Being1inChrist

We have a calf named Mandy. She was born a couple months ago and came from our cow named Freckles. To make Mandy different from the rest of the herd we started weaning her from her mother so we can halter train her and socialize her around humans. At first we separated them into different pastures where they could see each other during the day and put the mother back in the evenings. We did this for about a week. Then we separated them into different pastures and left them apart. They could see each other but could not be together. The mother called all night and so did the calf. They cried for one another and walked around looking for each other. They can see each other but cannot get to each other. Again this process is for the good of the calf’s future. She will not be just a pasture cow out in the field being dominated by other cows, even her mother, but set apart in her own pasture with like-minded calves and cows who have been haltered trained and socialized. The separated herd get more attention and learn to be calm and friendly. Whereas the pasture herd are half wild and have a pecking order. Bigger ones get more food and some are picked on. They are running in the woods and back pastures where they forage on anything they come across even briars and nettles. They get ticks and are subject to other pests and risks associated with the “freedom” of being strictly a breeding or pasture cow. Whereas the selected ones have a shelter, a stall, kept clean and brushed and fed treats from the hand, and have all the amenities that would keep them more comfortable. These cows are worth far more than a pasture cow. But you can’t explain that to the calves who have been chosen to be set apart for taming as you wean them from their mothers. Nor can you explain to the mothers that their calf has been selected to be taken out of the herd and given a far better life. They are beasts by nature and unless pulled out of that world they will be taken and destroyed.

“But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.”

“But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption”

They cry and moo for hours and days because they do not understand the purpose of being separated from their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, herd of cousins and friends. They do not understand the purpose of this separation. They resist bathing, combing, brushing that is meant for their good. They resist any touch or attempt to be touched. They just want to be thrown back into the wilderness to be with their family. Ever since Christ began to separate us from our herd we have kicked and bawled like Mandy. We have been slowly weaned from the life we once lived where we were infested with the ticks and lice of the world but we still desired to go back. We lived on the roughage of the world we lived in. But like Mandy we did not understand that we were being pulled out of the world of the beast into a world where we were going to be treated like kings. No more eating the roughage of the world, now we get grains, clean water, are bathed, combed, brushed, and taught the mannerisms of being a child of God. We are being taught how to act and taught how not to act. It’s funny because if we were able to see the end result we would jump the fence to get into where we are now but it took literal pulling and dragging to get us to where we are today.

“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” 

The word highlighted “DRAW” is G1670 and this is the definition “Probably akin to G138; to drag (literally or figuratively): – draw.” We literally have to be dragged by The Father to the kingdom of God. We don’t run to the kingdom, we are dragged. Like Mandy when we first put the halter on her, she started running and bawling as though we were killing her. She did not want to learn godly etiquette and be molded into a new creature, she wanted to stay with the herd and her mother. Look at Israel when they left Egypt, they bawled the whole way. That’s us. We get mad when we are taught a better way of life, when we are told to deny whatever we have learned and lean on Christ only. But Christ is The Good Shepard and He is calmly, slowly and methodically separating us from even our thoughts that are contrary to the truth. It’s comparable to what happened to Joseph – snatched from the wilderness and put upon the throne. He first ended up in a hole, then a slave, then in prison, then from there to the throne. Each step was a weaning process to get him to where God had planned he end up. He was made for the throne and didn’t even know it. So, we as Mandy are made to be separated from the wild herd of the world and placed into the Father’s care where we are learning to act totally different then we have ever acted and be totally different then we ever were or could be. Before the flood of Noah’s time the beast’s were not afraid of man and man was not afraid of the beast. They lived in so-called harmony together. Our inward world/mind was at peace with all of the beastly thoughts roaming around within us, until finally that beast nature was all there was. It had come to its fullness, a beast thinking it was a man that had ascended into greatness…scripture describes it as “the man of sin.” It also describes it in a myriad of ways as the 4 beasts of Daniel and the beast described in Revelation. All of these are describing one and the same thing – our state of depravity as a beast. After the flood the beasts were scared of the man and were then used for meat. This is what has happened to us after we have been flooded by the spirit of God. Our beast is now afraid of us and we are to eat the flesh of it. We must die to the flesh/beast and be born again in the spirit. To eat your flesh is to consume its dead carcass. That means daily we die to self and the new man feeds on the carcass of the old man. Our carnal mind thirsts for the milk of the world and does not want to deny its influences. Our flesh cries for the littlest drop of milk from the world. Weaning is not an easy job because the calf has to first get used to the halter around its face. Then it has to learn to be led by the halter. It has to be taught that when you resist, the rope gets tight but when you walk towards the person holding the halter the rope loosens up. This is what we are being taught. When we resist, the trial gets harder, but when we walk towards Christ the pressure eases up. But the mother cow is always calling for us. The world is constantly calling for us to come back to the teat of its safety. This is the same as drinking from the cup of Babylon.

“And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns (All of this is inside us). And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

Her cup is filled with the doctrines, the milk we had consumed that taught us how to survive, how to self worship, how to get attention from others of our own kind, how to be the dominant member of the herd, how to make decisions based on doctrines of the great whore. Mother Babylon cries for us, like Freckles is doing for Mandy. Everyday, all day she cries for us in some way to try and get something for ourselves, the smallest drop of milk that we can get. But Christ has taken us from the herd of the world, separated us unto Himself and is teaching us how to be led of His Spirit. We must be tempted and tried because it is through this interaction do we stop hearing the world calling for us.

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.: Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

This process continues until the temptation is not a temptation anymore and we are not led away by our own lusts to be like the world or be liked by the world. Christ was led to be tempted but overcame any pull of His own flesh. We who are being separated now have to overcome our original world, our entire fleshly, selfish identity created by God Himself for us to be put through the process of overcoming it – again all by God. Nobody can overcome anything. Only God through Christ can overcome the world within. It was created by God to ultimately be destroyed and overcome and rebuilt by God. This is what Christ was explaining to the disciples by declaring the outward temple would be destroyed brick by brick but He would rebuild it in 3 days. He was describing out world within with all its beastly beliefs and doctrines we took in from birth. He would destroy this world and create a new heavens and earth from the rubble. We were created by God’s design, a wild beast who desires the things of the world. In James it says we are not tempted by God because God tempts no one but we are tempted when we are led by our own lusts.

“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

We must continue to be tempted of the devil in us until the devil has lost his power and we are able to overcome any “mooing” of our old world. To exist in the world but not be of the world. There is coming a day when we will no longer pay attention to the moos of our old mother. We will hear her but pay no attention to her. She will conceive another child and her attention will then be on it and leave us alone as we eat clean provender, the meats of the kingdom of God. If I would have read this a few years ago my devil in me would not have been divided against itself and would have concluded that I had already achieved this separation because I didn’t do the bad things the world did. But what I did not know was that I was in my worst state. The devil in me had convinced myself that I had already attained. The temptation now is to not live by the SPIRIT of the law. If the outward is kept then my devil has concluded that it has done all that is required and I am already standing in the garden of Eden. The true test comes when you do something for someone else because it is the love of the spirit that moves you to do it, not because it’s a law, but because it’s your desire. All the law is fulfilled in one law, love your neighbor as yourself.

“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Living by the spirit of the law is where we are actually separated from the old world inside us. Desiring to live for my brother/sister is living by the spirit. By this will the world know we are disciples of Christ. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

The cries of the old world comes in a legion of ways. Like the man on the island of the Gadarenes who when asked the name of the devil it said its name was legion because there were thousands of demonic devil doctrines in him and he is us. What cast them out of the man? The love of God in Christ to love His neighbor as Himself. The man couldn’t do it for himself, it took Christ to do it and the same applies to us. We must cast out the fears, anxieties, and lusts of the world out of each other by loving one another as Christ loved us. My old world’s definition of love starts with me not you. Like the old worldly saying of “you’ve got to help yourself before you can help others.” My fears are cast out when I feel the love you have for me and the same for you. When you see my love for you in action it casts out any fear you may have. My fears are based on lies and it is your love that casts them out. But if I know you are in need of my power to cast out your demons and do not feed you but choose myself over you then how do you know I love you? This is what these verses mean in parable.

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food (not literal food but spiritual), And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? “

Saying good things and not doing it is not fulfilling the love of God. Apostle Paul gives a good parabolic meaning to this in these verses talking about things offered to idols.

“Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak. For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.”

We should know that it is not speaking of literal meat, but spiritual meat and meat is used as a parable for us to gain a deeper understanding and to blind the mind of the masses to keep them from the tree of life with a flaming sword, a mirage.

“Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: 

Mar 4:12  That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.”

“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

Having a desire to always be looking for what the other one needs as daily food is what the spirit of Christ in us will have us do. When we are walking in the spirit we will not be fulfilling the lust of our own wants but putting the other one above myself. If I live my life always putting you first then the lusts of my flesh will die. The mooing’s of my old world will stop because the spirit of Christ has weaned me from the selfish world in me. We will not pay attention to the calls of our old mother because the love of Christ in us will drown any self desire out. Our desire will be for the other’s needs not our own. The other may still be under a false doctrine but it is our love of knowing that there is no God but One that will overcome their false doctrine and eventually they will no longer hear the mooing’s of that false god. But it is dependent upon us to help the other overcome their false god through love, not angry judgment. Our old world calls us in many ways from our past lives of living in the world: the way we interacted with people, the way we dressed, the way we talked, any and every way to get attention and our emotional and physical needs met at the cost of everything and everyone around us, running our world in a delusional state as if we are God. Some may say they never lived this way but that is a lie they have been deceived by because scripture says everyone came into the world this way, everyone. No one is exempt, except Christ.

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

To seek God in truth is to love my brother/sister in truth, to tell and accept the truth to my own hurt. To lie to my Brother/Sister is to lie to God. To deny them their daily meat is to deny God. To swear falsely to them is to swear falsely to God. To try and hide something from them is to try and hide from God. To know you are gathering attention from the world other than your spouse/Christ is to commit adultery against God. To try and cheat someone out of anything is to try and cheat God. To argue for your rights is to argue with God for your rights. In Christ we have no rights. We have one law and one law only, love your Brother/Sister as yourself and in doing so you will be feeding them their daily meat. To be weaned from the world in us is to be recreated into the image of Christ – weaned from all of my old world where I was the center of my world and following other gods that told me so. Following any false god is committing adultery against Christ. What is a false god? Is it following Allah or Budah instead of Christ? Is it paganism versus Christianity? No. Arguing over the legitimacy of religions or denominations is foolishness and nothing more than a red herring. Committing adultery against Christ is ANY belief you hold that pits itself against the truth that there is no power but of God. It is the false god of yourself. It is the false god of believing you know better than God in even the most remote corner of your mind. It is believing in the “power” of some created thing or being (including yourself) over the power of the Creator.

“And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.”

I must be weaned from the world where the attention of the world soothed my fears. When the world out there gave me attention then my world could rotate in peace. I could feel good about myself. I was important to a world that did not give a damn about me but I lusted for their attention and still do at times. To see or hear the moos of the world towards me gave me great delight and I felt needed. But to be one with Christ is to be rejected by the world inside me and out there. To love the attention of the world in me or out there is to be at ENMITY with God. Because if I am loving the world in me then I am neglecting you, putting my flesh first, which puts me at enmity with God. To be friendly to the world in me will put me at enmity with God because to be a friend of my old world means I am still desiring the world out there, the two are spouses and are one united Babylonian woman, riding high on her own beast, sitting upon many doctrines-waters. To be a friend of my old world or the world out there is to commit adultery against my spouse, Christ. To friend my world in me is to look upon another man, my old man, other than Christ. Like Israel did with Baal. Looking to another person other than our spouse is an outward manifestation of looking to another spouse other than Christ. Like the thought that Eve had before she ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. First a look, then it manifests outward in the actual eating of the fruit.

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

“…Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

The weaning process starts with warnings. “And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” ; “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”; “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” ; “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”.

The Ark took years to build and as God promised, the flood came. We lived years upon the earth and our flood came. As the waters of truth got higher and higher they eventually drowned out even our thoughts, the fowls of our heaven, until there was nothing left for them to land on and they drown. We are being overcome with the baptism of the spirit where every man, beast, and fowl are destroyed from off our earth and a new earth begins to rise. It is the baptism of fire.

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

It is a weaning process, a flood and a fire that produces a new man. The fire is hot and the trials are tough, but He has promised us that what He has begun in us He will bring it to completion. “Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” HE WILL WEAN US one way or another. We can pull against the halter but, as a calf realizes, it does no good to pull, it only causes the rope to get tighter. Walk towards Christ and be led, not dragged. Christ is weaning us to give up our desire to love the world in us and out there and be united to just Him. He is creating us into beings who love Him in truth, not by law of works. We must be new creations. As more and more of my old, original world within gets exposed, I understand more and more the longsuffering and patience He extends to me as He works to wean me from that old world.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

I recently heard someone say a nation that turns from God is a nation that will fall. They were speaking of the United States. But this is not true because the United States has never followed Christ in truth. No one nation has ever followed Christ in truth. This is why Christ came, no one seeked Him, NO ONE. The verses quoted from Romans 3 earlier shows that. Each person has a nation, a world within them and each person is either drawn by God to Christ to forsake their world or they are not. Mandy the calf was chosen by us to be drawn from the world she was born into but Mandy did not choose to do it, it was against her nature. Now she is friendly, lovable and easy to be around. All nations within us or out there will never follow Christ as their sole Husband and Creator unless they are drawn by God Himself to know Him. No man has a will independent and free from God and will only do what God has predestined they do or don’t do.

“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

To want a “relationship” with any thought or idea that pits itself against the knowledge of Christ (that He is above all things and all that is seen and unseen was made by Him, for Him and through Him) is adultery. This is the parable of marriage and adultery.

We are being weaned from a world within us that would disdain such thoughts. We know that what we were in the flesh in years past and what the Lord manifested in our life outwardly was a manifestation of what we were in heart, a natural brute beast. Now the same applies. What we are today is what we are in heart, a new creation, created by our Creator for an intimate relationship.

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

We are being created in a way that we can be presented to Christ without spot or wrinkle. We are being weaned from trusting in our own world to trusting in Christ as our sole provider. He alone is The Creator Who has chosen to draw us out of the world within to Himself for fellowship. He chose us we did not choose Him. We love Him because He FIRST LOVED US.

