to live in Gentiles, that means anyone, who believed in Him. That’s all they did: believed in Him. They did not obey the rules. They did not know the rules. They did not have the RULE BOOK. They were excluded from such knowledge by those who had the rule book; the Jews.
Yet, when they believed on Jesus Christ, Jesus, the Anointed One, the Savior of the World, came to live in them. Unholy vessels? Not any longer! The Holy One had sanctified them, transformed them in an instant of time! Hallelujah!

Friend, Christianity is not about obeying the rules – that was Old Covenant at Mt Sinai through Moses. At Calvary it was replaced by the New Covenant. Who says so? God says so – read Hebrews!

Yes, dear friend, open up your heart, be afraid no longer. Receive His love, His favor, and His blessings that are contained in being accepted in the Beloved —and COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

We are so excited how Paul in Eph 3:17 prayed that the Ephesians become ROOTED and GROUNDED in love, that amazing love of Christ. We ALL have this inherent need: to comprehend, to experience, the love of GOD, and to become rooted and grounded in it.

When we believed on Jesus we were immediately ‘accepted in the beloved’ – Eph 1:6 KJV. That is NOT conditional acceptance my friend! Jesus did not say, “I did My personal best, what you get from God now is up to you, try hard, real hard!”

“Acceptance” here in the Greek means “to make graceful, charming, lovely, agreeable, to surround with favor and to honor with blessings.” Oh  My  God – He is so wonderful! You believed, and it is His good pleasure, His grace, to make you grace-full, charming and lovely. Agreeable in every way, surrounded with His FAVOR and honoring you with His blessings! That’s the REAL Gospel.

You might want to rewind this video and hear that again! It’s true! ALL OF IT! Dear friend, I pray you become rooted and grounded in the love of God and come to really grasp it. After more than 20 years of performance based Christianity, I began to discover that God’s love, God’s acceptance, is based on Jesus and Calvary, not me. I began to receive His love — and you know what? I had enough love to give some away! I couldn’t begin to give it all away! My dear wife began telling me she felt loved and was experiencing love through me like never before. And you know what? I wasn’t even thinking about it, about purposing to love her – Mary was experiencing the love of God through me – and it was just spilling out from me effortlessly. 

Cool, very cool, and all God’s doing. Friend, begin receiving the love of God today – and DO NOT STOP receiving! It’s past the time to let go of performance based religion. Let go of rejection, and unworthiness, too. We HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED in the Beloved, in Jesus. STOP focusing on your performance; receive His love and become that graceful, charming, lovely, agreeable, surrounded with favor and honored with blessings person Jesus has made you.

Yes, let go of the lies, receive His love, and COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

Last time I pointed out in Eph 3:16-21 that Paul prayed the Ephesians would become ROOTED and GROUNDED in love; able to understand and to know the amazing love of Christ. My friend, we ALL have this inherent need: to KNOW, to UNDERSTAND, the love of GOD, to become rooted and grounded in it. I recommend you pray this for yourself – and everyone you know!

When I first stepped out of the pew of the little church in Oakmont PA in 1976, I was immediately FLOODED with the LOVE OF GOD – the unconditional love of GOD! My years of struggle (and failure) to measure up to other people’s standards, even my own, was swept away by this OCEAN of God’s love! I knew He loved me! I knew I was accepted in the beloved! I cried tears of joy for hours.

While I had experienced the love of God, I was certainly not rooted and grounded in it. I did not understand it at all! Well meaning but misdirected church people pointed me back to CONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE! I experienced the love of God they said, because I was obedient to walk down that aisle declaring Jesus my Savior. And IF I continued to do everything God wanted me to do I would continue to experience His love. 

Friend, they meant well, but they were off base! They missed the glory of Calvary! So the next 20 or so years of my Christian life I spent still rooted and grounded, not in the love of God, but in conditional acceptance, in performance – I believed if I did right in God’s sight, if I performed well, He would bless me; if not, I would miss His best. THIS WAS A TERRIBLE WAY TO LIVE – and it’s the way MOST Christians are living today – perhaps even yourself!

