August 4th.

Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: " `As surely as I live,' says the Lord, `every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' "

So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.

Judgment happens between the sons simply because of the animal still in, us doing what it does. It protects its host, it upholds its cause, it goes out of its way to ensure its own rightness which most easily comes at the expense of the brother who is at hand, to serve as the convenient unright contrast to our own rightness. We don't need to manufacture our case or even strategize about it much because it's being brewed and simmered all the time we're conscious so it's always ready to enter the game of promoting its self rightness over the other. It's how the humans learn to mentally and emotionally survive in their hostile world, a process that begins as soon as they start to comprehend what the world ruled by the humans is like. Passing judgment comes from self-love and rightness, which come at the expense of peace and joy by what the spirit is doing to us. The comprehension of the Father's will is that He desires to have a family of brothers who don't treat each other like hostile animals, so that nature is diffused among them and they can be led by another nature.

Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

This passage isn't about causing one who has decided to quit something to start again because he saw another one doing what he's trying not to do. It's about causing distress in him which leads to something besides righteousness, peace and joy, which is the only thing that the Father wants to see amongst His people in how they regard and treat each other. Why? Because the old way, of the animal which in greek is sarx, the word used interchangeably for both the natural human animal, the skin, and the sinful nature is a thing that the Father wants to be dead to His sons. That is the way of defending our selves and our position without even thinking about it because it's such an integral part of us, and what it does is keep the focus of love within the little bubble of our selves so everything is and remains all about us and our need to survive, first physically, then mentally and emotionally, and every other subtle or blatant way we need to, all the time the best we can.

So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

How does a son condemn himself by what he approves? By approving for himself, that is, going ahead and eating or drinking something that causes distress for another one who sees him and is weaker. The distress is the important issue, because it tends toward disharmony and discord. It makes the offended brother go into the old way of feeling like he needs to defend himself against this offending brother, as though he has become like an adversary all of a sudden to him so he needs to protect himself. That is the way of the wild animal in the forest though, the way of death because it's how all the animals live according to the nature that totally rules them. It is *not* how the Father wants His own sons to live and feel they need to act around one another because it is precisely the thing that the Son gave his life to be able to kill in the lives of his brothers (us!). Going back to that old nature of self-protection and throwing up that defense wall is grievous to the Father. And (what this entire passage is about) being the cause of it in another brother, all for the sake of our own ability to see and be free from something, is a heinous deal. The old way is going and the new is arriving.

Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

Being able to see and understand how the animal nature lives and works in us is key to seeing how it makes and keeps us evil and unable to come near to the Father. It is what allows the teacher to break it down in us so that we are less and less compelled to be driven by it without us even being aware. That's how it works best, not on the level of thinking but on the level that is so deep that it's an integral part of us, the same depth as where the fight or flight response lives—something we don't have to think about employing because it's already there, ahead of our thoughts doing its job of keeping us safe from whatever danger on whatever level. They exist everywhere and they come from everywhere.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view (needing to defending our selves against our brother whom we consider a threat). Though we once regarded Christ in this way (Paul was killing his newly born brothers in a defensive onslaught, because they were a threat to what he held dear), we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

The process of being transformed into a creature that is pleasing to the Father because it seeks out righteousness, peace and joy can be seen as a very rigorous deprogramming of a way and nature that took years and years to develop. So we shouldn't take it lightly or think it's going to be easy, or ever presume that we're going to just be able to be someone who can love according to how the Father requires it be employed amongst His own sons, who are brothers to the highest degree. What the Father does is genuine and real, unlike the human attempts which can be seen all over as they think they can all of a sudden just love each other (if they're even drawn to even try to, which is rare in itself considering their inwardly imploding bubbles).