God desires us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. What does it mean to worship God in spirit and in truth? Apostle Paul said that the spirit of God searches our hearts and knows what is truth within us. “And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” I may be asking God for one thing but the truth behind why I am asking is exposed before God. I may say one thing but in my heart I have another reason for why I am asking. It may be veiled in religous words but the truth of my intent is exposed before God. The spirit of Christ sees what is in my heart and He wants us to confess the truth to Him and in confessing the truth we are worshipping God in truth.

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

The truth cannot be hidden. Everything is open and exposed before Christ, Who created everything.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

Truth before God is what God desires. In worshipping Him in truth we are confessing our thoughts and intents. In doing so we are not trying to hide anything from Him. Lies hide from the truth and lies cry for the rocks to fall on them to hide them from The Truth.

“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? “

Truth quenches the soul and frees it from lies. Lies cause us to be thirsty, without hope. Water represents teachings, doctrines, words, thoughts that we live or die by. “The water of the word”. The truth is water, water is the word and the word is the spirit. Words, thoughts are spirits. They either minister truth or lies. The spirit of Christ searches our thoughts and intents and exposes what is truth and what is a lie. Christ is the source of all truth, of all water that quenches our soul from the drought of drinking doctrines of the carnal mind. The truth always ministers peace and frees us from despair. Hope in anything besides Christ will leave us thirsty. The parable below in the story of the woman at the well tells us how we drink from a well that does not quench our thirst. It is a deep well that has no bottom for it is a bottomless pit of lies and deception. It is where we all start off. But it is where we meet Christ and are relieved from drinking in bitter water that does not quench our thirst for peace.

“There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. (Truth doesn’t mix with a lie) Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? (are you greater than the supplanter, Jacob, who supplants the truth for a lie? Trusting in a thing and not Christ.) Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. (Christ exposes her lies by a parable that she/us are not married to Christ because we are still trying to be married to anything other than Him.) The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. (The carnal mind does not know what it is trusting in, but truth is of the Israel of God, the true Jew. “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.”) But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. Godisa Spirit: and they that worship him must worshiphimin spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.“

We cannot know the future. If we did we would hope in what we saw and not in Christ. But hope that is not seen is called faith. We are either given faith to trust in Christ or we are given over to lies that do not give us rest. I either trust Christ has my best interest in mind or I trust that my own carnal knowledge will guide me through life based on my own planning. We go daily to our own well, our own source of knowledge to make it through the day and Christ is sitting there on our well asking us to quench His thirst with our trust in Him. He is telling us to trust in Him and we won’t have to visit this well anymore. He will give us living water and here is some living water….

“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek: (our carnal mind)) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

The greatest thirst quencher is faith in God as our Father Who only has our best in mind. To trust Him is the best thing for us in all situations. There is no greater strength than God and if we are given to trust Him then all fears are taken away. When we fear anything besides God everything is hopeless and dark. God will not allow us to worship our own carnal mind if we are His children. We are to consider our old carnal mind as dead and we are freed from the laws of our carnal mind.

“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”

The carnal mind ties everything together in a nice little ribbon, trusting in its own thoughts of what is good for it and what is evil for it. If we have the spirit of Christ in us He does not allow us to rest in another man, our old man, because we are married to Him and He, Christ, is our husband. If we listen to the laws of our carnal mind then we shall die with it. If we are led by our new Husband, than we shall live. If we trust in our new Husband than we can rest in the truth that our old husband is dead and gone and we are free to serve Christ. As long as our old husband is alive in our minds, our old thoughts of good and evil, then we are still married to him and bound to him by his laws. But if we are free from the law of our old man then we are free from death and alive to serve our new Husband Who has promised us more than our old husband could ever give us. We are free from death and risen in Christ as the most blessed people that have ever walked the earth.

This is counsel in our heart, the deep waters/doctrines of Christ, like the woman at the well. These are the waters that if a man drink of he will never thirst again. When God gives us these truths they spring up in us as a well of water and we become peaceful and joyful in life.

“Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.”

“And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.”

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

We hunger for the truth because the truth that Christ is The Alpha and Omega of every second of life creates a hunger in us to keep seeking His counsel. Any counsel from my old man leaves me thirsty and hungry but the counsel of Christ quenches my thirst and fills my hunger. Christ’s truth tells me that God is our Father and that our Father has predestined everything for us and that He has predestined we be conformed to Christ’s image. And if God be for us who can be against us? NOTHING!

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all (The elect who he foreknew and predestined), how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed (our old man) all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, what do we have to fear? What possibly can stand between us and God when God our Father created it all for us? The truth tells us that we are the most blessed people of all the people ever created on the earth from the beginning of time.

“For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”

“For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.” 

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: “

We have nothing to fear because our Father foreknew us, called us and chose us out of all the families that have ever been on the earth to be His special people. Nothing can change that. Nothing can stop that. And nothing can keep us from our Father Who has predestined we be what He has called us to be, His children. The day of reckoning has come upon my old world and they are running to caves and calling for the rocks to fall on them. Christ has freed us and nothing in my old world or in the world out there or the worlds to come can stop what God The father has predestined. Let freedom ring and let the whole wide world in me and out there know that we are God’s people and Christ is the avenger of any ho would dare stand against US.

Mat 5:6  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 

Isa_49:10  They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.

Joh_6:35  And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Joh_7:37  In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

Rev_7:16  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

Joh 3:5  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 

Joh 18:35  Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? 

Joh 18:36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. 

Joh 18:37  Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 

Joh 18:38  Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. 

Everything in our life hangs on faith. Do I believe God has given me eternal life based on the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ? Do I believe that all sin has been taken care of in Christ or do I believe I must work a work and salvation is then a debt owed to me by God?

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.”

No part of me can be saved by my own works. Everything in me has been stamped with death because I am under the law. The law of God has condemned everything in me from birth. I was shaped in self righteousness (iniquity-Ezk.33:13) and in sin did my babylonian church conceive me. Everything I did or did not do was based on my own godhood, my own knowledge of what was good and what was evil for me.

“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” 

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

I can lay no claims to purity because every thought in my unconverted heart is a thought of self and self only. I think I am my own god and that I make bad choices and good choices independent from The God. With this thought I believe God owes me.

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are all together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

The law of sin and death produces a misunderstanding in my heart that God owes me something because I am good or evil. Not knowing that God moves me to do good or moves me to do evil.

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these”

“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up (the evil in me), that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour(the good), and another unto dishonour(the evil)?”

Everything must be attributed to God as The Author and Finisher of everything I was, am, or will be or it is considered a work of the flesh. A work of the flesh, meaning I have not been given the truth that I create nothing and God is Creator of all. This lie leads parts of me that are still unconverted to get angry at God when things don’t go the way I think they should because I thought I had a will separate from God. Yesterday while putting up fence, the end post, where a 12 foot gate was attached moved considerably and the gate would not attach right. When I stretched the 100 yard fence with the tractor the post moved in the ground. This left the fence with slackness and a leaning post. I was extremely angry and disappointed because I thought I had done everything right. I thought that it was by wisdom and experience that would make the post and fence go up without a hitch. I asked God in my thoughts “why did you do that”? The thought was because I thought I had deserved a good outcome based on my carnal reasoning and was not seeing that God makes a post lean or stand straight, not my carnal wisdom. I was taking pride in the work of my hands and robbing the glory from God. Above where Romans 3 is quoted it says that there is none righteous, no not one, it is speaking to my whole world within me. This is where we start off as Elect, as all of mankind. Shapen in iniquity and every thought is conceived in sin. Sin being taking credit for everything and anything, good or evil and every thought based off the premise that all things are by me and for me. If a work is of man, meaning a work that is perceived as my own, it will come to nothing, for my own good. In one way or another, the work will not stand whether in the long or short of it. In God’s perspective, it is a vapor, it has not been granted eternity. But, if it be a work of God that He desires to remain then no one can stop it nor destroy it – either way, the will of God cannot be stopped – it is the will of God who is the sole author and creator of all things. The Lord creates all things including things He intends to destroy. As scripture says He has “…created the waster to destroy.”

“And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

Even my apparent failure is of God because I was not given the will of God for something to turn out according to my carnal reasoning. I was given by God to be led astray by thoughts of a self will to try and accomplish something that was not going to be accomplished…the thwarting of my trust in my flesh was exactly what He had willed – thus the failure is for my GOOD because it destroys my trust in self. Failure is a will of God saying no to my perceived self-will. Every thought that goes through my mind (ministering spirit) must hang on the truth that God is doing something for my good, either to teach me patience or to teach me faith. It is not as though we are individual beings that make independent choices separate from Him that work out to the good or to the bad. Each decision is a will of God for the good (ultimately) or for the bad (short term). Bad being an outcome where my carnal self-will is not given what it desires and good being an outcome where God is glorified. A “work of men” is anything I do for my own glorification, where my trust was in myself, and will come to nothing.

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”

I don’t give anything to God but what He has willed I give back to Him. As the verse above says, “who has first given to God and then God returns the favor to him? Because all things are of God, through God and to God”. So, everything comes down from Him to us and we only give Him back what He desired to have. He owes us nothing. But, to the person who has been given this truth God has given him everything. Nothing is impossible, nothing is too grand, nothing is to be seen as an impossibility.

“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

God has showed me the impossible, to my mind, the depths He would drive me. Driven to situations and depths that I never dreamed possible. In my early years I had such confidence in my own wisdom and knowledge and never dreamed I would be driven to such lows. I thought that I was untouchable because of my own wisdom and knowledge, never knowing that I was being led to the slaughter. And today the same principal applies to the good. I had never dreamed I would be where I am and have what I have and know it was not my wisdom or knowledge that got me here but what God has predestined it be. It is, was and always will be God as The only Creator, creating through His Son Jesus Christ. Whatever He opens no man can shut and whatever He shuts no man can open. I have quoted the following verse a thousand times but the enormity of it surpasses the carnal mind.

“Wherefore David blessed the LORD before all the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. O LORD our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own. I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee. O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee.”

The last line of these verses are what I pray for. God knows my heart whether I believe these things or not because He gives me the belief or He doesn’t. And I pray that He keeps this belief in every imagination of my heart and prepares my heart every minute of every day for His glory. When I was a child I believed, had faith, that my dad could do anything and there was nothing he couldn’t do. This child-like faith is what Christ is creating in our hearts to trust Him as our Creator. There is nothing that He cannot do, nor is anything too big for Him. To please God is to believe in God as The only Creator. We cannot believe in ourselves, someone else, something else, but only God as The Author and Finisher of all things. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” God is the strength of my hands. The strength of my legs. He makes my heart beat and my lungs work. I do not stay alive because my heart beats, rather my heart is beating because God is keeping me alive. Nothing is separate from Him nor a power independent from Him. He is The All in all. Christ is in us bringing every imagination into subjection to the supremecy of God The Father. Christ is subduing every thought in us to The Father as God and as the power behind everything. When King David prayed, “As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee. O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee“, It was a parable of Christ praying this about us. Bringing every thought into subjection to God as The Creator, not my intellect, experience, or savvy. It’s always God, from beginning to end. To be given the faith of Christ to believe this, is to die to my world and live unto the kingdom OF God. Where everything is seen as a power of God, from God, by God and for God. A parable of this understanding is in a “eunuch”. A eunuch has no desire for the flesh to procreate something in an image of itself. They only care for the things of God. Inwardly it is the same for us. When we are given by God to be castrated from the world we become spiritual eunuchs. Like a steer. We see that Boo and Rocky (our steers) are very committed to us and don’t really care about anything else because they are steers who have been castrated. They don’t care about procreation. When we have been castrated from the world by God we don’t care about creating an image of ourselves in the world anymore but are committed unto God for His glory. A steer is more docile, calm, and trainable because his desire for procreation has been removed. He doesn’t have the drive for creating an image of himself anymore but solely for his master. This is called being circumcised in the heart. The other day my wife was listening to a woman who was training her calf on a halter. The woman said that when training a calf you teach the calf that when it pulls against the lead there’s pressure but when the calf comes closer to you the pressure is relieved. This is what Christ is teaching us. There’s only pressure when we resist Him, and don’t have faith in Him. When we give up our own thoughts of experience or knowledge and trust Him as all knowledge the pressure leaves. To have faith in Christ as The Creator is to be relieved of all worry and pressure. Christ is a very kind, gentle Shepherd Who never tugs on us but only asks us to follow Him. When we don’t there’s pressure, when we do there’s peace and joy. It’s the same principal Christ told the woman at the well.

“Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.Godisa Spirit: and they that worship him must worshiphimin spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.“

Whosoever in me follows Christ in faith never thirsts. The world in me is filled with unbelievers who have lived their lives based on wisdom, experience, and their own knowledge, which is water that does not quench my thirst because it is not based on the spirit of God which is based on the truth that Christ is The only Creator. When we are given by Christ to trust in The Father we are worshipping God in spirit and in the truth that our Father controls it all. Then our world is converted, thought by thought. God is Spirit and we must worship Him in spirit. Spirit being the thoughts/ministering spirits that lead us to know that God is in absolute total control of everything. We need not worry and pull away, add pressure. But even our pulling away is a power of God that is teaching us to trust Him and submit to everything that comes our way. He is teaching us to be led by a halter to eternal life, life that goes on and does not die in my finite wisdom. The wisdom of man teaches us that there are ghouls and goblins out there in some spirit realm and they are sent by a greater goblin called Satan. Carnal wisdom teaches that we must be always scared that this greater ghoul is always trying to lead us astray and it’s up to us to be led astray or to resist him or them. But the truth is that the only devil is my own thought of I “shall be as God to know between good and evil”. And that greater thought multiplies into more ways of being my own god which are more evil spirits, more thoughts and doctrines. To know there is only One God, Who creates all things and controls all things is the ultimate blow to the converting of the world within me. It is faith in God as my Lord and my redeemer that converts a world drinking its own water, that ends up leaving us thirsty again. We have to keep coming back to our own well to learn more because we are always thirsty to rule more. But the truth of Christ as The Image of God and as The Only One ever Begotten by God is a water well we can drink from and never be thirsty because this truth tells me that Christ only knows God in truth. Human wisdom leaves me thirsty to know what’s next and how it will all play out. Truth leaves me quenched because I can trust God as having the whole thing played out in perfect order. The woman at the well said that when Messias come that He would “tell us all things” and Christ’s response was “I that speak to thee am He”. If Christ is in us He IS telling us all things. He is leading us, we are not leading ourselves. He is telling us to rest in Him as The Creator and never thirst again.

