November 16th.

For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the holy spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the holy spirit.

Not simply with words alone, formed into arguments, comprehended by their minds about why they should believe the message. The power of the living word, which spoke to them in that secret place, was the thing that actually convinced them as per their particular calling. It produced a deep conviction which prompted them to believe in spite of consequences. This encapsulates Paul's argument regarding the authenticity of the message he had been entrusted with. The testimony of the lives of the Thessalonian believers also spoke for themselves regarding the authenticity of their calling.

What was the power for, which worked in them—to produce a movement that turned into an institution that ruled the world? That's the human way, what the new covenant got turned into, what we see today as the landscape of western religion, the result of what humans are compelled by instinct to do to anything and everything—own it, control it, take possession of it, have power over it and use it to their advantage.

As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.

The power of God worked in them toward the end purpose of them being able to love, and nothing beyond that matters regarding why that was happening to these Thessalonians. That is the aspiration the sons keep redefining as their target, once that target is established in them, as the process of transformation continues to sharpen what they are. The motivation comes from knowing certain things—that they have a Father who is unseen and not comprehended by the world of humans, but whose life and reality has been specially revealed to them (chosen at a particular time, along with the understanding of that condition of being chosen). Then understanding the calling that they are being swept into is for a particular reason and purpose—to become part of the secret family of sons, not generic in any way but particular. Then their lives become adjusted and readjusted according to their place in the secret family that is known only by those to whom the calling is being extended. Their lives start to revolve around the family and its concerns, instead of their own particular little, temporary lives they had been utterly consumed with before the calling, like every other of the wild animals.

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."

He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

The Father in Heaven is the declaration that He is not seen by the humans (heavenly means spirit, or unseen to those who only observe the physical). The will of the unseen Father is His purpose for this physical creation, that out of it He might draw the members of His own family, which He has been doing as is disclosed in the preserved words, yet which also goes unnoticed by the humans who either ignore it, or if they think they want to clomp onto membership in that secret family they assume it's something (open to public consumption) that it isn't (secret, open only to those who have been chosen to have the life of the Father revealed to them). That is the explanation of why so many of the humans (christians) claim to be able to know the God who has always chosen those He wants near Him, even as the words clearly declare. However, as per how the humans operate, they assume to be able to just push their way into God's house by their human power to assume and pretend they have something they don't/can't have. Their presumptuous attitude that they can hold God hostage to their own assumptions that they can just become God's spokesmen, when they have no capacity to know God, is in line with all the humans who have ever done that.

In other words, the false family is one which doesn't know that the family is secret, just like the Father of the family, who has always worked in secret, and the Son of the Father, whom He kept hidden from the humans in his life and his death. The most clear example of the secretness of God with regards to the most important event in the history of the humans, is how the Son's identity was kept hidden from the very ones who claimed to have power over the words which spoke about his coming. And their presumption that they would just get rid of the Son by killing him has the most profound implications in that it was that very act which created the salvation of the entire family of the secret sons of God, including those who had already expired and been put into hell (the grave, sheol).

I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?

God makes many promises throughout the history of and writings to Israel about how she will be redeemed and restored. It was all of that writing which led to the presumption of the leaders in Israel to hope for being destined for such a marvelous thing as Israel being restored to how she was under David the King. They assumed that the promised Son of David would be the one to usher that greatness in and make them all great. However, the words that were put into the minds and mouths of God's OT sons (the prophets) were speaking about something secret, not something that the humans could even become interested in. They were words about a certain kind of greatness, that according not to what the humans could appreciate, but a greatness among them as per how God viewed greatness, value and success—fundamentally the opposite to how the humans do it.

What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.

Success according to God was to not be fundamentally human; that is, be led by the animal instincts that are inside them to lead them and make them the same as all the wild animals. That is the opposite to the humans who would always choose to be good, better and great if they could be, according to what's naturally in them to want to become that in whatever ways they can. Driven by the compulsion to make his life better is exactly the opposite to what the Son chose to do, a completely unhuman thing to do (and not because he was a god so that it came naturally). Success for the Son according to the Father was something that none of the humans would have ever guessed, and even now it isn't anything they can actually perceive, even though they study the words and claim to know what they say, they don't get what makes the Father happy. They say with their mouths that they know, but their heart is the heart of the animal bent on self-preservation, which is opposite to what the son's heart must become—that is, just like the firstborn Son's heart was, which was the ultimate success to the Father as far as a human, which Jesus was (the only clean animal).

