September 13th.

Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 

This is significant because this insignificant peasant is bringing back the power and truth of Moses and Joshua and the incredible things that God was doing in their midst—what was happening around them to powerfully bring them into the land. Jesus was proclaiming the true law given to Moses, not that which it had degenerated into under the humans. That was the law which had power when it was given, the same power that is being displayed by this ordinary, unrecognizable man. It subtly and silently trumped what the teachers of the law had turned it into. Moses was given the old covenant to give to the people chosen by God. Jesus was given the new covenant to give to the new, secret people of God—just as he was secret and hidden.

Just as the old was taken over by the humans—the rabbis, priests, teachers of the law, etc. who turned what was good into what could serve them—so also very soon after it was given the new covenant was taken over, most likely because both are just copies in the natural of that which is enduring and not part of the natural. That which is ultimate doesn't conform to that which is temporary. That's why even though they're good, because they're given by God, they're allowed to degenerate, decay and fade away. And what always takes the place of that which is good? That which consumes it by the power of the humans to get and possess, to take and own, to control and regulate—never for the sake of anything good but *always* for their own evil selves and that inherent (instinctual, like any animal) need to gratify what is in them to do that. It is the enduring condition of man to be like the wild animals (survive at whatever level he can) because it is the curse, and that's how God intended it to be.

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus knew about the power of the animal which desired him to run after and obey it, which can be seen in the temptation account. After tempting him to satisfy the thing that was highest as far as what he needed—to eat after fasting 40 days—he went to the next need, craving that is a major component of the animal nature that wanted to rule him. The craving to be recognized and applauded, validated and approved by the humans—what brings honor, respect and notoriety to the individual and therefore pulls it away from God as the only thing worthy of praise—is a very powerful lust/craving that lives to be satisfied.

We write about all the things that are significant obstacles to the sons of God because we see them in ourselves, and struggle with them daily, hourly. It isn't as though we have arrived, have accomplished anything within our selves so we are past it and can write about it now. We understand a little bit about the truth and severity of these things because they are what's happening in us right now, as we struggle to just walk on the road that leads to the Father. It is filled with huge potholes to fall into, and snakes jumping out of the bushes, and enemies ambushing us from all sides. Those are the things that well up inside us, coming not from the outside but from within our own hearts. It is us we are fighting, that which constantly throws up obstacles to knowing, hearing, and seeing what can heal us by making us honest in our heart. We can only do that by not hiding from what lives in us, what still draws us back to our selves and the cravings/lusts/fears that demand be satisfied and appeased within us, by us—by the things we can do with the power we have to do them to satisfy the animal's fierce hunger. That is the correlation between us and what the Son had to face as the animal tried to do the same to him.

And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.

Jesus knew that he was a servant of the most high God, and that without the power of the life of God living in his body, he was and would have been nothing more than any plain old human (never a god). The life of the Father who lived in Jesus was the only thing good about him, and he knew that the power of the animal nature to turn him away from that understanding was also at work, so he was careful to not allow it to overtake him and deceive him into believing the lie—the heart of how the animal nature operates, that the individual in whom it resides is always the most important thing at the expense of everything and everyone (especially God). The animal nature in the humans is ultra efficient by how it just keeps pulling itself back into all the individual humans and sets itself up—the particular individual—as its own little god, and so keeps each one of them worshiping themselves, therefore unable to worship, love or even know God.

They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men's hands. Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.

The power of the life of the Father was living in Jesus' body, and it was only this which made him different than the other humans. *It* (He) is what (who) did the miracles, not Jesus himself but the hidden life of the Father living inside the Son who was secretly at work. The humans couldn't see Him because He doesn't exist in a form that they can see or comprehend. All they can do is make up stories about Him that suit their lives and need to be served by their version of what shape and form they make their gods into.

The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

That power was in him from when he was conceived, not by the DNA of Joseph but God, mixed with the woman, which made him what he was—the firstborn among many brothers who would also, just as he was, have to be born of God, from above, of spirit and flesh mixed together; in order to know Him who was their true Father. This is what the prophets were predicting long before it happened, which is the manifestation of the new covenant, that the life of God would live in the bodies of flesh and blood humans, of those who were chosen to become sons. It's what Jesus told Nicodemus would have to happen, as he set up the contrast between what is born of humans (replicant humans) versus what is born of God (His hidden sons).

"Follow me," Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Why was Levi and the other disciples so willing to just leave their lives—everything they had and were—to follow Jesus? Because the spirit and life of God was telling them that he was the one they had been waiting for. It was no doubt working in them, getting them ready for Jesus before he came to them. John the baptist was also very direct in pointing him out to the specific men God wanted to follow Jesus.

