August 18th.

Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: "Watch!"

The sons of God have to be aware of and on their guard against the animal impulses and cravings they are vulnerable to as they are being transformed. The testing of our faith comes from exploiting these weaknesses, like the prophet who was lied to by another prophet, and just because they were brothers he trusted him more than the word that God had put into him.

The old prophet answered, "I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the LORD: `Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.' " (But he was lying to him.) So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house.

While they were sitting at the table, the word of the LORD came to the old prophet who had brought him back. He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, "This is what the LORD says: `You have defied the word of the LORD and have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers.' "

Learning the lessons from the past and applying them to the future is what the teaching and training in the new way is about. In many respects it's like natural things that must be learned by repeatedly hearing what that teaching is, then incorporating it. We aren't meant to just wander around without a way to be associated with, a program that is developing in us, a path to be walking on. One hard thing is to conform to a way that is foreign to us, which is like a bad taste in our mouth, and even thinking about it gives us what feels like a nervous tick, all which happens on a subdued level within us that we can't quite get a handle on, but if we think about it and try to face it instead of hiding from it, we begin to understand how we're repelled against walking on the path because we hate it and want to constantly veer off to do what we want to do.

That, though, is what's in us natively, what makes us cursed and unable to come near to God because it makes us unclean. It isn't good to listen to that voice because it tells us, like the old man who lied to the unnamed prophet, things that are against what the word of the teacher has told us. The variables in the formula are super complex, and change for each one according to their own experiences. What is constant about all of the details is that they are born from the same condition, put in place by God, His design for His purpose—to keep the unclean animals away from Him. There aren't any loopholes in the system that God put in place, because it like He is perfect. So the ones who are effected by the condition (the animals) can never recognize their condition, and those who can (Jesus and all of God's sons under him) are just thought of as nuts by those who cannot see, so that God's plan and purpose remain perfectly intact. The important thing to comprehend about this isn't just to feel good that we are chosen and know a little about the Father's reality, but to understand the severity and thoroughness with which the animal completely covers us, because we came from the same place where the others remain. The point is that what keeps the humans away from God is the same thing that still lives in us and the tendency is the same, to keep us away from God, because that is its purpose.

For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect—if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

The voice we want to listen to is our own, the voice of the animal resisting being tamed like a wild horse. The training of the sons is strict and disciplined, not random and free to do whatever we want, which is the animal's delight to just do anything and go anywhere. But a wild orphan isn't anything that is acceptable to the Father, who loves His children but cannot be around the wild animal. So the sons have to be retrained and retrained until they start listening to another voice that's foreign to their native inhabitant. At first the voice sounds bad because it requires we stick to a certain path, which we think is boring and awful because it doesn't satisfy what lives in us to be satisfied. Soon, though, we start to see that we think it's boring because it's rather one-dimensional compared to the wide road where we used to walk with all the other dead animals. That road is wide because there are so many walking on it, which is the do anything and go anywhere we want road that actually leads in a great big circle, but it's such a big circle that we can't see its end, which is just the same road.

For the sake of the elect, whom He has chosen...

The reason the path the sons walk on is so narrow is because there are so few walking on it, because the humans don't know where it is. The sons who are chosen to be put on it are, but it's overgrown with weeds so they have to chop their way through, wondering the whole time whether it's worth it because they know that there is that other road that's already beaten down and it's clear how to walk on it—just follow everyone else. The son's path isn't defined and it's so narrow that there's only room for one at a time on it. There aren't a bunch of others walking on it because they don't know where it is. It is one-dimensional because it only satisfies one craving that is hidden deep down inside us, so deep that it has to be excavated before we can even begin to understand it. That is the love of the FATHER for His chosen sons, what every form and instance of temporary, inferior love in the world of the animals is a copy of, and points to. With the humans, their little temporary loves come and go with them, and there is no more thought about it than that. The sons learn that the way the humans are is just a fading copy of the way the Father is, and what He's been and continues to be going about doing in their world finding and securing His sons to be with Him where He is.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:

"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

The suffering comes in all forms, our conforming to another way which is a long and slow excruciating process, not quick and easy. If we refuse to be conformed then the hot stove metaphor comes into play and enough burning creates different associations that lead to an obedience to the Father's desire, which is opposed to our own craving to just do whatever we want all the time, like a wild animal.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

The sons need to be aware of the details of what they as humans tend to love because of the instincts of the animal nature built in to them. Those details are varied, but they are based on the nature that's inside them, out from which the particular fears, needs, urges, cravings and impulses come. Because of the fear of death and the animal drive to survive, the power and allure of money and worldly riches—the love of money—makes sense for the animals. Money is the easiest way to feel safe and secure, and also allows the animals to buy things to build up around it, to feel more safe and secure from all the things they fear, all the threats to their survival—real or imagined.

