November 25th.

Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD?
That day will be darkness, not light.

Darkness is the absence of the knowledge of God amongst those who need that in order to find the peace that is found in Him. The humans can go their whole lives without the light of the knowledge of God just fine; from birth to death that's what they do like all the other animals. Finding ways to protect themselves, gathering their necessary food and shelter and whatever else is required for existing in their fragile bodies that soon wear out and then they are no more. They're conceived in the darkness of the womb and they commingle with the dirt in the darkness of the grave. In between they exist in the darkness of the animal consciousness that is separated from God. They do whatever they have the chance to do, according to their opportunities and skills in the art of gathering for themselves what they need to survive, then they become just another nameless, faceless piece of the creation, a part of the earth.

I rebuked the officials and asked them, "Why is the house of God neglected?"
I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign.

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, " `My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a `den of robbers.' "

The priests and Levites are a copy of the sons who live in the Father's house, keeping it clean and peaceful, not allowing that which isn't supposed to be there to come in to God's house.

Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"

Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."

The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

God lived in the body of His long predicted Son, for whom He had patiently waited for so many years. That says a lot about what all of the commandments for the construction and maintenance of the tabernacle and temple were about the Son's body, the better place than the inferior copies, where the Father wanted to live with the Son (not in houses made by the hands of men.

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

It's not what we can get, but what we search for that forms our identity as sons of God. The animal is all about the getting, the taking, having, holding, controlling, and having power over, because those things form an agreement that the animal searches for within himself, that he is okay and has what he needs to survive. That's what animals do all their lives while they live as mere animals in the world ruled by the animals. The sons don't ever "get" anything they can settle down with, hold on to or control so that it serves them, which is what the animal is always craving—getting things around it so it feels a little insulated from the hostile world, and people to serve it so it feels like it's in control of its environment. The sons of God search and keep searching  because their identity is not like the animal identity (being defined by what we can get—things, positions, honor, respect, family, safety, security, identity, food). The sons of God are defined by what they search for, which is the way to the Father who is purposely hidden from the humans so as not to become found.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For every (called) one who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Although we have been guilty of desiring to get validation from man, to prove that we are right, and others are wrong, or to impress the world with our insight; these are not what we want to be searching for because they're what we want to get for ourselves, to satisfy that need and craving to get and add to, and validate our identity and our own existences. We are being allowed to see the animal nature as it exists in ourselves—what causes us to continue to desire to get these human things—and see that it's ugly and shameful, yet so prevalent because it's truly the most effective thing that ever existed, so much so that those who are being completely controlled by it can't even recognize it in themselves. Even though it is the stem of so many problems, all they can say is, "That's just the way it is." The fact that we recognize it is shameful is a good thing, because it means we can at least see what we are at our core (not inherently good but bad, wrong and evil), where before we were totally blind to its control over and effect on us—indeed to it completely defining us by what we tried to get and have for ourselves as we blindly followed the instincts inside us to do what they told us to do for our selves, compelled to be mere animals because we existed and made our decisions based on a force and power of instinctual impulses that always turned back on itself and the continual need to survive by getting, having, buying, protecting, holding onto and controlling for the sake of our selves, just like we're all programmed to do.

This is what the LORD says to the house of Israel:

"Seek me and live; do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing."

Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

Even though it still exists to a great degree, around every corner tugging on us to do its will to get, have, possess and control whatever we can for ourselves, nevertheless at least we see, which is the tiniest little beginning of the course the transformation takes. However, the little bit that we see isn't anything we can get or hold on to for our securement and gain, like we've reached a plateau where we can rest and go back to whatever it was we were doing before we started walking. We should not be fooled into thinking that just because we're being called, then the animal must not exist in us. That's important, but it's equally important (because we are being given the ability to see it) that we continue to "see it" more and more, to admit it's there, to confess our evil and engage in a continuous repentance from the animal nature, because it never just goes away—it is an integral part of our nature, what we became bound to when we became mature animals with the full-blown wild animal nature inhabiting us to teach and tell us what to do and how to be in order to survive.

By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

We have to keep searching for the only thing that can combat it (the commands of the teacher who is trying to show us how to be good sons for the Father) so the life of the Father who makes us sons will continue to grow in us. It has already been growing in us a great deal, even since our eyes were opened in 2001; and we have no reason, other than the animal fear of the earthly consciousness which is compelled to hide from the truth, to believe that it's going to stop growing. If we know we're chosen to become sons, then we should be able to expect that the ability to be transformed will continue to be given to us, and it doesn't come from the same place as the animal fear that is inherent to us. The only thing that lives in us natively is the evil that lives in all the animals that keeps them separated from the Father.

