November 30th.

And the kingdom will be the LORD's.

The kingdom of David was to be the kingdom of David's Son according to what Nathan told David. The Jews figured that meant that the kingdom would be restored to the way it was when David was king, when Israel was powerful and the Jews were a people who had command over other peoples, not the other way around which it seemed to have been so often.

When they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

The mind set of the Israelites, as already stated, was about the earthly kingdom of David being restored. As per Obadiah's last sentence it will be God's kingdom, not David's. And what is God if not invisible and unseen, unable to be even recognized, which means He can't be figured out or put into a box for the humans' sake, so they can control Him. He is made up of what only can be called spirit, which is just a label for something that is so different from the natural world that it can only have a label, but everything else about it eludes the humans. If God is the spirit and the kingdom is God's (not belonging to a human like David), then it is also the kingdom of the spirit, which is what kingdom of heaven means. In other words, the Son makes a specific point of saying that the kingdom which Nathan tells David about, that which the prophets speak about so often when true Israel, the Israel of God—what the nation of Israel only pointed at—would be restored will not be anything that the humans will be able to observe, because its nature will be of something about which they are not privy, being natural being who cannot comprehend the spiritual reality of the only living God of the true Israel.

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee.
From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Whenever Jesus says "Kingdom of heaven" he's reiterating that it is different than the humans think, that what they were presumably waiting for—because the prophets kept talking about it so much—wasn't what they thought it was. Rather it would be a kingdom filled with creatures who were transformed from natural to spiritual so they could comprehend their true Father and be a part of that kingdom, which was God's who is the spirit. It is just a family, the thing that God has wanted most since the beginning of the natural creation as recorded in Genesis when the humans who disappointed Him rather than pleasing Him are first introduced. The family of God is the subject about which the prophets prophesied when they said so many times that even though Israel kept being punished by God, nevertheless she will be restored.

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

Before the days of John the Baptist, the kingdom was unknown because it existed only as a metaphor (a gathering of human who considered themselves brothers united around One God) for what was coming, but not until the days of John the Baptist. When the days of John the Baptist started, then the kingdom of the spiritual sons of God opened up, became available if you will for those who could hear his word to lay hold of it, because it was finally being made available with the advent of John the Baptist who was the herald and forerunner of what all Israel was presumably waiting for, because of the words of the prophets who kept talking about the kingdom that was coming, but which nobody knew about because it was of a different substance and nature than the humans could perceive. They could only perceive a natural kingdom made up of humans (Israelites of course) who ruled the world of other natural things, including people.

"I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God (who is spirit, meaning heavenly, hence kingdom of God = kingdom of heaven, or the real kingdom that the prophets were speaking about that no one could know about until the advent of John the Baptist) unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.' 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."

"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?"

In essence Jesus tells Nicodemus, "You claim to be a teacher in Israel and you don't even understand the total metaphor of what Israel is about or for, what she can only point to because she is a totally natural phenomenon? Is God a man? Is He a natural being who you can lay your eyes on and see, and say there He is? The God of Israel is as unencounterable and uncontrollable as the wind, which Solomon knew. He is secret and hidden from the humans and as unexplainable in what He is doing and will do (for instance the reason for the nation of Israel's existence and her future) as where the wind comes from, which is not at all comprehensible in any way (esp. in those days). The whole phenomenon of what the prophets were speaking about is as simple as, "It's not like you think." Those who were so presumptuous as to assume they thought they knew would be left in the dark, while those who were assumed to be totally ignorant would be enlightened to what all the words of the prophets in Israel actually meant (not what anyone expected). It pleases God to take the unassuming and downtrodden and make them great, which is a fundamental description of how delightfully ironic and unexpected His nature actually is.

The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:

"Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

The kingdom of Israel under king David was a time when they had dignity and respectability because God gave that to David, whom God loved because at the time he existed he looked to God like He envisioned the coming Son to be. David in a forward looking way reminded God about the one He was waiting for, the firstborn Son over all the family of sons who look like their Father, as did all of the OT era sons who had the traits of what the Father patiently waited to find in the one who would be perfect to Him. Yet this Son was one whom the Father wouldn't be able to see, recognize or enjoy for another thousand years after David lived. So He had to wait patiently for him and be reminded by the humans who resembled what the Father hoped the Son would look like, the one He anticipated but whom He hadn't yet met or even seen because he hadn't been born.

Jesus was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.

