Hank’s Place

Welcome to Hank’s Place Classics

Let’s close out 2019 with an admonition from Colossians. Beware of teaching that devalues Christ and Calvary, and fails to appreciate the new identity every believer has IN HIM.

Christ is supreme. We believers are IN UNITY with Him – which means sharing in HIS power and authority. Believe it, for it is true. Now press on to maturity, resist sin, pursue holiness in Christ.

Col 1:22 says Jesus has made us holy, blameless, beyond reproach, but vs 23 adds: IF you continue in the faith. Peace. This is not conditional salvation or favor; the actual Greek is clear that no doubt is expressed, no conditions. We are joined to the Lord. We are already holy and perfect as He is. Paul is simply saying you will not see it unless you believe it! It is true – but you will not walk in it except by faith.

The unholy mess of our lives has been hidden in Christ. The HOLY ONE. We have been made holy and perfect forever. Think about it – and give a shout out to JESUS!

It’s also repeated in Heb 10:10, 14. By the will of GOD we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ – once for all; and by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. That last phrase simply means we are learning to live as Christians, as who we really are.

Col 2:9-10 says we have been brought to fullness in Him. Don’t buy into messages that put an emphasis upon your lack and what you have to do in order for God to bless you. You are already a New Creation In Him and He is in You – and all by His doing. So stop struggling to get what you already have been given!

How do you continue in the faith? By realizing the truth: IN Christ we lack for nothing. IN Christ we have received every spiritual blessing. IN Christ we are full, complete, including being holy and righteous.

I hear someone saying, “But Hank, you don’t know what I’ve done!” I say, “You don’t know what Jesus has already done for you!” 

So as 2020 begins, continue in the faith – you’ll COME ALIVE!

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“The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light, And those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, Upon them a Light dawned.” Mt 4:16. 

2,000 years ago, the light dawned, hallelujah! In His lovingkindness, God sent His son into this world, in a human body. His sacrificial offering at Calvary was the propitiation for our sins. This is indeed the miracle of the Gospel. Salvation! Grace! Forgiveness! Righteousness! Eternal Life! Whoo-hoo!

Amazingly, there are those who hate Christmas. They want to expunge the Savior of the world, Christ Jesus, from our sight – Maybe they hate the idea of forgiveness, grace, and mercy. Crazy, huh!

No man can take Christ out of our hearts, my friend. Or from seeing Jesus everywhere! So how about “X-mas”? Merry X-Mas. The “X.” Is that a blatant effort by the God haters to remove Christ from Christmas?

Let me put your mind at ease this fine Christmas Day. Yes, “X-mas” can be viewed as a Christ-less Christmas, sure. That alarmist suggestion began back in the middle 1960’s. 

The truth is there is a long history of Christians using “X” in place of “Christ” – in fact its earliest use in European culture dates as far back as 1021 AD. Almost 1,000 years ago.

You see, the “X” is the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christós (Χριστός), which became “Christ” in our English. 

The suffix ‘mas’ is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass. So on expensive parchment the ancients were really simply abbreviating the word Christmas. 

Christians used “X-Mas” first. So be encouraged. It was not a fiendish group of atheists attempting to take “Christ” out of “Christmas.” And even if there be such a group, “He who sits in the heavens laughs.” Ps 2:4.

So, see an “X-mas” sign? Laugh aloud and share the good news that a savior has been born – His name – Jesus. Share it, people will COME ALIVE!

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Welcome to Hank’s Place Classics

Are you troubled by the merchandizing, the manipulation, the greed and excess of the Christmas season? Don’t be! Here is a little history.

Pope Julius I in 320 AD designated Dec 25th as a holy day – to counteract the excesses of the Saturnalia celebrations in Europe dating from pre-Jesus times.  The edict – didn’t work. People enjoyed their revelry and celebrations, choosing to repent afterwards. 

Now fast forward to Puritan England in the 1600’s with Oliver Cromwell. He came into power by promising to eliminate Christmas celebrations, and he did! Afterward, King Charles II’s party came into power by promising to make Christmas as wicked as before. And they did!