“Jesus said unto him (me, you), If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

Man as an individual nor mankind as a whole create anything. Christ is The Creator that God The Father creates through. Everything is parable in the spirit of a revelation of God or of man as a whole. To prove this Christ has written the story of Joseph as an example. From being born from a dead womb, to being thrown into a hole. From being sold into slavery, to being placed as the head of Potiphar’s house, to being thrown into prison and then becoming the most powerful man in Eygpt. Our lives, as The Elect, reflect the way God has moved us from having many ideas of color to being thrown into a pit by the very ones we were closest to – our nearest and dearest ideas of self. We have been adorned with a spiritual coat of many colors, like the rainbow God set over the sky as a promise of His faithfulness to us to never destroy us by false doctrine again. Our coat is Christ, the covering He has covered us with, to remove all sin and to stamp us with the blessing of sonship. But because we are still living in an unconverted world we are thrown into a pit by the very things we love. We are stripped of our trust in Christ and sold to “strife”, Midian. Then “Jehovah adds” (the meaning of the name Joseph) to us, even while being a slave, to know that we belong to God. Potiphar’s name means “belonging to the sun” and that reflects what we are being taught, all light/knowledge comes from God through Christ. Christ is The Sun/Son of righteousness. While we are enslaved to our old Babylonian world it wants us to be intimate with her, like Potiphar’s wife, but Christ’s spirit within us, refuses her advances. To get us to higher ground and to develop more trust in God He allows Babylon to overcome us and speak lies about us. When we refuse her advances (lies) our Babylonian doctrines war against the Spirit of Christ within us and tell us that we’re no good and that a situation is hopeless. Refusing to trust in ourselves, but rather God, sends our old world (like Potiphar’s wife) into a maddening rage. It sends us into an even deeper pit of despair, a prison inside our own body and mind, where we are reminded of our past and all the failures and we are buffeted with thoughts of despair. But because God is developing faith in us, to trust Him, even in this great dark time, He gives us to have hope and we continue to believe in the face of darkness. Then when God has developed the faith that He desires in us He lifts us up to the highest ground, to sit next to Him in Christ. We are at the right hand of God in Christ. All of this is faith in God through trials to lift us up to the highest ground. It is where we count it all joy in tribulation knowing the end result. Where we live in a place of total trust in God as our benevolent Creator Who has only our best in mind that will bring Him glory. But it doesn’t stop there. Now that we are exalted in Christ everything that we were enslaved to becomes our servants. We are exalted over all of our Egypt in Christ. We are clothed in Christ and given the right hand of The Father, His ring. A gold chain is put around our neck symbolizing the spirit of God that turns our head. We are given “the treasure of the glorious rest” in Christ, the meaning of the name “Zaphnathpaaneah”- which Pharaoh names Joseph. We see that the trials and faults were added to us to create faith in us. Because faith can move mountains God removes the things in us that did not trust Him and we begin to flourish. We have children that cause us to forget our toil – Manassah – and cause us to see we are doubly fruitful – Ephraim.

“And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphnathpaaneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house. And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. And the seven years of plenteousness, that was in the land of Egypt, were ended. And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.

Everything becomes ours. Height, depth, all of everything is ours, there is no limit in what we possess in Christ. We begin to possess “the treasure of the glorious rest”. The new clothing of Christ. The ring of authority and the golden necklace we possess in Christ. Nothing is held from us if we are given to believe it. If we are given to give God the glory for all things then nothing is held from us, in this life or the life to come. As Israel left Egypt with more than they entered Egypt with, so we are storing up treasures for the next life. Faith is the greatest treasure we can possess because when we are given to trust God then nothing is held from us. How can it when you know God creates everything every day for us? All is ours.

“…For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”

Isa 66:22  For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. 

Isa 66:23  And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. 

Isa 66:24  And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. 

Mar 9:48  Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

When we look upon our past or when God hands us over to relive our past, is what these verses are meaning “their worm shall not die” and “the fire is not quenched”. We become consumed by how low we had been living in our earth, feeding off our carcases. Feeding off our carcases is feeding off our dead world. We can see it in the world where we recognize those who are still feeding off their own carcase. It is eating swine and unclean animals which represent unclean doctrines and motives we lived by. To forsake your life is to deny your life as ever having life in it. Seeing it as a rotting carcase where there was no life in it and we were dead to the truth that Christ was The Creator and we were separate from Him in thoughts and deeds. But, today we can rejoice because Christ has revealed The Father to us. We are now sons of God and heirs to the throne. We are being transformed from a dead corpse, (who must see himself as dead before he can live), into a life giving spiritual host who contains life and has become heir of all things. We have no life giving thoughts of our own and everything that does have life in it comes from Christ, Who is The giver of life. Thoughts of the flesh that do not glorify The Father are dead thoughts and must be seen as dead thoughts that cannot have eternal life. They are for the dead carcase and feed off the dead carcase. They are carnal thoughts from a carnal mind, they are temporal thoughts for temporal gratification of the flesh. We fed off these thoughts in our past and thought we were alive, but we were dead. The thoughts were worms and they fed off the satisfaction of the temporal flesh. Spiritual thoughts focus on eternity, where there is no death and all is for the glorification of God. The simple question to ourselves should always be, “how will God be glorified in what we are thinking or doing?” Every thought has a purpose, for life or for death – that which will glorify God and that which will glorify flesh. Christ has redeemed us from all filth, in the eyes of The Father and we are seen as Christ Himself, without fault. But, Christ is also in us, walking through our lives converting our world in us to present it to The Father blameless. It doesn’t take much comparison with the truth to see what is carnal and what is spiritual. Carnal thought is based on the flesh for the flesh with no thought of God being glorified or the other person. Spiritual thought is based on the glorification of God as God and Christ as Lord and the good of my Brother.

“For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”

Interacting with those outside of truth is like Apostle Paul trying to interact with the mob at Ephesus because, unlike the world outside, we have no motive in what we say or do but to glorify God as God and Christ as Lord. Those who do not know truth are driven by motives for the flesh, they are still being eaten by the worms of their mind. All is for their physical life and every thought is carnal. It is fairly easy to see through them because we were them and they were us. Every motive that drove us was a motive for the flesh and the glorification of the flesh. Every word or action was for us to be seen by others – whether good or bad – whatever the motive was that was driving us to present ourselves to others. We still catch ourselves from time to time trying to lean to our own understanding, or trying to glean attention for our flesh when interacting with the world out there because we have a world within us that is still being eaten by worms. Some of our thoughts are still focusing on the flesh and we feed off our flesh. This is why the serpent was told that he would eat dust all the days of his life. Our carnal mind is a worm, a serpent that slithers through our earth feeding off our fleshly life. To be carnally minded is death and when we eat from it we will die.

“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

“And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:”

Eating from the carnal mind is eating from your knowledge of what is good for you and what is bad for you, with no thought of my Brother or God. It is the same as eating dust. The dust is driven by whatever false doctrine for self blows into my tree of the knowledge of good and evil. No matter what is presented to me in a day will be for The Kingdom of God or the kingdom of self. The word “carnal” means “flesh, stripped of skin” (stripped of a covering). So, we are being shown the carnal mind’s motives, “STRIPPED” of any covering. Covering being any thing that hides or covers the true motive of an action. A simple example is Ananias and Sapphira trying to present part of the sale of their property to the church but hiding part for themselves.

“But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.”

The motive in Ananias and Sapphira’s heart was to be seen one way but actually being another way. The Spirit of God in Peter removed the covering and exposed the motive and lie behind their attempt to appear to be good people. The same Spirit exists within The Elect of God and it exposes our true motives behind the things we do or don’t do. What is fully offered and what is held back for flesh. What is being presented as an unblemished sacrifice and what is being presented as a lame sacrifice. One is a sacrifice without blemish and one with blemish.

“A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts.” 

If Christ is walking through our world preaching repentance then He is at the same time exposing the truth behind every sacrifice. We can admit to the truth or continue on with our lie and reap the consequences of eating from the dust of our earth, death. Sacrifice without thoughts of the flesh gaining from it or sacrifice something with the thought of gratifying the flesh. When we were in the world, even my own flesh would not be pleased with a half hearted sacrifice. I would push my flesh to the limits for the pleasing reward that I knew would bring about the best results. Physical exercise or denying my flesh for a reward. Making myself sacrifice for a good outcome in homage to my governor, my flesh, that governed me all my life. The carnal mind cannot present an unblemished sacrifice because it does something in hopes of receiving something in return, for the flesh. The carnal mind is at enmity with God, is against God, hates God because all the carnal mind wants is what is for the flesh. Sacrificing for God out of a pure heart can only come from a pure heart that has been changed by the Spirit of Christ in us.

“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh (in our sacricing to God a blemished sacrifice); but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit (a true unblemished sacrifice). For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (offering an unblemished sacrifice of self). So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God (with a blemished sacrifice where the thoughts of personal fleshly gain is in mind). But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

To be carnally minded is to be eaten by worms. Thoughts feeding off the flesh and for the flesh in every sacrifice. It is a burning hell to live in this state because you are always trying to get something for your flesh, even in your denial of flesh is still for flesh. Knowing what you want is not good but at the same time your flesh hates God for holding back what you want, which causes a blemished sacrifice.

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil (your devil, your serpent that lusts against God), and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. “

“Enmity” against God means we are at odds with Him. What is good as an unblemished sacrifice is an evil against our carnal mind and it makes us feel deprived. We feel our flesh’s wants are not met so we become angry and at enmity against God and give a blemished sacrifice of self. We know we are wrong but the desire to have what we want is so strong we attempt to offer a partial sacrifice in hopes it will satisfy God. Then when that fails we slither into another angle, another shape, to attempt another try at getting what we want. Wolf covering itself in sheep’s clothing. To The Elect we begin to see our serpent trying to slither so we kill it before it takes us too far. We struggle to uncover the serpent who is so slick that he even fools himself at times and we fall for his lies. But Christ who creates all things for the church uses these times to teach us what we did not see. It is never a loss. Our dead, inside us, rises to the surface and are resurrected and the parts of us that are already alive rejoice at the resurrection of our dead, our total sacrifice. We do not have to mourn as others over the plight of our dead/sacrifice because we believe that Christ is going to recreate all of us. There are parts of us that we will not know have been recreated until we have walked away from this temporal shell called a body and reunited with a WHOLE new man, a WHOLE new world.

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

There is a world inside of us that will be recreated into the image of Christ. A world full of religious Jews and gentiles alike that God so loved that He sent His Son to die for. Both seeking to rule the world. Both are lost and both are dead. But as Apostle Paul mourned for his literal Jewish brothers so we mourn for our religious brothers who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. Because the religious Jew in me is always trying to establish his own righteousness through works. And my gentile in me is always trying to consume something for his flesh. This principal is layed out in Romans 1 and 2 where the gentile is shown as an idol worshipping beast and the Jew is shown as a religious man judging the gentile yet doing the same thing the gentile is doing showing he is not a Jew but an uncircumcised gentile at heart. Every person ever created has both of these in him. Both have to die to be made alive and neither can stay the way they are. Not all of me will be saved, there are parts of me that will never repent and will be lost in the world of the unknown. But, from their rotting corpse a new seed will grow and their dead bodies will act as fertilizer for the new ground. A new man rises from the dead and we rejoice in what God is creating. If we make friends with it then we are enemies of God.

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

To snuggle up to my flesh’s world is to be an enemy of God Who created the flesh to die for a new man to rise from. The flesh is a fertilizer for my new man and a fuel for the fire. The worm feeds on the old man and the old man is the fuel for the fire, his words are the ignitor that sparks the fire.

“Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.”

The worm feeds on him and poops him out making fertilizer for a new ground. Just like a worm bed is made to make good fertilizer so the old man is used as compost for a new heaven and a new earth. We can look upon the carcase of our old man and understand what he was and why he was what he was. His worm will never die while we are still encased in these fleshly bodies because he will always be a reminder of what we were. As long as we are still encased in these fleshly bodies the fire of truth will continue to consume him. Every day he must be consumed and we can never make friends with him. Every day we are being taught to ask for the spirit of Christ to create a giving heart within us to sacrifice ourselves for each other with no blemish. This is a pleasing sacrifice, a pleasing unblemished sacrifice to God, a denying of the self centered, self consumed carnal mind that is always trying to give a little and get a lot. Like Ananias and Sapphira, trying to offer a little to get a lot. It’s ALL or nothing in an unblemished sacrifice. Like Christ Who gave it ALL. A blemished sacrifice is blemished because the flesh is corrupted with the worms of our carnal mind. We cannot stop thinking about self, therefore God withholds what we ask for because He sees our heart is still focused on the flesh, feeding on itself. But again, Christ is walking through The Elect’s life coverting these dead in us and recreating a new world where everything is done in honor of God and for our Brother. Everything is for us and not against us. Nothing can stop Christ from coverting the world in us that The Father so loved. All is for us and all is ours.

“Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”

“Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and they redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”

God drives us (The Elect) from Eden to till our own ground. Toiling in our own efforts, under the prideful delusion that we can be apart from Him is the start of our creation process.

“Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”

God puts ministering spirits (thoughts/Cherubims) at the rising of our sun (East), from where knowledge comes from, hence God, to distract us from knowing truth, the tree of life.

“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

Ministering spirits are thoughts, words that enter our mind to keep us distracted with anything and everything that keep us from the truth, which in parable is “a flaming sword which turned every way.”

So he drove out^H1644 (divorces)^(H853) the man;(the hypocrite)^H120 and he placed^H7931 at the east (east is where light comes from, knowledge) ^{H4480 H6924} of the garden (fenced in)^H1588 of Eden (Eden means pleasure – to know God is ultimate pleasure, where we are fenced in from all evil)^{H5731 (H853)} Cherubims (represent our imagination corrupted by tilling our own ground with the ministering spirits that are sent to us to keep us from enjoying God in truth)^H3742 and a flaming^H3858 sword (Covert light that is a perversion of truth to keep us, guard us, from knowing truth, the tree of life.)^H2719 which turned every way, (perverting the truth)^H2015 to keep (guard)^{H8104 (H853)} the way (road traversed to know God in truth)^H1870 of the tree^H6086 of life.^H2416“

Then when Christ is revealed in us, the Elect, God sends truthful thoughts, ministering spirits, to guide us to Christ. But, these are only thoughts that lead us to where we begin to know the voice of Christ from the voice of the stranger. The voice of the stranger represents evil, individualistic ministering thoughts. They minister to us what our flesh covets.