Another powerful craving/need/urge/impulse is the drive to find and mate, and everything that exists around the sex process in all its many forms and levels. It can turn a son's heart away from God by the power of those urges, to be led by another foreign nature—the animal, which craves to satisfy itself, not the spirit, which urges the son to satisfy the Father's desire to not be led by it, therefore allowing one's self to be defined as something the Father doesn't want him defined as. It also gives women power because of it, which can allow them to rule over the sons, which their Father detests. That urge to mate exists within the humans, and wells up within them at various times, often triggered by something they see with their eyes, which reinforces the urge. It's important that the sons recognize the games that are constantly played by the humans around the sex process, and to come away from participating in them.

Everything for the son comes back around to the Father's love for him, and His desire that the son can come near Him. When he's being led by the unclean animal he can't come near the Father,a nd not being led by the animal is a long slow process that must always be considered because the adversary is alive, always moving and trying to get what it wants from the humans and the sons alike. It doesn't just stop what it's doing, which is why it's a struggle and a fight to get what's good and so rare amongst the humans, which is why it's so valuable and worth struggling and fighting for. The best way to do that is to keep ourselves safe by remaining on the path, which is conforming to the way that we're naturally opposed to and just biting the bullet as it were, just going against our urges and sitting there instead of getting up to open the door so the party can begin because the players have arrived. Be stern with our self and don't open the door, and soon there is a satisfaction that emerges from that stance, which we can begin to welcome because we start to see that it's okay not to indulge the hungry animal every time it starts barking at us. Ignoring it instead of paying attention to it makes it grow weak, and if we stay on that course then its power does start die. But if we feed it then it gets strong again. This isn't just conceptual metaphor, this is how it works.

I have food to eat that you know nothing about. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

It's hard to believe but when you think about it, this whole process is hard to believe. It's hard to believe that there even is a path that leads anywhere once we allow ourselves to be led astray, but for 5 years we've been being shown over and over that there is, and that the real illusion is what we naturally want to think is a permanent reality.

Another power that the sons of God have to be aware of and on their guard against, which also can turn their hearts away from their Father, is the craving for personal power, acceptance, the need to be recognized and validated by the humans; the ambition to promote themselves in whatever way or at whatever level that opportunity might exist. The egotistical component of the animal nature is a serious lust inside man to be recognized, validated and lifted up by the humans—noticed and given whatever accolades are suitable to that recognition. It is about the ego being satiated in whatever way gives the particular one the satisfaction he craves. It is about grabbing and holding on to what makes us feel acceptable and good, which the sons can only truly get from the Father. Anything they get from the humans is only what it's supposed to be—temporary and unfulfilling, and we'll have to go back to get more of it and keep going back because there is nothing there. It's like sand in our hand we can see but it just slips out and we can't keep it.

The humans will never give the sons validation because they are directly opposed to God, according to what they are defined as, by what they are led by. That's just the sheer reality of it, and it's not according to what is fair or just according to the humans who are naturally evil and opposed to God. The Father and what the Father wants is the only things that's good; everything else is just a vapor because it definitely goes away. The humans are driven and led by the animal nature so that they won't agree with what we're being taught. The sons can only be validated/vindicated by God, as the Son was—not in the natural but in the spiritual. The humans are validated by each other. They value and make decisions by corrupted means, because of the animal nature that is opposed to God. They look on the outside and make their valuations, whereas God looks into the secret places of the heart, and judges based on what and who the person is, as He sees. Beauty, wealth, strength and intelligence are some of the criteria the humans use. These are things that men regard and hold other men in high or low esteem about. They looked at the Son of God with their human eyes and saw what they wanted to see, what would fit into their vision of what was acceptable to them, according to what they wanted.

The spirit—who is the Lord and the Father, and who lives in the sons to teach them to accept the right and reject the wrong—sees into the hearts of men, past all the stuff of man that doesn't mean anything to God. The spirit teaches the son how to disregard the things of the humans, and allows him to judge, observe and act correctly, according to how God would desire him to act. The true ecclesia existed in the first century via the power of the spirit to form and rule over it through mature, godly men who were sensitive to the spirit. They taught others about the true things of God as they had been taught by the spirit who lived inside them. These were men who knew about the dangers and powers that existed because they were being transformed from the condition of animal to son, by the power of the spirit of life. They weren't recognized or lauded by the humans at large because they were secret and hidden, just like the Father is.

We speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him,"
but God has revealed it to us by his spirit.

The spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"

But we have the mind of Christ.