Get this: most genuine Christians of the time loathed Christmas, considering it an instrument of the devil for sin. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, they outlawed Christmas. There were no church celebrations, businesses were ordered open and anyone caught celebrating was subject to arrest and fines. And that’s the way it was in America – for over 200 years. In fact Congress continued to meet on Christmas Day up to 1856. 

However over time outrageous Christmas revelry began to re-emerged in America. 

THEN – in 1822 “T’was the Night Before Christmas” was written by Clement Clark Moore and for the first time Christmas was seen in America as a joyous holiday for children. Christmas as a joyous family affair appeared on the scene – with gusto.

THEN – in 1834 Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” and Christmas in England was never the same. The crushing dehumanizing industrial revolution had to give place and time to consider the wonder of the birth and life of a Savior. Jesus was making an appearance of sorts back into Christmas in England, then America!

There’s more, but gradually over the rest of the century, joy, family, giving, and worship replaced pagan debauchery, lewdness, revelry and drunkenness in both countries.

What about gifts, you ask? Glad you asked! The tradition of gift giving, at first a simple and modest gesture, exploded in America following “The Night Before Christmas.” Merchants, sensing great opportunity, placed Santa everywhere and people quickly adjusted their celebrations to include him. And spending. A lot of spending.

“Put Christ back into Christmas?” Historically – in America – that’s not very accurate. He was not officially in those Christmas’s of early America, and A Christmas Carol was quickly overstepped by ol’ Santa Claus and extravagant gifting.

But don’t YOU to be depressed my friend! YOU make the difference – why not make your own celebration of Christmas as true believers have done for ages? Put Jesus into YOUR Christmas. Hey! Don’t you see Him in the wreath, the evergreens, the candles, the tree? 

BEST OF ALL share JESUS with others – JESUS – the Greatest Gift of all!
You can – and as you do, many will hear – and they will COME ALIVE!

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Welcome HOME – to Righteousness (3)

Here’s a question people have asked for ages – what is “right”? In other words, what ought happen and what ought to be? The answer is straightforward – IF you believe in God, the God of the Bible – and that is: whatever conforms to God’s moral character is ‘right.’ And why is whatever conforms to God’s moral character ‘right’? It is ‘right’ because it conforms to His moral character!

What I’m saying is that GOD is the final standard of righteousness. There can be no standard outside of God by which we measure righteousness or justice. He himself is the Final Standard. This is similar to the situation we encounter with respect to truth and God being the ultimate standard of truth.

Whenever scripture confronts the question of whether God Himself is righteous or not, the ultimate answer is always that we, as God’s creatures, have no right to say that God is unrighteous or unjust. The creature simply cannot say that of the creator. Romans 9:20–21. 

Also Job 40:2,8. “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it.” and  “Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?” In this chapter from Job, God answers not in terms of an explanation that would allow Job to understand why God’s actions were right, but rather in terms of a statement of God’s own majesty and power! God does not need to explain the rightness of His actions to Job, for God is the creator and Job is the creature.

It should be a cause for thanksgiving and gratitude when we realize that righteousness and omnipotence are both possessed by God. If He were a God of perfect righteousness without power to carry out that righteousness, He would not be worthy of worship and we would have no guarantee that justice will ultimately prevail in the universe. 

If however He were a God of unlimited power, yet without righteousness in His character, how unthinkably horrible the universe would be! There would be unrighteousness at the center of all existence and there would be nothing anyone could do to change it. Existence would become meaningless, and we would be driven to the most utter despair. Like those Danish philosophers who denied God’s existence and concluded there was no meaning to life.

We ought therefore continually to thank and praise God for who He is,”for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is He.” Deuteronomy 32:4.  Yes, praise our glorious and JUST GOD — and COME ALIVE! 

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Welcome HOME – to Righteousness (2)

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.… For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”” Ro 1:16-17. What’s that mean, “the righteousness of God is revealed”? I’m glad you asked that question my friend!

I went to my theology bookshelf to look up some words. I found that while in English the terms ‘righteousness’ and ‘justice’ are different words, in both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, there is only one word group behind them. That means that righteousness and justice when used in the bible are speaking of the same attribute of God.

God’s righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right. God Himself is the final standard of what is right.

Moses in Deut 32:4 says of God, “all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he.”