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, (ministering spirits/thoughts) Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds (every person is a world); Who being the brightness of his glory (truth from the east), and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Christ created it all, in my own world and in the world as a whole. There is no more knowledge than that. No thought of God, angel, can ascend higher than this truth. The thought that Christ is The Creator and I create nothing is to know Christ is The Tree of Life.); Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? (No thought, that I have ever had, will be next to God, as an image of God. Only Christ is the express image of God.) And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him (When Christ is revealed in us every thought worships Christ as its Creator. There is nothing that exists but Christ and His Father). And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever (Christ’s throne, power, is from the ages of the ages and will never end as the one and only power.): a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity (iniquity is self righteousness, Ezk.33:13, eating from your own tree of thought that you can know good from evil. Christ has loved righteousness which means He knows all and everything He is, was and will be comes from The Father. He knows He does not exist separate from The Father and now He is teaching the elect this truth.); therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows (Christ is exalted above every thought that sees itself as a thought separate from God. These are the ministering thoughts that were sent to guard, keep us from the truth). And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands (our earth and minds are a creation of Christ): They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed (new heaven and new earth that has been changed from the terrestrial to the celestial): but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? (I cannot overcome by thoughts that claim independence from God.) Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? (Heb.1)

God sent lying spirits to Ahab through Ahab’s prophets for the purpose of killing him.

“And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left (ministering spirits). And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? (keep Ahab from truth) And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.”

This is yet another parable of what goes on in our minds. These are the thoughts, spirits that are sent to keep us from the tree of life. The tree of life is the cross, the tree on which Christ hung to give life unto the world within the Elect. When we eat the fruit that hangs on the tree, when we confess that we are not Christ, nor are we God, we get eternal life. This is called repentance, this is the fruit that hangs from the tree of life, which is the cross. When we are given to see that Christ is, was and will be the only perfection of God The Father and that He alone bore our sin we are eating from the tree of life. To confess that Christ’s cross removes our sin is to have life. To have life is to know The Father. All selfish or sinful thoughts that pass through our mind/heavens are ministering spirits that we must confess and know that the tree of life/cross cleanses us from sin.

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

“As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is eating from our own tree as a tree that contains good or evil separate from God, as an individual, separate from God.

“And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.”

At first the man sees men “as trees, walking.” Men are described as trees all over scripture. God uses trees to represent men because in God’s perspective men are as inanimate as a tree. Just as in the natural a tree cannot pick itself up and move. God uses this natural reality to show us the absurdity of men’s thoughts that they are independent beings moving above of their own volition, charting their own paths with thoughts they claim as their own. Then Christ puts His hands upon the man’s eyes and MADE HIM LOOK UP, above himself, giving him a higher perspective into the truth of the kingdom of God, and then it says he was restored and “saw every man clearly.” To see clearly is to know that everything about myself is a creation of God. We do not blink or have a heartbeat without him. We are as inanimate as a tree without Him. We live, move and have our being in Him. It is not until we confess we are blind can we be “restored” to see everyone in Christ’s power. When we are given to see ourselves for what we are, created beings with no power of our own, then we are granted to see ourselves and God clearly. This truth is depicted in Daniel 4 in the story of Nebuchadnezzar, who is likened to a great tree who is cut down by God because of his pride. In the end Nebuchadnezzer is restored to understanding and utters these words “…and at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes unto heaven and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honored Him that lives forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His Kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His Will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, what doest thou?”

Now, speaking as a man, if Adam, after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil had confessed his sin and repented instead of putting the blame on the woman (who represents his flesh) and then God for making her (his flesh), he would have been given life. He would have eaten fruit from the tree of life. But what came out of his mouth was blame towards the individual for making him do what he did and blame towards God for making the woman. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” What he saw after eating the fruit was a knowledge that God had made a mistake in making the woman. It wasn’t his fault, it was the woman’s and God’s. Thus begins the journey of the first creation, fitted for destruction, which will lead to the second creation, that leads to eternal life. God creates us to be prideful and hard-hearted and to see ourselves as independent from Him on purpose so that He can show us mercy and make us into eternal spiritual beings who will ultimately understand Him and the depths of His mercy, patience, and love. This can’t happen without first creating us rebellious. All of it, the first rebellious creation to the last man, a spiritual being with eternal life, is authored by Christ. We are made to be witnesses to our own creation. We witness the egregious ways we have been made to rebel against the Lord and we witness His mercy on us as He patiently endures this all the way through to our perfection. Seeing our first beastly sin nature that He created is essential to becoming a mature spiritual being in Christ without spot and blemish. The cross heals us from sin and gives us life. The cross opens our heavens to look up and see ourselves clearly, as creations of God in Whom we live and move and have our being. The cross represents the necessary death of the first creation, our own death to self and any identity separate from God. This is where the law comes in. The law is made to show us our sin and to make our sin abound even worse.

“Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Again, speaking as a man, if God had never given the law not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there would have never been the sin of individualism from God. Man would have never known he was a creation. But to know God The Father we must know that we are not Him. We must know that what we are at any given minute is a creation of God and not a creation of myself. I do not create good or evil. I did not create myself evil and I do not create myself good. Before He begins to create me into a vessel of honor I must first see myself, separate from God, as a vessel of dishonor.

“Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called…”

The law brings sin out and grace covers that sin even more. The law brings sin out because the law says you shall not covet. To covet is to want anything more than you have in any given minute. The law is not just contained in the ten commandments but is intertwined with any thought where we covet more. I bought a chicken sandwich the other day and thanked God for the meal. Then I began to eat it and it was, to my taste, dry and not the savory sandwich that I thought it should be. God made the chicken from an egg. Hatched it. Raised it until it was slaughtered by someone whom He had also raised and then brought the chicken to the establishment where I had bought it. He had a person cook it – a person He had created and then had them put it together in a sandwich to give to me. Now, in between all this there are thousands of details that are left out on the processing, packaging, distribution, etc. etc. that God did to get the sandwich to my hands and then I had the audacity to complain that it was not what I, as an individual, a created being without a whit of creative power, wanted. I had thanked God for the sandwich but my words and thoughts betrayed the prayer by complaint. I was not thankful but was unthankful and my prayer was not in truth. So, the law is brought in to point out to us what God endures throughout our creative process as He brings us to an awareness that we are not Him. But, as the scripture says, “where sin abounds, grace did much more abound.” God, in His mercy, does not smash us for every sin but sees us as He created us, as creations not CREATORS. And as our awareness grows more and more of our sin which abounds, we see and are a witness to His grace and His great mercy which does so much more abound. Again, the cross is where we are healed in our continual confession of what we are and what we are not.

I am learnig what it means to be at liberty in Christ. What are we being liberated from? From the veil that is upon our heart, that is covering the fact that the glory of the law, that pointed out my sin, is being done away with. It was very glorious for sin to be pointed out.

“But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:”

This verse tells us that it was glorious for sin to be revealed in us. The law written on tables of stone was glorious because it brought LIGHT to what we are in the flesh, as it did to Adam eating the fruit. We do not know what we are in the flesh until it is pointed out by the law. But what was so glorious that we cannot look upon it, is faded away by the greater glory of Christ, Who promises to make us into a new creation, free from the sin of individualism and thus making us eternal beings in Him. The law is glorious in that it works as a mirror to show us what we are in the flesh, in the first creation. It’s glorious because it was needful to reveal our man of sin, who thinks he is an individual god knowing good and evil. But then Christ far exceeds the glory of the law, which revealed our sin, because He overcomes what we are in the flesh. Christ took the glory of the law which required death, upon Himself. He is the fulfillment of the second covenant in that He frees us from the condemnation of the glory of the law. We are given new hope because we are changed from seeing sin as a separation from God to seeing it was needful at that time to show us that we cannot be righteous in and of ourselves. It sucks all hope of attaining righteousness by laws out of us and puts all hope in Christ. The Spirit of Christ is the power that changes us, not the law of the flesh. Our change comes from the power of God through the spirit of Christ. He is now creating us into new beings with a spirit of holiness. He doesn’t leave us in sin as sinful beings. He came to erradicate sin, not leave us wallowing in darkness, just shrugging our shoulders at sin because we’re helpless to control it. But darkness cannot enter the kingdom of God. We are helpless in our darkness, this is true, and without Christ we would also be hopeless. But Christ has come to change us into beings of true holiness. We are the woman caught in the act of adultery who Christ tells to “go and sin no more.” If we are Elect, He will see to it that we go and sin no more, starting in this life here in the flesh. It is glorious to be brought to a place of utter repulsion at what you are in the flesh but so much more glorious to see the second covenant that promises to change us into the image of Christ.

“Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;”

The second covenant tells us that what you were made in the flesh from your first creation is being remade by Christ in your second creation. Our first creation was by God, therefore our second creation must be by God. It is not of man, by law, to remake man, the change comes from a heart that has been remade by Christ. The change comes from a heart that knows only God can be The Creator not man. The first covenant was given for us to see and acknowledge what we are in the flesh without the spirit of God.

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.”

We do not know we are dead until the law shows us we are dead – dead from knowing God. If we do not know God then we are spiritually dead. When the law is brought to our attention then sin is seen and comes alive. It spreads like leaven and covers our whole being, in every thought, word and deed. It, as the scripture above says, “wrought (fashions in me) in me all manner (all kinds) of concupiscence (longing for what the law says is sinful).” But until the glory of the law shows us this we are in a state of ignorance and blindness, thinking we are right with God based on our own good works, thinking we are a god. We don’t know we are in sin, made and fashioned in sin. At first, when we are shown what we are, we don’t want to look at it and cover it, like Moses did. By covering it we don’t deal with it through the Spirit of Christ. We should run to Him for deliverance from it. Instead we attempt to make ourselves righteous and make void the cross of Christ. The deceitfulness of sin tells me that I can fix the problem of sin by my own power. This is what the Pharisees did and all people do in the flesh. I remember when sin was first pointed out to me I said in my mind, “well if that’s all I have to do then I’ll do it and make myself right with God.” I put a veil over the glory of the law and said I could fix it myself. I did not see how glorious the law was and diminished it to a work of man and not the power of God. I essentially thought, “Adam messed up but I’ll fix it” not seeing that Adam could have no more stopped himself from sinning as I could stop myself. That’s the point. We cannot remake what God has made in either case – a sinner or a saint. I did not make myself a sinner and I cannot make myself a saint. I am going from the glory of seeing myself as a sinner by the first covenant to the glory of being made a saint by the second covenant.

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

And this second covenant, as the first covenant cannot be broken. God has sworn that He will complete what He has ordained. We are then given the faith of Christ to believe that what the law of the flesh has shown me cannot dissannul the promise of eternal life that is in Christ, promised before I was ever shown what I was in the flesh.

“And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.”

“For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.”

We are saved. We are the children of God. Christ has secured us and God, Who doesn’t change and cannot lie, has given us His promise that nothing can change what He has made or has started.

“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.“

The glory of the law of the flesh was not given to separate us from God but to act as a goad to drive us to Christ, our mediator, “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Christ is our mediator and has secured us without fault. Nothing can stop God from making us what He has promised He will make us, “Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” It is glorious to be shown you are a sinner and not the righteous person you think you are. It is glorious to be shown your man of sin.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposes and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God shewing himself that he is God.”

It is bitter water to drink to be shown what you are and what you are not. It is wormwood. This is the purpose of the law.

“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”

It is as a great lamp, a great light to see ourselves in the light of the truth. But, as Saul, we kick against this truth. It is a mercy from God to show us what we are in the flesh because it then shows us His unending mercy. He is very merciful to us and even though He should, He does not destroy us. The more you are shown of what you are inside your flesh the more mercy you are given.

“He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD: Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. “

Knowing what we are without Him drives us to know Him. Knowing, deep within, deeper than head knowledge, who and what I am and that there is nothing redeemable in me brings me to the cross where I am sacrificed with Christ and become one with my Creator. I cannot be one with Him when I am still one with myself. I cannot be made a new man unless I am shown my old man. I cannot be a beast around the throne giving glory to God as long as I don’t see myself as a beast, as the great red dragon. The more we are given to see what and who we are by our first creation the more we are given to see the power of the cross. The glory in the cross of Christ taking my sin upon Himself outweighs the glory of my sin and I am changed into a new man day by day.

It is not possible for a person to honestly look upon himself and judge himself in truth. There is not a man on earth who has or can, in total truth, be honest about who and what he is. Only God can try the heart and reins of a man. It is an honor from God to give us to see ourselves in truth. It is glory, a dignity, to be able to see yourself for what you are at your core. When Christ brings me to remember the sins of my life I am repulsed and filled with such shame that I cannot think about it long or it will take all hope from me. It sinks me into a loathing of myself and total disgust at what I am as a natural beast. “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” If you are an Elect then you know exactly what I mean. You have been brought down to the pit and have seen, in truth, what you are as a beast. No man, NO MAN, will enter the kingdom of God without first tasting of the bitterness of what he is at his core. Because unless you see that there is NOTHING good in you, NOTHING, you cannot follow Christ to where He went, to the cross. “… follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be…”; “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God” We must be shown who and what we are so that we can be divested, stripped of all hope in ourselves. If we hang on to one strand of hope in ourselves we will have to be shown we have no hope through another trial or remembrance of a past wrong. All strength must be seen as originating and coming from outside of self before we can take one step towards holiness. In the words of Christ, we must die.