The sons of God are not called to be goofs or pansies who are trying to love every last human because that's the world's philosophy, and how the humans do it. They can't recognize the sons of God so they must employ a shotgun approach, which is futile. The son of God recognizes a true brother and sees the need of where his life lays, for the Father's sake and purpose (they are His purpose). Our vulnerability is to the Father, and those whom we know He has put His spirit mark (hidden to the humans) on. We know it because He has called us into the same secret process they entered into. Though no one else can see or recognize it, we can because the spirit causes that to happen amongst those who are genuinely called by it. Our life from here on out should be consumed not by our own needs all the time, which is the old way, but in finding out what the will of God is for us, which will be for and about our true brothers and the Father's purpose instead of our own.

Neither should we be so half-hearted about it that we allow ourselves to be manipulated by our brother who is trying to take advantage of the situation to get for himself (the old way), even calling his process righteous (demanding that we "love" him by giving him what he is trying to get from us), which is a hideous manipulation, making something good into something evil. In that case it is more the way of love to not give in to what we know we have heard the spirit put us on our guard about, than to just be a patsy and allow the other to manipulate for evil. They may not even be aware of what it is they're doing, which doesn't excuse our need to be firm with them in not letting them get whatever it is they want, yet at the same time not turning away from them but continuing to go further in to where the Father is while we try to point them to Him by our continued walking in the right way, our steadfastness in what we know we've been called to, and our dedication to the family to whom that brother belongs. That provides a framework of encouragement and stability instead of fear, so the brother can remain on the path that goes to the Father and also continuing to listen to the teacher who can actually transform his mind so that he can see his error. That is an incubator type of setting where the Father can turn that fearfully irrational wild animal into a son who doesn't need to defend, protect and survive but can actually begin to let go of the old way, and begin to become transformed into a creature who can love the way the Father desires/demands it.

The last thing about this is a caution about our response to that brother, because his offensive actions will cause us to want to reach back into the old way and put on the animal skin to protect our self from what he's trying to do. That creates even more in him, which exacerbates the situation and makes not for peace but chaos and havoc amongst the sons of God, which is not good according to the Father who desires peace, nor the Son who gave his life so that peace could replace the animal in us. When we go back to the old way of the animal we undo what the Son accomplished, which has to be fixed and means we're not going further in to where the Father is. Instead we're sitting there with a diaper full of poop because we need to go back to milk instead of solid food so the shit just runs right out of us.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

The way of God is of true love, which comes out of a pure heart that has been/is being truly transformed. It is opposite the way of the animal and just as genuine as the animal's love for itself. The two are opposed to and mutually exclusive of one another. That's why seeing sin as what it truly is—not what the bad people do but what the animals do—is crucial for the sons of God; perhaps the first step behind not thinking the Son was a god until he went to the Father. Then he became as God because of spiritual osmosis, by gaining the Father's nature, with Whom he had been made One.

Love will become for the sons a letting go of the control we always think we need to have, especially on others and the effect they might be having on our life, because of our disbelief. When we don't actually believe that God is alive and capable of doing His will, then we feel we need to take action our self. The judgment that's in the animal as a major component of its nature comes directly from this.  The animal wants to do everything but love, because it's drawn to that mode like a super strong magnet, pulled to the earth and its way, the way of the world, the way of the ruler of this world, the way of the animal, the human. Paul is putting judgment as the opposite of love. Judgment is the way of the humans who must judge because they can't love.

You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written:

"As surely as I live," says the Lord, "every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God."

So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.

Love is hard. We have to wait for love, because it comes from God. It does not come from within us like all the things that live in our hearts, being the stock of the animal with its nature. Defensiveness, self-preservation (at the expense of our brother), judgment about what we think might be happening because of what we see with our eyes. All the things of the animal that make the humans evil live in their heart. Love is not native in a human heart, the reason it's evil and against God.

Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

The good man Jesus is referring to here is himself, and the only reason he is good is because only God is good, and God his Father lived inside Jesus' body to make and keep him good, even from conception. The evil man is everyone about whom this is not the case. It's pretty simple: God living inside a man, he is good; God not living inside a man, evil; because in that case only an animal by definition since the representative of the animals—serpent, snake, devil, ruler of this world—lives in him to make and keep him an animal instead of God to make him a son. He only lives in His genuine sons, who are specifically chosen by Him for that purpose—to unmake them what they became because they came from human stock.