Abraham in Genesis 18:25 speaks to God’s character as righteousness when he says, “shall not the judge of all the earth do right?”

Ps 19:8 says, “the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” Isaiah 45:19 says, “I the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is right.”

But listen: as a result of God’s righteousness, it is necessary that God treat people according to what they deserve. Thus, it is necessary that God punish sin, for it does not deserve reward: it is wrong and deserves punishment.

When God does not punish sin, it seems to indicate that He is unrighteous, unless some other means of punishing sin can be seen. This is why Paul says that when God sent Jesus as a sacrifice to bear the punishment for sin, it “was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies him who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:25–26.

When Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins it showed that God was truly righteous, because He did give appropriate punishment to sin.

Next time we’ll answer the question, “What is right?” In the meantime, rejoice that our God is just, our God is right, our God is the God of mercy, grace, and lovingkindness — think on these things, and COME ALIVE!

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A friend of mine once worked in a ward for Alzheimer’s patients. They said the doors were locked to keep the patients from wandering out of the facility. The button code to open the doors was printed in big letters over the door so visitors could easily get out. But the Alzheimer’s patients stayed in because they never looked up!

There’s a medical reason for that, having to do with visual and cognitive portions of the brain that are affected by the disease, and the patients felt more secure and stable looking down to see where their feet were going.

Check the news, world, national or local. Politics. Government. Immigration. Increasing attacks against Christians, Christianity, Christmas. Get immersed in it and hope flees. Soon our head hangs down, low, lower, even lower as we contemplate the entire world going down the drain and us with it!

Wait! We have Almighty God above as our Father! Stability? Security? You betcha! Christian, LOOK UP! Especially in this Advent season—LOOK UP for our God is the God of all hope! Remember, the eye of the Lord is on those who … hope in his steadfast love. Ps 33:18.

Rejoice in hope of the glory of God… for it’s a hope that does not put us to shame –  because of God’s love poured into our hearts. Ro 5:2&5. Let’s be as the Psalmist in Ps 42 & 43 and speak, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” LOOK UP!

Let’s hope in God and forget not His works. Ps 78:7. Remember Abraham, for in hope against hope he believed he would become the father of many nations, because of God’s promise to him. Ro 4:18. Let’s LOOK UP and hold fast to the hope set before US, for it is impossible for God to lie. Heb 6:18. 

And now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope, and COME ALIVE!

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Welcome HOME – to Righteousness – (1)

Tired of the news media distorting, twisting the truth? Spouting lies? Proclaiming endless “bombshells” that go nowhere? Me too.

Well, here is some pure truth. Jesus bore our sins in His body on the cross, then died for those sins according the Scriptures, and then was buried — and then rose again — according to the Scriptures. 1 Cor 15:3-4. That’s Gospel truth my friend! And in rising from the dead He declared OUR righteousness!

That means His sacrifice was accepted, putting us in right standing with God! We believers became totally acceptable to God – not because of our merits, or accomplishments; but all and ONLY because of Jesus, our glorious SAVIOR.

2 Cor 5:21 reveals what happened at Calvary: “He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us (that is both the sin bearer lamb of God and the sin offering lamb of God) so we would become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.”

We are in Christ — and in Him we have HIS righteousness. This is beyond awesome – beyond our ability to explain. It’s the surpassing greatness of His power and grace toward us who believe! What’s it mean though?

Once we were miserable sinners. Reprobates. Evil in mind and heart. Then this divine exchange took place. We became new creations. Righteous. Holy. Sanctified. In union with God. Desiring to do His will in thought and in heart. 

ONCE we were sinners, true. Now we are SAINTS, forever. Don’t refer to yourself as a sinner or that your old sin nature is wrestling with your new nature. You have one nature: a son of God! Reckon that old sin nature DEAD. That’s Ro 6:11. The devil would have you believe that old nature is like a zombie, the living dead within you. It’s a lie.

We need to know what this ‘righteousness of God’ is about – and next time we will begin with Ro 1:16-17 “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.””

Live by faith today my friend — and COME ALIVE!

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Returning from our travels in New England recently, we encountered a 6 1/2 hour flight delay at Manchester New Hampshire airport.