“And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

To fall into our ground and die means we give up all hope of having anything based on our good works. To truly understand that we are nothing, less than nothing separate from The Creator. To love your life is to lose your life. To hate your life is to gain life in Christ. Look at the scripture quoted above and slowly read the words. How is Christ predicting He will be glorified? BY DEATH. His death will glorify God. Why? Why did Christ have to die to glorify His Father? Why death? And why such a horrible death? Christ’s death glorified the law and testified on our behalf that we, by the law, deserved to die. The law is glorifying. It glorified The Father in testifying that what the law said about us is true. Again, if you have been given to see what you are at your core then you will easily agree that you deserve to die. You would be the first to find yourself guilty and the first to throw a stone at yourself, if you have been given to see yourself in the light of Christ and the law. Christ’s death took what you have been shown about yourself and placed it upon Him. He took the punishment so that we don’t have to. To be totally forgotten for all of eternity in the place of the unknown, hell, is where we deserve to be but Christ has delivered us from the grave to live forever, to be known by God forever. It is the greatest evil to think and glory in your own works, good or evil. To take the credit for anything is to claim Godhood. So, God in His infinite wisdom made us natural beasts to do things that would make us blush with shame. He gives the law and with it exposes our sin. Sin is the thought that you can live one second independent from God. So, God gives us the law to expose us and show us that we are not what we think we are. The law has requirements and the requirement of the law is separation from God, death. Christ takes that separation upon Himself for us so that we can have communion with God in truth. What is communion with God in truth? To know that He and He alone is The All in all of me, I do nothing of myself. This is how we die and bring forth much fruit. And this is going where Christ went, to the cross.

“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.” 

To serve Christ is to follow Christ to the cross, bear your own cross and die to self. If we love our life then we will lose our life. If we hate our life in this world we will keep it unto eternal life. But what does that really mean to hate our life? It means we find nothing in this life independent from Christ as its Creator and we love The Creator above all things. We claim nothing as ours. To love family, friends, houses, property, your PRIDE: in your identity, your appearance, your opinions, your way of thinking, talking, dressing, living, eating, anything that we are not willing to lose, above Christ, is to love yourself more than Him Who created you. This is what Christ was getting across to Peter when He asked him three times if Peter loved Him more than these. He then goes on to explain to Peter:

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.”

We don’t give ourselves up willingly. The flesh, our man of sin, our identity, our sense of godhood was created to be obsessed with survival. Christ has to enter us and get us to a mature place spiritually (hence we are “old”) and then He causes us to “stretch forth our hands and have another gird and carry us where we would not.” It is Christ Who is doing all the work. We simply witness what we were and what we’re being changed into all the while knowing the changes being made must be wrought by Christ because we know our flesh could never, would never submit. We have been shown what we are without Him and if left in that state, we are hopeless and helpless in our delusion of godhood, sin. To know Christ is to know true freedom from the lust of the flesh to be its own glory, to be free from thinking I am, that I am, to be free from the slavery of spending our entire lives living for what is dying and will go away forever. To serve Christ is to be honored by The Father. To live unto God is to be free from the attachment of this world, to be free from the attachment of MY world with all of its wants and desires. To be free from my world is to live unto God and Christ as everything. This is troubling for the flesh because it causes the flesh to be crucified. But, as Christ, if we are an Elect, a follower of Christ, then it is our hour. It is why we have been brought to this hour, to be crucified, die to self, and live unto God.

“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.”

If we are given the privilege to know God, then we are given the privilege to be glorified by God as Christ was – glorified to know what we are in the flesh and be glorified by God to be recreated into what Christ is. We go from the glory of the law to the glory of grace.

“Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 

The Father is glorified when we are brought to know what we are in the flesh and then He is glorified in graciously recreating us. He does not leave us dead in sin but raises us above sin and we become overcomers of the flesh and its sinful desires to be its own god. The prince of our world is cast out and we are drawn to Christ on the cross. We are drawn to lay down what we have known as our life and live unto God. The prince of our world is cast out who drove us to and fro looking for his own life separate and independant from God. The prince of our world is cast out, thrown out by our death on the cross. His cares, his wants, his desires are all crucified in the hour of his death, whenever that hour may be. He dies and is thankfully forgotten, buried in the place of the unknown because we never want to know him again. He was a prince who ruled our world as an iron fisted dictator who got fat on living for self. He acted religious and kind, or he acted like a good person without religion, but in either case he spoke as a dragon with the horns of a lamb. Behind the veil, the flesh, was a serpent, a dragon who only cared for himself and no one else. But when he is crucified on the cross his cares are forgotten, his desires are thrown away and all that remains is the desire to serve God with all my heart, soul and mind and my neighbor as myself. This is a process that takes time and patience. Dismantling the temple of the man of sin, brick by brick, happens day by day. God will be glorified by the death of the old man and then glorified by the life of the new man. Christ is drawing us to God by our being lifted up on the cross and by our being lifted up from the grave, day by day. He is drawing ALL in me, in my world, to Him, to know The Father. The voice, this truth comes for us to know.

“The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.”

Joh 3:1  There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: (This man is me. There was “A MAN” of (Anthropos-G444, mankind), an individual of mankind who saw himself as “victorious among his people”, other anthropos (meaning of Nicodemus G3530). Not only did he see himself as better than the rest of mankind, he was a “Pharisee” of the people. He was a “separatist” from among the people. He was an individual from the rest of the human race. He was religious. Every human is a Pharisee because every human believes he has made himself what he is, separate from all other people and he rules his own life.)

Joh 3:2  The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. (We come to Christ at first, in our own darkened thoughts of individualism, “by night.” We are given enough understanding to know Christ is Who He is but we still can’t shake our own darkness in the way we see life and the way we think. We think we live and move and have our being by our own works. We are still thinking the miracles are fleshly healings of the blind, deaf, dumb, lame, sick and even dead. We don’t see that these miracles are testimonies against who and what we are, and that we need to be healed spiritually. We see them as fleshly miracles for the flesh. We don’t see that we are in darkness, without form and void of any truth, whatsoever. We, as Nicodemas, can acknowledge the physical miracle but we cannot see beyond the physical. We cannot see into the kingdom of God. Christ tells us that we are still not seeing clearly because we are not yet born again and still seeing the miracles for the flesh and not for what they are in the spirit – healings of our spiritual infirmities. In the healing of their/our literal ailments, Christ is telling us that He came to heal us spiritually.)

Joh 3:3  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (To see the kingdom of God is to understand the kingdom of God is spiritual and within. To understand the kingdom of God is to ascend up to heaven in our thoughts, go beyond the firmament that separates earth from heaven. The firmament is a parable of the chasm between the natural mind who sees everything from a beastly standpoint of being our own god, and the spiritual mind that has no boundaries and sees all things from our Creator. This means we see Christ is in control of all things and we do not have a will or a single thought independent from Him. This is spiritually understanding the kingdom of God: to not give the flesh, the carnal mind, any credit for what it is, was or will be and to know everything is a creation by Christ, for Christ and by Christ do all things consist. Heaven is in our mind, our perception of what is real and what is not, what we see naturally vs spiritually, between what is celestial and what is terrestrial. To be born again is to see the truth that Christ’s miracles are a testimony to where we all are in the first creation. To see spiritually is to see ALL THINGS are a parable of a truth in understanding God as God. No man can ascend into this knowledge but Christ Who has descended from this knowledge to give His Elect the healing of their blindness, to give them Light.)

Joh 3:4  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 

Joh 3:5  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (To be “born again” is to be able to perceive between what is fleshly/water and what is spirit. We cannot ascend into the heavens unless we can perceive the difference between the two. Men are made of blood and blood is unclean. Men, in the flesh, are as water because they are unclean in their thoughts of God and because they are as unstable as water. “Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water.” ; “For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.”)

Joh 3:6  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

Joh 3:7  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 

Joh 3:8  The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (We must be born again in our understanding of God to rise above fleshly understanding into spiritual understanding. The flesh cannot understand the meaning behind the Spirit’s words. It hears but cannot understand where it comes from and where it is going with its thoughts. The thoughts of the spirit are foolishness to the flesh, just like being “born again.” The spiritual can understand both where the flesh is coming from and where the spirit is coming from, where the flesh is going with its thoughts and where the spirit is going with its thoughts. But the carnal mind cannot understand the spiritual. It only understands naturally as a beast.)

Joh 3:9  Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? 

Joh 3:10  Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? 

Joh 3:11  Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. (Christ is telling the flesh that it cannot understand these things even if they are explained to the flesh in a fleshly parable.)

Joh 3:12  If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? (Christ is saying “I’ve explained it to you in a fleshly parable and still you are not able to understand it unless you are spiritually born from above.”)

Joh 3:13  And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (No carnal thought or “man” has ever ascended (had a thought) that can understand the spiritual realm/heaven. But Christ has come down in the form of thoughts from the spiritual/heaven into His elect. (Heb 1:1) “He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man (G3762-not even one- no carnal mind, not even one, can receive the truth, we must be born again to receive the truth.) receiveth his testimony.” The fleshly mind cannot ascend above its flesh. The flesh must die to its fleshly thinking before it can be born again to perceive heavenly thinking. The kingdom of God and heaven are synonymous. Christ tells us that nothing in us, no man, has ascended above their earth into the kingdom of God but He, Himself, Who has come down from the kingdom of God to explain these things to the Elect so that we can be born again. Born again means our thoughts become childlike and we realize and thus confess we know nothing of God – like a child who has no knowledge or experience of the world and relies solely on its parent, we must be taught everything from a spiritual standpoint. You must throw out everything you’ve ever learned or think you know and see everything new. This is being born again. A person cannot make themselves be born again. Christ must enter them and this is how the new man is born. When this happens, the spiritual language and thus the kingdom of God is opened up to our understanding. Spiritual language is parabolic. “But without a parable spake he not unto them” and so a tree is not a tree, it’s a man/doctrine. A rock is not a rock, it’s Christ. Dirt is not dirt, it’s flesh. Water is not water, it’s unclean thoughts. A beast is not a beast, it’s the unconverted flesh. The Great Whore sitting on a beast is not a great whore sitting on a beast, it’s the spiritual state of the Elect before we are converted. The Dragon is not a dragon, it’s the antichrist spirit that resides in us. So on and so forth. Anything and everything has a spiritual meaning and speaks a spiritual language. And just like in a natural language where the same word can have multiple meanings, in spiritual language symbols can have multiple meanings. When we are born again and begin to see through spiritual eyes, the Holy Spirit which is Christ within us, teaches us to understand the spiritual language. This is what “speaking in tongues” is actually describing.

Joh 3:14  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 

Joh 3:15  That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (Moses was told to make a brass serpent to hang on a pole for the people to look at and be healed from the bites of the serpents. God sent the serpents as a chastisement for their complaining against Him about the journey they had to take leaving Egypt and the manna they had to eat. The serpents that were sent by God were a fleshly parable revealing how God sees these thoughts as poisonous. Their complaining came from the serpent within them that always is concerned about the flesh, “But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Before we are converted, all we are concerned about is our flesh. We must spiritually look at what has bitten us when we have a complaint about the life we are being told to live as we get farther from Egypt. Christ has become our unbelief and to look upon Christ on the cross is to look at what has made us and is remaking us. Christ is seen by the flesh as the serpent that has bitten our flesh because Christ is The Creator Who has called us out of Egypt and has made us to eat manna, to eat His flesh. To eat His flesh is to walk in the spirit and not be so concerned with the flesh. To eat the spiritual meat is to be content with whatever the day brings and not try to change it into an Egyptian meal that would feed the flesh. While walking in the world as fleshly beings we lived by the bread of our own minds, what was learned by experience or by our own carnal wisdom. This bread was sweet to us and filled our fleshly thoughts, our spiritual dead bellies. But we have been called out of our Egypt and told we are headed for the promised land. The journey is through the desert, filled with days of thirst for the flesh and hunger for my own ways based on my own experience. It is the time where we are taught the spiritual. We are taught to look unto Christ Who created us for this time and to be recreated into sons of God. Everyone who looks to Christ as The Creator of every minute of every day is healed from their serpent thoughts of individualism and healed from a carnal mind that lives and moves and has its being in itself, eating itself, like the serpent eating its own tail, we eat from our own wisdom. If we are given to look to Christ then we are healed and are entering the promise land, a new world where the lie of individualism is destroyed and oneness with God is shown.)

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

Joh 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (God loves the world within His Elect that sees Him as the All in All, so much so that He has sent Christ to die to Himself so that we can live unto God. Christ has given up His life so that we can have life….by following His example and dying to ourselves. Christ has shown the life of a spiritual being in contrast to an earthly being. Christ came to this earth in a fleshly body, born in the lowest state, in a stall with animals (which is a parable of Him entering into flesh, which is a beast, which is the unconverted flesh.) He was laid in a manager which is the parable that He would be the “food” or “bread of life” to all Believers – we must eat His flesh and drink His blood to live – a parable of the Truth He would reveal to His Elect that in Him only is life.) He came in the flesh and lived a life He knew was totally dependent upon His Father. When a man said he wanted to follow Christ, Christ told him “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” He did not have a home here on earth, meaning He did not feel at home encased in a fleshly body, around carnal earth-bound thoughts. His thoughts had no home among the dead.

Joh 3:18  He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 

There is a world inside of the Elect who are walking out of Egypt/the world of the flesh into a heavenly world and are beginning to see God in ALL THINGS. He that does not see God in all things is condemned already because he has not seen His life as a creation of Christ but a creation of choices made by his own flesh.

Joh 3:19  And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 

Joh 3:20  For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 

Joh 3:21  But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. My new man, that has been created in the image of Christ, is being made free from the place of the unknown, he is known and is beginning to know ALL THINGS. He is freed from condemnation because he has been born from above. He is made to see that what he is, was and will be is, was and will be a creation of Christ for the glory of God. The opposite is to hate The Light and stay in the darkness of your world, void of form and be condemned into the abyss of the unknown. “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” To stay in the darkness where we are void of truth and without form is to love the darkness of our own judgment. To love your thoughts as a free being unencumbered by anyone or anything is to hate Christ, Who is The Light. The carnal mind hates Christ because when we come to Christ He explains to us what is carnal and dark about our thoughts. We do not want to be reproved by seeing what Christ sees in us. We would rather stay hugging our lies of individualism and carnal wisdom than come to Christ where we can be shown that everything we have ever been, are or will be is, was and will be a work of God and not our own,”are wrought in God.” To the new man, this is “good news” indeed but to our old man, our old serpent, it’s death. In Christ’s words “But he that DOETH TRUTH cometh to the light, that HIS DEEDS may be MANIFEST, that they (HIS DEEDS) are WROUGHT IN GOD.” See Christ on the pole and our serpent bites (fleshly thoughts of godhood) won’t hurt us. See Christ as The Creator and not myself and I am healed from whatever takes place every day. “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils (refute false doctrines, lying thoughts); they shall speak with new tongues (spiritual language, understanding parables as explained earlier); They shall take up serpents (overcome/be victorious over the lying doctrines of goodhood represented by the serpent); and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them (no longer hurt by the lies of our old man/serpent nature) ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (our new man, Christ in us, touching our old man with the truth and healing the many parts of us still in bondage to the deadly doctrine of self worship.)