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.

Notice that the Father commanded the Son to lay down his life, which was the crux of the personal covenant between them. Because the Father lived in the Son's heart, He was close enough to make His own covenant with him, which was an extension of the old covenant given by Moses, but didn't at all look like what Moses had given, according to the humans who couldn't see the secret message contained within the Law, that wasn't secret at all. They just couldn't see it because they were unwilling to see it, because they rather changed it into something not so appalling to what they wanted, something more acceptable to the nature that lived inside them.

Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.

The Father did not send the Son to the leaders, the wealthy, those who presumed to be good, better and even great among Israel. He sent the Son of David to the blind, lame, diseased, deaf, dead, poor, widows, orphans and finally, to the aliens (foreigners, the gentiles). The general message is that whatever way the humans go and want to go because they call that success, the opposite is true of the way the Father wants His own sons to go, because His view of success is opposite to that of the humans because of the presence of the nature in them which makes them behave as they do—of the wild animal, opposite to that which lives in the sons of God, of the firstborn Son who looks like his Father, not like the father of all the animals, the greatest of all the animals. That is the serpent, which is a force and power, not an entity with a will of its own, which is the mythical christian fallen angel, the evil angel who became god-like when he rebelled against the good gods and took a bunch of the rebellious angels with him when he left. In this mythical comic book scenario based on the old Greek and Roman stories of the gods fighting each other in some heavenly place, there is the removal of all that is actually true. The mythological gods who never existed is what the entire western world has been built upon, which is fascinating and appalling, yet right in line with how the real God like to keep His identity secret, along with the nature of His purpose which is His own secret family of sons, to whom the reality of His identity as their true Father is revealed.

The real adversary of the sons of God is not some fallen angel god with his army of demonic fallen angels, but that power of instinct which lives in the humans to make them want to continue to be the wild animals that the same nature defines them as, when they are led by it (when they indulge in whatever craving comes up in them). When the sons begin to be able to identify that nature, then the personal covenant can begin to be formed within themselves. The things that lead them away from being pleasing to the Father begin to become identifiable to them as they notice that whenever they do such things, something happens in them and they know. That is how the covenant begins to take a form they can understand. Then when they start to understand, then they can actually start participating in it, which is the relationship between the son and his Father, via the teaching of the counselor who is teaching him how to be a good son for his Father instead of a wild animal that is unclean in its heart, meaning not able to come near the Father, not able to know Him, not able to participate in the secret covenant that takes place in his heart where the humans can't observe, hence they cannot validate it as something good, or judge it as wrong because they have no access to it.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

For Paul (or whomever wrote the letter to Timothy), belief in the message of the truth of God as it had been revealed to him required both things—the words which the natural mind could understand had to be correct regarding the message of the kingdom. But also, the power of God in the form of the spirit, which spoke to that secret place in them, was for him the thing that authenticated the message on levels which could only be comprehended by those to whom it was happening. It was unable to be weighed or examined and it could not be seen. It produced an illogical outcome in them, as they acted against the self-preserving nature of man. Instead of sorrow and grief because of severe suffering, they responded with joy, which Paul knew was given to them by the power of this spirit, and validated the message of the kingdom that Paul was preaching. Not an earthly power that could be recognized and seen by humans as they naturally observe all things.

Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine. "

The voice of God heard externally didn't sound like a voice at all to the humans. It sounded like something natural, like thunder, indiscernible and un hearable except that it was loud. For their benefit means that God was providing more evidence that Jesus was who he claimed to be. Why would they keep needing proof? Jesus looked like one thing on the outside, where the humans observe and make judgments about all things. It was only in the secret, hidden, unseen world, a different dimension than the humans are able to see or comprehend, that his validity was given. His ability to do miracles gave that validity, and those who saw it may have even believed it for a second. Then the door just slams shut and the natural takes over, what seems apparent and believable.