I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

"But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt," declares the LORD, "and will make it desolate forever.

The animal nature living inside a man's body is God's design and plan, not something that's gone wrong or out of His control. It's what He instituted for His purpose, just like He used "satan" to test Job or Babylon to obliterate His people by the force of evil for His purpose. But then He punished Babylon which doesn't seem to make sense, it seems unfair, but who are we to question to wisdom and perfection of God to do whatever He wants? He wanted to decimate His people by the evil hand of His own instrument of evil, but then punish the evil instrument to show His people how much He cares for them.

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them."

Israel is the ultimate copy of His true family of sons, whom He allows to become fully dead to Him, fully and 100% unclean, adversarial animal which can't come into His presence or get one bit close to Him. Then He does the most miraculous thing by reaching His hand out to pull them from the muck and mire of the animal reality, totally ignorant of even His existence, only able to be concerned about themselves. Then He begins to transform them into what they weren't before, what they couldn't even have imagined with their dead little flesh brains which are fixed on themselves and their tiny little bubble of existence, thinking it's so big. He is making them into creatures who are actually able to start seeing things as He sees them, to take on His desires. He is making sons who can actually love because they aren't bound by the animal limitations as before. It's an incredible deal.

"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?"

He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

Weep and wail, you shepherds; roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock.
For your time to be slaughtered has come; you will fall and be shattered like fine pottery.

The shepherds will have nowhere to flee, the leaders of the flock no place to escape.

Hear the cry of the shepherds, the wailing of the leaders of the flock,
for the LORD is destroying their pasture.

Although God made the animals the way they are, nevertheless He hates them because they can't further His purpose (only their own), inasmuch as He hated Esau but loved Jacob. The humans are compelled to think they're so inherently valuable and precious because it's their nature to think that, because they are programmed to only be able to love themselves. God hates the humans' systems of power and oppression, self-love and love of money, and fear of anything that they feel threatened by. He hates them because they hate Him, and always try to put Him out of their midst when He comes. The animal hates God, and there is always a ubiquitous enmity between the sons of the serpent and the sons of God.

When God chooses to make a human into a son, he is slowly pulled out of that world he was born into and became fully a part of when he grew up into the mature animal and learned all the ways he needed to survive. He took them all into his heart so that he could protect and love himself as all the animals ever do. Then they die and are forgotten, because they're hidden within the earth and cannot be seen any more. As their body becomes organic matter for the worms, they truly return to the earth from whence they came, and become one with the temporary creation (part of the soil), that which gave them life and sustained them until they became no more.

The opposite of the animal nature is pure and simple; that is, love which doesn't need to protect itself because it knows that this creation doesn't mean anything anyway, so there's no real good point in trying to actively control our situation by hating, killing, judging or any other means by which we control things and people. Mature love in a son knows he doesn't even have to protect himself because His Father is able to make any situation into what He wants it to be, and He is infinitely more able to decide what's best. It's what the sons learn to make their hope and aspiration—instead of getting a new boat, raise, pumping out another animal replicant or scoring an ego lift by being glanced at by the purdy girl.

The struggle we have is actually believing this and everything else the spirit teaches us, because while we're still in these bodies of sarx (flesh and blood), we're still liable to be led by the animal nature. Even the Son, at the height of his comprehension that he was the Son of God, was tempted by the animal nature, which tried to get him to follow it instead of the Father. So it is a struggle, and the temptations and sufferings are designed to teach us and draw us closer to our Father as per Hebrews 12. The intention of God is that His sons will become love, as the Son became, because it is the Father's nature and He wants His sons to look like Him instead of the serpent.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

If we look with our natural eyes we will see that everything looks bad. We cannot merge the natural with the spiritual, because God is 0% natural and 100% spirit. The kingdom of heaven means the kingdom of the spirit, not the natural, which must be planted in us and grow so that it overtakes the natural. We are not natural but spiritual if the Father lives in us. We have to learn that the natural means nothing and the spiritual means everything.

The Spirit gives life; the sarx counts for nothing.