September 3rd.

If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

The scheming of the devil is not the plans and strategies designed and carried out by a being with a will and purpose, as though he were some kind of demigod, a being like god. Although it is God's adversary even from the beginning, nevertheless it isn't a creature with its own will and agenda who emerged to challenge God against God's will and desire. It is spoken about throughout the preserved writings as though he were an actual entity, which is a common form of biblical prose, to give a life and personality to something which doesn't have one. For instance God is, also in the words, said to have feathers that He uses to cover and shield those who are His. It serves as a metaphor to allow those to whom it was written to be able to understand. In the same way the adversary was created by God to be just as it is (not a rebellious angel with a wild hair, as was formed within the cultural confines of the mythological stories that ruled when the devil was officially given its identity by the humans as the bad god and the jesus god, holy spirit god and god god being the good gods).

I will send for my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon...

I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him.

Babylon is an adversary of God's people, yet its rise and power came because of God's desire to make it His servant and do His will for Him, to inflict the great punishment and cleansing from the land of what was useless to Him. Satan was created to exist by God for His purpose, so His purpose would have an adversary, which is necessary in order to have His purpose accomplished. Just because it isn't an actual being like God doesn't mean it isn't in a sense very much alive, which is another reason the attributes of a being are attributed to it. It is a power and force that exists and is most likely maintained by God's messengers, and in that sense it is very much alive, but not as a creature or being who rose up against and now opposes the good gods and those who adhere to their mythical identities.

The things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man `unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man `unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him `unclean.'

The sons' understanding of the adversary is a basic necessity in order to know the scope of the dilemma they face. To see the adversary as something (or someone) outside of them is the strategy of the adversary, a central piece of the development of the abomination that caused desolation in the period after the first century when the current definitions of the current christian good and bad gods were developed, what now exists and remains intact as the dominating view in the world. It's key because it keeps the humans thinking that since the evil exists and comes from somewhere external to them, then there must be something to their feeling that there's something good about them, something they must protect while their adversary is trying to get at them from the outside.

It is actually the most perfectly efficient mechanism created by God to keep each of the humans in their own little personal bubble of their own goodness and self-rightness so that they cannot come close to knowing or being able to fulfill His purpose, which is exactly opposite that—that those He has chosen, is choosing purposefully and intentionally come out of their own personal bubble of instinctual self-protection and natural self-rightness in order to become part of His plan, and come under His umbrella of protection to be gathered into to His family like a hen would gather in her chicks.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The sons will know what the real Jesus taught, that the adversary which makes a human unclean already exists within him. It is him, because that nature lives in the hearts of all the humans and exists as that power and force that keeps making them unclean because it keeps defining them as unclean animals who can't come near God. That's important because of what God establishes in the writings when He set up the first significant copy of the true temple—the collective body of His sons, in whom He lived—that which was the true subject of the abomination that cause the desolation of the life of God living in the hearts of the humans, instead of what is evil and makes them unclean, as Jesus has already established.

The word that God gave to Moses was that nothing that is unclean can come into His presence, into the tent of meeting. It has to be ceremonially consecrated and made holy before it can be brought near to Him or be close to Him. If any of the humans are intended to be God's sons, then whatever is in them that makes them unclean has to come out of them. They have to be made clean, because a son cannot be far from his Father, and no father wants his sons to be far away from him. However, with the unclean animal nature living in them, they can't come close to a holy God so it must be removed or they remain separated from their Father.

The adversary of the sons' then is that thing which naturally lives in their hearts to make them unclean, therefore unable to come near their Father, just because they come from the stock of cursed humans. The journey to the Father is the brunt and work of this process of removing what makes them unclean and separated from God. It is not an easy, instantaneous, automatic deal as the liars propose who are just animals who naturally take the easy way because no animal ever chooses to suffer. That is against the instinct that is cemented into them when they fully take on that nature which makes them unclean, and they don't just deny it or separate themselves from it because it is God's intention that it be there and God is not outwitted or overpowered by the will of man.

The majority of the humans who claim to know the way to God—as per the reign and rule of the abomination which caused the earth to be made desolate of that knowledge—think the adversary is outside of them so they think they're already fundamentally clean just because they're humans and all they have to do is begrudgingly confess to something they don't believe in the true parts of where they live (their heart)—that they are "sinners." However it's just something they read in a book, so it's something they think they can latch onto as though everything is meant for them (because they're inherently so good). In reality they can't actually believe they're "sinners," for one because they don't know that the sinful nature originates not from a bad god outside of them but that they are the devil because they were bound to it. They don't think they need to be made clean, because they think they're already clean, and because of that they have no desire to actually be clean according to God, and so never will because they just want what they want.

The true sons of God, those whom He does want to be near Him, have to see the adversary as it is, that which naturally lives within them to make them unclean, to keep them from being close to the Father, because they're being made unclean by the nature that rules them by the instincts that are in them that they follow (to believe that they're fundamentally good). However, seeing it as it truly is, is not an end itself, but only the first steps of the journey to the Father. To see it as it is only allows the son to see the path that leads to the Father. Walking on the path is another thing altogether, but walking on the right path is necessary or else you're not walking to the Father, you're just walking on the same road that all the other humans walk on, calling it something it isn't.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

When we find the road, then we start to walk on it which is difficult because it means we turn away from that life which naturally lives in our heart to make us what we are, that which we love so much because we grew to love it, because it is us—our natural animal identity that we learned to guard as though it were something vital and precious. There is a constant pull on us that we didn't even know existed before until we started becoming illuminated to its presence within us. The force of this pull is reinforced everywhere in the world, and the cards are stacked against us; in fact we won't even see the extent of its control over us until we are farther moved along down that path, in the new way of the son instead of the old way of the human animal in the precious little bubble of its own existence.