I was also rooted in rejection and unworthiness. Since I wasn’t measuring up to God’s standards, I lived a life of Christian rejection and hung my head down as an unworthy son of God. Dear friend, there are NO UNWORTHY SONS OF GOD! There is hope for all of us, for God’s love is unconditional!

More next time; for we want everyone — to COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

Where we LOVE the GOOD NEWS! The word today is RENEW “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is.” Ro 12:2. You ARE a Christian, complete in Him already. Col 2:10. You look and act more and more like who you really are, as you renew your mind: replacing the world’s thought patterns with heavenly, faith in God thinking, which leads to speaking and doing that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul tells us to put off the old and put on the new. Not just put off the old – there is a new that is waiting to be put on; so put it on! It’s the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

“You have received Christ Jesus the Lord, He’s already dwelling within you, so walk in Him.” Col 2:6.

Some people struggle with the truth. They say, “I guess God is far away, and doesn’t care for me.” They are not seeing Calvary! So they focus upon their performance, doing the best they can. Friend, can you see that’s an affront to God and His mercies?

So how can we help such people to walk in Him? How can we help people put off the old man and put on the new man? How can we help people grow in Jesus and say NO to the thoughts from the dark side, when they think God does not care and their focus is — themselves? 

They need to know the love of God! So, LOVE THEM. And let God do the impossible – How? By praying for them as Paul did in  Eph 3:16-21 that the Holy Spirit would strengthen their inner man, that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith; that they become rooted and grounded in love, and able to understand and to know the amazing love of Christ — which surpasses knowledge.

Friend, we are asking God to help someone — COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

Where there is never any bad news in the GOOD NEWS! “Gospel” means GOOD NEWS. Matthew says of Jesus in Mt 4:23, that He “was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming THE GOOD NEWS of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.” The next verse says “The news about Him spread throughout all Syria (those are Gentiles, like you and me, outside the covenant, outcasts, dogs); and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics;   and   He   healed   them.”

Dear friend, anybody, everybody, who came or was brought to Jesus was getting healed. That’s GOOD NEWS, right? No one is ill in the Kingdom of Jesus, then – or now – or ever! Understand?! Good! 

Heb 1:3 says Jesus is the exact representation of the nature of God – all He said, all He did: exactly what God is like. He is God and He has revealed Him. So how many people did Jesus hurt? Break their legs? Put sickness on? Refuse to cast out demons? Give leprosy? Leave them in their distress?

Acts 10:38 tells us, “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”

True, there are Old Testament verses that would appear to say otherwise. But God appeared dimly in the Old Testament, and prophets saw only in part and their understanding was affected by the Old Covenant Law. NOW, it is Jesus who is the revelation of God to us. 

Job said in 1:21, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.” Later on he admitted he didn’t know what he was talking about. Hannah in 1 Sam 2:6 states, “The Lord kills and makes alive.” He has absolute power it’s true, BUT Jesus, our Jesus, came that we might have LIFE and that life abundantly. Jn 10:10. Not mostly life but kill a few people here and there.

Yes friend, God IS Good, and the news about Him is all GOOD. So be encouraged, believe in Jesus, the God who is GOOD, and COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

Where there is never any bad news in the GOOD NEWS! Last time we discovered in Col 1:13 that we have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ – by our heavenly FATHER!
One moment in the darkness, ruled by the prince of this world. The next, although physically still on earth, we were placed into Jesus’ kingdom, under His authority, NO LONGER THE DEVIL’S PLAYTOY — we have been set free! Give a shout out to Jesus!

But so many Christians, maybe you, my friend, don’t look free, talk free, or act free? Did Paul lie? Of course not! The critical issue is the renewing of our minds, of believing, then growing up in Christ, laying aside the old self whose thinking runs in the unbelieving gutters of this world, and putting on the new self – in the likeness of God.

Are you struggling with that? It’s a glorious adventure with Jesus. Look at Col 1:19. It say all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ. ALL OF GOD. ALL. In Jesus, Who is head over ALL rule and authority. Whoa!