"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them.  "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man `unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man `unclean.' "

Consider the evolution of our consciousness about this thing. When it first happened we had no idea what was going on, but we knew it was authentic so we just continued with what we knew was right in our hearts. We ascribed all sort of wrong motives to what was happening, jumping to many erroneous conclusions in an effort to try to explain what was happening, mainly so we could find the agreement we were looking for which we thought would allow us to control it and validate it ourselves, for our own purposes, so we didn't have to trust and believe Him who initiated this in us. Control is something the animal needs to have—feeling that it is doing the right thing, that it has a valid purpose for living. It's sort of a joke, considering what animals are actually ever able to attain to; yet nevertheless that drive to have a valid, noble purpose so it can justify its existence, remains. It's irrational but consistent, efficient and persistent. The animals are driven to feel like they have arrived or will soon arrive. The sons don't arrive, the agreement they seek to find and maintain is to just keep walking toward the Father.

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (the life of the Father living in them), and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The humans who assume they're going to "be in the kingdom," or "go to heaven" don't understand what Jesus did or who he was, nor what the kingdom or heaven actually was for the sons who were under the new covenant in the first century. The kingdom of God, or heaven, or of the spirit was the life of the Father and Son as newly created being, living in those who were still unclean in order to make them as was the Son, who was a human but had the life of the Father living in his human body, which made him the only clean animal that had ever existed. Not divine (as goes the lie), but inhabited by God who created that non-human identity within him, because of that life dwelling in him. Because God's life lived in the first century sons, they were not like the other natural creatures, but were a part of the new creation, that which was being inhabited by a part of God's body which made it alive, not dead like everything else that seems to be alive.

From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.

This was true in Paul's mind and heart about himself and his true brothers who were under the covenant in the first century. This condition does not automatically extend to the present day (one of the most fundamental misgivings of the christians), or even past the time when the earth became desolate of that truth (4th or 5th century). There is no reason to assume that that condition is available today, just because the animals are attracted to a promise of eternal survival, the ultimate form of what it's always involved in. The animals think they can take what the Father reserves for His own sons by force, so they can possess and control it for their own gain, to get the ultimate something from the God they think they can buy and own according to their own will. That's what the groups who claim to know the way to the Father do—grab the truth and bottle it, control and regulate it, set up "experts" over it to maintain power over the way to the Father, like it was a toll road. To get there, one has to pay the toll in many different ways. And many of the humans trust the experts to lead the way, right into the ground. The way to the Father was taken out of the world when the abomination came. Now the world is filled with so many roads that lead nowhere.

The day of the LORD will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him.

Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

We could say that the work the Lord did was merely a means to love the Father. The work itself isn't as important as the fact that he did the work, willingly. That's not to say begrudgingly disguised as willingness. Nor that he wasn't ever tempted to take his life for his own sake, as in the desert and the garden. But why was he willing to do the work, which is the important thing for us? Because he actually loved the Father more than his self. He was a true Son, who felt and understood true love from his Father. He was kept clean by the Father who lived in him until he was of age, then when he was of age he chose the right and kept himself clean, not ruled or led by the 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.

Believing that what is happening within us is true and acting on that belief by what we choose—especially because it seems on the natural level to not be true—is the faith that our Father wants to see in His children. Why? Because it goes against the animal inclinations and the Father is against His own sons being ruled by the animal. That's an abomination to Him.

We always want to control whatever we can, to own and possess it so that we can make it believable because we are able to hang on to it and make it serve us. However, that's the animal still in us, working to try to get us to serve it, as it perpetually does. This is a hard teaching to even be able to see, not to mention be obedient to. The life of the son is filled with pain, suffering and enduring because we cannot grab onto anything like we're used to, and there is no empathy from the humans available because they just don't know. We have to let those old ways go, even letting go of the process of letting them go, because even that we'll want to hold and claim as something good that we're doing. The life of the transformation is so unappealing to our natural selves, that old nature still remaining.

Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.