The time was not lost however, as we discovered THE SIGNS OF JESUS everywhere!

Check out this video and you will see a bit of what we saw during this amazing delay.

And who knows if in the viewing someone may COME ALIVE?

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Lovingkindness. Mercy. Grace. It’s who God is – He used it to describe Himself in Ex 34:6.

Some folks think God goes around breaking legs, causing illness or cancer – or even death to teach people a lesson. My friend, He already taught us the best lesson ever: His beloved Son going to Calvary to suffer and die in our place. Now THAT’s a lesson to learn!

Lovingkindness: when the person who owes you nothing – chooses to give you – everything. And this God has done – by His choice; including giving us Himself in coming to live in us as Col 1:27 reveals!

To those hard hearted Pharisees, Jesus quoted from Hosea 6:6 twice, found in Mat 9 and 12. “I desire mercy, lovingkindness, rather than sacrifice.” God prefers we love people, and not be preoccupied with religious observations. 

There were 2 main groups of Pharisees in Jesus’ day. One group followed Hillel. Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Gamaliel, were all likely in this group. They were inclusive Pharisees; that is, they sought to proselytize by including people, bringing them in. 

The second group were followers of Shammai and were an exclusive group, keeping people out even to the point of violence. Shammai taught that when God created gentiles that He made a mistake. 

Rather judgmental, wouldn’t you say? Likely it was followers of Shammai who followed Jesus around to catch Him violating their rules. At Matthew’s party they do not appear too aggressive. But in the ambush in the grain fields it was very different.  And very apparent how hard hearted they were, declaring Jesus’ disciples guilty of a crime they did not commit.

And remember that Roman Centurion of Luke 7 – who despite being told he was worthy by the Jewish elders, nevertheless told Jesus he was NOT worthy, and then went ahead to ask Jesus for a miracle anyhow – he knew God IS lovingkindness my friend.

Today I urge you, be as the Centurion, to ask Jesus for impossible things for others or yourself – without regard to your own behavior.  Without regard to merit. But with all regard to the God of lovingkindness. 

Miracles, healings, amazing things will happen and many will COME ALIVE!

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Jesus is AMAZING. Did you know someone amazed Jesus? There are 7 Greek words that can be translated amazed or astonished, and Luke uses every one of them. The shepherds were amazed, Joseph and Mary were amazed, the people in Jesus’ hometown and many others.

But in Luke 7 Jesus Himself is amazed. In Capernaum a nameless Roman soldier is a preliminary convert to Judaism, kindly and generous toward the Jews. The elders tell Jesus he is worthy for Him to grant his request for the healing of his servant, for he has done all the right things – he is worthy and deserves any favor. The Centurion has a right to expect something.

It is not arrogance, it is simply the way the system works. Jesus goes with the elders, but it appears the centurion has had second thoughts and decides Jesus didn’t need to come to the house after all. “Just say the word and my slave will be healed,” he says in vs 7. Then the Roman soldier speaks on the theme of authority, how he has it and recognizes that Jesus does too.

But wait! There is something incredible stated in verse 6: “I do not deserve to have you come under my roof” the soldier says. But in vs 4 the elders had said the man deserves this. But the Roman simply says I do NOT deserve this. And Jesus is amazed. Lu 7:9.

What kind of faith is this that so amazes Jesus? The Jewish community did not have it. I believe it was the soldier’s readiness to ask for what he acknowledges that he does not deserve. The soldier understands that God is more loving than he has a right to expect. So amazing — although he is doing all the right things according to the elders, the soldier acknowledges he is still undeserving —confessing he was not worthy, yet still having the confidence and boldness to ask Jesus to do it anyway.

The way we respond then to the God of lovingkindness is to boldly ask Him for what we do not deserve, and then to standby and confidently wait for Him to be amazed.

Put another way, as we come to understand God’s lovingkindness we will have a growing confidence that He is delighted to GIVE us His blessings. Like the centurion, our attitude will become, “just say the word…”

God is more loving than you or I have  a right to expect. TODAY – ask Jesus, the God of lovingkindness, for something you do not deserve – for yourself, for someone else, and stand by in confidence for Jesus to be amazed – in the experience, you – COME ALIVE!

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