August 6th.

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "Tell this to your masters: With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please.

Now I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon;

I will make even the wild animals subject to him."

Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as God's servant, just as David has been referred to as His servant. It establishes a formula that there is no evil that is not made by God and administered by Him to carry out His purpose and will. The intertwining of Nebuchadnezzar, the earth, the humans and the wild animals is highly significant, as Jeremiah is a highly significant book in the revelation of the coming new covenant, how God would be dealing differently with His people as per 31:31-34. It has everything to do with overturning the wild animal nature as a phenomenon, which as of this point in the history of man hadn't been done yet in a significant number of the human population at the same time.

The Babylonian captivity seems to be a turning point, more of a final kind of end to what God started when He pulled the Israelites out from Egypt. Sort of a 70 year cleansing of the land, getting it ready for the great prophet to be raised up so that the new covenant, having everything to do with the undoing of the wild animal's nature in a particular group of humans—what Jeremiah throws in here as seemingly random, but actually a secret mystery—can be established.

At once the spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan.

He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Neither is the relationship between these words from Mark an accident, something just randomly thrown in without significance. Reading it again, Jesus was in the desert 40 days being tempted by Satan to be bound up with the nature of the wild animals, trying to make him one with them and the rest of the natural creation like all the other human animals. The angels helped him remain faithful to what he knew the voice of the Father had already told and continued to tell him, but obviously wasn't a slam dunk in him either so he had to actively choose to believe and submit to the process being done in his heart, hidden to the world.

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Matthew lists some of the details about the temptation, what the tempter was actually trying to get Jesus to do in its attempt to make him bind with the nature of the wild animals as per Mark; the opposite of what Jeremiah was prophesying about in ch. 31, that this same Son of God would accomplish for the Father. The first thing the tempter does in its attempt to bind Jesus to the wild animal's nature is to satisfy his most immediate animal craving to physically survive by eating something. Not just eat something, but actually use his power to satisfy that craving in him, to get it by his own hand so he didn't have to wait for the Father to give it to him. If we think about the wild animals, their waking life pretty much consists of finding, hunting, gathering food for themselves and their offspring. The first speaks to the cravings of the wild animal, what is built into its nature, to satisfy by the power of its own hand and purpose and not patiently endure while waiting for the Father to give what He wants His Son to have. This is one big component in the transformation process, learning how to listen to another master.

The next temptation is about the wild animal's inability to trust/believe God, another component of the curse "put on" the humans outlined in Genesis 3:21-24. This is the condition that the humans were given over to when they trusted the created thing, what was made to be the alternative choice, the adversary. It's what they've been marked by ever since. The voice of the Father had been speaking to the Son even before his life began (since being conceived in the woman's womb), teaching him about who he was and what he was going to do for the Father. The OT scriptures contained a lot of information about him, used by the Father in a spiritually enlightening way to teach him what it meant. However, believing it was all actually true was an unbelievable thing because on the outside, as far as the world was concerned—what the humans thought—reinforced none of what the voice of the Father was telling only him in his heart. So Jesus had to choose to believe in what was unseen, even though nobody else except one non-credentialed, seemingly unreliable human (John), reinforced for him.

The second temptation is Jesus thinking about the OT scriptures he knew about because he heard them spoken, which talked about the Messiah, and testing them to see if they would hold up, if God would command His angels concerning Jesus, and they would lift him up in their hands, so that didn't strike his foot against even a stone. The testing is whether he would choose to bypass having to go through the process of having to believe God on God's terms instead of taking matters into his own hands, as per the process at work in Jesus teaching him to trust the Father and not himself. He thought that if he threw himself off and didn't get hurt, then he would have some kind of tangible proof that he could hold on to, to convince himself that he was the Son of God that the OT scriptures pointed to. Even though it would show a sign of him believing, by thinking that the Father would protect him, it would take the place of him having to endure in his belief and wait for the Father to give the Son what the Father wanted him to have, at the time He designated.

It's another formula for the sons about trying to make it easier to believe by the power of our own hand to grab something for our self, to make the process of becoming/being a son of God easier for ourselves by by passing the process that God has set up, which is at times excruciatingly painful because it means we have to patiently endure and wait for God, which is hard for the wild animal in us to do because we're used to making things happen for us by the power of our own hand and will to get what we think we need to survive.

The third is about turning our back on the voice of truth that is speaking to us in the secret places of our heart, for things we might desire to have that are tangible in the natural, to our natural wild animal instinct to survive, hunt for and get for our self; to build up things, confidence, respect honor and glory around ourselves so we can feel a little bit insulated from the fear that is the major component of the wild animal's nature. It's based on Jesus' knowledge of who the Messiah was, what God specifically says about him a thousand years earlier:

Now then, tell my servant David, "This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies."