What are we to say about Paul, concerning his former life of wealth and status and his hatred of the Way; then his conversion to it, followed by a life of suffering as a mere servant, "for the sake of the elect?" Is it just a notion in his head, the thought that he must at all cost propagate the details of this new religion to as many people as possible? Of course not, but because he loved God. And if we took the animal stance and only said that it was a feeling of love for God, meaning some religious duty to procure for himself a better place in another life, we would be just as wrong. The animal is always wrong to God, but always right in the world. There is nothing in the natural world that can lead us to the Father, that path is secret, hidden, and only revealed to those who are chosen to know the way to Him, because He made it that way.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

There is nothing superstitious about Paul's devotion to the gospel and the the Lord. Instead, the force of love, an actual power that moved him, was at work in Paul. That force of the son's love and devotion to the Father is indirectly proportional to the presence of the animal consciousness in the sons who were under the new covenant in the first century, and the reason they did what they did. Not an obligatory life of arbitrary or self-established suffering without joy, but joy in abundance—the joy of knowing the Father's love, of feeling and experiencing it, of participating in it, of receiving it and giving it back to Him and those he had chosen to be in His family, the true family of God.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

No one can be exhorted or convinced to love God, nor to love his brother. That is not possible for humans; only for those who are chosen to be given the thing that makes the transformation to that identity possible. It is a totally supernatural deal. We can only love our brother if we are first loved, and given love, by God. That can only happen if the life is living in us, otherwise we're just self-loving animals. It cannot be manufactured by the animal, because the only love that is in the animal is for its self. That is the message Jesus came to give the sons, the truth that was taken out of the world so many hundreds of years ago. Everything else is just another part of the lie. One of the biggest lies is that it didn't leave, that it's still available just as before—the foundation for all religion, all lies about God—that a human, even an "expert," can know the way to the true God.

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

If the truth about Jesus was taken out of the world and replaced with lies, then there is no way to the Father except what is secret and hidden, and no one knows about the secret way unless they're shown, and if they're shown they know, and if they know they don't set up a religion or stand up in front of other humans to get the intangible cravings of the animal—to be honored, respected and worshipped. They cannot be shown unless the animal nature is beaten and pressed out of them like a wine press which only produces the satisfying juice for the farmer, and all the dross and waste are left in the press to be thrown out into the field which is the world ruled by the dead.

We can see the results of this even in our own experience, when as humans we heard the commandment and thereby tried to love, to force ourselves to act like we cared. In our hearts though, we cannot, because in reality there is no love in the animal by which it can love anyone except its own flesh and blood self. Only its own offspring can an animal actually love, and that only because there is a piece of its self in it. That, however, is not much of an accomplishment, nor is it fulfilling the commandment to love our brother who is not our flesh and blood, because that's what all animals do by instinct—take care of their brood instinctually, without choice. That desire and pull is just in them to do it, and of course there are anomalies.

Our purpose as animals is to get and build up valuable identities and things around our self in order to feel safe, to build our worth up so as to feel invulnerable, and to satisfy our own appetites. Compare that with the purpose of the son, represented by the lives of Jesus and Paul—to search and find, then know, the love of God which exists in His Christ. Meaning, let the purpose of Jesus also be our purpose, which was to know the love of God, and thereby to know God by it.

Searching without completely finding is a good thing, in that we don't become smug and satisfied, able to hold or possess the gift that has to be constantly renewed by our constant repentance from following the animal because it's so darn hard not to follow it. The only reason we wouldn't follow it is if we were actually able to trust what has been given to us so far, and the One who has been giving it. Trust, belief, faith, love, hope are all part of the same process if it's true. If it's just another part of the animal who can only hide from God, then it can be anything we make it because it's all just relative to what we want to get, and what is approved by the "experts."

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said.

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.

That is the reason Jesus was raised from the dead, because God knew who he was and He remembered him. They exchanged love, in a real, living relationship—not just in concept, only waiting for the reality to appear after the resurrection, but in the life he lived as a man. We believe that the only reason that the animals are so in love with their money, their things, and themselves; is not because of any flaw in them that they need to overcome, but merely because of what they are and the condition which exists for them—animals with the animal nature which cannot get to God.

In that sense it's all perfectly explainable, from what God ultimately wants to why the humans are the way they are, even to the question of "Why do I exist? For the son there is no purpose except to find and know the Father's love, which exists outside of the animal consciousness. It cannot be found in the world, what we can see and comprehend with our natural senses. But it is the treasure that Jesus and Paul knew, worth infinitely more than anything which can be attained to, gotten, or experienced in this body of flesh.

Here is a trustworthy saying:

If we died with him, we will also live with him;

if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;

if we are faithless, he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.

Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs--he wants to please his commanding officer.

If anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules.

The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.

Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this (by the spirit which lived in Timothy, and by no other means).