The voice of God that thundered wasn't the voice that Jesus heard, why he said it was for their benefit. The voice of God according to what Jesus understood was from the life in the form of the spirit, which lived in the secret places of his heart. That was the word of God as he understood it, what raised him up by teaching him with living words from inside himself about how to be, what to choose and what to deny.

And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

The word of God in the present day is thought of as the printed words which have been preserved—the Bible, that which is termed the "inspired word of God." That's not what Paul considered the word of God, as he refers to it here. He thinks of it as the message he spoke to them, that the life of God was alive and could inhabit their hearts, that the fulfillment of the OT scriptures was found in the Son who achieved salvation for the secret family. He in an unseen form was that Word which was alive, the catalyst of everything that was happening, the institution of the new covenant by the planting of the life of the God of Israel in their hearts, making them the real Israel, that which natural Israel (the nation God brought out from Egypt populated by humans) only pointed at. It obviously wasn't a static set of printed words called the Bible, which hadn't yet been gathered together.

It was a message that was alive and true about God, whom by the spirit came alive in the hearts of some of the humans to make them sons instead of what they were before—because of the specific revelation to them that they were sons of God. It was the message, the good news that Paul told them, and they accepted, which was at work in those who accepted it as the truth, or those who believed. It is the same thing as what came to us, which first started working even while we were still young, but became apparent to us a few years ago. We observe it as not something logical, rational or explainable—we just know it's true and real, driving us in a particular direction (to the hidden Father), even as much as we know that what the humans claim to be the way to God all around us is false. It is not something we can control or manipulate, though we have tried to as per all we know to do with anything we encounter, as per the evil that defines us to do what humans do.

For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

We also know that the message of the kingdom, with which we are just becoming familiar, didn't come to us with mere words, or by the teaching of any human. The administration of angels or another supernatural force, we aren't sure exactly what, only that against everything we've ever understood about God, it is the only thing that was true even from the beginning, and continues to grow inside us. It's not anything that could be observed by the humans, because it's not a natural thing. It seems much of the time that it might not even be true, because of that inability to be validated in our experience (our human expectations based on our old selves). However, like the voice of God that thundered, this truth that is alive and growing in us keeps being revalidated and renewed within us as we continue to choose that way over the way of the natural animal—what we keep getting pulled back into, where we used to live.

When we're obedient to this unseen, unbelievable thing that's happening, it renews itself and strengthens its position in us, so it's easier to believe what's unbelievable. If there are any "formulas" to continuing in this secret life, that is one of them—being obedient to what is unbelievable, secret, hidden, and un validated by the humans. That condition of being not validated by the humans will be a source of much grief for us, but it is the power of God to test and refine us so that we are able to believe more, as we continue to go along in this process of the transformation that is compulsory if we are going to find our Father and know His love.

All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.

We know that what has happened to us has been a totally supernatural chain of events, driven by that same power that convinced the Thessalonians that Paul's message was true. We know that we were "woke up," as a figure of speaking, around February, 2001. It was a very dim light at first, but it has been slowly and gradually getting brighter as it is growing in us. It has created situations in our lives that have required us to make hard decisions that produced hard ramifications about going on with the work that we knew had been started in us, yet didn't know much more than that. It has been prompting us on to keep searching for what is true and real about God.

We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.

Greed to get things for itself and a craving for praise, honor and respect from the humans are two fundamental characteristics of the animal nature and what it always loves and therefore tends to run after. The other of the three most fundamental things is the various forms of appetite satisfaction.

The statement, "It's not what we can get, but what we search for," makes sense to me now as something the sons of God can rely on, a kind of creed for them in their journey toward the Father. The animal nature, which we're learning is the devil—the adversary of God and His sons, "put on" man a long time ago—always wants to get, have and possess things, to make it feel better, more able to have a kind of peace that unfortunately doesn't last. When it gets something, it holds onto it and feels somewhat secure by "having" the thing—whatever it is, tangible or intangible. Safe dwelling, money in the bank, secure job, respect and admiration, acceptance, validation, familiar habits, etc. These are all things that the animal spends its life "getting," attaining and holding onto, protecting with the resources it has, so that these "things" won't go away. The humans will only reinforce those things as valuable, which is bad for the sons who need to come away from them.