At that moment we believed, Jesus came to live, to dwell, to inhabit us. Jesus, in whom is all the fullness of Deity — is living IN US. And, Col 2:10 tells us that in Him we have been made complete. Friend, we are already complete: our minds need to get the message!

You don’t need to sing songs of longing for more of Jesus, dear friend, as if He were far away somewhere. You are in His kingdom and the King is right there – IN you. GOD DOES NOT HAVE AN INSTALLMENT PLAN. None of this down payment and a little more each month. The bill was PAID IN FULL at Calvary and you have ALL of Him and He is in you and you are ALREADY COMPLETE IN HIM.
I pray understanding of who you are IN HIM and your completeness IN HIM come quickly to you – it is a mater of getting that mind of yours renewed. Yes my friend, it’s time you realize the truth: you H A V E COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

Jesus yielded His life at Calvary. Why? To be our sin offering – so we could have God’s BEST! We’ve been given rightstanding; 2 Cor 5:21. It is the BEST there is and it is eternal!

Jesus came to live IN us when we believed. We are learning to live a life of yieldedness to Jesus, for He has our best interests at heart. We learn to think different, because we BECAME DIFFERENT the moment we believed.

For instance, we were adopted as SONS of God, heirs, joint heirs with Jesus. Heirs inherit an inheritance!

Look at Col 1:12 – it says the FATHER has qualified us to share in this inheritance. Forever putting to bed the question, “Am I good enough?” Heirs are not asked that question; they are told to sign on the dotted line and it all belongs to them! 

And not only heirs, but we have been relocated, for the next verse says the Father has rescued us from darkness and translated us, into the kingdom of His beloved Son. 

It’s the same concept as when Enoch in Gen 5:24 was translated by God from earth to heaven in an instant. We have been translated, my friend, into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. So don’t be surprised if the world hates you! You are in an awesome place!

It’s not about paying the price! JESUS already paid the price, in full, for eternity! Give Him all the glory and take your place as an heir of God, ok? Your performance could never earn your salvation. Nor can your performance keep it afterwards or improve on it!

You ARE someone alive from the dead. Your behavior as a Christian improves as your renew your mind to the truth – Ro 12:2. Again in Eph 4:15 Paul exhorts us to GROW UP in Christ. In 4:22-24 he says lay aside the old self and renew your mind TO THE TRUTH. Put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Yes friend, that old worldly thinking and believing doesn’t fit you any more: you have been translated into Jesus’ Kingdom, under His authority; where you have COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

We have been looking at Ro 5:17 our past meetings, and can you believe that there is MORE treasure to be found in that verse? It’s True! It speaks of God showering us with an ABUNDANCE of GRACE (unmerited, undeserved favor and blessings) – including the GIFT of RIGHTEOUSNESS – right standing with GOD – to REIGN in life.

You might ask, but what about my sins? What about all that bad stuff I’m so ashamed of from my past? What about the stuff I’m still doing – stuff I like to do – that I know is wrong, but I go ahead and do it anyhow?

Good questions, my friend! Instead of focusing upon YOU and your performances, past, present or even future, I ask you to STOP – look – see your sins already placed upon Jesus. See Him on the CROSS – brutalized, beaten, horribly disfigured in taking the punishment for your sins. TOTALLY taken. TOTALLY paid for. ETERNALLY. The past sins you have committed. Those you are still doing. Even, even sins you have yet to commit. How is that possible you ask? Dear friend, Jesus went to the Cross 2,000 years before you were born! You were in the future at that time and so were your sins!

Remember, Jesus is your High Priest and Intercessor, eternally. Fret not! Now, here’s the point. If you are so readily SIN CONSCIOUS, it’s a good indication of two things. 

First, you have not forgiven yourself, even though GOD Almighty has forgiven you, and placed your sins behind His back. That means God is DONE with your sins and will NEVER speak of them. So forgive yourself, friend, and be DONE with your sins. 