With spiritual eyes, we can look at the story of Paul on the island of Melita and understand what Christ is teaching us about the battle being waged inside of a believer. Here is first layer of understanding:

“And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks (representing the Barbarians because men are trees), and laid them on the fire (the fire of right judgment of God), there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. (the heat of judgment drives out the false doctrines residing in our carnal mind represented by the serpent) And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. (This explains the Barbarians’ false belief in works – retribution and recompense based on good and evil works, “what goes around, comes around.”)  And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. (Their false doctrine has no affect on Paul because he knows the truth that it is Christ Who created him to do and be everything he is, was and will be.) Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.” (When their false doctrinal expectations aren’t met that based on his works, on law, he should have been killed by the serpent, the serpent nature in them slithers to yet another false doctrine – creature worship, hence the “to and fro” thoughts of the serpent nature. The serpent’s curse of eating dust as long as it shall live is a parable of how our thoughts cannot go any higher than the earth, or enter the kingdom of God, before Christ enters us and we are converted. To the carnal/serpent mind ALL things are a result of some other element in creation, thus eating dust. It worships the creature rather than the Creator and it will slither to and fro until it lands on something that makes sense to the “wisdom of men.” And when one doctrine fails, it moves on to something else – “ever learning and never able to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

Now we can take this same story and use the spiritual language for even further inward interpretation and explain what goes on inside of a believer, inside the kingdom of God. Christ, represented by Paul, gathers bundles of false doctrines together that are within us and brings them to the light of judgment, Who is God, Who is a consuming fire. Fire represents the truth of God that He is working all things. The lies of the serpent that reside within us try very hard to get us to take credit for our own works, seen by the serpent attaching to Paul’s hand – our hand representing our works. But when Christ gives us to see that it’s not our hand but HIS hand, the result is more faith and we are able to shake off the lying thoughts of our own godhood into the consuming fire of God’s love and we’re unhurt by them. This is looking at the serpent on the pole and being healed. Yet the Barbarians within us, watching all of this, are the parts of us that are not yet converted meaning anything about ourselves that we’ve not yet stopped taking credit for creating or having created. We’ve not yet been given the faith to see Christ clearly in those areas. We still have the blind living among us. In these areas of our life, we are still worshipping the creature (ourselves!) because we see even our faith as ours and thus worship ourselves as a god. We give ourselves the “atta boy” for our knowledge that Christ is the Creator and all is of God….even the understanding itself, the serpent will try to steal for himself because as scripture says “…even the devils believe.” We have no ability to believe or not believe anything. All must be given to us from God through Christ.

“And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

A person with a carnal mind makes decisions on what they know naturally, through information gathering and experience, thinking it’s coming from himself. If you’ve read many of the other studies you know that the man of sin is within us and is the old serpent who from the beginning has asked “did God say?” It is the deceiving spirit/thoughts within us that claim they have knowledge separate from God and cause us to question God’s authority as the sole Creator in even the smallest matters. Scriptures plainly say that we do nothing of ourselves and all things are of Christ The Creator:

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

In Genesis Chapter 1, when God created the woman, he put Adam to sleep…Adam being asleep is a parable of us not knowing where our wisdom comes from. While Adam was asleep God created wisdom (wisdom is called a woman in proverbs) and presented it/her to him. When Adam awakes he takes credit for the woman as coming from him. “She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” Adam, though he awakes, is still a walking dead man. His statement that woman came out of him reveals he is mortal, without the knowledge of God or Christ. The truth is everything comes from God, but we take credit for all things as coming from ourselves or other men. Every thought comes from God. He uses some thoughts to reveal Himself to us and build us up into the kingdom of God and some thoughts He creates for man to worship himself as a beast, thus hiding Himself from man. Some thoughts build up the spiritual and others are for the flesh. “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God.” Some are for the first Adam, flesh, others are for the benefit of the second Adam who is a life-giving Spirit, in other words Christ in us. Christ is represented by the woman in Genesis. God made Christ to be all wisdom. “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. “

The woman was taken from Adam’s rib. The word rib is H6763 from H6760 – a rib, literally of the body or figuratively a door. Christ is the door. “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Our first man Adam, believes all thought/wisdom passes in and out of himself. The new man, the spiritual Adam being created in us is being brought to understand all comes through Christ alone. He alone is all wisdom. “All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.  I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” All thoughts that do not pass through Christ as the door, that come from our flesh, based in the lie that they originated from ourselves or any other man, become thieves and robbers. We attempt to steal glory from Christ who is the true owner of all things. As we grow in understanding of Christ, we realize all we need is Christ. He alone is wisdom. This Truth, that Christ is ALL, quells the “storms” of thoughts that attempt to capsize us into fear and unbelief. This Truth keeps us humble and wards off the roaring lion of pride who is constantly looking to seek whom he may destroy. “And will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent for it is written I will bring to nothing the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent.” This is picking up our cross and following Christ. It is daily, hourly, minute by minute, crucifying our own wisdom.

So how does the “wisdom of men” playout in our everyday lives? Scripture teaches that the wisdom of men is at the core of unbelief in God and instead puts faith in ourselves, in our own “wisdom.” It is in every aspect of our lives and must be identified as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is the beast of Revelation with two horns like a lamb but speaks as a dragon. “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.”

My carnal mind, my man of sin, my satanic nature believes that it “knows” things (most of the time EVERYTHING) and that with this knowledge that he obtained through life he can produce something. He believes the knowledge came from him, not Christ, and it is his knowledge, not Christ Himself, that creates. But the truth of scripture tells us, and though we’ve already quoted it, it bears much repeating: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

When I was young I worked on a thousand acre cattle ranch and farm where I was taught how to handle cattle. Every year they would truck in six to eight hundred cattle and we would put each cow through the corral and then through the chutes to remove their horns, give them shots, tag them and then brand them. Then we would spend the next year getting them fat to send them off to be slaughtered. In my time working at this ranch, my carnal mind was taught various skills through experience. One of the things I learned was how to build cattle troughs. Some days ago my wife and I had the thought to build a trough for our two cows. I set out with complete confidence in my “experience” and no thought that without Christ, nothing is created. So according to MY wisdom I had attained in my past life I set out gathering lumber and things needed to build this feeder. Right out of the gate I did not ask God for the guidance. To teach me a lesson, God put it in me to rely on experience, and thus it never eneterd my mind to ask Him for guidance. So, off we went and my wife who had been persuaded to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with me, trusting that I knew what I was doing, separate and independent from Christ, helped me in the assembling of this feeder. Not too long after starting I got my first warning to stop and pray because I got a splinter in my right hand. Then my attitude began to change and the Lord set about revealing my old man who claims to know everything. Consequently, I began to get grouchy and stern. My wife would suggest something and I would disregard it. I didn’t need advice, I knew what I was doing! When the skeleton of the feeder was complete we chained it to the bucket of the tractor and took it to where I had decided was best. My man of sin was being set up for failure by God (praise God!) God had me flying high on pride in carnal wisdom. Well no sooner did the cows begin feeding from it I realized that I had put the two main support legs in the wrong spot causing the cows to have to step over them to get to the feeder. I realized that in winter with the ice and rain they would be slipping on those support legs and they needed to be moved. So I had to remove them one at a time and put them on the ends where they belonged, which was another blow to my pride. (Hadn’t I done this before? Shouldn’t my experience have prevented such a silly mistake? Hmmm.) Still locked in stubborness, the Lord continued the lesson. When it came time to put the metal on the roof, each roof joist was two inches too long. Now my man of sin was roaring. The bruised pride of my flesh was howling. To sum up, one thing after another had to be adjusted until we finished the trough. It was not the smooth operation my flesh had anticipated based on its years of experience. By then my back and legs were aching, my shoulders were hurting, and both of my hands were swollen and in pain. My wife, as the Lord prompted her to do, asked me “what were you thinking when you were building it?” In her simple question, I realized that I had leaned to my own understanding and not relied on Christ as The Builder and Maker. The pain was a chastisement from God because I thought I was the builder. I reaped what my individualism from Christ had gotten me. I asked for forgiveness, repented from taking an ounce of credit for building the feeder and from being dismissive to my wife. The pain began to ease up. By bedtime it was almost all gone and I slept well. “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.”

My old man thinks he knows what’s best for me. He has been there and done it all. He is arrogant, rude, and bull headed. He believes he has all wisdom. He never trusts in God and was not made to trust in God. He was made like a beast to think for itself and made to be destroyed. Every detail of life is like every cut, every screw, every piece of the cattle trough. It is made by God, fashioned by God and placed by God. I do nothing. My old man does not believe this, he believes that God is there just for the big things and the details are left up to me to finish. Apostle Paul said “in God we live and move and have our being.” That is a bold statement of entirety. And the scriptures quoted above from Colossians that Christ created everything and by Him all things consist also proves that we don’t take a breath without Him giving us that breath. The power of The Spirit Apotle Paul spoke of was what was played out in my pain. I erred from the truth in unbelief not seeing Christ as The Builder and my unbelief was what Christ died for. But the beauty and power of resurrection played out in chastisement, which brought knowledge of why I was being chastised, then confession, then repentance, then physical relief and conversion. This builds our patience and faith in The Creator.

The wisdom of men goes a lot deeper than we think. If you’ve read the Revelation study then you understand that the 144,000 represent every minute of every day given to Christ as Creator in loving God with all my heart, soul and mind and my neighbor/Brother as myself. I was not doing that in the building of the feeder. I had left my first love and started mixing with my old man’s ways. Because I am who I am in Christ, God was not mocked and I reaped what I had sown. I had planted to the flesh’s natural laws of wisdom and recieved the laws of the flesh in pain. If we walk in the Spirit then we shall reap from the Spirit: “…love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.”

This same principal of the wisdom of men plays out in our mourning for the loss of loved ones. The wisdom of the natural man tries to explain what happens to the dead. Common Babylonian thought (religious or secular) says everyone has a free will independent from God and everyone makes free will choices. These choices, which are independent from God, decide whether one will spend eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell. Most use the parable of Lazarus and the rich man as their foundation. Then you have those who believe in the wisdom of men that say in another life God will gather all of the human race and use selected people to reprogram/convert them thus teaching ultimately a free for all in which everyone ever created will be in a place called heaven. These are teachings for the “itching ears” of the flesh. They soothe the flesh in one way or another either with retribution and reward based on works, or the laissez faire attitude of eat drink and be merry because we all end up in heaven anyway. There are thousands of different ways according to man’s wisdom to get to either of these two outcomes. But the truth is simple, so simple that the carnal mind cannot conceive it. The truth is that what God has promised to Abraham will enter behind the veil, the kingdom of God, because of Christ being The Seed promised to secure them. Christ is The Seed promised to Abraham and Christ has secured ALL of Abraham’s spiritual seed. “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. “

Isaac representing the single seed of Christ, was the promised child, not Ishmael who represents our flesh. Christ is the promised seed to whom all the promises are made. Because we are in Christ, we also partake of the promise and the inheritance. Scripture says if you are in Christ, then you are heirs to the promise. The new man is the promised child, not my flesh. “Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God.” All of Isaac’s seed, Jacob, is loved, not Esau’s seed. Jacob represents the Elect (new man) and Esau (old man) represents our flesh. Then you have all the twelve tribes that come from Jacob that represent the One tribe. Again if you’ve read the Revelation study you understand that twelve equals one, as twelve hours equals ONE day and twelve months equal ONE year. The ONE tribe is Christ. All who are in Christ are ONE with Him and everything in them are ONE with them. We are in the spiritual, Abraham’s inheritance, as promised to him by God, secured by the One Seed who is Christ. “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. “

“I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.”

All that God has promised to Christ are the same that were promised to Abraham. Christ is The Seed in which all come through. Like Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, so we believe in Christ and it is accounted to us for righteousness. We are the offspring of Christ, we are His seeds, children. We are the children of the promise that are counted as heirs. “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” The promised children are those whom God has chosen to be children of the promise and given to Christ. Just because someone was born in the literal lineage of Abraham that does not make him a child of promise. The promised children are those who have Christ in them, The Seed. It is not according to lineage or to a denomination, or to knowledge, or birthright in the flesh. If you are a child of God promised to Christ, then you have The Seed in you and that Seed grows in faith and in belief according to the promises of God. The inheritance is not based on works of the flesh or because of your lineage, but solely based on the Election of God. “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded unto this day.” “…the election hath obtained it…” nothing more needs to be said! The election of God obtains what has been elected. And if you are an elect then you are justified in Christ and are glorified in Christ and walk as Chris.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, THEM he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

False doctrine places the belief before the election and basically says that my belief saves me. But the truth is that we believe because we were elected to believe. Our belief is a manifestation of our election before we were ever born. We were chosen to believe because Christ was predestined to be in us. We did not come out of the womb knowing who we were, it was manifested to us who we were by our belief. God chose us to believe. It is a work of God that we believe in Christ, it is not a work we can do. Election obtains the promise to believe and that belief from God is counted for righteousness. The belief is God’s work that is righteous. “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:”

We are no different from any other human on earth in the flesh. But we have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world to be in the kingdom of God through The Seed. We are an offspring of Christ, an heir to the throne of God with Christ. False doctrine teaches us that our freewill is what gets us eternal life. We either choose life or we choose death. False doctrine teaches that I believe in Christ because of my freewill, to turn from my sin and receive atonement. The truth says I believe because I was chosen by God to believe. It is a work of God that I believe. “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”  It’s not a work of the flesh to believe it is “the work of God, that we believe” in Christ. It is a work of God for us to believe that Christ is in us creating us into sons of God. This is the simplicity of the gospel. So simple that the wisdom of men cannot attain it. “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

The serpent in me was made to slither through me to cause me to doubt God. The doubt either causes me to lean on Christ or it causes me to separate from God. It either causes me to trust Christ as my savior or trust in my works as savior. It separates the wheat from the tares. It either trusts God that Christ is recreating me or it chases its own fabled free will to believe. Stay in Christ we have life, chase our own servantry and we die. This simplistic parable is played out in the story of Shimei. Shimei cursed David as he fled Jerusalem from Absalom:

“And when king David came to Bahurim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera: he came forth, and cursed still as he came.” After David is restored to the throne he pardons Shimei. “Therefore the king said unto Shimei, Thou shalt not die. And the king sware unto him.”  But, upon his death bed king David told Solomon to remember what Shimei had done:

“Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying,….And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the LORD, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood.” 