What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.

The animal also tries to do that with what it knows about God, because it needs to feel it can control everything, especially its future. It thinks that it can hold onto the life of God and keep it. It thinks that once it finds and "gets" knowledge about God, then it can do the same thing with that knowledge as it does with its other "things." In reality, though, even the little that we know about the things of God is that we search for them, and we are given a little; but then we have to keep searching, and receiving a little more. We cannot stop and think that what we have can be held onto as something that is our own possession, or can serve us in that animal way. We never possess God, like we possess stuff.

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

That is one thing we're learning now about the life of God in us. We still freak out when it seems a little different for us, like we've done something wrong and the animal fear makes us think the life is gone for good. It forgets in a second what has happened countless times within us, every day for a couple of years now—that it does go away, but it comes back, and that is for a specific reason. What we're learning by all this is that we just have to keep searching and we will continually be given more, because it's not what we can get, but what we search for. The life of God is not like "things" which remain stagnant, so that we can hold onto them and allow ourselves to feel secure about what we have. It's a very natural thing for animals to do, but not sons of God because our only actual power is that which comes from our Father—a very unnatural, uncontrollable thing that grows only by more of the same power, according to God's specific directive that it does. If not, we just remain or become another part of the dying creation, everything that exists for a short time then dies.

Jesus likens the "message about the kingdom" to seed that is planted in a son's heart. Once it germinates it continues to move and grow, never just standing still or it would be rotting. That is the seed, sown in our hearts, that turns into a tiny, tender sprout, then a young shoot, then a complex plant with branches and leaves—all happening in a secret way, which is what the son's life becomes with regards to how the humans evaluate and judge him (because they can't see what's happening in the secret places). Finally after years of gradual, steady growth because of proper nourishment and conditions, it becomes a tree which produces something that is actually useful to the One who sowed it and provided these conditions for it to be what it finally becomes. The Gardener doesn't just plant a seed then tend the plant, expending valuable resources to it, so that it becomes sterile and useless to Him. He does it for specific reasons, so it will accomplish what He wants. Of course all of the is happens in private, in the secret places of the son's heart, according to how God always acts (unobservable to the humans at large).

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

The life of God is so complex that we have to keep searching for more nourishment so that it continues to grow in us, so that it can change from a tiny, one dimensional seed into a large, complex and useful tree. It constantly searches upwards and downwards for what it needs to continue to grow—up for sunshine with its branches and leaves, and down for nourishment and water with its root system. Jesus understood that the natural world resembled so many things about the life of God, the message of the kingdom, that had been alive and growing in him for 30 some years. He realized that God had created it as a copy, so that he could understand that life in him. We have to do the same, as we are able to hear.

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

The "message about the kingdom" is also what Paul preached to the Thessalonians. It wasn't only the words of Paul that convinced them, although those words and concepts were correct. It was the living word that Paul terms the "holy spirit," which did the real work, and brought power and deep conviction to those who heard it. It convinced them that what Paul was saying was actually true, which made them able to embrace it, even in spite of severe suffering. The message of the kingdom is also being preached to us daily, sown in our hearts by the great sower, the great prophet who was preached about by God's holy prophets. He came and preached the message of the kingdom to those who were in darkness, but were chosen to hear what the Father wanted to say to His sons. Then he was raised in power and given the ability to continue preaching the same kingdom via the spirit, which is his voice, the new covenant, that living word which spoke to Paul, and confirmed his message to the chosen sons.

Next to him, Baruch son of Zabbai zealously repaired another section, from the angle to the entrance of the house of Eliashib the high priest. Next to him, Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired another section, from the entrance of Eliashib's house to the end of it.

The sons working together to accomplish the secret will of the hidden Father is the message of Ezra and Nehemiah, in whom God put the burden to rebuild what had been destroyed. It is what was happening for a short time in the first century, in whom the life of the secret Father was living.

Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.