The christian myth of the jesus god states that he was already with the father god and the holy spirit god in heaven, waiting for the proper time to come down and offer the token sacrifice for sin, then go back. This is not an exaggerated view of christian theology; it is the most fundamental thing one must adhere to (the Trinity) if one is to consider themselves a christian. One of the many things that christianity negates is that anticipatorial idea of God having to wait for the Son to come, the one who He had not yet met. The christian view means that nothing makes any more sense than stories about Apollo, Zeus, Cyclops, Athena, Diana, Jupiter or Mars make any sense. For instance, the Son's sacrifice of laying down his life actually meaning nothing if the jesus god already existed as a god and just came down to offer his token sacrifice—if he already knew the outcome of everything. Also totally convoluted is this idea of the Father, the only living God, the holy One of Israel having to wait for the Son to come, which explains why there was so much celebration marked by inordinate supernatural happenings in the first century—the spirit world overflowing with joy, which was spilling over into the natural world—of the Father and Son finally being united. In christian theology it's all just a ho-hum non-event because everything was all arranged ahead of time with the jesus god popping down to earth then popping back up again when it was finished.

For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

He was tempted to go the way of the animal, to act on the instinct that pulled him to live for the natural existence and all the things he could get in the natural (because he was the Son of David according to Nathan's prophesy, the true Son of God), to love himself by gratifying the instincts that pulled on him to get and take by the power of his own arm to get. Instead he used that power to lay his opportunity and right as an animal (although a clean one) down and live for the other sons who reminded God of him and had been chosen to be the recipients of this love—if they could ever come near Him. But they couldn't because they were unclean and God could only live in and be close to that which was clean.

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the spiritual calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house.

The writer is encouraging specific people toward faithfulness to the Son who chose the Father, just as the chosen Moses was faithful to the One who had chosen him. Faithfulness in doing what? Confessing his name, which during the time that the new covenant was seen on the earth, meant suffering. After the abomination was finished, confessing the name of the made up jesus god didn't equate with suffering, because that idea was mythical and acceptable to the humans in power. There was no power or struggle—the earth was made desolate of the power that the apostles knew and replaced by the mythological stories that were put into place.

As the holy spirit says:

"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did.

The way God works has always been different than what the humans expect (the simple message that Jesus told Nicodemus), what they want to hear in order to accept their version of Him and His way instead of what they already have, which is their existence as they have made and accept it as the only way possible. They learn to give themselves comfort the way they best figure it out, and that is what they expect to be able to rely on, their own little bubble of existing, taking care of themselves, loving themselves.

That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' "

The Father's plan was to give them something great, but it required that they endure the suffering of testing and believing Him who they couldn't see over what they could see (the secret message contained within the words as revealed to the true sons as part of their transformation), even though it looked on the outside and the inside that things were bad. What they ended up doing was thinking back to the time when they lived in Egypt, attaching all kind of false emotion to their experience. Their craving for food that satisfied them in that very basic way was stronger than their ability to believe and trust the Father, even though for forty years they saw what He did, those cravings were so strong that they overwhelmed them. Much like us, they wanted to be delivered without the fuss of having to trust Him to do what He's said. They didn't want the testing, or to have to believe and put aside the overwhelming fear that rose up in them because of the animal instincts that kept telling them they were going to die so they freaked out, and the panic spread throughout the camp.

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

The way the Father worked with the Israelites is the copy for us to look at and see how He will deal with us, if we are chosen to participate in the spiritual calling (if we hear the voice of the One whom the humans at large seem to be oblivious to because He isn't speaking to them). The Israelites were specifically formed and chosen to be His people on the earth. In the history of God dealing with the humans, they were those specifically chosen to do His purpose, as the metaphor of what became available when John the Baptist came as started speaking about the kingdom of heaven and God.

It is not as portrayed by the religious institutions, a salvation that is open to the general public—anyone and everyone who adheres to the correct doctrine, or facts as interpreted by certain humans. It is a secret calling, as the Father is secret, so to be called to this calling is not a natural thing that can be observed or even thought about properly. It's not like developing a philosophy or opinion about anything in the natural realm and then calling that one's relationship with whatever god is at the center of that story. The foundation of religious institutions today is merely sets of official, glorified opinions about made up gods, a practice first started by the official church of Rome when they made the spiritual calling a natural deal, an official opinion backed up with the natural political power to eliminate anyone who disagreed with them (which they did). For those who are not chosen to share in the spiritual calling of the secret sons of God, there is no need to understand what's real; they will make up whatever official opinion about their god that seems best, and uphold that opinion, which they turn into rules, by any power they have (nowadays they can only exclude one from joining their group, maybe talk some smack and ruin their credibility a bit—in the old days they just killed them). If the modern day religious powers to be could easily kill us, we would have already been dead a couple times over.

