August 30th.

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

There is a special kind of necessity that God requires for His people, if they truly hear the voice of the teacher showing them how to be good sons who can please the Father. Its uniqueness is in its ironic way of always being what the humans wouldn't expect or ever choose; how it is the polar opposite to what the humans would do if they set up a system of being and living together. It would not be plagued by what the humans gravitate to, or approve for themselves. What He requires is secret, like He is secret, so if those who have been chosen to be conformed to that aren't listening to the teacher, they will undoubtedly resort to what's inside them because that's the power of the animal to always conform those it inhabits to do its will perfectly and seamlessly (without detection).

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

These two Corinthian chapters tell a perfect message together as one idea, finally addressing Paul's opening point, why the letter was written to them (divisions). First there is Paul's discussion about the manifestation of the spirit and how it is for the common good, not the particular son's good. Within that is the incredible reality that is taken for granted—that the spirit was actually there, manifesting itself for the common good at all. The reason I find this incredible is because I know it was true, as the testimony of the letters indicates, because in all my experience with any of the humans who have ever claimed the spirit to be alive in or with their group or themselves, that has turned out to each time be their wishful thinking, based on some things that may have happened just a little extraordinary. I have been subject to the same kind of wishful thinking, allowing myself to ascribe whatever "made sense" to what had happened. But when I looked and kept looking, even though I kept wanting to continue the same ascription to the extraordinary things I felt, I couldn't because I also realized that it wasn't what I thought it was, or what other people were telling me it was. They kept telling me it was, and I tried to believe it, but on the truest level I knew that what they were saying was bullshit, even though I believed what I was feeling wasn't made up. Yet when I read what Paul had written I knew that it was true, however not one time in all my searching within any of the groups who claimed that the same spirit was alive within them did it seem genuinely true; it was always forced and assumed, but not real. That's why when I read the testimony of Paul I am amazed because I know it was true then, but at the same time I am just as certain that it isn't now.

So what do we do, just believe the lie that it actually is going on and settle for the bowl of shit those assumptive humans are offering, what they themselves have to every day deny as the same thing that was happening then? The assumptions are that it must be going on because God wouldn't abandon His people, or His plan, that it must be the same as it seems it was, according to the words that serve as a witness to that time, or that the humans can just decide to pick it up and reinstitute whatever they want, because they want it and they can declare whatever they want to be valid, just because of the consensus they create by enough of them getting together to decide to agree, and call that a declaration of God that what they have is genuine. Nothing is genuine unless it is initiated by God, and made genuine by His intention that it is what it is because He has set it up. When we want to rely on our selves to make it whatever we want it to be, then we're just like all these groups who obviously aren't genuine.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

There is only one voice the sons should follow, and it isn't the voice of another human. The humans, even the sons who are allowing themselves to be led by the animal in them, will always lead the sons astray because they only have in mind the things of men, not of God. They rationalize and justify everything so that it will suit their needs, and even they will believe the lie they think is true, and will at the same time think they are invulnerable to that delusion because they assume that *they* have something special from the Lord. What they don't realize is that's how the animal nature works and gets its power—by deception—and they are being deceived by their own need to be right, better, more correct than the other(s). What better way to deceive than to give the deceived some truth so that he thinks whatever is happening at the time must be what is true.

Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

The reality that the living God sets up isn't just a theoretical sham that always takes a back seat to what the humans recognize as what *they* have set up, according to what they're willing to accept. There was a declared order in the first century church, which is all we have to go on. We can't just take part of it and chuck what we don't like. There is a required, indispensable order to what God sets up, unlike what the humans would care to admit or conform to because they always want to be the one who is better, righter, more capable of seeing, even when they have clearly chosen to only see what they want to see because they've become blinded by their own unwillingness to conform. At a certain point one must say, "Are you going to conform or not?"

The only true thing is being willing to conform to a reality that isn't aligned with what the animal wants, which is always the chaos of its own will being done inside the human in which it resides, and when you have a whole bunch of them doing the same thing then you have a picture of the cursed humans. There is something different that the Father has given to the sons, that they follow an order that He is firmly establishing, if they would care to look past their own needs to be served. He doesn't align Himself to the animal's whims, otherwise His community would be the same as the community of humans, where those who establish themselves create the order, from the smallest group with its by-laws of conduct to the entire culture with its laws and constitutions, etc.

Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts.
And now I will show you the most excellent way.

What ties the two Corinthian chapters together is this culmination about what it's all about, what matters and doesn't matter. So yes, it's important that the spirit was being manifested throughout the community of first century believers, but the reason it was done wasn't any kind of individual benefit, but what could benefit the whole community. Even hough this phenomenon was real, nevertheless it wasn't the end-all some may have thought it was who participated in it (since God was willing to let it fade away), but instead was yet another copy of the better thing. Anything and everything that can happen in this natural existence as humans can only be a copy of the better thing, because of the natural limitations of the human animal experience and what can be accomplished in these disappointing bodies that are always being drawn back to the earth that wants to swallow them back into itself.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

The only thing that's worth anything is something we can't detect because it exists as a spiritual reality, not a natural one which can be detected, observed, analyzed, written and read about, accepted or rejected, etc. The only purpose of the natural creation begins and ends with God's desire to have a family of spiritual sons (like Him), which is not accidentally what the opening chapters of the opening book declares, a purpose that was frustrated; and the rest of the book is its aftermath and result. Yet hidden within the chapters is the same message over and over again about the secret family of sons whom the Father is choosing to be for His purpose, to be with Him where He is because they are like Him.

The animal nature isn't just a stagnant force. It is active, present and alive. Its purpose is exactly opposite to the purpose that is hidden and secret—to keep the animals deceived so that they do not come close to God, so that He is not obligated to bring them near, because of His righteousness, because as unclean animals they cannot be brought near to Him. When the sons are being transformed, the animal nature which they took into themselves as their own is still very much active and alive within them, so they are highly susceptible to being deceived by it. However, because they may have received, or are at present receiving gifts from the Lord, they will assume they must be all good and okay with whatever they are thinking, otherwise they would not be receiving anything good from the Lord. That is man's thinking, for the Lord's purpose, to test the sons and make their faithfulness to the Father, and away from the animal nature, grow.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

If we go back in our thinking to what we were when we were purely animals, driven by the animal nature, we know that our drive was to always serve ourselves. So the opposite of that, what the Father wants His sons to become driven to be and do, is not to serve themselves but Him instead. If that involves taking care of His flock then that is a by-product of the greater thing, which is being abandoned to the drive of self-service, and devoted to serving the Father. If the flock is still actively being led by the animal nature; that is, still being driven to serve its self like all animals must, then the son's responsibility is not to accommodate the flock so they reinforce what is bad, but that they exhort the flock to come away from being led by the animal nature, to serve the Father instead.

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.

Love isn't about accommodating the other just so they can feel an agreement in the natural that they feel they need, because they aren't listening to the teacher so are being led by the animal. The good shepherd doesn't lead the sheep into danger even though the sheep might think they know what's best, but away from it. The sheep might see green grass and fertile pasture, but they also might be ignorant to the fact that it's green and lush because it's the hunting ground for the lions who live there in the thicket. The flock may kick and scream because they want their own will fulfilled, and they think they're right because they're being given gifts by God. They will take up the idea of self-fulfillment and independence because that is the way of the animal. Love is not accommodating the flock when they are being led by the animal nature to fulfill and satisfy their own will, but when they're being led by the spirit of life, when they're being pleasing to the Father. Two examples of this is Paul with the believers and Jesus with the disciples.

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

There was plenty of grief and blowback from the disciples when Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed. From what time did he begin to speak that way? From the time that Peter declared that he knew who Jesus was, which was sort of a cue for Jesus to know that his time was upon him, after he had truly revealed the Father to the men, and they truly knew who he was. "From that time on" Jesus began to tell them what was going to happen to them, which was crushing to their expectations.

Up to that point, there was a slow build and movement to the point at which the disciples were actually able to trust Jesus. The momentum was high, and so were their hopes, fueled by what they were being given by the spirit of God mixed with their own human expectations of the way things would go for them. They would have been made confident by what they were being given by God, showing them who Jesus was. Then just at the time all these things were happening, Jesus told them about going to Jerusalem to die.

