November 18th.

Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.

There was a time when this movement was pure because it originated and was maintained by the unseen spirit body of the Son and the Father. The leaders who were put in place were there by the Son's choosing. The animal was kept at bay for the short time that the spirit was alive and at work in the bodies of these humans. It wasn't very long before the animals took over what the church was becoming, and finally made it into what it is now—the same for everyone who claims to follow the jesus god, perverted into that position via the humans who took over what was good, according to the will of the Father. What once flourished as the living water flowed out onto the inhabitants of the earth, was destined to dry up.

The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree—all the trees of the field—are dried up. Surely the joy of mankind is withered away.

Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"

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.

The cursing the fig tree should be coupled with John 15, about the true vine and the true people of God. Israel's time of being the people of God was coming to an end and would soon be over. A new people being chosen by God was being born out of a new covenant, which would be a fulfillment of Israel, the better Israel. The new way to please God was being instituted by the only one who had any power to do it.

A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

Jesus was familiar with Joel's withered fig tree. The voice of God which lived in him (the living word) taught him about its significance in the spiritual reality. His cursing the fig tree was very much tied to his familiarity with it and his understanding about what Israel is meant to represent. Cursing the fig tree was for the disciples' benefit, to show them that the Father was not pleased with that relationship and the condition of His people, and He was changing it, just as He had changed His mind about Saul, who didn't please Him, and replaced him with one who did please Him.

After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: "I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do."

The "people of God" at that time were the humans who were in the natural lineage of Abraham. However, God's people were continually in and out of being useful to Him. The Israelites were as the fig tree which had no fruit, like a barren vine that produced no grapes for the gardener to use. Why? Because they lived for their own selves, as all wild animals are meant to, which is natural for the animals but not for those who are being called to become real sons of God. What Israel represented became good only to be cut off and thrown into the fire, because then at least it could provide something (a little warmth), and then wouldn't be taking up valuable soil, water and nutrients.

What is being useful to God? Going back to the original intention of God, to have a house and a family, is the place to find the answer. What isn't useful to God are sons who cannot come near Him because they're unclean and polluted by the nature they're born into as the curse on all the humans. All the humans are in this category, unfit to come near to Him so He cannot ever know them, and therefore cannot ever love them, nor enjoy them, because He can't been around them to even begin to know who they are.

"They will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

There is a reason that God forgives the sins of His chosen sons; so that they came come near Him without being totally destroyed, so they can get to know Him, and He them. There isn't any automatic love that's just put in people like a magic spell, or given out of some obligation they say God must be under to love everyone and accept anyone that comes to Him, like He was a robot without feeling or preference, so limitless in His capacity to love that He loves everyone the same. In that case the love He has wouldn't be worth anything because it wouldn't be at all valuable if it were so common. However, the love of the Father for His own sons is the most valuable thing, and it isn't watered down by the stupid lies of the leaders who claim to know the way to their mechanical god who wants to cram as many bodies as possible into the made up heaven where being a ridiculous idiot spouting lies about God is the only rewardable thing to be.

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

Then he sent some more servants and said, "Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet."

But they paid no attention and went off--one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Then he said to his servants, "The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find." So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. "Friend," he asked, "how did you get in here without wedding clothes?" The man was speechless.

Then the king told the attendants, "Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

For many are invited, but few are chosen.

The Father knows the sons He chooses to come close to Him, just like He chose Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Gideon, David, Daniel and all the prophets to whom He spoke to reveal His purpose when He whispered in the ear of their heart about His secret love. Love comes over a long period of time, by getting to know the other via a relationship that isn't one-sided, nor is it continually trampled underfoot by one party's unwillingness to conform to the covenant that the relationship is based upon. There isn't any "think this way about God and you'll be saved" routine, as the liars teach. It isn't just an arbitrary concept that people should know for the sake of being able to babble back the lies when asked. They teach that anyone can have the love of the Father as though it's some cheap discounted item in the clearance bin, and worth little because it's "free," as they have misinterpreted the meaning of free as intended by the writer.

The humans think that because God's so "big" then everything's just automatic with Him, that things which are normally required (time) just disappear because God is God and the rules are different. However, it's the humans who are making up the conditions that they are applying to the gods they made up who doesn't live by observable rules, but bypasses the rules for their benefit. When you make up a god you can make him into anything you want/need him to be for you, to give you something (eternal survival) while you live the way you want to (like an animal who just wants to live its appointed life satisfying its cravings to be what it needs to be without even thinking about it.

The philosophy that's born out of that condition is that they will just remain animals who don't know God—don't actually need to know God—and when they finally get to where they're going then they'll just be automatically zapped with love and everything will be freaky peach from there on out. That's the thinking of all the religious groups, the hope that gets manufactured out of the despair of the realization that what existed in the world at one time is now gone, non-existent. But they can't face the possibility of their demise because their nature compels them to be afraid and hide (as per Genesis 3), so they just make up whatever story suits them so they can hide behind it and feel safe.

There will be much of that and other animal thinking residing in the sons, which needs to change over time as the teacher apprises them of their condition and the need to see and adjust toward the end of becoming clean for the Father's sake, so He can be proud of them for having the courage to stand up to even themselves. The importance of this for those who became sons in the first century is that Jesus did know God, intimately and personally, because the Father lived in the deepest part of him—below his mind and intellect in the consciousness of the secret places of his heart where every animals is truly defined before God the Father. That wasn't just some far away concept about the relationship of Jesus and the Father, which is nice to postulate and pontificate. The whole point of that little part of the Son's life being recorded,a nd those words being preserved, was so the sons could see the secret message that the same thing must happen in them too, or else they couldn't be sons, they couldn't see the kingdom, they couldn't find their way to the Father.