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.

The Israelites were a called and chosen people on the earth who belonged to God. Entering into the way of the Father is what going into the land was a copy of, for the sons who are called to the way of the Father, of the spiritual calling. It is the reason that those stories are preserved, so the sons can know what the way of the Father is like, what He wants from those who are called, and how the others responded to it. This is the argument the writer of the Hebrews letter is trying to get across, as per the theme which comes out clearly in chapter 9—that the things the Father set up for and amongst His people, what the preserved words testify about, are all just a copy of the better thing.

Then Moses said to the people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving."

"On that day tell your son, `I do this because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.' This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that the law of the LORD is to be on your lips. For the LORD brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand. You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year."

"In days to come, when your son asks you, `What does this mean?' say to him, `With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.' And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand."

So what is the teaching, then, for the sons of God, within the preserved words of the history of God's people? He specifically chose them, raised them up in a foreign land, in servitude to another master. His people grew up in Egypt, just as we grew up in the world of the humans, one of them and under the power of the ruler of this world, bound by our nature to serve it and be a slave to it.

For a long while they were able to just live there in Egypt and thrive with their families, just as we existed for a long time, living as humans in the world of humans, unaware. Then at a certain time, they were called out from there according to God's purpose with all kinds of miraculous signs to show them His purpose, which they couldn't deny. Then they were tested by being taught God's way that He wanted/expected them to embrace as they abandoned the old way, what they were used to, what satisfied their animal needs, but was a dismally bleak existence as slaves in Egypt with no home of their own, and a harsh master.

They didn't know where they were going, they hadn't been to the land that the Father had promised to their father, they only heard stories. But then when the time was right they were just pulled out from their dismal situation to be changed into something they weren't before, but it wasn't all just with the snap of a finger and the instantaneous gratification of being transported to the place. They had to go there, and trust God that He would deliver them, even if it was only because of the miracles themselves.

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

What is Jesus talking about? Going into the land, being given the kingdom of the spiritual sons of their spirit Father is what Jesus knew; then the apostles after him along with the few other humans who were chosen to be under the new covenant in the first century. He was talking about something very specific, which hadn't been available or even known before John—that God was not far away and awesomely dreadful, but as close as He could be in His chosen sons, because He lived inside them. There was no spatial separation because of physics with regard to the Father and His Son, because the Father isn't bound to the laws of the physical.

Jesus was saying to the disciples what God was saying to the Israelites: "Didn't you see all those miraculous things that were done on your behalf, so you could see and believe?" Then he warns them that the time of testing was coming, when they would be tempted to run away from the truth they were being called to because of physical suffering, what the animal instincts are supremely against in every situation. It was like the Israelites being asked to walk through the desert and believe in the unbelievable because of the miracles they saw, and the trust that would hopefully come from that.

The disciples also saw many miraculous thing that were done by the Father, who lived in Jesus' body. And they were asked to believe in the unbelievable, because things weren't going to happen as they planned, assumed or wanted them to happen. They would not be given that instantaneous gratification of being delivered into the kingdom they erroneously assumed their Messiah would be delivering them into. They would instead be asked to walk through the desert of nothingness and have to rely on Jesus to keep giving them what he had been giving them for three years, even though he was dead.

They had to wait and believe, and even after he did come back a third time for them, they still had to do the same thing, wait, believe and endure. They had to learn the way of God and abandon all their notions and ways they had previously learned about everything—who God actually was to them, how to survive, who the enemy is, what is the point of existing. They were going into the land, the better place about which the Israelite experience was only a copy for their benefit, because they were the real people of God, and all of a sudden being Jew meant nothing. That was a truly hard thing for many to accept, because it was such an accepted thing according to their history, culture, and identity as the only people of God. To let that all go was a traumatic thing beyond understanding. For those Jews who weren't chosen to become under the new covenant it brought violent, furious anger.

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

What does it mean, honestly, to love God and our brother?  Is not love defined by the Lord for us—is it not his very life, his choice to save his brothers by dying instead of living?  What does that mean for us then—how does it translate, how we can show our love and devotion to God and His Christ who showed us the way?  What does losing our life actually look like in the real world of living, right now?

It's not by anything we initiate or that originates in us, nothing we want as part of our natural existence, then work for to attain to. It's being willing to go when we're called to go, not being so overcome by fear of what we don't know that we're unable to move. It isn't lip service or mouth babble which says one thing, while we live another life by what we choose to do and be. The hardest thing for the animal to do is trust what it doesn't know, and it's harder as we get older and have established all the ways we want to take care of ourselves.