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.

According to Luke, the accounts of Peter and Levi say that they left their profession and the tools they used to practice it in order to follow Jesus. For Levi it was his tax booth and everything else he left, for Peter, Andrew, James and John it was their fishing boats and nets. The point that is being made by the words that were written down and preserved about these accounts is that practically speaking, a hugely powerful and undeniable force was necessary for these humans to leave everything behind to pick up after this man they didn't even know. But it wasn't a generic power and force that swept across huge band of humans that caused them to leave their lives to follow him. It was pinpointing certain individuals, to make a point about the true God works, not as the humans say—that He is a generic milk-toast and loves everyone the same and wants everyone who ever lived to be with Him—but as He truly is, specific and partial to those He loves, just as a man is toward his own sons versus every other kid on the block. The truth and power of the force of the life and will of God was working in these men to prepare them for him who was coming, that they might have ears which could hear the message he was speaking and respond by doing the work of believing. And it was never a generic or random kind of deal.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

Because of so much of the influence of the abomination and the desolation that ensued, which left the world devoid of the truth of what was happening in the first century and since then, and at the mercy of the humans who made up the lies about who Jesus was and what he did; we tend to read the NT with not much excitement regarding that short period of time when the spirit and life of God did live in the bodies of men, as predicted by Jeremiah, Isaiah and other prophets who themselves were copies of what would come in the first century. That is, the life of God, the living word, the unseen spirit inhabiting their bodies and minds in order to teach them the right way instead of the wrong way (the way everyone else constantly went because of the animal nature that completely covers and infests the humans). That is the new covenant, the real temple of God, at which all of the man-made ones only pointed. Even it, though, was still only a thing that was done in the midst of the world ruled by humans that was only a copy of that which isn't natural but like God. That is, His own family of sons, which is His purpose from the beginning (His will), what He has been secretly and silently gathering up to Him while the world goes on as it does, independent of Him and His secret plan and purpose to have His family with Him where He is.

The spirit (the intention of the Father to give life to a son) gives life; the flesh (the way of the world ruled by the human animals who just go along without ever having any true revelation of the living God, sot hey just make up their own) counts for nothing.

Only when God who is spirit can live in His sons' hearts who are flesh and blood, can they come near Him and He come close to them. Otherwise He cannot mix Himself with flesh and blood because the animals are unclean and cannot come near to Him, as per the terms of the curse. Sinful flesh cannot come near to a holy God. That is what is so important and incredible about what Jesus actually did for God, in being and remaining clean—not led by the animal nature, untouched by the devil which completely infests the humans—so that only by his sacrifice could the sons be with the Father. That is how much his obedience was worth, which is the example he set for the others. It was the offering of Jesus' life, body and obedience that was able to make the hearts of the sons who were humans clean enough for God to actually dwell in. That's what was happening in the first century, which points to the ultimate and best thing—that the Father will have His family with Him where He is.

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

It's impossible for the animals to imagine what an incredible thing it was that happened then, which is why we see countless thousands of examples of groups who claim that it never left, that the pitiful display they lift up to the gods (themselves) that's happening in their groups is the same thing that was happening then. Even though nothing good comes out from them but a rehashing of the same dead lies that have existed for hundreds of years since the abomination was complete and the earth became desolate (the state it remains in even to now); they claim that the same spirit (even though they turned it into another one of the gods) is at work doing the same things. The christians will say that the spirit god (what was actually the life of God living in the bodies of His sons—the mechanism of the new covenant) never left, that it's active and alive today, inhabiting their bodies as before. The fact that this so-called spirit god compels them to believe in a jesus god (the good god) who never existed and a devil god (the bad one) who is outside of them, not that which is their very nature, answers pretty well the question of why christianity seems like a comic book story with just the right plot and characters—because it is based on the mythologies of Greece and Rome who had lots of good and bad gods.

The christadelphians say that the life and truth remained, but the activities of the spirit ceased after the first century, once the church was firmly established. They're right, but only partially, which is fatal because the spirit was the life of Jesus and God dwelling in the bodies of men, which was the condition predicted by Jeremiah and Isaiah. It was the new covenant, the new temple being built by God, a place where He could live surrounded by His sons in peace. It points to that which *will* someday be, because God isn't in the process of being duped by a renegade devil (the bad god). Rather, He created the devil for His own purpose, to provide a choice to those who would have the choice given to them.