I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

The Son wasn't talking about some holy spirit god, which was made up by the humans a few hundred years later. The life of the Father's ability to live in the bodies of humans would be born the same time all of the OT sons were born to God, when the Son said "It is finished." Then was the point at which the new people of God, who were able to worship Him properly (in spirit, which is what/where God is), were birthed. It was at that point when the Son knew that it was no longer possible for him to change his mind and do what he wanted to do, no longer even an option for him. He had obeyed God, and done the work, not for his own sake but the Father's.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

At that time, the prophets and holy people, the sons of God who were living in hell (the grave, sheol) were raised up and presented to the Father. They were given birth by the obedience of the Son in not allowing the animal the right to rule him. Their resurrection was the sign that the Son obeyed the Father instead of the animal. Then was the cause of much celebration in the spirit world (heaven), which caused an outpouring of the spirit on the earth as per Joel.

These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy."

The outpouring of the spirit was the celebration of the Son's vindication by the Father, and the fact that he was with the Father meant that the celebration would last for a while as per the Father's desire to vindicate the Son and his word, but the reality of his presence was happening not on the earth but in the place where the Father is and always was—hidden from the humans. After the generation of humans directly involved with the Son had passed away, which coincided with the destruction of the man made temple—highly metaphorical—then the celebration started to fade and was completely wiped out by about the 5th century a.d.

Now learn this lesson from the fig tree (representing withered Israel whose metaphorical demise would be finished by a.d.70): As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Jesus could have gone 2 ways—the way of the animal or the way of God. The way of the animal would have been what the voice of the animal told him to do in the temptation. It would have been becoming the Messiah that everyone (except God) wanted/destined him to be. It would have been assuming the position of the son of David, the great king of Israel. In this way, Israel may have maintained their position as the people of God and become a mighty nation. In going the way of the animal, though, Jesus would not have remained the only clean animal—the Lamb of God who was able to bring salvation to all of God's beloved men from the past—His faithful wife who loved Him. Jesus became Isaac as God became Abraham. They both sacrificed what they loved, what they could have had and been, for the sake of the family of God, the sons who loved God from the past, present and future generations of men. After that, the sons of God wouldn't be those in the natural lineage of Abraham (the Jews), but those born of the spirit of God, that little part of Him (His spiritual DNA) which would guarantee their resurrection as well—the very thing that sealed all the men that God had loved before. It is the thing He said would be Abraham's real and lasting reward.

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the holy spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

The writer knew that the life of God in him—made possible only because of Jesus' decision to go God's way—was the seal, the deposit, the guarantee of things to come (resurrection and life). He knew he was sealed, because he had already tasted the powers of the age to come while still in his earthly body. He was under the new covenant, promised by so many of God's holy prophets. He knew the scriptures, and he knew that the time and condition he was living under was that time of the new covenant. It was the actual life of God living in the bodies/hearts of some humans, which made the prophesies of Jer 31 possible, so His law could be written on their inmost parts, so it could be learned and obeyed, and they could be clean and pleasing to Him because they could actually be useful.

He was content with the life he had been given. He understood the power that was in him was all he wanted, because it provided him with the assurance of salvation, the guarantee of God's intention to redeem him from the grave. It was an invisible seal and deposit which was his guarantee about all this. It was the voice of the living word, the life of the Father living in him which interpreted the OT scriptures that he had previously studied so diligently into the message they were meant to convey. Not merely the history of a group of humans who always disappointed God, but more so the copy of the better thing, what He desired from His people.

It was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Faith was something that went from Paul to God, what he did for God, because he loved God. He knew that following that voice was more important than anything he could have attained to in the natural. Like Abraham being willing to give up that child of blessing for God's sake, Paul was also willing to give up what he could have had in the natural for the Lord's sake. That was a gift, fruit if you will, that he gave to God, because it's what God loves. That is the work we do for God, a thing we can give to Him—to believe in spite of opposition, or when we don't want to.

The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.

God allowed Paul to taste "the goodness of the (living) word of God and the powers of the coming age." That gift among so many other complexities of the life in him, gave him hope that he was doing the right thing, that he wasn't crazy, and that the voice that called him was true—it was the hope of the resurrection leading to life with God, truly being in His eternal family that would never die. His Father would never abandon him, never go away from him.

Hope was something that went from God to Paul, given by God to Paul because God loved him, and wanted Paul to know that his life and calling were true. God wanted Paul to be sure he had been chosen, and sure that he was going to live, as a son with many brothers who also loved God, forever—that God would never go away from him. That's a nice thought—no more abandonment.

Both of these things (faith and hope) are possible because of love. Love is what prompts God to choose a man and give him the gift that enables him to feel secure, then begin being able to shed the animal skin, the old nature, and start to come closer to God by so doing. Because of love, God gives a man hope, and because of love, the man can give faith back to God, but either way it is because of, and for the sake of, love.

God did not appoint us (the chosen sons, not the humans in general) to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

The sons don't tear each other down because of their own fear and unwillingness to come out from their place of hiding. What about me, not my brother, should be our concentration. It's hard to see what's true and not be influenced by the old lies because they are so close and it's so easy to deflect and hide instead of embrace and come out, by dealing honestly with our own selves instead of zooming in on what the other is doing wrong to make our lives so terrible. That's the way of the cowardly animal filled with fear that just wants to hide all the time instead of face their own fear, in their own heart.

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"

Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me."

We can only do that with our own selves, we cannot twist the other's arm into submission, but we can twist our own arm because we will have to be going against what we love to do that. We will have to be courageous, not like those who shrink back. It begins and ends with our own selves and the personal covenant we have directly with the Father. We do not have to power or the authority to make another conform, especially when it's a conforming to the human philosophy that doesn't apply to the sons of God.

Out of reverence for God, I devoted myself to the work on this wall.