So Solomon gives Shimei an order. Build a house in the city and you shall live. If you leave the city you shall die. And that is exactly what he did. He built a home and lived in it for three years until his servants ran away and he went chasing them. The word came to Solomon and he executed Shimei for disobeying his order. “And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Build thee an house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and go not forth thence any whither. For it shall be, that on the day thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die: thy blood shall be upon thine own head. And Shimei said unto the king, The saying is good: as my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do. And Shimei dwelt in Jerusalem many days. And it came to pass at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away unto Achish son of Maachah king of Gath. And they told Shimei, saying, Behold, thy servants be in Gath. And Shimei arose, and saddled his ass, and went to Gath to Achish to seek his servants: and Shimei went, and brought his servants from Gath. And it was told Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and was come again. And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Did I not make thee to swear by the LORD, and protested unto thee, saying, Know for a certain, on the day thou goest out, and walkest abroad any whither, that thou shalt surely die? and thou saidst unto me, The word that I have heard is good. Why then hast thou not kept the oath of the LORD, and the commandment that I have charged thee with? The king said moreover to Shimei, Thou knowest all the wickedness which thine heart is privy to, that thou didst to David my father: therefore the LORD shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head; And king Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the LORD for ever. So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; which went out, and fell upon him, that he died. And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.”

If we remain in Christ as Savior (represented by staying put in Jerusalem, the “teaching of peace”) we live, if we chase after our own works we die. If we are in Christ we remain in Christ. The parts of us that are not in Christ chase after our own works and die in unbelief. As the kingdom of David was established in the hands of Solomon by the death of Shimei, so the kingdom of God is established in the death of our old man. Christ’s kingdom is established by the death of our own Shimei (our own wisdom) and we are blessed as Solomon. Stand in the simple truth that the election has obtained us and Christ is The Seed in us, and we live. Go running after your own servantry through works (works based on wisdom of the flesh) you die, yet the Kingdom of God is established. The world in me is chasing their servants, their works and wisdom all will die and the Kingdom of Christ will be established. Our citizenship in the kingdom of God is based on God’s election and He sent His Son to establish our citizenship by His own death for our cursing. The debt was paid in full, all we are told to do is stand in the New Jerusalem and never leave it. Staying in the church, staying in communication with Christ strengthens the new man and produces peace. Leaving New Jerusalem and mixing with the doctrines of the world produces death. Either way the kingdom is being established. If you believe you are a son of God, you believe because you were predestined to believe. The alternative is to turn to your own vomit and die in your fabled free will. Because both of these events must happen, they both are part of the process that establishes what and who you are becoming in the kingdom of God. All the Elect start off as Shimei, in the flesh, with a paid debt for our cursing, as David pardoned Shimei. But our fleshly wisdom chases after our works and those parts of us have to die. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” When we stay in the wisdom of Christ, which is knowing our Election is based solely on God’s choice, not our works, represented by staying in Jerusalem in the story above, then we are standing in liberty and our debt remains paid. The story of Shimei helps us understand the following verse: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins but a certain looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” If we chase after our works, after anything that comes from ourselves or believe we have anything that comes from ourselves, after we have received this understanding, then we sin willfully, and that part of us will be judged and destroyed.

“Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.”

I was blinded by my own experience, my own works, in building the cow trough and it did not turn out as I had planned. Trust in Christ as The Creator of everything I am and all goes wel. Trust in Christ as The Great Carpenter and it is built correctly. The name “Shimei” means “renowned”. The people who came out of the mixing between the sons of God (Seth’s lineage-new man) and the daughters of men (Cain’s lineage-old man) were said also to be renown. The word “renown” is H8034 and means the following; “an appellation, as a mark or memorial of individuality; by implication honor, authority, character: –  + base, [in-] fame [-ous], name (-d), renown, report”

Shimei in us is our thoughts of worth, our own “mark of individuality.” Solomon orders “Benaiah” to kill Shimei. “Benaiah” means H1141; “Jehovah has built.” What “Jehovah has built”, which is Christ in us, will destroy the “mark of our own individuality.” “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”

If my thoughts of citizenship in the kingdom of God are based on the mark of my own individuality then that part of me is dead and in the place of the unknown. If I live and move and have my being because of Christ in me, then I am living in the New Jerusalem and not needing to chase servants. If I chase my own individuality then that part is a dead man, walking around with the mark of Cain, the mark of individuality. And if anyone tries to kill my individuality then I will take vengeance seven fold on them. I will fight for my rights as God has put in all flesh, which does not enter the kingdom of God. As beasts, by nature, we will fight for our rights to the death. It’s called pride. “And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” If I fight for my rights as a free will being then that part of me is dead and in the place of the unknown. If I am a child of God because The Seed is in me, then I have no pride of being renown, and give ALL GLORY TO CHRIST FOR WHO AND WHAT I AM. Christ has translated me from the kingdom of the sons of men (Cain-old man) to the kingdom of the sons of God (Christ-new man) where we don’t mix with the cursed individuality of my old man. We long to just rest in New Jerusalem, city of peace, but there are still Shimei thoughts in us that chase after our own servants. Shimei never rests in New Jerusalem because the flesh loves its individuality more than its King Who Is Christ. The flesh would rather hold on to its illusion of free will individuality unto its last breath than to submit to Christ as its Creator and sole reason to be in the kingdom of God. Die to self/Shimei and live in the city of peace/Jerusalem.

So, now we must ask “what classifies a thought as individualistic?” Any thought that pits its will against the will of God is individualistic. I’ll give a seemingly small example, yet very real in the individualistic thoughts of our flesh. We, my wife and I, went through great lengths to grow Fescue grass on our property. The ground all around our home was nothing but dirt and mud when it rained. There was no grass, of any kind, in the area around our home due to the ground being upended in the removing of trees and tractor work. It was muddy during the rains and dusty during the dry times. So we took our tractor and tilled the ground up and seeded it with fescue grass. It didn’t do much. We kept sowing seed, watering, sowing seed, watering, fertilizing, spreading straw to protect the seed and so on, yet not much praying or asking God to reveal His will. Well, three years later we had a beautiful lawn around most of the house. Then this year we noticed that the color of the grass had changed and at closer inspection we found that most of the fescue grass was gone. Where there was fescue grass there was now mostly stilt grass. Stilt grass is considered by man’s wisdom to be an invasive weed grass that is basically good for nothing and does not make for a “pretty” lawn. Much of our property has this stilt grass because it was filled with groves of trees and not much else will grow in woodlands or under dense canopies of trees. Another disturbing to our flesh bit of man’s wisdom is that grazing animals won’t eat it. It didn’t occur to us to care much about it when we first bought the property. We didn’t mind the stilt grass at all. At least it was green we had said. But in the acres closer to the house we wanted fescue grass. Anyway, when we first discovered the “invasion” of stilt grass into our highly prized areas that had been sown with fescue, it was sorely disappointing to us. We both knew that this aggravated disappointment was not how we were to receive this, and that we were leaving “Jerusalem” the city of peace, in which we know we are to remain. We remain in Jersalem by submitting ourselves to the authority of Christ in all things because He Authors all things. The new man in us knew it was Christ who first caused the fescue to grow and it was also Christ who was causing the stilt grass to take it over. HOWEVER, because Shimei, our old man, is still with us, we went running after our works which left us feeling cheated by all the work we claimed as our own to grow the fescue, along with anxiousness over the possibility that fescue may never be able to take root anywhere on this property and it will remain a haven for stilt grass – a grass that grazers won’t eat! The Lord has given us two cows so it was a little mystifying to us that He would deny the growth of a suitable grazing grass. And lastly, our pride was hit because we wanted the “look” of a fescue lawn. Like Shimei we were able to intellectually agree with Christ’s ruling and “stay in Jerusalem,” knowing that He is the Author of all things but ultimately the temptation was too great for Shimei, our old man, who simply cannot help but run after his servants, his fleshly works that he so desires to claim as his own. If we weren’t still claiming our own works, taking credit for all the hard work of sowing seed and then reaping the satisfaction of seeing it grow, like we were the creators of it, then when God thwarted our fleshly desires, we would have been able to take it in stride with perfect peace. Instead it disrupted our peace, caused frustration and disappointment and even a little anxiety that we wouldn’t have the “right” grass to feed our cows. All of this comes from taking in and mingling with man’s wisdom, claiming our own works, and taking our eyes off of Christ. This situation may sound silly to many people but it shows the level of detail God uses to reveal what is in us and to make His desired changes within us. God isn’t just in the “big” events of life. He IS life. When God thwarts our fleshly desires, big or small, the truth is always revealed about what is going on within us. We can speak great swelling words of righteousness but when tested, the truth of whether they are truly words of God’s righteousness or self righteousness will always be revealed. This is why God creates these scenarious, for our edification and for ultimately destroying a little more of Shimei with each situation, thus establishing more and more of the kingdom of God. These situations destroy our peace and bring frustration, disappointment, fears, even bitterness sometimes. The Lord has killed off a little more of our Shimei with this situation and restored our peace about whatever it is He desires to grow on His property. He is all wisdom and knows all things. We know nothing. He is a loving and benevolent Provider, Father and Husband. What more do we need to know? This is rest. This is remaining in Jerusalem.

The truth is whatever Christ desires is what we should desire. We should not have an individualistic desire separate from Him. Christ said that His Father and He were one. He said that the words that came out of His mouth were not His words but His Fathers. And He said He always did what the Father desired. Christ has no desires of His own outside of His Father and so too with us. If we have been united to Christ and His Father as one, then what they desire, we desire, or should desire. What They want for our life, is what we want. This truth is shown in the parable of marriage. What God has brought together let not man (the individualistic thoughts of the man or the woman) put asunder. “And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

My thoughts should never divide my wife and I. They do at times, but Christ is teaching us to be of the same mind. This marriage example is the parable of the union between Christ and the church, His Bride, New Jerusalem. So, when we read the parabolic language of scripture regarding marriage between a man and a woman, it is speaking of Christ and His union to the church. The man and woman are parables of Christ and the church. Look at the following scriptures:

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 

Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.”

I quote these scriptures to show the truth of being united to Christ and for the purpose of expelling false doctrine. Christ is teaching us to submit to His desires in EVERYTHING. As He told the wife to do to the husband. And He tells us that He loves us as His own body and will not become bitter against us, as He told the husband not to do against his wife. It is easy to become bitter when we are walking in the flesh. When we are in the flesh the husband is not loving the wife as himself but is becoming bitter. He is not seeing her as the church. The wife is not honoring her husband as her head, as Christ, and is being disrespectful to her husband. These parables unlock the door for us to see our relationship with Christ. What and how I treat my wife is how I am treating my relationship to Christ. If I am talking down to her then I am talking down to Christ’s church. If she is being disrepectful to me then she is being disrespectful to Christ. How I treat her is revealing how I am treating Christ. This is the way we are to see individualism. Ever bit of scripture is to be seen inwardly and not outwardly. The parable of the man and the woman is also a parable of my relationship to Christ, inwardly. Another good example of individualistic thinking inwardly is the story of King Ahasuerus and Esther. The King is first married to Queen Vashti. He has a big banquet and requests that Vashti present herself to the people to show her beauty. But, she thinking of herself as an individual with rights, refuses:

“On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s commandment by his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him.”

Vashti’s beauty is outward. Without inward beauty we cannot please Christ, our husband. He creates us to have the inward beauty of a chaste heart.

“Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:”

Inward beauty is what we are called to present to Christ when we are called upon to be humble, peaceful, kind and merciful to others. My old man does not want to be one with Christ but desires his own individualism before Christ. This is Vashti and she is replaced by Esther. Our old church called Babylon is prideful and arrogant, like Vashti. It thinks it sits on its own beast and all seven days, seven heads, are dedicated to her. Esther represents the New Jerusalem, the new Queen. She is humble, quiet, respectful, and submits to her husband in everything. Again, this parable of a husband and wife is speaking of Christ and the church. “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

There is no individualism in the kingdom of God. Everyone and everything is created by Christ and for Christ. This is our lives as Elect. Everything in them are created by Christ and for Christ for our good. He doesn’t let us run amuck, but purges us and prunes us to bear fruit. He slowly subdues the Canaanites living in our land that are individualistic. The name “Canaan” means “humiliated” H3667 and comes from H3665 which means “properly to bend the knee; hence to humiliate, vanquish: – bring down (low), into subjection, under, humble (self), subdue.” Christ is teaching us to subdue the individualistic thoughts in us as natural brute beasts and rule them. Submit to Christ in EVERYTHING as scripture says to do and we obtain it all. Fight for your rights as a man or woman as an individual and you get nothing. Become one with Christ you get it all.

“Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. O LORD our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own. I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee. O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee“

Christ is The Resurrection. The resurrection is not an act in the future, but it is Christ. He is the resurrection, which means as we learn of Christ we are being resurrected. The resurrection is not a one time future event but a daily, hourly, minute by minute rising from the carnal mind under the firmament, to a descending from the firmament above, which means in less parabolic terms, our thoughts are descending from the spiritual realm into the natural realm and then ascending back up above the natural from what the spiritual teaches us. This is the process of resurrection.

“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. “

“But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: TILL we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him (RESURRECT) in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

The carnal mind thinks in carnal thoughts that do not rise above their own heads. The Spiritual mind rises into the heavens, above what the natural mind can comprehend. Terrestrial vs Celestial.

“There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”

Our resurrection is not a one time act in the future but a daily recreation ascending above the terrestrial into the celestial. This is why Christ said to Martha when she thought it was a future, literal resurrection:

“Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”

Our natural creation was created subject to vanity for the purpose of resurrecting above the corruption of vanity into the realm of the celestial where everything has purpose. Everything is subject to vanity yet even the vanity has a purpose. Last night my flesh wanted to sleep because the vain thought I had was I wanted to be rested naturally so I could get some things done that my vain thoughts had been subject to. But I did not get very much sleep yet woke up not feeling as tired as my carnal mind says I should have been. Christ is my rest not my sleep. I just resurrected above my terrestrial carnal mind into the celestial mind, spiritual. Natural flesh is subject to natural law but the spiritual mind of Christ rises above natural law. When we resurrect above natural law, and see Christ as the source of everything, even the natural benefits from it.

