August 14th.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

This is a sharp turn from where the movement had come in the disciples' minds and the beginning of a big disappointment about where it was going, according to how they could comprehend it. With their humans eyes, ears and mind they had witnessed and been privy to the Messiah's teachings and the genuineness of the coming of the one whom all Israel thought they had been waiting for since just before they entered the land when Moses promised that the great prophet would rise up from among them. They were being taught by that one, and had spent the last three or so years listening to him teach them about their true Father who had chosen them to learn to trust him, and they did become able to while they figured the next step would be to start the insurrection via the power that their Messiah had and recreate the kingdom of David on the earth since he was the Son of David whom Solomon mistook himself for. The momentum was high, and they figured that they were on the precipice of becoming great for their loyalty and faithfulness to him, who would certainly reward them. The natural thing to wonder about if you are a self-promoting animal is who will be the greater when the kingdom is restored (because you naturally want to be the one).

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."

He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Now he starts throwing them the truth about what is going to happen to him and them. Their reward is not here in this life, or anything that is tangible to the human ability to comprehend and value things. The reward is for being faithful toward *not* receiving the reward that the humans live for, things that can be enjoyed in the here and now, things that can be appreciated because they are highly valued by the humans. The reward isn't even comprehended by these human minds who learned to love and live for things that the humans love and enjoy because they have declared them to be valuable. Who is rewarded? Those who are faithful and loyal to him, and who follow him in the way that he went. What way did he go? The way that's opposite to the way the humans go and want to go, they way they never go because they're enslaved to themselves. The denial of self isn't just a tricky metaphor where we pretend to deny our selves while we are actively getting for ourselves in other tangible ways that we declare valuable. The way of God's sons is honesty and purity of heart, which means no lying there while we sneak around pretending to be able to hold on to certain things we love and don't want to let go of, things that mean everything to our natural selves.

And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

Who is in the kingdom of God? Those who said yes to the process of being transformed from being in love with and holding on to everything human to learning to hate their life which before they coddled and protected as though it were worth something. Those who serve God with a pure and honest heart are rewarded, but not in this lifetime because then they wouldn't need to prove that they are worthy to be remembered. What is worth doing in this life? Searching for the God who is hidden on purpose, and learning to give up what we naturally love and hold on to so tightly in order to find Him, because that's what it takes to do it. It's a formula laid down by the Son that the humans who think they know the way to the Father conveniently look past.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

There is no normality in the life of the son of God, no living as he would naturally like to, in peace like the others, in his lethargic state of slaving his life away for the dollars he needs to raise his kids in safety and buy them the best things, maintaining his good name amongst the humans around him as one hell of a guy, great father and good husband. The son must be willing to lose his life, which in real terms doesn't mean the stuff he doesn't want, but the stuff he lives for, which is the real definition of his life—what he lives to build up and retain for himself. All the things he loves and works for, what he retains his good name because of. If there is no willingness to stop working for the humans and sell his lovely house, not worry about the food and clothes and mortgage, there is no following the true Messiah. There is just what the other humans are handing him—a plate of bullshit called their life of service to their made up gods, convenient for them in all ways because they never require their heart and soul.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what "rising from the dead" meant.

As Messiah of Israel, the Son could have proven his authenticity to the humans (what the second temptation was about) and commanded their respect and honor while they groveled at his feet. Instead though he subjected himself to the way that the Father wanted him to go, to His delight because He knew who the Son was, yet it is to His delight because the Son went against what he could have had as a natural being, against the way the humans are driven by, so that he could suffer and be treated like a worm by the humans who were in control of their world.

He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise." But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

Why should God bend the rules for us if His own Son had to suffer and go the way that the humans spend their lives trying to avoid? That's what we want to think because we think so highly of ourselves, according to the animal dictates that drive us to behold that truth about our selves and hold on tightly, deep in our heart. He doesn't though and He won't, because it is to His delight that we aren't even noticed by the humans, and if we are then it's scorn and ridicule, never validation of the truth we've been called to. Even though we are being given an inheritance that's higher than they could ever perceive to be able to go—being the actual sons of the true and living God who has called us into this life and journey as per the firstborn Son of God—the humans won't ever be able to see that, which is our destiny because it was the Son's reality. He (his life, the way he went) is the way to the Father, which is not any way we would want to or choose to go.

I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

The Father loves His true sons who know they are not counterfeit because they comprehend the power of the calling, which isn't presumed or taken by them for their own benefit, or given to them by another human who thinks he has some kind of authority to do so. The Father knows the ones He has chosen to hear, and the positive response which flies in the face of what the humans love and hold on to is His delight. That His sons are willing to go the way they naturally hate to go, to swim against the current while everyone else around them are floating downstream with the current, is what He wants to find in the heart of one whom He desires to be in His family. The way of the Father has already been planted in us and we know in our heart what's true.

They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples.

The Son is alive to teach the brothers how to be good sons for the Father. Being honest without hiding is what we should be striving for, and one rule of thumb goes like this: the humans whom we continue to want to be around because they give us some kind of warmth do not do us any good for the task of being able to hear the teacher. They only ever hamper those efforts because the voice of the teacher is so far away from the voice that drives them. Again, they will not ever help us to find what we're looking for, which is why the call is intact to come away from them so that we can stand with the Father and the Son, and our true brothers who *want* to find the Father, not the fulfillment of their own lives.

You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.