September 21st.

Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, "Sir, open the door for us."But he will answer, "I don't know you or where you come from."

Then you will say, "We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets."

But he will reply, "I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!"

There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.

The human/animal nature always thinks it knows. It always protects itself at the expense of everyone and everything else. Then it hides in some noble thing so that it isn't found out. Its first impulse and inclination is to say, "No, I'm not bad, you're bad, they're wrong—everyone except me." Then we think to ourselves, "How could I be wrong?" It always has to feel and agree with its self that it is right and in control—everything must be okay and the only way to maintain that is if it is always righteous no matter what it does.

This is not an exaggerated picture of the nature that rules and drives the humans to make them what they are. They won't see it because of it, which is poignantly ironic, the way God is, the way He likes to be. And the humans are just predictably this other way, driven to protect their precious dignity (as if they actually had any), to maintain their good name (as if they had one). When the truth is finally revealed, then the silliness of the humans and what they assumed about themselves will be seen. Now it must remain hidden from them, so they will continue to be and remain as they are. However, the sons who are being given eyes to see what they won't see, must use this ability to see to their advantage, by understanding how it can contaminate them if they let it. The whole purpose of being given eyes that can see what the others cannot see, isn't just so we can do what they do and get the edge on them. It is so we can come away from that power because we *can* see it for what it is. That's the long and short of the message all wrapped up in a nice tight package.

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish." I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.

The way that the humans are is not just a random deal; they are the way they are based on the way God Himself is, although not for the evil but for the good, because He is good. For instance the evil that makes the humans and all the other animals only able to love and take perfect care of their own brood for the evil (because it means they cannot love anyone but themselves and those who have their own "mark" in them—themselves via their own DNA replication), is based on how God is toward His own children, for the good (because His plan and purpose is the only thing that is good, the only process geared toward an eventual outcome that will endure).

Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

God's own sons weren't bound by the commands that would make the others "unclean." For instance, His sons were given permission by the Son of God to pick grain on the sabbath because they weren't being made unclean by it. Someone much greater than the one who was given the sabbath command (Moses) was with them, and the word he spoke to them (that intention of the Father when He had declared them to be His own sons who were bound by that word, which was so much greater and more authoritative than the law).

Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread--which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, `I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

The Father wanted them to eat, so He provided grain for them to eat, the same way He provided bread for David His own son, which was reserved only for the priests. Because David was one of God's own secret sons, he was in a way above the law for the humans.

"What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes--from their own sons or from others?"

"From others," Peter answered.

"Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him.

Ezekiel was told to defile himself according to the law, for the sake of the message (His word or intention, what He plans to do):

Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel." The LORD said, "In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them."

Hosea was told by God to defile himself in a hideous way according to what the law said, by marrying a prostitute:

When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD." So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

The law isn't above what the greater intention of God is. When He calls His own sons He separates them from the humans by making them to appear as one thing (law breakers), when they are gleefully quite another (responding to the word that the Father is putting in them), what is hidden from the humans at large because the Father delights in putting up with their stubborn blindness. That's because He knows those who are His, that they are safe and secure and will be with Him where He is, because that is His intention and that overrides everything else—especially the intention of the humans, no matter who they think they are. After that it's up to the sons to hear and be convinced, swayed, converted to what is true, even though it seems to the otherwise in so many ways according to the humans and the limitations of what they think they can see.

It's why we were made to look like adulterers ourselves to the good people who assumed that about us, because that is the way it was set up by God to appear, so that they would have no other recourse but to kick us out of their illustrious group of kingdom-goers, in their own estimation the only humans who have "the truth." Ouch that hurts, because since they think that one must be in fellowship with them to be right with their god (their man-made system), then that means they must assume we are destined to not be in their kingdom, where they apparently are all headed. Gee, wouldn't it seem that they who wear the crown of those who know "the truth" would be above acting like every other animal in the forest by separating themselves from what makes them uncomfortable, by abandoning those whom they at one time accepted as one of their own?

This is not for the purpose of allowing our selves to feel glib, but only meant to illustrate—not conceptually but in a real life situation that we experienced first hand—how the animal nature rules the humans. And it doesn't matter what they say with their mouths about how devoted they are, how much they love and how obedient they assume themselves to be (because they follow the convenient rules of their man-made system. That is precisely why the Son of God purposely violated the man-made rules of the humans who appointed themselves the leaders of God's people, when they didn't care about God's people. They just assumed He didn't see what they did.

Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the house of Israel is doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary?

He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, `The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.' " Again, he said, "You will see them doing things that are even more detestable."