Second, you have yet to open the gift God has given you: of Righteousness! There it is, in your possession. You have it. OPEN IT. Experience it. You don’t know how to open it? NO PROBLEM! Start with a declaration. For example, “Thank you Father for the gift of righteousness. I receive it, and I OPEN IT now.” Say it a few times – the revelation of your righteousness through Jesus will come. You ARE the one who reigns in this life. You ARE the one who has COME ALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

We have been discovering treasure in Ro 5:17. For if by the transgression of Adam, death reigned through him, MUCH MORE those who receive the ABUNDANCE of GRACE and of the GIFT of RIGHTEOUSNESS will reign in life through – Jesus Christ! ABUNDANCE of GRACE – the GIFT of RIGHTEOUSNESS – to REIGN. Who? Anyone. Everyone—who believes in Jesus.

Ro 9:30-33 gives us more insight. Gentiles, that’s us, did not pursue the righteousness of the Law – that’s where if you wanted to be ‘right’ with God you had to become a Jewish proselyte, begin keeping all the DO’s – and not doing all the DON’TS found in the Laws of Moses, plus those added by the Pharisees. Well, those Gentiles attained to righteousness anyhow. It was the righteousness that comes from Faith. They believed on Jesus and were GIVEN the GIFT – of RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

They ignored or were ignorant of the 600 something commands and 10 big ones! They did ONE THING: believed on Jesus: God’s Son, God’s Savior, Who took ours sins and gave us everlasting life. WHOA!

Israel kept trying to keep the Law – they couldn’t see that rule-keeping, or trying to,  only gives power to sin and the result is DEATH. No one ever ‘arrives’ by keeping the rules. But if you pursue righteousness by faith, like these Gentiles, you would be given it. But there would be nothing to boast in. Precisely! And that can be a stumbling block to our pride. Righteousness is about Jesus, to the glory of God’s grace.

While there is no place for pride, there is also no place for condemnation, either!  Ro 8:1. And the next verse says “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and of death” – Jesus gave the perfect performance: it’s not yours, it’s HIS – and your gift is still a gift and it remains with you regardless of YOUR performance. 

There are no more low-lying black clouds over you my friend. The Spirit of LIFE in CHRIST has cleared the air. All blue skies! Because of Jesus, you are righteous. You have COMEALIVE!

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*

Welcome to Hank’s Place

In the previous message we looked at Ro 5:17 and found everyone who believes upon Jesus has been given a gift, the gift of RIGHTEOUSNESS. Always accepted, approved, stamped “Top Quality” by the Holy Spirit. It’s God’s idea: to make His children as Righteous as He is by giving us HIS righteousness – It is not something we have earned or worked for. Not something we can lose. We can however, leave it on the shelf and not make use of it.

In which case we go around feeling and acting unworthy of God’s favor, grace, blessings, provision, healing – it goes on and on! So, today, why not declare in a bold voice, “Father! I receive my righteousness, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!” Say it a few times a day and I am confident mulligrubs leave you and amazing grace will come your way!

Ro 5:17 explains the gift of R has been given us so we may reign in life through Jesus. It means circumstances and situations shall NOT rule over you. Righteousness provides an inner strength.

True, life’s happenings CAN weigh heavily upon you for awhile – it’s shown in several of the Psalms of David. David was anointed of the Holy Spirit, but stuff came at him, like King Saul hunting him down and trying to kill him. Ouch! He was ‘anointed’ to be the next king, then he was fleeing for his life. In the Psalms he cries out about his situations, and time and again he inserts divine “buts” – ‘but you O God are my strength, my fortress’ and so on. And David prevailed.

You will too, my friend, for you have God’s righteousness to reign in life. How to start? How about in Ro 6:6, declaring your old self WAS crucified with Christ. How about not letting sin reign in your body. (Ro 6:12) Having been given the gift of righteousness, you are no longer a slave to sin but a slave of righteousness. Ro 6:18.Yes! You can’t help but want to do what is right before God.

That’s the way you have been re-wired. Friend, with this gift of righteousness, you have COME ALIVE! 

NEW BLOG NOTIFICATION

Be notified when a new blog posts

Thanks for joining Hank's Place!

Name

Email*