"The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever."

Jesus' internal understanding of what was going on would have been confusing to him, because he knew about these kinds of prophesies about him, but he also knew the many things written about the Messiah having to do with suffering and death. Nothing would have been so crystal clear to him all the time, or it wouldn't have been difficult to continue to actually believe and trust God, as per the second temptation.

His ability to do miracles would have been another factor in all three temptations. He obviously must have known he could turn the rock into bread, which he may have already done on another previous occasion—or something similar just to know that he could actually do it. That consciousness of his supernatural ability would certainly have been what prompted him to think that God would miraculously keep him from falling to his death if he were to jump off the temple. Jesus understood how important he was to God and His desire that Jesus do the work he was commissioned by Him to do on the one hand, but it all took place inside him i.e., it wasn't verified or validated in the natural world, instead it all took place as the spiritual reality within his heart where the voice of the Father was speaking to him, where the life of the Father lived.

Because of Jesus' knowledge of the special abilities he had, coupled with his understanding of who he was via the OT prophecies about him—especially the covenant God made with David, which Jesus was aware of—it would have been very tempting for him to grab the thing he knew had been promised to him through Nathan and David. It would have been about a million times more attractive than the other thing prophesied about him, that he would have to suffer and die, and trust that God would actually raise him up from the grave after three days.

It's what the conflict between him and Peter was about, when the wild animal nature in Peter tried to bind with the wild animal nature to test him when he was weak, just before he was about to do the work he didn't necessarily want to do—suffer and die instead of becoming, by his own hand, the great and glorious king of Israel, the son of David who would rule on David's throne forever. The temptation is as a whole about him trusting the wild animal's nature, and it's also what Peter's trying to do so it's no accident Jesus calls Peter Satan, which was the desire to bind with that nature in the temptation account in Jesus, and also Peter's desire to bind him up with it in the name of trying to help him because Peter was ignorant, and Jesus was weak.

Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.

To believe and trust God, and endure and patiently wait for Him to give him what had already been promised to him is one of the most important things to understand about the process of the Son remaining true to the process that had started and was continuing inside him, because it's the same process going on inside those who are chosen to become sons of God. We too have been promised something glorious and great, but it isn't about our existence in this temporary creation any more than God's promise to Jesus through Nathan and David was about his earthly existence. What keeps us going is the hope of the promise of what we don't yet have. That hope is based on our belief that our Father has sworn to give it to us, and we will have it and know that because of the process that has been initiated even though everything in the natural points the opposite way.

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

The curse on the humans was that their nature was bound up with the wild animal's nature, and this happens in all the humans when they become mature adults. The more mature they get, the more dead they get. Jesus was the only human to never become that, to never go through that process of becoming bound up to the wild animal's nature, the only reason he could be and remain God's spotless Lamb (untouched by the animal, even though he was tested). This pure, unstained offering is the only worthy sacrifice that God could accept to be able to undo the effects of the curse for His genuine sons. So even though our situation and dilemma, and the process we must go through is based on his, that is how we are different from him. It has to do with the timing of when we are born of God—he from conception, designating that the animal didn't ever have the chance to get a hold on him. We on the other hand all have to go through the animal process of dying to God and becoming fully animal before we can be pulled out of that condition because the significant work which made this possible has been done when the Father did turn away from the Son because he was at that point made the animal so that it would die with him when his body died about 3 hours later. That was the only time when the Father didn't inhabit the Son's body because He couldn't be with or near the unclean animal that He put into the Son for the action of killing its power in the his brothers.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Jesus' relationship with the Father is the very substance of the new covenant that Jeremiah is prophesying about. The new covenant was God living in the bodies of His chosen sons. It's a model for the rest of the sons who are chosen to have the Father revealed in their body, as Jesus had being the firstborn of many brothers, who are all sons of God who know Him because He is revealed to them amidst a sea of humanity in whom it specifically isn't revealed. There only lies abound. It's a formula that the sons can be taught by and understand who their enemy is—themselves and what lives in them, what they're bound to by nature. It's the force that pulls on them to bind them up with the wild animal's nature so that it leads them with its instincts, cravings, urges, impulses and needs—what drives all of the wild animals who pretty much run on autopilot according to its instinctual dictates they must obey without choice.

The antithesis of being bound to the wild animal, being led and driven by it, is being led and driven by the voice of the Teacher who has already come to us to reveal the Father to us, in the same way the Father had fulfilled the same process in his body about 2 thousand years ago. That's what it means to become a son who hears the Father's voice and responds to it, and turns his back on the easier way, the way that is native in him, the way he naturally loves because it's in him and he knows it, because it's him.

All of the instincts and cravings as part of the way he learned how to satisfy and take care of himself, will continue to be there trying to pull him back to the earth, back to death, back to becoming defined again as merely another wild animal in the sea of wild animals, which is denigrating to God. Just some ordinary common animal and not an actual part and member of the most elite and special group that has been being formed since righteous Abel, and is continuing to be formed as God gathers up His family of sons out of the earth. They are those who look like Him because they have been born by His spiritual DNA giving birth to them spiritually, not naturally. Naturally is what the humans and all of the rest of the present creation live by, being defined by the natural laws of living only to die, like everything that's "alive."

The point that we want to consider about being born of God is that the wild animal nature is still in us, causing us to instinctually crave and impulsively choose its way, our own will and way over God's will and way—and therefore be bound to it, when it is NOT our Father's will for that to be. Nevertheless it lives in us so that we will have a genuine choice to make and continue to make. It tempts us to undo the good that God is doing in the process of making us sons, the opposite of the wild animals. That process has already been started in us, and we know it—we can see by what has happened even from the beginning that it is growing and getting stronger, which is bringing a more profound knowledge of who we are and our importance to our Father. It's not something we can initiate or do by being someone or doing some or any thing for God.

We either submit (Peter) or not (Judas) to the process of it happening so that we can be transformed from wild animal to son of God. The rest of the process will continue to be done miraculously in us—the new way of seeing, hearing and understanding. Submitting to it means believing it, even though it will not be validated or reinforced by the humans or their groups—especially the religious ones. It's important to see that they have to be against us, because the very definition of our new life—that the Father actually lives in us—goes against their presumption that they can get to God by their own means, that it isn't necessary that the process has already been initiated in in the human.

The only true and genuine validation and reinforcement we will receive will be from the voice of our Master who will continue to speak and guide us, and the other sons who have been chosen and are submitting to the same process. This is the true family of God in the earth, those who are led by the only true spirit. This is where all of our energy and attention begins to be drawn to, what our earthly purpose becomes while we're still in these bodies of flesh and blood, being transformed.

This is the purpose of love. As we submit to the process, and the nature of the wild animal is being purged out of us (slowly), the nature of God is being put into us, to replace the wild animal. Since the nature of God is love, then as the process is happening and we are submitting to it, we also begin to actually have the capacity to love the other sons of God in a genuine way, because we begin to be able to love God. The care and concern of God for His family of sons is actually put in us, miraculously and spiritually, and that begins to drive us instead of what used to—all of the wild animal instincts, urges, cravings, impulses and needs.

What we consider valuable also changes. Not things, money, titles, respect from humans, honor, human identity—or anything else the humans consider valuable, things that can make them feel safe, or acceptable, or any way insulated from the sheer reality and condition they actually face as animals who are existing only to die and become no more with no guarantee or hope of redemption from the ground (where they are certainly and without any doubt headed). Because of that condition, they can only heap up for themselves treasure here on the earth, "where moth and rust destroy," and that is where their heart is and must remain, because it's their only guarantee of any kind of salvation, but it's only natural and relegated to that reality.

This is why Jesus is so emphatic about teaching his disciples that those things, even though the humans love them and run after them (even the ones who claim to follow Jesus the most), are worth nothing to the sons. Less than nothing, in fact, because the things the humans run after actually hinder the sons. They give a kind of false hope, what the humans pointlessly try to hold on to and control by their possession of them. The only true and lasting hope for the son is bound up in his heart, and it's something that continues to grow in him as the process continues in him.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

While we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

It's nothing that can be found in the world or be verified by the humans, or seen by them because it's hidden. It can't be controlled or held on to or owned by the sons, it can only be submitted to by believing and trusting the Father that it's true and that it will continue and we can continue to trust Him. The only way to love someone is if we trust them, and that's what God loves to see in His sons—that we trust Him and the process He has initiated in us even though it isn't verified or reinforced by the world of humans that surrounds us.

Belief, trust, faith and hope are what is needed, and grows in us. The greatest is love, because it is the motivation behind the process even beginning in us in the fist place, that God would have a family of sons whom He loved more than anything, so He can be surrounded by them and their love for Him and each other forever.

We love because he first loved us.

God is love.

Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

There is no fear in love.

Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

A new command I give you: Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.