The humans will be judged by their own hypocrisy, by condemning they will be condemned, because they just couldn't help it. However, that doesn't make them unable to see what they do, if they decided to desire to be honest about what they've done and continue to do via neglect and abandonment of what is inconvenient, while they embrace and love what is convenient—all because they just follow what's inside themselves to do and be, according to the dictates of the animal nature that makes them unclean.

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

It only seems fair that according to the same law they have created, by which they have judged and condemned others, they should also be judged. Sow while they judge and condemn for a violation of their law, according to what they *think* they see, are they guilty of the same thing?

You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

There is, however, a law that the sons are not above:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

To the humans these words can only be hollow, conceptual theoretical ideals because they are bound by another law that binds them wholeheartedly—the law of the animal in the jungle, in the forest or in the sea. That law is alive and it rules them perfectly. It tells them what and who they should and will love—themselves and themselves in their offspring and anyone who can assist them in that burden. So when you hear them tell each other in their churches that they love each other, they can only be mouthing some obligatory words they think will save them, because they can read the words about loving their brother so they say they must do it. But they can't because it's totally impossible for them to love and take care of anyone except themselves and their brood, in an honest and pure way—that is, being motivated by a drive that originates in their heart to be able to do it so that it's done authentically and genuinely. That is what all this talk about having an honest heart is all about, because that is where the true identity of the man actually lives, and what he will be judged upon. The things that the humans try to do from the outside they must do begrudgingly, because what lives in their heart is what drives them to do what they do.

Only the life of the Son of God living in an animal's heart can begin to transform that place of residency to a house where he and the Father can live, so that they begin to do some damage to the animal who has lived there all the time before. To erode the animal so that its presence and power begins to decay is a long process, made possible by the host's cooperation. In other words, it's not anything automatic or devoid of pain and suffering that transforms the son, but the choice he makes in wanting the better thing to rule him. That is a choice toward cooperation with the voice he hears speaking inside of his heart, which isn't generic but able to speak to him personally, able to make a personal covenant with each one of the sons because he is alive and not generic or dead. He doesn't speak from physical tablets with the commands written down on them, but as the son is able to hear and accept, so the teaching goes accordingly. That's so the son learns what the Father wants him to learn in a totally effective way, because his teacher is alive and active, not dead words in a book or a tablet.

If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

What the humans did (whore of babylon) was to take the words meant for those whom the Father had specifically chosen to become His, and make them generic and meaningless by diluting them for public consumption. That way they could decide who was able to become right, but not with the real God. At that time, Roman and Greek mythology (many gods) was popular amongst the humans, so they totally restructured everything so that they could control it. It is what all the daughters of the whore (every one of the human groups which claims to know the way to God; who believe the same lies their mother created so long ago) also believe about the words that the Son of God (not a god) spoke to that specific little group of men whom he knew were chosen to be able to hear what he was saying and not turn away toward what was inside them to be driven to accept (Judas is the example).

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

The myths the author is speaking about were popular at the time he wrote this, so it's not hard to see where the christian "many gods" ideas came from. The reason they are hard to see in their true light is because the whole world believes the lie, and the humans are given over to whatever they want to believe because of the power of the animal to rule and control them. Rebellious and stiff-necked is what the animal nature/condition is, unable to see the truth from any perspective except its own, always biased toward its self and those who uphold its cause (mostly its own DNA carriers). Content and satisfied with its self and the way it provides for the safety of its own righteousness for its self, and can always see the unrighteousness of the others very clearly, but can never be this objectively critical about its self. It hides in the guise of pretending to be open-minded about things when it always has its mind made up to be right. The deceiver is very good at deceiving—that's why he is called deceptive and crafty, and an adversary.

I speak this out of experience, because I exist as one tricked and deceived by my own nature to not be able to have any other perspective than my own; which is the curse the humans are under, the way God set it up and wants it so I can't just become righteous if I decide I want to be. I must remain unrighteous, unclean and unable to be brought near to God, because I am born under that curse like everyone else. If God wants to choose to make me able to not be as I am, then that's His choice, but it doesn't come easily, quickly or cheaply—and especially not because of my decision or that which follows some generically ambiguous salvation meant for anyone and everyone who ever gave half a rat's ass about finding the real God who makes Himself hidden, so that He can see whose heart wants to find Him.

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
May those who love your salvation always say, "Let God be exalted!"

The animal nature likes me to believe that there is always something intrinsically good about me. It's actually impossible for me to feel that I am generally, substantially and fundamentally wrong (diseased) at my core—that there is absolutely nothing good in me. I might say it because I think that's the right thing to say, but in my heart I think the opposite even if I'm not fully aware. Precisely because I am *not* good I am driven to be right, perennially justified, the one with the answers and always with a purpose because that's the animal's operating mode. Humility about who and what we are compared to how God would want us to be is what God has to see in His sons, or else they will just remain unclean. The animals nature is so geared toward self-protection that it cannot allow us to understand the truth, because that would undermine its agenda of self-protection.