They didn't hear or want to hear the part at the end when he said, "On the third day I will be raised to life." They wanted to hang on to what their expectations had already given them, some hope that came not from God, but from within them because they were very much still animals—the spirit hadn't been given yet, and the process of transformation for them was only in some sort of understanding, because of what they'd been given by God even to be able to do that.

No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval.

This strange, sort of off-handed comment from Paul to the Corinthians is related to this. Even though it doesn't sound like a lot, there's something very important contained within it, which is reinforced throughout the writings preserved for us to read about God's dealings with men, and more specifically about whom He chooses to be with, to put His own truth into, versus the massive opposition from those who only think they know or have something true from God, and who oppose those who are true.

Paul knew that the word was living in him and guiding him, and had been for a long time. As the movement grew, many came along who opposed him all the time, because they mixed what they supposed—that they knew better than Paul because of the animal still living in them—with the false confidence they had because of what they had been associating with the reason the spirit was manifesting itself in them. They assumed they were right and Paul was wrong because there was a definite power at work in them. However, they did not allow that power to transform them by teaching them about the animal nature that was evil, and allowing it to do what it had done in Paul—destroy the animal nature so he wasn't led by it, so that the spirit of life could lead him and he could be for the Father's pleasure. Instead, they took the good gifts and mixed them with the evil that was inherent within them, so that they became far worse off than they were before.

In the Corinthian letters we can see the start of the abomination that caused desolation, as men started opposing God and His true representatives by having a certain confidence because of some unnatural thing inside them, yet wanting to grab the things of the animal for themselves at the same time—power, ego satisfactions, money, etc. After that it quickly evolved into what it became.

The idea of God choosing one or a few to put His truth in set against the vast opposition of the others is seen all throughout the scriptures—God's true yet hidden power set against the humans' false truth and impotence. Noah and Abraham against everyone else in the world at the time, Joseph against all the other brothers (even though they were the fathers of the inheritance), Moses against all the grumblers (and his own family), Elijah against the 450 prophets of Baal, Jesus against the disciples, and Paul against the arrogant believers. All of those who opposed the ones who were authentic thought they were right, but misguided because they mixed what was true and the assumptions that came with that, with what was false, what the animal nature always wants us to grab and take for ourselves.

Paul is trying to combat the independence and arrogance of the Corinthians, who have obviously been given a lot of gifts and confidence from the Lord, but were also just as obviously being led by their own self-serving, arrogant will—not allowing those gifts to accomplish what they were intended for, but using them for their own gain, that their own need to find an agreement within themselves and for themselves would be fulfilled. The end purpose was what Paul allowed to happen in him, that they would be humbled by the gifts they were being given—not made into privileged, arrogant recipients because of the false confidence the gifts gave them when they mixed what they knew from the Lord with the animal nature that still lived inside them.

The ultimate purpose of the gifts that God gave to them was what Paul knew within himself, because he allowed what was given to run its course in him and be transformed into a son, useful to his Father. He was eventually not deceived by it, and saw that the animal nature was evil and still lived within his body. Paul genuinely wanted to become one who was separated to God, away from that which had ruled him so long. He had to become separated from his own personal ambitions and surrender to the power which gave him the gifts, so that God could make him into what God wanted him to be, not what Paul wanted God to make him into.

In the end there is only love for God and His solitary purpose, and everything else falls away. Nothing is even remotely important compared to that, because God only wants that. He couldn't care less about us getting our own ambitions fulfilled; that is exactly the animal and what it's designed to be in the humans, making them useless to Him, unclean, unable to be brought near to Him. Those who are being led by the spirit of life are not doing those who are being led astray any favors by accommodating the animal that is causing the chaos within the body. The good shepherd is the one who makes the sheep go where they may not want to go, because they don't know as much as the shepherd, so what they think is right is actually wrong, but they don't even know it because they're being led by their own nature, which is stronger in them than what is true.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Paul understood that God desired to transform him from the animal to a son, because of the love that God had for him, and that was the motivation for God doing it. So in the end, no good gift that is given by God is for the enhancement of the individual, but the destruction of that which keeps him separated from his Father so he can be known by Him. By destroying the animal nature in the son, the he can actually love God back, and that is the reciprocity that God desires from His sons. That is how they are transformed from totally useless to Him, to useful creatures who serve a purpose and are worth redeeming.