August 2nd.

Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?" declares the LORD.  "Is not my word like fire?" declares the LORD.

The word of God is His intention to do a thing, His declaration that His will is going to be accomplished and His word is what that thing is. Straw is the vehicle (Israel) that produces the grain (sons of God), but once the thing has come to maturity, served its proper purpose for God, then it isn't good for anything except to be separated from that which is good and discarded.

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

John knew that the day Jeremiah had spoken about had come, when the Father would be, through His anointed the expected Son of David, be gathering up the grain which was the good part hidden within the worthless part. The grain He would keep and the straw into which the grain had been born, was now not good for anything except to be separated from the good part and discarded. That was the message John came to preach, that the one through whom this incredible thing, secretly spoke of through Jeremiah, would be accomplished. Baptizing with the spirit is what would separate the grain from the worthless part and gather it into His barn to keep it safe there, and baptizing with fire would burn up the worthless part, the logical thing to do with straw.

"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch,
a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.

In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.
This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.

The days came when these words became fulfilled in the hearing of the ears of worthless Israel, once valuable in that she produced sons for God, hidden within her but not revealed. And she produced the one Son whose coming meant that she was no longer needed because her time of being the nation of humans who were chosen by God was over, and He was ready to separate her the now dried up straw from the grain who were all the sons who ever heard the voice of God and responded, who turned away from their own will to do that will of the Father, to care about Him and His concerns and desires instead of what the nature that lived in them drove them to be drawn to—their own situation and betterment all the time as per the curse of the animal on the humans.

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

Paul is a Jew who turned away from Judaism to pursue the better Israel because he heard the voice of the Son speaking to him in a miraculous way. Not just one time but consistently, which produced his thorough transformation from what he was to what he became. His former life was consumed with Judaism so it's only natural for him to opine about Israel and how what he understands relates to what is happening in him in the latter half of his life at the time of this writing.

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

The Son wasn't something new, but rather a full picture of what the Father had already been saying for a long time, all the things hidden within the Law that God wanted those who had ears to hear to recognize and observe. The humans failed to see them so they sought to establish their own rightness with God, on their own and by their own means, which was not accidentally geared toward their own benefit, not for the sake of benefit of God. The sons who were hidden within the nation of Israel were able to see what the Father wanted for His sons—devotion to Him and a brotherly kindness to each other because they were God's chosen people, the representation of the better thing. The opposite of these, what the Law was designed to combat because of what lived in the humans that made them cursed was running after foreign gods and being devoted to them, and satisfying the greed which caused exploitation and injustice toward their brother Israelites, who were supposed to be representative of something great.

My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?

The Son was the perfect example of what the Law tried to produce, the highest fulfillment of what God wanted the humans to see in the law and the prophets. He became the Law because of how he acted in accordance with the deep, secret teachings contained within the law, which weren't actually secret except that they were hidden to those who couldn't/didn't see them because of their nature to always seek their own satisfaction, which meant they couldn't be concerned about God or their brothers who just got in the way of their efforts of self-promotion.

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life.

The Son lived and was driven to do the Father's will and be totally devoted to Him and His cause and dilemma at the expense of his own life and aspirations. Secondly, he chose to conform with the Father's wishes that he become the sacrifice that could save the sons whom the Father had known and loved, but who were stuck in the ground patiently waiting, along with the Father, for the Son to come so they could be remembered by God to be lifted out of the ground to be with Him where He is.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

Ancient Israel's history is filled with examples of being given a choice, choosing the wrong and rejecting the right, then ironically being given over to whatever it was they chose e.g., they wanted to serve the gods of the nations around them so God made a foreign nation powerful and desirous enough to overrun, capture, or take her into captivity so they would be forced to worship their gods and serve them against their will. Sometimes the shepherds would give in to their animal cravings to get, have and retain for themselves, which they themselves were given over to, so couldn't care less about God's possession who needed them to take care of them because they were the lost sheep of Israel and couldn't find the right way.

"Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" declares the LORD. Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: "Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done," declares the LORD. "I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing," declares the LORD.

Sometimes He chose leaders (shepherds) whom He would raise up, whose purpose was to lead the people back to a knowledge of and devotion to their God. They were usually ordinary men who were specifically chosen by God to accomplish His will, to straighten out the ignorant sheep who needed a shepherd to show them the right way.

What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

The Son of David the shepherd boy turned king was the fulfillment of the law and prophets in this and so many other ways, of which we have these recorded instances as they happened and as they were preserved. They show how he was that fulfillment of what the Father wanted the Israelites to see within the law, which they so often forgot because of the unclean thing inside them that kept turning them away from Him toward themselves instead—making themselves utterly worthless to Him.

Israel's watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs,
they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep.

They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough.
They are shepherds who lack understanding;
they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain.

"Come," each one cries, "let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer!
And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better."

The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away,
and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.

The Son heard the Father's voice and responded with the words Isaiah had said he would respond with—"Here I am, ready to do your will Father, instead of my own." That's the example he the perfect Son sets and gives to the others.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.

It doesn't matter that we know what's going on inside us or are able to comprehend and find an agreement within ourselves about it so that we can proceed. That's how we used to make our decisions, with the faculties from below, that lead to death. Just understanding, not the details of what we are seeing happen in us, but the mere fact that it is continuing along the same path, growing as it goes, can and should produce trust and confidence in the Father who started this process and who must continue it, according to His intention, His word that it be so. Our goal is to have a pure and honest heart before Him, to be a dependable brother who doesn't let the family down by his turning to the left or the right, distracted by this or that distraction which produces a craving that yearns to be fulfilled. The dependable son keeps walking forward, straight ahead toward the Father, and pointing his brothers away from themselves and back to Him.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD;
make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

A voice says, "Cry out." And I said, "What shall I cry?"

"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."