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” 

As an Elect, we are being resurrected every day, every minute by the spirit of God. Our carnal mind is being delivered from the vanity of the terrestrial into the celestial, which means we are learning not to be carried away by every thought (wind of doctrine) that passes through our heavens. We are learning to judge every thought based on its usefulness for the body of Christ. (Bring every thought into the subjection of Christ.) How will it be useful for the growth of the church? It begins to think for the body and not for its own individualistic nature. It is based on the love of the body of Christ and for the body of Christ. It stops thinking individualistic, terrestrial, and thinks universal, celestial. I am not speaking about what’s best for mankind in the natural literal world, but specifically for the church of God. It first starts inside myself, my own world, and then goes outward to the church as a whole. Again, I am not speaking of a denomination, or a sect or for all of mankind, but for the Elect of God who are hidden throughout the literal, natural world.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

If you are an Elect then your deadness is hearing and rising from the grave of your vanity. A vain life is one based solely on your fleshly wants and desires. A terrestrial earth that is BOUND by things that your flesh desires. When you begin to hear the voice of Christ then at the same time you are being judged. Judged in the sense that you are given to judge the reason you do the things you do. Some things have life and some things are judged unto condemnation. Love is always resurrected into life and hatred is always condemned. To love Christ and the church above your own wants, needs, and your own time is to be given life and partake of the celestial, the eternal, which means we are given to resurrect above the grave of the flesh and its natural laws. What oncw meant so much to us becomes vain and corrupt.

“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”

The natural laws of the flesh that we have been bound to are vanity. They do not rise or resurrect above into the celestial heavens above the firmament.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.” 

When we are still bound by carnal thinking then our thoughts are based on the terrestrial, the flesh, the waters, the doctrines, under the firmament, which are subject to vanity. All waters under the firmament are used on the flesh and from those waters more terrestrial appears, more of you, dry land appears. But if you are being resurrected then you are seeing great lights in your heavens and now they are controlling your earth, your earth is no longer controlling your heavens.

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.”

The great Light is Christ and the other is The Church. The stars are the prophets and Apostles and anyone who carries the truth to others to give them light in darkness. These great lights expose the vanity of our earth and our earth is controlled by them. The natural laws of the earth are then controlled by the greater lights, greater truths and we die to self and rise from the dead vanity of our fleshly lives. We then are driven to seek out those who are of the same heavenly mind as us. We desire to dwell in the heavens together as ONE body and not as separate stars existing in our own universe.

“For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.”

“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. ” 

The earth is reseeding itself over and over again as God designed it to do. Year after year the earth has continued to reseed itself in the vanity of the flesh and for the flesh.

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

It is unnatural to not be self centered and always put self above others, to self seed. The vanity of the world has seemingly gotten wiser in itself. It has sown tremendous amounts of seed in itself. The internet is a good example of this. Ask it any question and it queues up a response gathered from itself – all the worldly ideas of man compiled together, aptly called A.I., or Artificial Intelligence. It is artificial because it is not based on God as its Author and the source of ALL. This little truth is the greatest enemy of Christ and His body. This little truth is played out in the Israelites getting defeated by the little place called Ai in Joshua 7. They thought this little place was too small to pray to God about and in the end they were defeated by such a small thought. Even the smallest thought, if it doesn’t begin and end with Christ as The Creator is artificial intelligence and will defeat you every time. Little thoughts are tested/judged a thousand times a day in every detail of life. We have been flooded with artificial intelligence since birth but like Noah and the ark, Christ has brought our ark to rest on a mountaintop and the process must begin of reseeding the earth, but with the ONE seed from above, Who is Christ, Who is all things. The earth reseeding itself is a parable of how we naturally, as an “earthy” being, have been about self and only self. But the Elect are being taught to seed each other, not their own earth.

The Church is one body made up of hands, feet, arms and legs, etc. and we all, if Elect, should be desiring to seek the needs of the other parts of this body. When one part of the body suffers or is weak, the whole body suffers. Natural law of the flesh says I have my own seed to plant and you have yours. But the truth says, if we are Elect, then we all have the same ONE seed, Christ, and are to be spreading that seed for the benefit of the NEW EARTH, called the church, which is made up of other believers. What grows from that one seed feeds us all. We need you and you need us because as the body we are to grow together into the Bride of Christ. We are all in the process of resurrecting from a dead body of unbelievers. The new heaven and earth is first within us and then it translates to other believers. As more Elect are gathered together the new heaven and new earth grow. The celestial overtakes the terrestrial.

“Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”

The Celestial taking over the terrestrial is the Elect becoming one mind. This is why we are told to come out of the world because the world is terrestrial and any seed passed on by them is only for the flesh, its temporal and terrestrial. This is why the Elect come together and spend time together because as a united body they know they are not an individual earth anymore. God has used animals, the natural, to explain the spiritual. Most animals pack together with their own kind. Most humans have the same natural tendency to pack together with those of their same mind. This parable in the natural is to be seen and taken seriously in the spiritual realm. We are the last of the Elect that are being gathered in the eleventh hour. We are being resurrected from this world for the glory of Christ. But to be resurrected we must die to the literal world. We must be separate from the world to be resurrected from it. To separate from the world is to resurrect from it. This must first happen from your world within and it will translate to the world out there. This is what Christ said.

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”

It is a high calling to be called and chosen to be in the kingdom of God. We should never take it lightly or with a flippant attitude. If we do then we shall suffer the consequences if we are an Elect. We should take great thought into what we are setting out to do.

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. “

To begin our resurrecting process we must deny ourselves. This is hating our own life. We must deny what we think we know, who we think we are, what power we think we possess and give everything to Christ as The Author and Finisher of all that we are. All we have is because of Him and solely because of Him. We do not possess a free will independent from Him and we are not little gods separate from Him. If you have read the “about” page you know that these writings are not meant for proselytizing anyone but for the purpose of gathering other Elect from the four corners of the world together into one mind. If we are being resurrected then we are leaving our world behind and looking for the new heaven and new earth. Just like in the world when you desire to speak to your natural family and desire to be with them so in the body of Christ we should have an even stronger desire to be with our spiritual family. The natural is merely a shadow of the truth of the spiritual. If we have the desire to be one with Christ then any oneness we have with the world is dying and we are resurrecting from it.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.”

These words of Christ are seen by the Elect as the last trumpet calling them out of their Babylonian lives and resurrecting into a new heaven and new earth where Christ reigns supreme over all. Give it all up now and you get more in the life to come and now in this life. But the death of the old man must come first. From death comes life. The man of sin must be seen first before he is destroyed and we rise from the earth he was made from. It is a troubling thought to my flesh to let its desires fall to the ground and die for someone else but that is exactly what must happen. To serve Christ, our old man must die and that troubles him. The following words are just as much to us as they were to Christ literally.

“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.”

It is glorifing to God for us to die to the flesh and live unto Him and when we do He will glorify us even more.

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.” 

This is not speaking of Peter’s literal physical death but “signified” his death to self, to no longer be “self-willed.” As an Elect, the seed of Christ is in you, which means He will pick you up and carry you where your flesh would not. He will cause you to give up more than could even imagine. But all that is lost is also replaced with greater riches than you could imagine. God is faithful and the more He causes us to sacrifice now the more He promises we’ll get later as we resurrect.

“Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed

thee. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. “

It’s easy to sit on the couch and read these words. It’s easy to agree with something and then walk away thinking you’re already doing all you need to do. But what isn’t easy is to deny your flesh and become one with others. It’s hard for the flesh to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together and fight the inward battle of persecutions that come with resurrecting daily. The word “assembling” in Hebrews 10:25 is translated “gathering” in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, where it says,

“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him”

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

We are being gathered in the resurrection now if we are Elect. We are ascending if we have first descended into the lower parts of our earth. As Jacob saw Angels descending and ascending in his vision so we too should be seeing what we are in the terrestrial and then ascend above it in the celestial.

“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. “

This is mortal taking on immortality. This IS-RAEL, the Israel of God. When we begin to resurrect we leave the artificial intelligence and what we become IS REAL. What we are IS REAL and what we are taught by artificial intelligence is not real. As the graves were opened after Christ’s literal resurrection and people walked into the city so we too are being resurrected and walking into the new Jerusalem, appearing before many (all the many within us who do not yet believe), denying the artificial intelligence we have learned from the man of sin within us, taking up our cross and following Christ.

“And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”

Abram left Ur of the Chaldees. Chaldees (H3778) means “astrologer, clod breaker and wise”. Leave what U R (you-are) breaking up hard ground where you’ve been planting your seeds of artificial intelligence and enter The I AM and what you will become IS REAL (Israel). Become immortal by leaving the mortal thoughts of your wisdom separate and independent from God. Everyday should be a teaching of what is real and what is artificial. An ox is not an ox. A dog is not a dog. A tree is not a tree. A mountain is not a mountain. Leaven is not leaven. Everything we see in the natural is a parable of the spiritual.

“And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”

“And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.”

What we see with our natural eyes tells us about the spiritual. What we feel in the natural tells us about the spiritual. The other day I had a headache. When I told my wife she asked me what I had been thinking. I told her my thoughts and we prayed and the headache left me. The headache was a symptom of a spiritual head ache, thoughts that were centered on flesh. Yesterday I had heartburn, again we prayed and the heartburn left me. I had been thinking about the things that I was putting in this study. These are examples of the celestial ruling the terrestrial.

“And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”

Everything has God as The Author and the Finisher, not what I eat or because of some other natural occurrence. Mixing with the world (within and the world out there) causes us literal sickness and when confessed the natural is overcome by the spiritual. This is resurrecting from the grave of our dead lives in which we have existed. Christ said “I Am The Resurrection.” To be in Christ is to begin our resurrection from this world within that causes separation from truth. Focus on the natural reap the natural consequences. Focus on the spiritual reap eternal life. Fit into the world and we shall reap from the world. Fashion yourself after the world and you shall die with it. If you stop and examine your thoughts, you will be surprised by what has caused you to be sick or in pain. If you are an Elect then God will open your understanding and the natural mortal will be swallowed up by the spiritual. The sting of the dead thoughts based on natural laws will fade away into the spiritual. God is All things. Not some things but All things. Everything exists because of Christ and Christ alone. I was naturally a drunk for years until The Lord showed me I was drunk on the false doctrine of Babylon. He then removed the false doctrines and the natural fell away also. Once He moved me to stop craving Babylonian drink, He removed the literal desire for alcohol. Babylonian drink is self love. Self love in any thought brings a consequence. Put Christ and His body of believers first, love them above yourself and the sting of death based on the law of self love will fall away. You will be healthier and happier. When we stop mixing with the world within us of self love, self preservation, and self glorification and we will begin to resurrect. Our prayer for ourselves and each other should be to ask God to free us from our world within and to put Him above all things and love Him above ourselves and all things. As God frees us from listening to vain words from the world, family, friends, co-workers, etc., and from our very own thoughts we will begin to experience eternal life. Don’t take pride in what the world takes pride in. Forsake the Babylonian holidays. Forsake worshipping the day your flesh was created called birthdays. Forsake keeping days, months, times and years and see how fast your so-called loved ones and friends will turn on you. When we walk away from the world we can experience what Enoch experienced, “for he was not.” See God as All and we won’t be.

“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”

“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

We fight daily against the worldly doctrines in us concerning health, tomorrow, money, planning, and whatever worldly doctine that puts its artificial intelligence before The One and Only. It is a daily, hourly, minute by minute struggle against years of believing a lie. We are not floating around on clouds with nice comfortable concepts about life but are daily battling our flesh. Minute by minute we are confessing ignorance of truth and fighting against the flesh who just wants to relax with the world and turn off the constant war. It is the parable of the constant wars Israel fought against the Canaanites. But we should not be alarmed by these wars because Christ said they would come.

“Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. “

The nation of the carnal mind against the nation of Truth are the wars, rumours of wars, and nation against nation Christ spoke about. All of it is inside of us, not outward in a literal world war III as I used to believe, where a literal man of sin would set up camp in literal Israel and Christ would ride in on a literal white horse battling against some evil man. My natural understanding read like a comic book. God’s wisdom is foolishness to the natural man. However, the SPIRITUAL war inside of the Elect is real, more real than even any natural event because it has eternal consequences.

If you’re reading this and you think it’s just a nice study and it makes you feel good but doesn’t give you the desire to separate from the world and interact with the Body then you may as well turn on the t.v., surf the internet and slide back into the grave. You may as well put on fancy clothes, go to the nicest resturants and mix with the “in crowd” and enjoy what you have now, because it is all you’ll have. All who have faith without works, as James says, have their place with the rest of the world in the place of the dead, the place of the unknown to God, called Hades. You cannot be lukewarm, God will spew you out of His mouth. Live like the world or live like a king destined for eternity with Christ. As David, the Psalmist said, the dead know nothing. There will be no tomorrow for the dead. God is the God of the living, living because we are living in Him. We all have fleshly families in the world and I am not saying we should hate them. However, the Truth that is in us should hate the lies that reside in them. What concord has the truth with lies? None. The lies are what we are turning from. Christ won’t honor a self-righteous stand against family. What I am saying is that if we live our lives unto God then what we know as friends and family will separate from us. But what we lose in the flesh God will give us in spiritual family. The body of Christ will override the flesh and we can as the family of God resurrect more and more until we have walked away from this world and entered eternity with our Creator. Put The Body of Christ first, love the brotherhood above all and know what true love is, was and will be. Interact with the body and you will grow with the body.

No one goes to war by themselves to fight against an enemy that has existed for thousands of years. If you are warring as we are warring then you should know that we need each other to fight our enemy. You have something we need to help us fight and we have something you need to fight. If you are in the battle as we are then feel free to reach out to us at “being1inchrist@gmail.com” and we as a growing body can fight this war together and enter eternity. Every part of the body needs the other body parts and no body part is an individual. The hand is not the head, the eye is not the hand and no part is the whole. We all need each other to fight as a whole united body. Christ is The Head and He will use us as He needs us and as He created us to be in His body.

“For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.”