What combats that nature in us that keeps us unclean is the spirit, the hidden nature of Jesus as he now exists, who comes to us and lives in our hearts to fight against what is already in us (the animal that keeps us separated from him, the Father and our true brothers, the chosen sons of God). The first step is to even see this old man's workings. Sure we can read the words, but we will never understand that we are in prison and that we need to be set free unless we have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the mind to understand the spiritual reality. That all happens as part of God's deliberate actions within the human that is chosen to have those eyes and ears.

Only one of the humans who ever lived did not become an animal; the rest of the humans all do that when they become adults, a process that starts when they become aware of their existence and the need to survive on their own, for themselves. The sons of God are dead to God because they are animals who cannot know Him; they are sinful and fall short of God's glory because they all cross over to unclean adult animal who one intention it is to survive in a hostile world.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Without the deliberate act that the Lord executes on their behalf—baptizing them in the spirit, putting the spirit in their hearts which is the revelation to them of their true Father's intention to make them sons, coming in to inhabit in their bodies to combat what makes them unclean—they would just remain animals in that prison of uncleanness and inability to know their Father or ever be close to Him. It is a recognizable act that happens to the one who is given the spirit, but only after it happens. Until it does, the words will just be foolishness that falls on the animal's deaf ears, because they aren't about anything natural, observable, containable, ownable or controllable. Those are the only things that animals are interested in, whatever can help them survive better. It is only after being set free that the sons can understand they were even in a prison before, which is the condition of cursed humans. That is, the animal nature they were baptized into—the power of the devil, the world, the flesh, the old man to keep them where God wants them to be. He is not powerless to be constantly overtaken by some rebellious enemy—things are the way they are because that's how He made them to be.

If that does not happen, the animal just thinks he is fine doing what he is doing, living as he is living, because he assumes he is already clean, and the adversary is outside of him somewhere else. By the mercy of God he is allowed to believe any lie he decides to latch onto, remaining unclean and not ever being aware of it. So the consciousness of its reality is never allowed to actually be realized, which is mercy. There are many lies in the world about God, and each contradicts the other. Yet each group believes their lie to be the only true position. There is even a small power given to each to reinforce the lie (done by the messengers, the unseen workers), again according to the mercy of God which maintains this state in men's hearts because the actual truth—the spiritual reality—would devastate them. Only the sons become aware of this, even though there is a kind of logic built right into it that the animal cannot ever arrive at.

These writings are for the ones who have been chosen by God to become sons, to be given the spirit who will teach them about all the things that are true according to God, about which none of the animals can ever know because it's not available to them. Only they will have the capacity to understand the many spiritual mysteries which begin to grow after the seed is planted. It is the living, speaking word inside them, enlightening them about these mysteries; before completely unknown to them. These words will reinforce that process. Those to whom it isn't happening will just go on thinking the words are demented and useless, because they aren't intended for them.

Once they have been born of God instead of the animal, that life is like a seed that has been planted in their heart. It starts to grow and become a plant, then a tree. Finally it begins to take over the rest of the garden. Where many worthless weeds once grew wild in the garden (the old way of the animal), the tree of life that was planted as a seed in the son's heart grows in him. Finally, it becomes the centerpiece of the garden. It cuts off the sun to all the weeds that once thrived, which before kept that garden worthless.

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

So it is in the heart of the son, who has been given life via the spirit. His heart is the field, once overgrown with weeds, and totally worthless to God. It produced no good fruit for Him to enjoy. The seed gets planted and the Lord makes it grow by the power given to him by God. He is the gardener, the one who nurtures the plant and begins the process of eliminating the weeds. As the tree begins to overtake the weeds, it starts to produce small amounts of fruit—the son begins to show signs of being useful to the Father. When it gets older, and its roots are well established it begins to produce larger amounts of fruit, and becomes more useful to the gardener, a creature who once before had no purpose or usefulness to God, in now becoming useful as he starts to see what's real and be changed.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

Before the seed is planted in a man he remains worthless to God, yet another wild animal amongst all the other wild animals. When the seed is planted in the son's heart he begins to slowly die to the old way of the life of self-preservation that all wild animals are in prison to. There is no choice for them; they are driven to be what they are. The son begins to be raised with the knowledge of the new life within him that allows him to begin to die to that old way of living only for himself. It is as though he has been planted in the ground. Soon the plant germinates and sprouts, and finally gets mature and produces many other kernels in the plant. The full grown wheat plant is to the spiritual man, as the seed is to the natural man.

There are many parables that the Lord spoke about the kingdom of the spirit and what it is like. These metaphors were used because the natural is a copy of the spiritual—the things to come—and the natural has no capacity to understand the things of the spirit. This is illustrated in the fact that the disciples themselves couldn't understand the spiritual reality until the spirit was given to them, as Jesus promised to them.

All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the holy spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

No matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. 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.