The spirit was the intention of God, the living word, the very life and truth of God who, because He is spirit and not flesh, could inhabit the bodies of those men. It has no personality as yet another one of the good gods alongside the Father, because it is the Father's intention to reveal Himself to His true sons, and the spirit is how He does it. It's a thing, a way of interacting with the humans He has chosen to interact with, not a god which has its own will and agenda. Confusingly, the christian spirit god is God even though it isn't God. Because the sons are flesh and blood, they are bound to the physical laws of this creation. Because God is spirit He goes anywhere, unnoticed by the humans, detectable only to those by whom He wanted to be discovered—from righteous Able (righteous because he heard the voice and responded by listening and obeying what he heard) to the very last one who chooses the way of the Father when he is given the opportunity to choose.

What Jesus said about the abomination that would cause desolation wasn't about the temple in Jerusalem. That building didn't matter to God because it was made by the hands of men, except that it was a copy of the better thing. He didn't even want it to be built, but He allowed it for the sake of David, whom He loves. It's to answer the misguided sentiment of the disciples and their amazement about the buildings which produces the material of Matthew 24 and Jesus' response. After they had commented on the buildings he responds back, "You think there is something good about them? They'll be completely torn down and made into rubble—that's how good they are, just like everything the humans make." They are not worthless because they point to something better, which is what is good because it like all the copies doesn't degenerate, decay or fade away.

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

What they would soon marvel at would be the real Temple that God was building, they being its stones. The real Temple of God, the spiritual one at which all the man made buildings only ever point at, is the body of the family of His sons which together make up the the actual Temple. It was being represented again by the condition that existed on the earth when God lived in the hearts of His sons, the ark of the new covenant within the holy of holies, in the short period of time in the first century before the abomination was set up in the temple. That's confirmed by both Paul and Peter in letters preserved for us to read.

Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

That's what would soon happen to God's temple a short time after Paul's body died, because it still was only a copy of the better thing which will never decay or be destroyed, like everything is in this creation. It's why Jesus was speaking about the prophesy of Daniel, because they were talking about the temple which was a building, and Jesus was telling them about the true temple, the whole thing being built upon him as the cornerstone of the building which was spiritual, made by God—not physical, made by men. That's why the world seems devoid of any of the truth of God as it existed in the first century, because it is and has been for a long time, as per Jesus' own prediction in Matthew 24.

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end (of the phenomenon of the new covenant on the earth) will come.

The abomination that caused the desolation wasn't a one time deal, but a movement and installation that took hundreds of years, to finally wipe out what was real and true and turn what was good into what got firmly established in a.d. 381, and has slowly evolved into what we see now—a landscape dotted with groups whose declarations about the truth that Jesus gave to his disciples are all built on the lies made up by the humans who were carrying out the abomination in the second, third and fourth centuries. They all claim to be right, and also claim to have the exclusive truth about their version of the jesus god they cling to like a golden calf. They cannot see the irrationality of their predicament even by human standards, but are caught up in believing whatever lies their group is putting forth, at the expense of everything else, because they're given over to what they want to believe. What none of the groups realize is that there is no truth in the world about the real Jesus, what those first century believers knew. Everything is made up, which is why it always contradicts itself and is confounding/confusing to every one of them, because it's based in Roman and Greek mythology which were just made up stories—the same as the stories associated with any idol made by the hands of men.

So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."

The truth was taken out of the earth when those stories were made up about the gods who replaced the only living God. There are partial truths, as in the case of the christadelphians, but the mistake they make that cancels out anything right about them is the same one all the other groups make—that their interpretation is complete and correct, and all the others are wrong, so they are the Lord's only true representatives on the earth now. In reality they're just human animals like everyone else, needing to feel like they are right, the ones who are "correct" about God (correct is in quotes because no human can ever be correct about God, because they are human and God is God.

Although they may be correct in a few facts, that means nothing because it's their condition that makes them separated from God and therefore unable to ever be "right," as Able is declared to be right with God (righteous). The most important things—the living definitions enlightened by the teacher—totally escapes them because of their condition. They want their gods to be the gods of the theoretical and the dead, when the living God must be that in order to be alive—in them, not in some far away fantasy land called heaven or the kingdom. That is the reality of the first century brothers, and the mechanism that authenticated the new covenant was the guarantee of life, that the life was alive inside them, not in a theoretical way at all. Like every other group whose members think they know the way to God, they think that sin is what the bad people do (not them), instead of what it actually is—what totally and completely covers the humans (them) and binds them with the wild animal nature (the serpent, the devil) as per Genesis 3, and makes them unclean and unable to be brought near to the God who is alive, not dead.

Sealing up the remnant:
--When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

--The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

--Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the LORD called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, "Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it."

As I listened, he said to the others, "Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.

--Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: "Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God."

--Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.

The adverse, of everything else:
--He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.