That's what the Father is offering us, something we don't know and aren't comfortable with, what doesn't appeal to our understanding of what we have learned to develop to satisfy all the various cravings and needs of that nature, to get whatever it is we think we need to feel okay—satisfied, safe and secure. What it all end with, and the purpose of this transformation, is to move away from Egypt and actually go into the land. But in order to do that, the old ways have to be stripped from us and we have to learn and adapt to and adopt the ways of our Father. That is a purging of the old man who cannot love anyone but himself—the old existence under the sinful nature—and the acceptance of the new way, which we will know because the teacher lives inside us. The end of that process of shedding the old nature with its huge network of complex and automatic fears and self absorption is that we are able to love God and our brother, God's son, which is the nature of the son, what the disciples became when they were taken into the land.

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

The ability to love in this way was in the earth for a short time, then went away as per all the warnings that it would leave and then the world would be made desolate of that condition, what it has been for so many hundreds of years. These writings cannot be for those who are content to believe the lie that whoever runs the institution they're a part of knows the way to the Father. Today is pretty much business as usual with regards to living for God. The world is ruled by the animal, the serpent, the beast, because what happened in the first century died. Today is marked out by the week in, week out business of living, raising a family and trying to do what's right for the individuals doing it.

Love cannot be legislated, demanded or ordered. Rather, we can only 1.) establish that the condition of man as animal, with the animal nature, exists. It is what is called the sinful nature, 2.) that condition makes it impossible for us to fulfill the words of Jesus, and we automatically fall short of the new commandment, and 3.) it is not taken away, or forgiven just because we think we "have the truth," or "believe" the correct set of doctrine about the things of God. According to Matthew 25, it isn't knowing that makes us sheep instead of goats, but doing, and it's impossible to do under our condition as cursed animals. What are we commanded to do? What we cannot do, to love our brothers as much or more than we love our selves.

We cannot do it unless and until we are chosen to be transformed from that condition of hopeless animal to a son with the new nature which can love because the old nature is purged from him in a real way. The only way that can happen is to trust God and go in to it, abandoning the ways we know and trust, about how to take care of ourselves and exist without being led around by those instincts that we embraced and employed to do the job of survival. The formula will be found inside us if we're called to share in the inheritance of the sons, which is the spiritual existence, the nature of the only living God, living inside us as He lived in Jesus.

Karl Marx had idealistic theories regarding a utopian society, where people were driven by the common good to contribute to and sacrifice for the whole. His naivete about the nature of man is where he went wrong. He figured that people were self-preserving and self-loving because of societal conditioning. If they could just be re-educated then people could become driven not by that thing that always wants to preserve itself, to survive and keep getting more for itself. Marx thought that people could be taught to be driven to take care of the system and their comrades as much as their own selves. Eventually, people were forced into doing what Marx thought they'd naturally adopt, compelled by force into living for the state and the good of the community, because people aren't like that. They have the curse of the animal all through and through them, and there aren't any exceptions, nor is there a way to alter it in them except if you're God, and you have specifically purposed to make that happen in a particular human.

The reason his idea did not work is because people are motivated by helping themselves. Their own cause is the only thing that people can be devoted to on the most fundamental level, no matter what they say or pretend to be. Marx' idea never even had a chance of getting off the ground, because the animal consciousness is born into people. It is the very fabric of their nature—they cannot be re-educated to act any other way than how that animal nature in them tells them to act. They will always be driven to take care of themselves, toward the propensity of building up things around them, toward learning various different ways of satisfying their various cravings, lusts, and needs to feel safe and in control.

What Karl Marx didn't see is that his idea of how a perfect community should work actually happened in the first century, when the sons did many things which betray the natural animal instincts. They took care of those they believed to be brothers because of something that got planted into them, that attacked the animal predispositions and tyranny over them. They did that only because they were driven to love by the power and force of the spirit which was living in them. It wasn't something they decided to do on their own, but because they understood in their hearts that in God's kingdom what the humans love and run after has no value, they could part with what all animals consider extremely valuable. They believed the words of Jesus, that God would give them what they needed, that giving what the animal considers valuable to their brothers who were in need was storing up real, spiritual treasure. It wasn't just theoretical mouth babble, or sentimental nothingness wrapped in words. It showed that they believed enough to let it go, out of love for God for the gift He had given them. That is gratitude to God for the gift they knew they'd been given; it's not something that could ever just be arrived at without that force and power of love that is the life of Jesus working in a man's heart to be changed.