Think of God the creator and man the created versus man and a dog he raised from a puppy. We would expect that the dog would be happy to see him and obliging to be his dog. But what if the dog progressively turned on him and didn't respond the way the man was used to, or expected. What if the dog acted like any wild animal in the forest and ran away from the man when he called it, or barked at him and bit him like it didn't even recognize him? What use would that dog be to the man, who raised it and faithfully cared for it every day? The man wouldn't feel compelled to save the dog, or feel he owed it any allegiance back toward it.

That is what the animal nature is like with God, and even worse, because God does the impossible. He doesn't call His sons when they're puppies, in which case it would be easy to ensure they always loved Him. God calls His sons when they are fully grown, fully adult and have fully adopted the nature of the wild, full-grown animal so they are naturally hostile, fearful and untrusting toward Him, and not easily converted into tame, faithful, trusting creatures.

The animal nature as the sinful nature, what keeps the humans separated from God, goes all the way back to the beginning in the Genesis story of Adam being deceived by the animal, believing it instead of God. Because of that God made Adam's nature the same as all animals, marked by fear and survival of itself at all cost. It also makes sense throughout the story of God's dealings with man, why man is the way he is, all the way up to our own nature—what we personally know is true about our own operational modalities, the fear that's naturally within us, and the lies we constantly feel compelled to hide behind because we don't know any better.

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, `Why did you make me like this?' " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea:

"I will call them `my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her `my loved one' who is not my loved one,"

and, "It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
`You are not my people,' they will be called `sons of the living God.' "

The first reaction will be that of the democratic syndrome of self-defense and self-justification. If God created it, then how can He condemn anyone for it? Just as Paul states, there is a purpose we cannot see, because we are stoopid and evil, inferior and unable to see the wisdom of God. Since He made it to be the opposite of what He wants His sons to be, then it is the perfect condition whereby His sons can be tested, since they look and act just like all the other humans.

They are the same, in fact, and have to be pulled out of that same condition that all of the humans are born into and exist in, even though it's what they intrinsically love and are compelled to hold on to. That is the nature that opposes God and is hostile to Him because it can only love and accept itself and the things it values. To be able to love God is to abandon all the things it loves because they're naturally imbedded within his nature. They are him, and because he's programmed to love and care for himself, he naturally wants to hang on to whatever aids him in that.

The best way to do that is to not be able to actually see what's true, but just keep believing the lie that is reinforced all around him, with every interaction of his with the other animals, that the lie is actually true. But it also is the thing that keeps the son unclean and unable to come near to God, so he has to learn to first see it for what it truly is, then to learn to hate it because of that condition of keeping him from knowing his Father, making him unable to love and care about His interests because he's so continually and thoroughly caught up in preserving his own all the time.

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.

The flesh needs to be special, right and purposeful, to find agreement within itself, for itself. In this state of constant self-rightness we don't need God, because we are always already good enough. Because there is something intrinsically good about our selves, then what good is the Lord's life living in us. By our attitude we actually say that we are fine and don't need the Lord, even though we might think we should say the words. We might say we need the Lord because we want to cover ourselves, but in our hearts we think much differently.

There's no chance of escaping from this state of double-mindedness, of total love for our self and hostility toward God. We only say the things we think we should out of a desire for self-preservation. There is nothing good in a human, even and especially us who know something, because knowing or saying doesn't make us good, as though we've adopted the right attitude and all of a sudden we're not still totally consumed with self-love. That is the predicament Jesus is addressing when he is talking about hating our own life. That is, finding our condition of being totally self-absorbed and preserving abhorrent and disgusting, and desiring not to continue to hang on to it, but to be freed from it.

The problem, though, is that that is what we are going to be judged by—the secret things in our hearts, the way we feel about ourselves and God. If in our heart we actually feel that we are fine, then we are saying that we don't need Him. But the dilemma of the humans is that that's what we always say in our heart, that we are fine more truly than anything else, because that's how we're programmed to be without fail. So in every sense we are bad, evil and wrong, yet programmed to feel as if we are naturally good and righteous. What a predicament.

God gives man the desires of his heart, or the secret things that only God can see. Contrast that with the Lord's understanding of his flesh before God The opposite of the flesh is an actual broken and contrite heart, which we might pray will be our understanding. However, that's a devastating mind set to be in, and cannot come without serious injury, suffering and hardship—whatever can break down the pride and self-will and make it obedient to another besides its self. To root out the evil from our heart is a hard thing to have happen to us. But without it happening, we will just remain caught in this lie, the continual state of the humans to live and die in.

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

"He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast.

From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.

I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.

Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you.

Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.

I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.

Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches."