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22 Minutes Psalms 138:8 This text charms me. It contains in itself the very essence of the grace of God. It reads like music to the soul, and is like a flagon of water in the desert. May I ask you to read it again... Let’s spiritually understand this statement. It literally means “be complete”. We are to, with all our spiritual might, reach a singular level of maturity in our growth in terms of spiritual integrity. Moral excellence, upright righteousness are imaged attributes of God. We are to be devotedly and eminently set apart as we run hard after God. And it’s not just us...God wants a holy people. Jesus says to be perfect, the belief would be that he would not require us to do something that is impossible for us to achieve. Please do not allow doubt to blind you. There is a special work of the Holy Spirit that God assigns us whereby we can have victory over all sin, over all intentional sin. Perfectionism is not that target. The ongoing struggle with sin has to be met with “it is written”. Can a person be perfect? Even Hezekiah walked with a perfect heart. Job 1:1 Genesis 6:9 Being perfect is finding it never, ever necessary on any occasion to choose to sin. It is being diligent in our behavior. It is not some metaphase that transforms the structural composition of our bodies. Too many are fiercely self-critical as opposed to trusting in the word of God. Please, have no grief in misunderstanding. Jesus expects us to be all that we are supposed to be. The sorrow for our sins is to be perfect in our truthfulness with God and with ourselves. The enmity that God gave us perfects our hatred for sin. It ensures that God is loved above all else. You are not inadequate when you are in Christ. Jesus was enjoining us to be perfect and praying that we be made perfect, for perfect love perfects us, perfect contrition perfects us, perfect suffering perfects us, perfect obedience perfects us. Being perfect is Christ’s life manifested through us. Matthew 5:48 John 17:23 God knows how we receive His word to rise above our broken natures. And He gives us the grace to share in His power. By the power of God’s promise, we become what we were made to be: partakers of the divine nature. II Peter 1:4 Perfection is not more of a concern about actions we perform to a certain level, spiritual perfection is about becoming totally dependent on God, letting Him work through us to perform His will, not ours. It is not concerned about “self.” We don’t have to make ourselves perfect. It is God who perfects us in Jesus Christ. It is in our reconciliation with God by Christ, that God sees us perfect. We may, or will make missteps, but remember, the perfection spoken of in scripture is not about what we do; it’s about what Christ does in us. Hebrews 6:1 We must not lose them, we must not despise them, we must not forget them. We must lay them up in our hearts, and lay them as the foundation of all our profession and expectation; but we must not rest and stay in them, we must not be always laying the foundation, we must go on, and build upon it. Philippians 3:12-15 Hear this word, “this one thing I do”... Blessed are we who can give this same personal testimony. We have received permission from the Almighty God to go on to perfection. We are apprehended of the life of Christ in all its fullness. The life of Christ, which we have attained to so far, does not stop us from further heavenly pursuits. The race of following Christ is not something we have to do, ought to do, or must do; it is something we are permitted to do, something that is “privileged.” We serve in the newness of the Spirit and the result of its work is our sanctification. Our exit from this earthly life becomes a rich entrance into an eternal life. The powers of an eternal life, exampled by Christ, have already increasingly permeated our mind and life. Our life is a testimony of love and devotion to our God and to our Savior. It is as we have given each other our “yea, yea,” and our desire is to be united for all eternity. This is also by permission of our God. The truth of being made perfect is in our faith in the imputed and imparted righteousness of Jesus...God restoring us to favor. With this favor is God’s enabling grace, that moral power to obey with high regard His every commandment. This faith makes us right with the law of God. This is how God saves as many as desire to be saved. He transfers His own righteousness to us. This is what adorns the change in our spiritual nature whereby we can be made perfect. Just take a moment and contemplate the power received in reasoning with God. The believing family of God now present are the very ones who can know truth as it is in Jesus. Use your faith in the truth to act as a staff whereon we may rest through the pilgrimage of the most dreadful times and events ever to come upon humanity. Perfection was to be the heritage of mankind. In the very bowels of the prayer of Jesus is that promise that is ours. We are to now have a concern, in and a concern about heavenly things. We are to know that eternity concerns us more than time; that the mansions of heaven are more worthy of our consideration than the material stuff of earth. Immortality looms brilliantly before us and we’re casting more hope toward these perishing bodies. Faith is knowing that the life of the present is preparation for the ultimate perfecting when we see Jesus. This faith means that we have no perfection and no righteousness of, and in ourselves; that we must trust wholly and solely in Christ. The things that concern God must concern us...that is His perfecting us. We must appropriate the things the Holy Spirit is guiding us into and teaching us as though we are concerned. Any delay in our faith is the sign of spiritual retardedness. We should, each of us, put one hand upon our heart and lift the other to God and say, without stammering, as in the sight of God; "I am concerned about the things of God, of Christ, of salvation, of eternity. I may not yet understand His assurance, but I have concern. If I cannot say, I know in whom I have believed, I can say I know in whom I desire to believe. If I cannot say, I know that I am where I must be, I can say I desire that I may be found in him at last, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." And I say this to my soul; suffer Christ not to take any part of his precious perfecting; it is all mine. Jesus was manifested to show us the Father, but his blood, his life was manifested that we might see the Father. Brothers, sisters, I just cannot hold this any longer...there is this most secret place, even more secret than a mother’s womb, that God has revealed to me, that irregardless of any circumstance, I might view from the perspective of perfection every discernible sufficiency that God makes available for my being made perfect. Christ himself...HE IS THE SECRET PLACE OF THE MOST HIGH GOD. We must endeavor to do all righteousness that is found in him. Psalms 18:24 There can be no cleanliness apart from the blood of Christ; and we can never be purified apart from the purifying operations of the Holy Ghost. Being made perfect is having the work of God in our heart. And the spirit of prophecy records as it is the testimony of Jesus, that what human power can do divine power is not summoned to do. God makes a way that in our flesh we can be born of the Spirit. The human power is the choice to accept that power of God...grace. And with God’s grace we are to celestially focus on His word, we are to suck all the sweetness from every word, that our faith becomes so strong, and our love so hot, that there is no “if’s” or “buts”, about our being made perfect, it is as “though” He has done it all, and will do it all. We must come to trust God as far as we can see Him. And we see God in all things. When there’s no food to eat, we see Him in the ravens coming. And if the ravens do not come, we see Him in the faith of His word...bread, water will be sure. When death threatens to end life, we see His promise of eternal life. We cannot wait to believe the thing of perfection until we get it, we have no doubt that we have the perfecting now. We take the “Lord will” as it is future. The “Lord will” is now. Everything is always present with the Lord. We say not “the Lord may make us perfect”. We say rather, “the Lord will make us perfect”. That means “now”. If we would only accept the fragrant aromatic incense of the priviledge of a confident faith. Have we not witnessed how the purposes of God are being fulfilled in our higher learning? The purposes of man will be defeated.

18 Minutes If you have prayed sufficiently through the Holy Spirit and are in peace of mind with your fellow sisters and brothers, it may be that this reading may allow us mental and spiritual access to the third heaven by faith to learn of the truths not yet uttered. If not, your understanding will reside in the atmosphere of earth only. This is not just an academic exercise. It is one of holy reason. All our enquiries are to be made to God, in full submission to the authority of God, seeking understanding without making things up about God. Let us draw ever nearer, to a deeper level of intimacy, to greater faith through greater understanding, on our knees in adoration and prayer, to a recognition with fear and trembling of the awesome true sense of the holiness of God and to a breathtaking, life-giving, humbling gratitude that this Holy God calls us, His creatures, to be holy too. This is not just a writing task for me. My hope is that is offers us a sobering effect. The particular end is one of devotion for us. Good sounding writings have their place but on our knees in prayer, in our hearts and minds engaging with scripture...that is where and when we take our leave from this world, from self. Understandably we will be limited by our verbal and conceptual tools, but God’s truth will be rendered and revealed through the testimony of His word illuminated by the Holy Spirit. We are covenanted with the heart of God. Our complete surrender to Christ involves God’s command and promise. This third heaven is to be understood as a place where spiritual clarity is given. It is not with intent to attempt to peer into what God says should not be spoken...sayings of God too sacred for words. But coming to know the character of God the stunning experience humbled the man. This experience prayerfully enhanced the repeated teaching that our temporary suffering in this life is not worth comparing with the glory believers will experience in eternity. That gives understanding as to why the experience was mentioned in order to introduce the consequences of that experience. Hope tells me that what was spoken to the man was the revelation of the power of resurrection. Might this be the source of inspiration written by the man based upon the experience at Lystra. II Corinthians 12:1-5 John 11:25, 26 Acts 14:19, 20 Matthew 22:29-32 Could the unspeakable words be what the voice of the archangel might sound to bring forth the dead in Christ? Most will miss out on not having this experience. God trusted a man to hold his peace. This teaches us that there are things God reveals to some and not to others. There are some who know God and His Word more intimately than we would ever hope to. Have you ever read a passage over and over again only to have another believer teach you something about the verse that you had never known before? I believe this is not because people are heedless, but because there are some people to whom God gives understanding because of their trustworthiness. God reveals His truth to those who will use His truth for others. The bible makes this very clear. Psalms 25:14 God reserves such an awesome manifestation for few. Watch God’s man stand. Where were the disciples when Paul was being stoned? Where were the disciples when Jesus was being crucified? Paul and Isaiah and John have been granted the opportunity before death to hear the counsel of God. It is in the Holy Spirit that we ask to be given a glimpse of heaven while we are still on this side of eternity. Pray that we keep ever in mind our frailty and complete reliance on God’s grace. We check our motive for wanting to know the closeness of God. That it be not for the boasting or pride of reaching higher. Whatever encounters God allows are to be humbly acknowledged. We must open no breeding ground for the enemy. Our emphasis is to be brought to the brilliance of the basics of truth in our walk with Jesus. Inclusive of what we learn must be our desire to serve others and to demonstrate the love of Christ for them. This third heaven experience, though joyful and profitable, is not the attaining to where the final people of God will dwell. There are far greater heights of coming to God that will be gifted to His people. Ephesians 4:10 Holiness is the heart of God’s covenant with His people. It is the covenant invitation to be God’s people, and the command for these people to be holy as God is holy. The holiness of God is the perfect rectitude of His nature, whereby He is absolutely free from all moral impurity, and, in all that He does, acts like Himself, and for the advancement of His own honor; delighting in what accords with, and abhorring what is contrary to His nature and will. Holiness is the glory of all the divine perfections. And every perfection is an act of God’s self-revelation. God’s self-revelation is, by its very nature, an act of God’s graciousness. God’s graciousness is life-giving, but in giving life also opposes sin. Holiness is opposition to sin. Holiness is tasked as our word in speaking of God. Our language has no degree of comprehensiveness meaningfully adequate to express the character of God revealed, even in the biblical witness. Holiness suggests that there can be no promotion of any of God’s perfections above the others. And God’s perfections are a study of God’s character. God possesses all possible perfections. And there is not the least resemblance to be found among any of His creation. God is unbounded in every perfection, love, wisdom, power, wrath, mercy, forgiveness. Biblically revealed is the perfect knowledge of God is competent to none but himself, whose understanding is infinite. He knows all things, not by information, nor by deduction. Job 11:7 Holiness is an exercise in holy reasoning characterized by weakness and a sense of inadequacy in the face of the “high and holy matter to which it is called to bear testimony.” This sanctification of reason, by the work of God’s Spirit, is the process whereby reason is made alive to the terrifying and merciful presence of the holy God. God is intimately present; and His immensity extends infinitely beyond the boundaries of all created substance. God fills all places at once with His essential presence. Jeremiah 23:23, 24 He has all life, glory, and blessedness, in and of Himself. His existence is necessary and underived. His holiness results from absolute perfection of His own nature. And all His perfections are infinite excellencies. God does not leave His present behind Him as the past to proceed toward the future. His livingness is His own essence. We cannot grasp God is our creaturely reality. He is what He tells us He is. Holiness is characterized by the truth that God is always God. It is in holiness that we realize that covenantal relatedness is not settled, static, or fixed. God emerges new ways in response to our faith and restoration from the sacrificing of animals to the circumcision of human flesh to His writing upon the heart and mind His law. This holiness of the covenant is God’s way in the sanctuary. The agreeing spirit to offer sacrifice justifies our faith, the work to remove the deadness of self sanctifies our new born life, and the written law in our heart, our mind, glorifies our sureness of salvation. We are in the Way of the Word. This Way is the Spirit of God acting upon and in us. We obey with or without understanding. This faith opens our eyes to the power and glory of God. Thiscovenant between God and God’s people does not take away from God’s sovereign Lordship, it demonstrates His perfections which are incomprehensively broad, long, high and deep. The covenant shows that grace and holiness are not separated, neither are mercy and judgment. It is because of the intolerance of God to anything that tries to take away from His holiness, that we are faced with the wrath of God. It is by the covenant that we are made alive in Christ. Romans 6:11 Holiness is bringing us into the full force of divine truth. As we study to know and understand, the Holy Spirit will ingrain in us such a liberty of consciousness that God will give us that extra Word that only those who are reconciled to the doings of the law can have true peace with God through Jesus Christ. Faith is our principle that without acceptable works cannot be performed and our salvation cannot be attained. Let it be clear, holiness affirms wholesomeness in God. And it is only by, in, and through the meritorious righteousness of Christ. That makes holiness contingent upon God. What, then, of God’s command to “be holy as I am holy”? This command is not to be attained or attempted by efforts toward status or merit, but rather by cleaving to God’s grace. Thereby becoming holy in virtue of the holiness of the God who graciously takes action on His own behalf. Our attention and submission to the gospel is indicative of our election and the imperative of obedience. Holiness is our response to God’s act which by God’s own decision, allows God to act on our behalf. God’s people are holy because God is holy and graciously intervenes on our behalf to make us holy as He is holy. How, then, are God’s people made holy? They are made holy by God’s intervention through Jesus Christ, God with us. Do not think that holiness is a state which rests passively on the hearts of an individual without requiring anything more. Holiness is an election to pursue all that is Christ. The pattern of this is characterized by mortification (putting to death) and vivification (bringing to life). From this arises the “movement of holy living,” turning away from ourselves and toward God, whose we are. We are God’s election; submitting to God, the Holy One who elects us to enter into relationship, standing under the authority of the scripture that attests this Holy God, bearing witness to the risen Christ who speaks this word into being, and declaring in praise and worship: “Behold, our God!” This is our joining together in Christ. The dwelling place of God is us, a spiritual temple, built and sustained by God. Here is the relational wonder of holiness... God’s holiness is not only that which separates us from God in His transcendence, but it is also the majestic sovereign power which descends down to us as grace in our midst as God’s condescension. This condescension is central to the covenant God made with Israel, in that as holy God, He offers us, the called people, to be God’s people, purifying and maintaining us against all threat of sin so that we may be God’s possession. Go to the sanctuary...this is the reconciling mission of the Son and the outpouring sanctification of the Holy Spirit. This is the determinate act of the Godhead. The movement of holiness is the purposed revelation of the 2520 prophecy...God’s condescending to elect and gather in communion those who are found in holiness of God with the plentifulness of grace to live that “God is Almighty”. There is a greater holiness in Heaven. With holiness God’s people go beyond prophecy, beyond faith, they go to love. Let’s put that in perspective to God. Ready? Read this next sentence to gain all you can. Ready? HOLINESS IS SO OF GOD THAT HE DOES NOT NEED A REASON TO LOVE. Stop...pause. We say, “we love because”. Is there a reason behind our love? God loves us in Himself...that is where we are. Let’s sound this out scripturally. Revelation 12:17 Our dependence on prophecy is both to delineate and bind together the events of God determined for fulfillment of His purposes. Prophecy offers inspiration, compels obedience and corrects our behavior in circumstances, gives us reliance upon the word of truth. Revelation 14:12 Central to Jesus’ faith is our entering into the Kingdom. It is with this faith that we please God. Prophecy is time and event measurable. Faith is hope and hope is not limited to time or events. God gives His elect the strength of obedience and prophecy. He gives His very elect the strength of obedience, prophetic witness, and the blessed hope to look for the glories of another world, to which a sober, righteous, and godly life in this world is preparative. It is the great thing we look and long and wait for. Prophecy events the accomplishing of our hope, our faith and the sureness and greatness of it. We prophesy and hope to the second appearing of Christ. And there is something that does not come by prophecy or faith... II John 2, 3 Beyond prophecy, beyond faith is this truth and love that we are to put on and wrap ourselves in, which is the perfect bond of unity, for everything is bound together in agreement of these. These do not insist on their own way, they embrace holiness. Determining prophecy based upon faith is the strength of the study of the Revelation and the 2520 revealed in the vision. There is a present darkness that will cause many to be everlastingly too late to rise to the light of holiness as is the truth and the love of God. Let us come into the radiance of what our holiness is to be like. And it is the Sabbath which is an illustration on how the Lord makes us holy. This will be our completeness. The Sabbath did not make itself holy. This seventh day was totally powerless and helpless, bordered by sunset to sunset as it was created after day four. It was the seventh day of the world. God set the honor of that day. Genesis 1:5 Psalms 74:16 As the acknowledgement of God is the constant succession of day and night, God made the seventh day holy. Likewise, we can do nothing to make ourselves holy, yet God can make us holy just as He made the seventh day holy. Thus, the Sabbath is all about grace. It is a sign that all of God’s work is complete, and we can rest without trying to add anything to His work. So, we rest our faith in His amazing grace. The Sabbath is as are we...the climax to a purpose of God...the Sabbath to His creation...we to His plan of salvation. Both are for our rest...rest from our labor and rest in eternal peace. Holiness is belonging to a God of infinite love and power. We are to have hope to come into the presence of a holy God and survive the experience. We must be discerning of the hope and holiness relationship. I Peter 1:13-16 This shows what we have been given and how we are to act upon it. God chose us, He has caused us to be born again, giving us a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has promised us an inheritance. This is a salvation in which we greatly rejoice, even in the midst of trials, of sufferings, because the fruit of those trials and sufferings is a more pure faith and greater confirmation, greater certainty of the genuineness of our faith proven under trial. This pursuit of holiness is to fashion our character after Christ. We must have a fully engaged mind. We are to be confidently and reasonably expectant of all events to try us, to try others’ willingness to stand for what God reveals as truth. This without dilution or distraction. Lives will be lost because of former passions or even by emotions. The truth that you can know must be sought through the convincing of the Holy Spirit. He purposes that you not conform to the desires of your former ignorance. God will set you apart alone to strengthen you in holiness. The goal of our holiness is God’s glory, so He will not leave us on our own and let us struggle in our pursuit of holiness. Hope will motivate holiness, and holiness strengthens our hope. II Corinthians 7:1 The lamb that represented Jesus had to be without spot because only perfect holiness is acceptable to God. Our life is to engage with God and others in holiness. Remember the Sabbath because God is interested in our holiness.

22 Minutes In the calling of the chosen is the redemptive design revealed by God purposefully that there is full legitimacy to the question “who then can be saved”? God is revealing to us an unbreakable fetter that starts in eternity past, goes through time, and on into eternity future. This bond is forged by God Himself, and has five unbreakable links: God foreknows, predestinates, calls, justifies, and glorifies. As God's faithful people struggle through difficult times it helps to look back on the way He has led in the past. When we see His faithfulness and recognize over and over again that He is in complete control over the affairs of planet earth, we marvel and feel greater confidence as we look to the future. Who are the called, the chosen? We are God's true and loyal followers in every age whose love for Him. We are committed to Him. We are too strong in the truth and too deep in the faith to be shaken. God has always had a people, a people called to stand separate from error and compromise and lies and counterfeits. God has always had a people, a people chosen to show and tell the world what He is really like and to defend and proclaim His truth. And God still has a people standing in an unbroken line of the faithful to every word of God. God has a called and chosen remnant today. And to His remnant people, God has given the urgent task of reaching out to the world with His good news of winning them to Jesus Christ so that when He returns soon to this earth, they will know Him and be ready to meet him. Who is called? Who is chosen? By God’s determination you are called to a cause, you are chosen to a purpose. God makes the choice to chose you. Your being chosen is based on His choice. The called are not always the chosen, but the chosen hear and accept the call. Those chosen are those who have humbled themselves and obeyed through faith the gospel of God. It is God's will to choose those of faith who follow His commandment of the gospel. We are elected by God on account of our faith, by His grace. Israel was selected by God to be God’s witness to the world. Our calling indicates a relationship with Him. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 Isaiah 43:10-12 One’s calling is an act of God. And the true blessing is to be called out of the confusion of erroneous teachings that are so extant in this world into the light of God’s truth. John 6:44 I Peter 2:9 To be chosen, a person must accept his or her calling, be grateful for it and move forward in serving God and His Son. The combined decision by God to both call and choose His people, indicates these are to hold fast to what they are taught, whether it came from God’s Word or from one whom God uses for His glory. These must be and remain obedient to God. Ephesians 1:13 We have to make a decision after we hear the word of truth. We are to be obedient to God. We cannot just accept the wonderful calling of God and continue to live a life following our own desires. We are to be the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Being called is to embark on the life changing path to become more and more like Jesus and to be converted. The called are to play a vital role in aiding in the saving of humanity from total annihilation in the crisis at the close of this age. The called-out ones must be spiritually prepared and be clothed with righteousness. Job 29:14 I Peter 5:10 It is the will of God to open our minds to His truth. He wants us to remain faithful to Him after our calling, so that we can be His chosen, His elect. There must be an effectual calling based upon truth. There is a calling that is a general appeal. Matthew 22:13, 14 Romans 8:29, 30 John 11:43 And the dead man was given life by the call. The call creates the obedience, the call creates the life, and, the called will be glorified. It is true that Jesus died for all people and all people have the ability to choose out of their own free will whether or not they will accept God’s grace, God’s calling and be saved. Yet, on the other hand, it is also true that there is a sense in which each person is predestined. God has determined to place each person He will create into a unique circumstance in history. By placing each person into certain circumstances and knowing how each person will freely choose in those circumstances, one could say that God “predestines” those who are “elect.” Is God’s Sovereignty to be questioned? God purposefully orders the world so that, by the end of human history, as many people as possible are placed into circumstances in which they will freely choose to be saved. God orders the world the way He does for good reasons. And God knows that everyone who is lost is a person who would reject God and be lost under any circumstances. Predestination applies to each individual individually responding to God’s necessary grace by their personal response in faith. Here is the beautiful approach to being the called, the chosen...God foreknew. He did not know something about particular people chosen, He knows them in the individually equivalency as of living out their entire life in Him. Is their faith the cause or the results of their being chosen? All are not foreknown by God in the sense spoken of. Jesus saying “I never knew you” was because he knew the choices you’d make to foster an evil character so as not to be regarded as an object of his favor. Few are called according to God’s purpose. These are His. God needs no other compelling reason to differentiate what is presupposed. Foresight of faith is in accord with every determinative action of God. It is not the foresight of difference but the foreknowledge that makes the difference to exist, not a foresight that recognizes existence, but the foreknowledge that determines existence. It is a sovereign distinguishing love. Amos 3:1, 2 These are qualified in the mind of God to be conformed to the image of Christ. God knowing particular individuals, it often means that He has special regard for them, that they are the objects of His affection and concern. God had a special regard for Jeremiah before he was in the womb. Now with this God shares His determining power. And determining power can bring you to salvation. The faith that God gives is the effectual limiting of the number chosen. Understand what trust in God means. God does not in the spiritual content decide who will be saved. He rather refers to the destiny appointed for those who are chosen. He unconditionally sets His favor on whom He will, then, He destines them for their role in life. It is in His chosen that aims at and secures the end which God must have in order to be God and the end which we must have in order to be the preeminent glorification of Christ. II Timothy 1:9 Believers are chosen in grace before the eons, before sin, before creation and before any decision. This great faith and confidence in the sovereign God is gratuitously granted to some now without cause except that it is God’s choice beforehand according to what pleases Him to accomplish His purpose. Foreknowledge and the human will are propositions of faith. God’s foreknowledge is not in time. And God knows the truth of every event before it occurs. This is where human will intersect God’s foreknowledge. The will carries maximal causal force due to the necessity that we must make choices. But the truth or the falsity of that choice is in knowing the past, yet the sufficiency of that choice is in knowing that God knows what is going to happen. This is “the ordering of the times”. There is no changing truth about where the future is headed. Faith fills the gap between divine knowledge and human will. God knows of all the evidence and other knowledge-conferring factors that human beings are aware of in all situations. God’s knowledge makes present all future contingents in the same way that our discernment can know them. Circularly, God knows. He knew whether our every choice would lack truth or accommodate His determined future. Too many misrepresent God’s knowledge because they wrap God in time. God is not in time and God has no temporal properties. All temporal events are before the mind of God at once. To say “at once” is to think of the whole of reality as being before God’s mind in a single presence. It is a presence in which God has a single complete grasp of all events in the entire span of time. God knows who His are because God sees who His are in the faith of their doings. God’s presence to each and every moment of time is compared to the way in which the center of a circle is present to each and every point on its circumference. God is the very center and the circumference of all creation. This is why and how free will is never threatened. This is why and how God knows those who are His. We are in Christ’s infallible foreknowledge and the freedom of his created will is in us. It is as though we are choosing to be chosen by our faith in Christ. And in that truth there is no accidental necessity. We are God’s foreloved. Understood to be equivalent to those who are the objects of God’s love, marked out for salvation. God’s forelove is in agreement with the efficient and determining action which is so conspicuous in every other link of the chain; it is God who predestinates, it is God who calls, it is God who justifies, and it is He who glorifies. Foreknowledge, with reference to God, connotes foreordination. The doctrine of election affirms that God chose those whom He would save. It also occurs in the same kind of construction and where the thought of election is manifestly present. The doctrine of election affirms that for purposes known only to Himself God chose those whom He would save. He did not choose them because of anything about them but for His own “good pleasure”. Election is grounded in foreseen faith. This is a divine initiative by God, not a response. Election is according to grace, the outworking of His purpose. Romans 9:11 II Peter 1:10 Romans 11:5, 7, 28 On one level we respond to the call of Christ and in that sense “chose” him. What the word plainly indicates is that it was not, in fact, our choice of him that determined his choice of us; it was, rather, his choice of us that determined our choice of him. Sovereign election comes first. John 15:16

8 Minutes When we grasp the purpose for our being, we will become rooted and established as God’s chosen elect. We become rooted and established in Him as our solid foundation. Here is a great reality that stands at the center of our life. Jesus Christ lives by his Spirit in the soul of every true believer. His prayer expresses this, “I in them”. Think of the mind of Jesus settled in your conscience, in your thoughts, or even in your memories. You would be an entirely different person. Your experiences would be different, your awakening would be to a spiritual realm, your rest would be in God-given hope, dreams, desires. Your active faith of living the blessed life that God intended for you will be your unique mix of divinity and humanity. It would be your full expression of yourself as Jesus in you. At all times your focus would be shifted to his truth. As with Christ in us we discern the approach of every trial and temptation. The presence of Christ in us, the consideration of Christ toward us, the strength of Christ in us, that is what gets us through. He is our hope of glory. The assurance that we will be glorified. It is this mystery that says he in us that we may be made perfect in him. Colossians 1:27, 28 And it is Christ in us by which we are the temple of God, the dwelling place for His truth. The degree to which God and Jesus Christ dwell in us depends on the extent to which we follow the leading of God’s Spirit and use its power. When the Holy Spirit is in us, it empowers us to actually become the likeness of God the Father and Jesus Christ in nature, character, spirit, attitudes, approach and love. Christ in us is under our will and control, not his. God wants us to choose for ourselves to live as Jesus lived. He doesn’t force us to do it. This involves a humble, earnest seeking to become like Jesus Christ, so his life becomes our life. He becomes formed in us. II Corinthians 6:16 Galatians 4:19 We in Christ is where we are placed according to God’s purpose. Our position is in Christ. In the fullness of time God has this place for us. If we in Christ is where we are placed according to God’s purpose, then Christ in us is where he is placed according to God’s purpose. If all that is Christ’s belongs to us when we are in him, then all that is ours belongs to him when he is in us. Ephesians 1:10; 2:5, 6 There is a mystery that is made manifest to us. Being born again, we are not only moved to a new place in Christ as a new creature, but we are changed from the inside out as we are in Christ. Christ is the covenant and we being in him places us in agreement with God. We live by our faith in Christ. Christ is the end of the law and we in Christ is us in the law. We must come to this knowledge, and we are to make all men see it. "In Christ" is a positional term. It means to be in Christ before God. Being in Christ is likened to being taken in the spiritual reality to the presence of God. Romans 8:1, 38, 39 This place is secured for us through faith in Jesus. And Christ in us is understandably his character, his power to overcome, his love, his wisdom. It is the capacity to have his principled features formed and displayed in us. With Christ in us comes righteousness, sanctification, justification, redemption, and the ministry of reconciliation. If Christ be in us and we in him then our relationship with all others is to seek justly, rightly, and faithfully for the Christ that is in them. Christ in us implies that the new kingdom to which we now belong is now resident within us. And we are his character of display having a new frame of mind. It is a wonderful blessing for us to be in Christ but until Christ is found in us, the blessings of the kingdom will elude us. It is the level to which Christ is formed in us that determines the degree of liberty we enjoy in our outward life. Again, the level of development of Christ in us is solely dependent on us as an individual. It is our responsibility to let him have absolute pre-eminence by habitually feeding on God’s word and submitting ourself to it. We must embrace and nurture the word of God with a Christ consciousness within us and our outward manifestation of God’s glory will be noticeable and indisputable. Christ is in us because the Holy Spirit begets in us a new life. We in Christ is as having clothed ourselves with Christ in his righteousness. Galatians 3:26-28 We are right where our faith is...in Christ. We were in him on the cross where he paid for all our sin so that now, being hidden in Christ, God can look upon us, for He sees Jesus. Spiritually, we are now really alive for the first time. The intimacy that our hearts crave for our Lord Jesus and our Father God can now be satisfied. We become the righteousness of God in Him. II Corinthians 5:21 We are in Him. He is in us. His word abides in us. We are his Righteousness. We are his Life. We can do his works now. That is why he says, “greater things than these shall ye do”.

32 Minutes Through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, we are being transformed into Christ’s image, both mind and heart. This is the promise of the new covenant and God’s eternal purpose for His elect, so that Christ would be over all and in all. With a divine mind and heart our intent is not just to talk more intelligently about God, but to “come to Him”, to encounter Him, that we may reason with Him. Too many read the word but never hear His voice in the silence of His expressed thought. We must “seek” the Word exposed in the word. The joy of revelation is acquiring interaction with God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Let us always think of God as present and speaking with us, disclosing His mind, His heart, His will. Our God is articulate. He talks with us through His word. We are to reflect upon His words until His higher thoughts begin to take form in our mind. Oh let us pray that we be given a divine mind and heart to come to God. The power of the Holy Spirit reveals God’s word and the mind of the Lord is His thoughts. When we study His word, we are reasoning with His mind. He tells us what we are to know, to want. He tells us how He feels towards us, how He loves us. I Corinthians 2:16 We are to take occasion and measure to endorse all that He says that what He says may echo back to our hearts and our minds. Use spiritual deliberation with each word that we may negotiate what is truth with what we may not yet understand. Prayerful contemplation until God’s heart, His mind is revealed so that His word flows into the very recesses of our soul and our hearts and minds are exposed. As we see His faithfulness in reasoning with us through the truth of His word as He knows our thoughts we will see His unfailing love that motivates us to love Him more. We will savor His every word. So much of our pursuit to attain a divine mind, a divine heart depends upon our temperament, our character, our spirit. When we approach God this way He gives us more of Himself. We can never understand God through our intellect. His ways are too high for us. So He gives us the Holy Spirit who gives us insight from the purity of heart – from love, from humility, and from the desire to obey. Matthew 5:8 The more of God’s truth that we know and obey, the more we come to know. There are those who believe they believe in God, but by their willing ignorance they believe only in the idea of God, not in God Himself. You cannot make your heart love God. You cannot make your mind obey. Reason with God. This humbling will cause you to think more deeply, to respond more intensely. Esteem, cherish, regard your alone time with God, we can learn from, and find out God in our solitude. Making visible the invisible. Behind our whole spiritual quest to be like Christ must be our profound expression of the deep hunger we have for the Word. With a divine mind, divine heart, we come to divine sonship, what it means and why it matters. In the word we hear God speaking, in His doing we see God working, in His reproach we know God’s judgment, in His love we are His heart. If this be not true, we know nothing of God at all. If it be true, and we know it is, then Jesus is God manifest in our flesh, unique and incomparable, bringing Christ in us as God is in him. We can be of a divine mind, a divine heart. There is a purpose of God to explain why we need the Christ-self within us. It is for us to overcome our shadow that is our internal darkness that is caused by our blocking the light. The divine heart includes the lesser, to experience divine love to awaken our divine core to connect with the heart of God, the Heart of Hearts, and we can, with a divine heart, then love others with what is experienced. Praying together, studying together and sharing in God’s love can quicken the awakening of the divine heart within each human heart. God has an illuminated people whom He causes divine light to spring up in their minds, and He has taken them into His favor and covenant. He gives these the sufficiency of truth to reason with others. But there are some things that the thunders uttered that we are yet to know. The truth that God has revealed is sufficient, but it is not exhaustive. There are many things that God will reveal to us in the last time. Things that He will require of us and expect us to know. And for that, we need a divine mind that can hear what the Spirit saith. Adam and Eve were given insight into future salvation. Moses suffered for Christ. Genesis 3:15 Hebrews 11:26 A divine mind is key to trusting every word of God, revealed and being revealed. The bible is able to be understood, but will not be reasoned with for truth by the majority of the people. Every believer should study the scriptures for themselves. Nowhere do we find the scripture telling believers that they should only listen to some “teacher” to know the truth. The source of our learning, our reasoning, our hearing the truth is divinely appointed. John 16:13, 14 John 14:23-26 Please understand what Jesus is saying when he says “keep my words”. He is not only referring to the written word. Jesus is saying that there is a divine aboding with him and his Father based upon the love of a divine heart to reach a divine mind. He says he messages a word, a word that is uttered by a living voice, a word that embodies a conception, an idea, a thought which is continuous in its narration for discussion for a divine mind alone to reason to know the intent. When we are being led by the Holy Spirit it demonstrates in us a growing maturity in the purposes of God. The more we can do things God’s way the more we will experience the greater happenings of God in and through our lives. And we can only do that as we are sensitive enough to hear His voice to us, telling us what He wants us to do. And so it is with a divine mind that it is therefore absolutely imperative that we live in God’s Word because of the nature of scripture as God breathed and is profitable for doctrine or teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction or training in righteousness. The word of God is of divine revelation, which we may depend upon as infallible truth. Do we not realize how much power God invests into His word? Truth is the fundamental principle that absolutely answers all questions. And truth is that which conforms to the mind of God. And where we study about God’s thought, we are studying about the mind of God, and that therein lies all truth. Truth matters. This same word of God breathes reason into us while breathing revelation among us. With a divine heart the harmony of the word is received as accomplished truth, purity, and is transcendently impressive. And the wonder of God’s word is how He performs it. No spoken word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment. God, Himself, stands over and watches over His own Word, making sure it is fulfilled. What is the performing that gives us confidence in God? Our having a divine mind and a divine heart are predicated upon where we stand with Christ. And to stand with Christ means to do absolutely nothing, not anything that is contrary to God’s will. And this entails us being in Christ as our eternal hope and Christ being in us as God’s performance of perfection. And so it is that God opens the eyes of the divine heart and the ears of the divine mind that we being His chosen may see and hear the truth of His every word. Every word is tested, tried, and proven... Colossians 1:27, 28 Romans 8:9 Jeremiah 1:12 Matthew 13:13 There is a spiritual seeing through and beyond natural seeing. There is a spiritual hearing through and beyond natural hearing. There is spiritual discerning through and beyond natural reasoning. The great majority of people have personal ideologies, deep self and beliefs they are not even aware of. Put two, three people together to look at the clouds and each say what they see. Different views huh. What rationale does one have in chosing a political party? Can there be intelligent people on opposite sides? People don’t always see the same facts, the same evidences before their eyes. And so, with similar logical abilities, they conclude different things. The heart, the eyes of the heart...our diverse experiences, our personality, our deep self. All of these are filters we have which make us see things differently. There is much power related to our choices - and sometimes, even if we understand reasonable arguments, it will take more than this to fully persuade us that what we hear, what we see, what we reason is the truth - very deep inside these make themself the Youniverse. Love for God should conclude reasoning to love the truth. The mind and the heart are to attune each other in the truth. When one hears the truth who is it from? John 7:17 Jesus is talking about a “heart-mind-reason” recognition where a just person hears the truth and says immediately, “yes, that is truth”. We have this witness in our hearts that we were made for His glory. When the mind becomes hostile to the word of God it reflects the hardness of heart. This is a deep aversion to God bordering on self exaltation. And so it is that those whom God chooses have a responsibility to realize the power of words and be mindful of their trajectory. These have a responsibility to pay attention to how words may land on the hearts of others. These have a responsibility to be aware of the potential consequences of words and use them as wisely as possible. How others hear words is of their choosing, but God’s people are to be ready always to present the evidence of the word to those who will hear with mind and heart letting one inform the other to mature reasoning. God’s people give forethought not to think what is truth, but to know the thought of truth. That is the mind of God revealed in His word. The divine mind and the divine heart are the passionate products of divine faith. Divine faith is possible because God gives us the grace to believe. We are able to listen to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, who enlightens the mind and moves the will and therefore makes it easy for us to accept more than just what we read but also what God has revealed. This is a divine injunction into the spirit of every born-again believer that enters into the privilege to be born of the WORD of God, born into a divine nature of Christ in us. This faith changes hope into reality and acts in the face of contrary evidence because “We Believe God!” His divinity bursting through our humanity equals divine favor, divine plans, divine ability, divine life, divine power, divine healing, and divine principles. All this and more of His divine will come through His Divine act. Divine faith is a violent force, spiritually speaking. Our faith must be aggressive. Matthew 11:12 Luke 16:16 With a strength, and vigor, and earnestness of desire and endeavor, with fervency and zeal, we are required to strive. With a divine mind and a divine heart, the self will be denied. The frame and temper of the mind will undergo hard sufferings. We will be in an agony with a strong desire for the contention of entering into the kingdom as the divine life of Christ is the force within us.

10 Minutes There is no other mind but the divine mind of God. At creation our mind was one with the One Divine Mind. And because God is all-in-all, we are of His mind. God is the word, the name given to our source who is above and beyond all names and who, in the purest sense, we know as absolute truth and absolute divine love. Like drops of water in the ocean, our minds are individual components of this singular mind. In truth, there is no separation between what we experience as our mind and the mind of God. This is the eternal thought of God that possesses all the divine potentials we will ever experience. One of the primary purposes of the word of God, because God is our creator and He is infinite, is to reveal the true source of individuality. As a pattern of this one mind, our individualized mind extends the spiritual attributes of the One Mind into creation, giving it form. Our mind, individualized and without boundaries, manifests particular expressions of the divine mind. He will leave the ninety and nine to search for the one. The person that we are, with all our uniqueness, exists for the glory of Christ and the glory of God. Followers of Jesus are called to find their identity in him. Our true identity is ultimately based on what God has done in us. In Christ, we are loved. We were created with a purpose. We are not just a convenient carbon copy of someone else. We were created uniquely and with intention. God lovingly designed every detail of our person. Can you imagine the love involved with that intricate design? Christ in us makes us not only loved but chosen. God sent His own Son to earth to die in our place so that we could be included in His family. God was not obligated to choose us based on our performance or credentials. He chose to carry out an intricate plan that involved the death of His own perfect Son, which allowed us the opportunity to be a child of God. In order to be counted a child of the perfect Father, we had to be free of sin. That is, we had to be perfect with regard to doing right and not doing wrong. That is an impossibility on our part considering our nature. But Jesus was perfectly sinless for us in his life and is perfectly sinless for us when we come to justification by faith in him. Not one of us can attain perfection by our own effort. We are individually justified in Christ alone. Because Jesus, who was without sin, died the second death for us if we cease to sin, we can be forgiven of sin, otherwise the penalty will be due us. All that Christ did, all that Christ is, was accounted for us. This forgiveness allows us to be considered a child of God. Therefore, in God’s eyes, if we have accepted what Jesus did for us, we are completely forgiven. From His perspective, we are without sin. It’s not that we won’t sin, but when He looks at us, He calls us forgiven knowing our faith in Jesus. That is something on which we can build our identity. God wants us to understandthis for ourself by studying His Word. It is so important that we go to the word of God to find out how He thinks about us. Our identity should never be based on a hope or a guess. God gave us His Word, written, so we can know Him and know who He is making us to be in Him. We can be God’s righteousness. We are His goodness and rightness because of what Christ did on the cross. This allows us to be an ambassador to others around us. Because our righteousness is not earned but freely given through faith in Jesus, we can share this gift with others and invite them to be God’s righteousness too. With the likeness of a divine mind and a divine heart as someone who is forgiven, we can now freely forgive others. God’s extended grace is undeserved favor to us. We can extend that grace to others around us. A divine mind does not align with mental faculties alone. We have heard the saying, think before you speak. Why, in moments of strong emotion or ignorance, words that do not edify are weaponized. The biblical concept of the heart is broader than love and affection. The bible reasons that the heart and the head are combining elements of mind, will, fundamental commitments, hope, trust. What the heart trusts, the mind justifies, the emotions desire, and the will carries out. If our heart actually includes how we think in our mind and behave along with how we feel, then the expression of this collective wholeness demonstrates the composition of our desires through our words, habits, and behaviors. The words that flow from our lips are a sample of the content that lies within our hearts. In this we should come to realize the godliness in Christ that patterns both a divine mind and a divine heart...divinity garbed in humanity. Without the guiding of the Holy Spirit our own desires, affections, thoughts, and actions are bent toward sin at all times but by the grace of God. When the word of truth is heard by the natural mind, the carefully guarded “christian façade” will be exposed through the words that are spoken impulsively without thought reflection. Conviction and faith by the Spirit, and redemption through Jesus, causes the natural heart state to being transformed to the spiritual seeking to put to death the desires of the flesh and direct our hearts and minds toward the Spirit. Jesus’ teaching on this point is not that we must will ourselves toward holiness, but that it is through relationship with him that the desires of our heart are transformed, cleansing the outward expression of our hearts through our words and actions to now reflect him in place of our attempt to gain advantage, which entice us and drag us away. A divine mind and a divine heart are vital to this kind of creative discernment. The functioning of this capacity to discern actually happens through the unity of mind and heart because without love, there would be no compassion or sensitivity to the mind’s discernment. Understanding the capacity of both mind and heart presents the experience of the transformation of life to a loving desire to know truth bringing life into the process of revelation. Here’s how the Holy Spirit guides the mind into all truth. The moment we make a right judgment, we are seeing an implication, which reveals another possibility of experience or another dimension of knowingness. In this we are acknowledging God to be the source of all that is right. We are all living in God’s mind; we are creations of God’s mind, contents of God’s mind. And it is in this capacity that we can trust that God, as the One Divine Mind, is forever imparting all the wisdom we need. We can be confident that whatever answer we need is His word and we can receive it as we humbly hear what the Spirit says. We are being conformed to the image of His Son not only to reason upon God's thoughts expressed in His word, but to ask God for that which we need. That requires the examining of our heart and the evoking of our thoughts, which happens when God's Word becomes the orienting center of our common existence as His people, shaping our very perception of things as we have spiritual consideration about them. Our being transformed is an intricate process commencing from conversion that requires active attentiveness to avoid “careless” or “useless” words slithering out at times when our diligence wains or our flesh wins. When truth overwhelms the natural mind, our willpower and capacity to resist temptation is impaired. It is in this time that our prayers ask God to allow the Holy Spirit to isolate our consciousness acknowledging that the Holy Spirit works on our behalf to give words and interpretation to our groanings. A divine mind and a divine heart work to promote a constant vigilance and care of our whole self. We reorient our mind, our heart toward God. With Christ in us there is loving power with a divine heart. We all have sinned and will still often remember our sins, and those memories can make us feel unworthy, keeping us from accepting our true identity. We know what we have done; we may also remember what people have done to us. Maybe we were mistreated at some time or another like as was Jesus. Maybe someone rumored an untruth thing about us like they did about Jesus. The world is broken by sin. There are people who have experienced unspeakable injustice. From gossip to verbal and physical abuse, outside messages are trying to shape our identity every day. Those outside messages can lead you to believe that you are unworthy of what the word says is true of you in Christ. How do we respond? We forgive. Our spiritual individuality is substanced in Christ. Do you recall how the first man’s mind was in complete agreement with the mind of God? With this knowledge, please do not balk at the idea that God is the only true source of intelligence and identity, that He is the actual Mind of each individual, including ourself. We realize that most people don't often act as if God is their Mind. And all having the same mind...what would happen to individuality? Mentality is influenced more by carnal thinking than by a divine mind, but that is not the ultimate reality of things. You have a choice to reason carnally or spiritually. Whichever you choose, God is the true source of all intelligence and all wisdom, and He knows your thought even before you were born. Knowing that, and because God desires all to be saved, He has designed a distinct path that expresses your capabilities...let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Jesus' profound sense of individuality and effectiveness was not limited by his turning to God as his only mind. Jesus' dependence on God was responsible for his every decision, his every choice. Dependence on God is true wisdom. When our true identity is God's spiritual image, then our individuality is expressed in the true expression and recognition of Jesus’ unique contribution...he became flesh, sinful flesh like as we have and did no sin that we might by reason of a divine mind cease to sin like as he never did. God created our inmost being. And He filled us with ways to deepen an intimate relationship with Him. The divine mind is to be the fount of wisdom flowing with the spirit filled sensitivity of the Holy Spirit. This sensitivity is the maturity of the divine mind and the divine heart. With this sensitivity the mind, the heart focuses on hearing from God, then we will hear words from Him that others will not pick up. We will have such a closeness of relationship, a willingness to “not miss a word” that God speaks to us, to demonstrate a priority to Who comes first in our lives. We will have “God opportunities” come to us that, when acted upon, will cause us to be more effective and fruitful than the norm. The divine mind makes clear the purpose for which Christ became us. It is so we can know what it is to be filled, led, used more effectively, in those things that can impact people in time that will last throughout all eternity. God desires us to become more and more mature in His purposes so that we have the joy of being led by the Holy Spirit. Being led by the Spirit is the evidence that we are the sons and daughters of the Living God. Sons and daughters do what their Heavenly Father wills for them, because His love acquaints us with His divine essence, His perfections, plan, and His sovereign right to command and direct our lives. Galatians 4:6

28 Minutes God is the ultimate cause, the ultimate source of what truth is. Our ultimate truth is our abiding confidence in God our Father that can never be shaken. It is when we come to God unitedly to reason with His word that we go from strength to greater strength, from faith to increased assurance and confidence in the truth to know the righteousness of His cause and purpose for us. The ultimate truth is that rock upon which we firmly stand in the principles of the word of God. Because ignorance is a miserable dark bottomless ocean, knowledge is the float with a light on it. At the end there is the dawn of right knowledge, that which is essential to understand the word of God, to raise the mind to the best possible order - the knowledge of the ultimate truth. And similarly, the resultant right attitude of the person desiring to learn, willing to reason is the attitude of the ultimate truth itself. As Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, so he becomes our being. On our way to this truth, through reasoning, we are shown the hard realities of the word of God. We are being transformed by every step. In fact, the passage has only just begun. Let us pause and check ourselves, whether we are qualified enough to be here in a passage that few, very few will traverse. Bring the vastness of the universe to your mind. God’s truth is infinite and love for the word is the power that widens the corridors of our mind. Our aim is to know the ultimate truth that we may come to the ultimate reason of our ultimate purpose. And the ultimate truth is that our ultimate purpose is that God’s glory is clearly displayed in the faithful obedience of His last day people to show the same love He offers us, to others so they can come to know him. This is done in God’s over-arching purpose for all true believers: to conform us to the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. God’s glory must be uppermost in His purpose. If God would put anything else before Himself, He would be guilty of idolatry. He sovereignly chose to make His glory and grace known to and through His Son and His chosen few. Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14 What may we conclude from this reasoning of redemptive history? We may conclude that the chief end of God is to glorify God and to so enjoy our salvation in Himself forever. He stands supreme at the center of His own affections. This is His ultimate truth. I John 5:20 If you read this verse you know that God is the true God. But if you hear what the word says then you know the truth of truthfulness says that in the fulness of His being, God is the ultimate truth of power that brings life from the beginning. In the person of Jesus Christ is the evidence that we should run after it with all our hearts. And it’s even the more reasonable to search for ultimate truth in God. We are in the throes of compassion orienting the mindful heart to understand the basis and the appeal of the ultimate truth. God is the truth. He is truth absolute, ultimate, eternal, in contradistinction from all that is relative, derived, partial, and temporal. And when we know this, the foregoing comments show that it is of the triune God in the mystery of unity in triunness and triunness in unity that we make this affirmation. Only triune unity can explain such terms as “the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” together with the correlative teaching of scripture respecting the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit also is the truth. John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13 When we speak, therefore, of the sanctity of truth, we must recognize that what underlies this concept is the sanctity of the being of God as the living and true God. He is the God of truth and all truth derives its sanctity from Him. This is why all untruth, all error, all willing ignorance, all unwillingness to reason is wrong, all misapprehension, every deviation from what is true in thought, feeling, word, or action is a contradiction of that which God is. This is why He asks us to come now to the bar of right reason and let us talk the matter over. God welcomes us into covenant and communion with Himself. It is His perfection to be consistent with Himself. God’s word reasoned is expressed in His faithfulness and is exemplified in the certainty and immutability of His promise that He cannot lie. God’s reasoning is of faithfulness to such an extent that what His word reveals is the fulfillment of the essential features of the covenant concept. And there can be no doubt that the specifically redemptive name of God, “I am that I am,” points distinctly to the immutability of His covenant grace and promise. There is a huge mound of evidence of ultimate truth for God, Jesus, and those who are emptied of self. And based on this evidence, it’s reasonable to believe that God reveals truth through revelation. Where can we find revelation today? And what do we learn from it? The best source of revelation is God’s word—every experienced event in the bible. Here is where and when the relevance of precept is contained. When we are of the truth and know the truth, we discern in the inscripturated word of truth the living voice of Him who is the truth, and there is no tension between our acceptance of the living God as “the only true God” and of His Word as the truth. I John 2:21 Be not uninformed of how God voices His truth. It is the certitude which is the only appropriate response to confrontation with God Himself that His Word, the Word of Scripture, must bring forth. God’s Word is truth because He is truth. And the truth must be informed in us ultimately. Discount no witness of scripture because of the imagination of the thought, of the heart. In the bible, God gives us history lessons, unfolds His plan of salvation, and gives us guidelines for how to live our lives. The word holds the truth for all kinds of circumstances, and we can trust it for answers to all kinds of questions. It is the ultimate truth of revelation that gives the best account of the true God and administers the best eye-salve for our discerning the living and true God. The Son leads us to the Father, and we are in both, in the love and favor of both, in covenant alliance with both, in spiritual conjunction with both by the inhabitation and operation of their Spirit: and, that we may know how great a dignity and blessedness this is, we must remember that this true one is the true God and eternal life or rather this same Son of God is himself also the true God and eternal life so that in union with either, much more with both, we are united to the true God and eternal life. Then we have, as is the ultimate truth, an incomprehensible Spirit that has begotten us to God. We are brought to cleave to Him in faith, and love, and constant obedience, and in opposition to all things that would alienate our mind and heart from God. Knowing the truth is being the truth. And beingness in Christ will go on forever. Coming to ultimate truth is the realization that the unique phenomenon of choice sounds the expression of an Almighty Righteousness. I Corinthians 1:30 Christ in us is our righteousness. We are to be his expression of perfection. And with that and beyond, it means that we are an expression of God’s righteousness.This means we make the right decision the first time. It means we think the right thoughts. We choose the right words. We go to the right places. We do the right things. We are righteous in and to and for and with Him. And our consciousness of that reality is what enables us to do life right. The groaning of the Holy Spirit is that crying out for the manifestation of God’s people to display the life of Jesus here on earth. I Peter 2:9 We are not yet perfect family, but the reasoning with the word of God has been given to us to attain exactly that. And the precisification, the countable and uncountable aspects of ultimate truth, as our knowledge grows, distinguishes that which resembles truth from that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of Christ. Ultimate truth is the way things really are because God declared it so and made it so. Therefore, God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth. It is Christ’s rightful declaration of his deity. Jesus makes it clear that ultimate truth is defined in terms of God and His eternal glory. Jesus also said that the written Word of God is truth. It does not merely contain nuggets of truth; it is pure, unchangeable, and inviolable truth. It is ultimate truth that scripture cannot be broken. Truth means nothing apart from God. Truth cannot be adequately explained, recognized, understood, or defined without God as the source. Try defining truth without reference to God. The whole pursuit of ultimate truth is to have the thought of God in the mind. When any abandon reasoning with every expressed biblical truth, unrighteousness is the inescapable result. Just watch and you will see the widespread acceptance of homosexuality, rebellion, and all forms of iniquity. Truth and knowledge are coherent significant parts from a fixed source, namely, God. Embody every aspect of every truth of God and you will construct ultimate truth. You will come to the revelation of Jesus Christ. How one responds to this truth is conditionally crucial. Ultimate truth adds divine measures to an infinitely divine God. His realms of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience are accompanied by His omnibenevolence. And in wisdom’s growth other omniproperties are to be learned. Ultimate truth is eternal. And in God’s plenitude of Being, the highest holiness of existence, in the richness of the diversity of beings, all related, all communotheistically equal, will show the principle of the continuity of ultimate truth. Everything will be possible. Every creature-being will share the attributes of every creation. The redeemed will seek for nothing, possess nothing, has need of nothing, yet have everything that overflows to all others. Ultimate truth unites and provokes a divine experience. And in its search through reasoning with God is achieved the most fundamental highest and deepest source of fulfillment. The image and likeness of God had no intention of simplicity. All possibilities were to be determined. Ultimate truth is discovering truths that engage the relational mystery of how God created in its entirety that which He determined was necessary to be between Nothing and Something. How God’s creation of the world through and for Jesus was to meet its ultimate purpose in Jesus' sacrifice for "the sins of the whole world" is the mystery of ages. There is an ultimate truth to be revealed in the mysterious group who will sing the song. The mystery of God’s exhortative approach to this group is the ultimate truth of prophecy to bring the likeness of Christ to the behavioral conduct of these assigned to be sealed. The ultimate truth reveals the deliverance of this approach. As these understand the written mysteries, only after that will the unwritten mysteries happen in some mysterious way. What the seven thunders spoke must be in agreement with the ultimate truth of God. Our contentment is in our reasoning with God who will give revelation. God's concealed mystery is being revealed to us that we may come to a more clear understanding of it. The advent of the new creation, its mysterious and ultimate reality existing for absolutely all eternity, in a spaceless, timeless environment tells us more of the transcendent, infinite judgment of God. I Timothy 3:16 It is that glory that is the mystery to be ever sought in the ultimate truth. It centers and sources in God who is Truth Himself. Mysteriously known wonder will create new wonder through divine disclosure of ultimate truth. God has brought us to Himself, and our hearts are content as we find our rest in Him. Ultimate truth is knowledge of the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit — the One Three-Personned God. This will be God’s testimony of His Truth...when man comes to perfectness, God, who is over the truth, will crown us with an amaranthine love.

15 Minutes The Sabbath is the holy day that God set aside for His recognition. It’s a perpetual sign of God’s relationship with His creation. And we are invited to share in its commemoration. Sabbath rest is a summons to practice holiness for eternity in God's presence. It is an act of intentional trust of God's sovereignty over all things. Since God is not bound by time and there will be no night in heaven, how is it that we hear John referring to months...a period of time measured. Let us reason that we not struggle with acceptance of the power of God. In our sphere of existence there can be no event occuring without time. But God is before even eternity and time and He brought both forth for His most distinct purpose...God will have a people who will master His plan. They will come to know “the Word”. Their teaching will be absolutely astonishing. No other generation of people ever had the mind that God’s word will produce in these. No other people ever knew truth the way these know truth and no other people ever understood God’s way the way these understand. No other people ever understood the scripture the way these understand the scripture. No other people ever had greater facility with verbal and written communication, and it will be literally astonishing to hear them witness the word of God. God created events without time, and eternity rolled unmeasured until God’s love was tested. Was the Determinate Counsel an event? Jeremiah 17:12 “From the beginning”...an event in eternity where time was not. Angels are created beings before time was determined “in the beginning”. And there was war in heaven before the time of the creation of “the world”. Revelation 12: 7-9 Satan’s fall must have occurred somewhere after the angels were created and before earth was formed where he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God the Son was himself the witness of the event before time. Luke 10:18 Here again must we reason. Why didn’t God say it “was good” the second day of creation? Because it was then that God separated the firmament and the waters. The waters consisting of an ejaculate of sort, urine and semen was the place where the rebellious angels had been cast after the war in heaven. It was part of the providence of God in creation that Satan would be allowed to behold the most crowning act of God...the creation of the earth for Man. These same castaways recognized the One who expelled them from heaven before ever there was “time” and they begged to not again be cast into the deep. Luke 8:26-31 Matthew 8:28-31 Mark 1:23-27 Luke 4:41 Genesis 1:1 Please see darkness and waters in the concordance – H2822 and H4325. Job 38:4, 7 Sons of God are beings existing before ever the earth was formed. And these morning stars are brothers. These were attendees to special meetings at the dawn of existence before time. And in God’s providence there is still this distinct purpose. I John 3:1, 2 What situations and events will occupy our experience in heaven in an essentially timeless existence, where the categories of past, present and future just do not apply? There will be succession, duration, and sequence because from one new moon to another and from one sabbath to another we will come before God. This “all thing new” that God will bring forth is amost wonderful envisioning and inspirational mystery. It is impressive. We know that we will have a pure language, new names, bestowed immortality with phasing bodies with the ability to pass through solid objects not being bound by nature laws. God is going to dwell with us, not among...with. He will touch us. We will have a constant consciousness of the highest understanding of all things. If we could only know of the objective reality of what is coming for us in the eternalage our questions and responses today would be filled with reverent expansion acclaiming the wonderment of God. The invincible purpose of God for His new creation and for His people will be complete when all things are made new and all new things are filled with the glory of the Lord. And as the body of His glory is, so will ours be. This is certain. God is going to make us spiritually and morally new and glorious. And knowing that nothing related to selfishness will exist, what manner of creativity is in the inmost self of God that will be brought forth without comparison to any other thought made audible, made visible. Something so immense and noble and boundlessly powerful is coming for all of us in our relationship with God.

20 Minutes As God is the ultimate source of all being, He is also the ultimate source of all truth. And as He is the infinite and perfect Being, He is also the highest, the most beautiful and lovable truth, because things have in truth, in goodness and in beauty, the same rank as in being. And truth is the being of Christ. Truth is a presence. It is a living reality. Truth is the presence that the mind seeks to understand. Let there be no distance between your mind and truth. If the mind is to know, then let it know the truth. And if truth is reality, then let it realize the truth. Participation in truth opens the mystery to the mind of reason. And reasoning and mystery must participate by faith in exploring unutterable truth that no formula can exhaust, by bringing its depth of mystery more fully to light. Reason is that power like a flower to burst open from cold ground. Reasoning to truth illuminates the infiniteness of the incomprehensible truth of God. Reason and truth are a pilgrimage taken by the soul journeying into God, walking by the power of the mind, sustained by the power and grace of God endowing it at every moment with the power of the Holy Spirit. Each truth gained gives reason to search for that which is comprehensible of the divine. And the unsearchable mystery will become a mystery searched. Mystery is just what we don’t know now. It is now that the heart of the mind is afflicted; for ignorance is to be abandoned. Mystery vanishes where truth is reasoned to an explanation. How did Jesus convert water to wine...he is God. How can light come from darkness and be divided into light and darkness...by the word of God. Why does prayer work...because of relationship with God. Why does the moon cause tides...God said so. How can a holy spirit become sinful flesh yet do no sin...when it is God. What counts as a legitimate explanation...TRUTH. Mysteries solved! The mystery of reasoning to truth is solved in our commitment to the word of God. It is the evidence of our faith. It is the existence and quality of our faith that guides us to truth. But do not let the mystique of the working of the Holy Spirit rob the mystery that is of God, for by it the limits of our understanding are unexplainably brought to wisdom. This is the determined intent spoken by God to come now. Not to ask questions out of curiousity, but in awe of the contemplation of the revealing of the mysteries of eternity, of life, of God’s marvelous structure of reality. Our coming to God to reason for truth is that behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable whereas no word manipulation can affect its revelation. II Corinthians 13:8 To that extent, true veneration of God is mystery accepted. We come now and find that the mystery of the word, is found in the construction of the word, as it is by the love of God that He desires to speak revelations into our heart through the Holy Spirit. Our real revelation is understanding the depth of God’s love. And to receive of this revelation we must "know," "understand," "recognize," "be conscious of," "experience," "believe," "adhere to," "put faith in," and "rely on" God's love, God’s word. Truth is the essence that we subsist in and the presence we experience as our own awareness. Truth not only is the objective of the mind, it finds a subjective path through the heart. This requires devotion and love, not speculation or theory. And unless we find love for the truth we will be confined within our own deception, our own delusion and low consciousness. Because the Word says God is love, spiritual pursuit to know the truth comes through love. It is the love of truth that opens the mind to spiritual heights of understanding whereby one comes to deeper revelation in the word of God. It is by our spiritual experience that we come to the knowledge of ultimate truth. Ephesians 4:15 Truth gives definition and direction to love. Love gives compassion and kindness to truth. Love rejoices in the truth. Love is glad when truth is spoken. Therefore, love aims at truth. It supports truth. Truth’s manifestation is eternal. Acts 4:32-35 I Corinthians 13:6 Ultimate truth is the final path of our relational positioning with Christ to come to reason with Supreme truth. The limit of knowing is ultimate truth. It is truth at all times, in all places and has relevance for our lives. And final truth is reality. The final truth is that we are all of God, we are all One and our greatest gift to each other is love and compassion and truth. And in Christ the final truth is without conclusion. In truth, we can be more than what we are, for only God can conclude all that there is. Here is a truth to find essence in the wisdom of knowledge...the universe has more spirit than matter. Think on it, no, rather reason with it. God is Spirit. The spiritual quality of our life is consciousness based on truth. And the consciousness of our mind involves more things than we are currently aware of. Consider the emptiness of a human being seeking truth. This emptiness is expressed character with the highest consciousness to be filled with a God-like spirit. It is perfect emptiness. The spirit guided mind, the spirit taught mind is an awareness of unique thoughts without feelings, memories of promise, contemplative prayer, inspired speech, and moral reasoning that are beyond internalized experiences. It is when the power of the mind is distinct from feelings that physical response is individuated in every experience. The presence of the Holy Spirit renders both a hierarchical and a chronological sense to reasoning. And rather than being reactive to knowledge not yet understood, we have a more perceptual approach to conform to truth as revealed. Where reasoning power is present, the mind comprehends, proves, and embraces truth. Truth can be defined as “conformity with fact or reality.” Jesus says God's Word is truth. And it sanctifies us by setting us apart to be holy and live with purpose – God's purpose. The truth can be known. Jesus says he is the truth, so when we follow him, we are living truth. Our choice is to love the truth, hate the truth, ignore the truth, or run from it. Proverbs 23:23 There is already a verdict fated for those who receive not the truth. Choose to be courageous. John 3:19-21 Don’t just listen to the word of truth and not respond to it, for that is the essence of self-deception. So always let his word become like the written fulfillment of your life. If you listen to the word and don’t live out the message you hear, you become like the person who looks in the mirror of the word to discover the reflection of his face in the beginning. You perceive how God sees you in the mirror of the word, but then you go out and forget your divine origin. But those who set their gaze deeply into the perfecting law of liberty are fascinated by and respond to the truth they hear and are strengthened by it—they experience what God requires of all. Deuteronomy 10:12 Micah 6:8 It is by the Spirit that truth is discerned as that evidence that proves faith. And faith is that substance that elevates truth to a higher dimension where the invisible Presences are nurturant to our minds. For it is by God that we are given faith and in Christ where we are made to possess faith and through the Holy Spirit that we do faith. Faith is what brings about our salvation. Romans 10:9, 10 Ephesians 2:8 This is the ultimate truth...faith leads to eternal life. Both are gifts of God. Both are the word of God. Believing the word with the heart can only come about when we are persuaded of the truth in the mind. Ephesians 1:13 Psalms 119:41, 81 If the heart is not opened to every word of God, every word, then you lack the faith to respond to the persuasion of God by the truth that He has given. Self-persuasion is frustrating. I and II Corinthians 4:6 Many confuse faith with knowledge, when these are not the same. Knowledge is attainable by being disciplined enough to pursue it. We can choose to learn and fill our mind with all manner of biblical facts, but this will not produce faith. Anyone can believe the truth intellectually, but this is not the same as having heartminded belief. Heartminded faith is the seat of the soul, the embodiment of spirit. It is the order of the Divine. Intellectual knowledge of the truth will not bring about the transformation that God desires for us. One of the primary functions of the Spirit is to lead us into all truth. And this is done when we have a change of thinking. And this strengthens awareness of ultimate truth which is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come. Nothing in the word of God is to be neglected. Every word of God is causally efficient. Not imaginative, not opinionative. Each word, every text is intrinsically or objectively real, existing in and of itself as a “unique particular”. Every word is “life of life”. It is what makes us what we are according to our conditional choices. It is the ultimate truth of reasoning by faith that gives us eyes to see the depth of wisdom. Let us retain the word of God and wisely comment that God is not to be believed blindly but to be understood to the best of reasons. Our understanding is the key to open the heart of truth. Ours is a God of ultimate truth, Jesus is the ultimate truth, the bible contains the ultimate truth, the Holy Spirit reveals the ultimate truth. Deuteronomy 32:4 I Corinthians 10:4 John 17:17 John 16:8

14 Minutes God is transcendent; He is above all. God is also immanent; He is near. Very near. It is in Him we have confidence. Whatever charge God gives His angels to keep His people, He does not thereby discharge Himself. Think of this. It is so that, whether every particular one of us has an angel as our guardian or no, we are sure that we have God Himself for our God parent. It is His infinite wisdom that contrives, and His infinite power that works for our welfare. We must need to be well kept for the Lord to be our keeper. Even when in affliction He is our keeper. This same God is He who is engaged for the preservation of every particular believer, in the same wisdom, the same power, with the same promises.God keeps His Israel. This God is our Jesus. And the shepherd of the flock is the shepherd of every sheep, and will take care that not one of us, even of the little ones, shall perish. He is a wakeful watchful keeper. Our God has never slept. He never did, nor ever will, for He is never weary. He not only does not sleep, but He does not so much as slumber. Our God has not the least inclination to sleep, for He cares for us. Psalms 121:5 God refreshes them that are His: He is our shade. The comparison of every thing to God’s loving concern for us has in this showing a great deal of gracious condescension in it. He is the eternal Being who is infinite substance in what He is, in order that He may speak sensible comfort to His people. He promises to be our shadow, to keep as close to us as the shadow does to the body, and to shelter us from the scorching heat, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Under this shadow we sit with delight and assurance. Oh, this is our God and He is always near to His people. He is never ever at a distance. He is never far to seek. His hand is the working for us whereby we turn ourselves dexterously to our duty, and we always find God ready for us, to assist us and give us realization of our being to Him. When is He not with us. He will have an eye upon us in our every motion: for in Him we are immovable. God will provide that His people shall not be tempted above what they are able, shall not fall into sin, though they may be very near it. Shall not fall into trouble, though there be many endeavoring to undermine us by fraud or overthrow us by force. He will keep us from being frightened, that we neither slip, nor stumble, nor fall. God will protect us from all the malignant influences of the enemy. Though the sad changes that sin has made to creation, God’s favor will interpose for us that even the sun and moon, though worshipped by a great part of mankind, and are often instruments of hurt and distemper to human bodies will be a blessing of warmth and comfort; God by them will show His favor to keep us safe in every respect. We will know His creation and keep from the evil of sin and the evil of trouble. God will so watch over us that whatever affliction happens to us there shall be no evil in it for we shall see His working for our good. Even that which kills shall not hurt. It is the spiritual life, especially, that God will take under His protection, and He will preserve our soul. He, with a peculiar care, will preserve us from perishing eternally. His Spirit, who is our preserver and comforter, shall abide with us forever. It is by His Spirit that we know how deeply God cares about our being converted. It’s a turning, a spiritual turning away from sin in repentance and to Christ in faith. If we are not converted we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is a dramatic change that completely alters one’s life. It is not a rearranging of things, and it is not as gradual a change like sanctification. It is a dimension of justification. It is a power that occurs much deeper within the soul of a person. It is a decisive break with old patterns of sin and the world and the embracing of new life in Christ by faith. It is so profound that it involves a change of mind, and a change of view, a new recognition of God, self, sin, and Christ. It involves a change of affections, a change of feeling, a sorrow for sin committed against a holy and just God. It involves a change of will, an intentional turning away from sin and a turning to God through Christ to seek forgiveness. The entire person; mind, soul, and body, is radically, completely, and fully changed in this transformation. Listen and hear...being converted moves you out of the realm of that non- saving faith - not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord. When there is true love for God being converted is the crying need of the soul. Until one’s life is turned from sin to Christ, nothing else matters. God cares. God cares so dearly as to bear our anxieties and to replace them with His peace and assurance. When we give God our concerns, we in turn, receive His calming presence. God's system of care is countercultural. His system’s values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of human beings. His is a movement that expresses the ethos and aspirations of a specific divineness in this well-defined era. A span of time defined for the purposes of chronology to draw attention to the prominence of His people to characterize a definable determination to show in every detail of our lives that God is sovereign. He is working to make us more like Him, and in turn accomplishing His will for us and His kingdom. God transforms our cares into what He cares about; and so we cast our cares on Christ. Our story demonstrates the comprehensiveness of God’s care in the lives of His children. God’s interaction in our lives is one of the greatest blessings of life. If we stay close and attuned to Him through obedience and communion and faithfulness, we can see His working in our lives quite clearly. When we do, we see for ourselves just how magnificently comprehensive His love and care for us truly is. We must never forget, never stop praying that God is ordering our steps in His word, especially even in the most challenging of personal, societal, and spiritual of circumstances. Of a great wonder is knowing how God cares for us through relationships. Think of the profound impact of our witness when we have devout love toward others. When our witness brings forth this powerful acknowledgment...thy God is my God. We are given brothers and sisters in Christ who will be there with and for us in times of adversity. In Christ our lives become an important blessing to them as theirs is to us. We influence one another with word of truth. We are in the timed criticalness of God’s plan and purpose. The beginning of harvest. We are now to be His kingdom community on earth. Our God is our God all of the time, in all places, and among all situations. The true believer’s life is a transformative life. We are no longer our own. We have a Savior who has taken our life and completely made every part of it new from our relationships, to our beliefs, to our perfecting of character, it is all His. In all extents of life, God cares for us, He is accomplishing His will and His pleasure. God’s care for us is so filled with righteousness until He gives to all the measure of faith. The measure of faith is that capacity given that you may have a complete reliance upon God’s grace for every encounter in life...spiritual or otherwise. But there is also a power that strengthens this measure. It is hearing the word of God and sharing what we have learned from Him with others. This is because God knows that there will be some who may never hear the name Jesus. The complexity of the world around us tells us that there is a God (even though people can suppress that knowledge in their heart). Even those who haven’t heard of Jesus are accountable for knowing that God is. These have the word of God in all of nature. All our faith is to be in His promises, in His all-sufficient grace. Consider how God equips us spiritually to fit perfectly in His determination. We ask without doubting. We receive instruction in confidence. Our testimony of Jesus is beyond expectation. We have every way to escape from temptation. He gives His angels charge over us. The Holy Spirit is there for us. God takes account of all our tribulation by putting our tears in a special bottle. How precious is that. God so cares about our sadness that He bottles up the reasons and turns them into our joys. And Jesus... Romans 8:34 Hebrews 7:25 We can boldly say God cares for us. He reveals it in His words, His life, and His love. We must be so comforted by this revelation that we never battle wisdom against our feelings. Nothing, no hurt, no confusion, no deep insecurity, no disillusionment, no circumstance is to threaten our trust in God’s love. We must rest in the knowledge that His thoughts are toward us. Jesus is our greatest comfort during the darkness of our struggles where faith may be tested. Experiencing his presence draws us closer to God, especially during difficult circumstances that may extend for long periods of time. God loves us in a life changing way...He loves us extravagantly. In God’s care we grow more confident in our identity in Christ and form a deep abiding relationship with the One who formed us, who knows us, and cares infinitely about every aspect of our being. God is giving us such a self in Jesus that we find identity in being totally loved by God in the ordinariness of doing life. The true self is grateful for spiritual highs without craving them, and...without making too much of them when they occur. Recount how our God has brought us to learn to reason with Him in His word for the discovery of the depth of His truth. This knowing God is possible through spiritual growth and by weaving our testimonies and experiences as reminders of Jesus’ faithfulness through answered prayer, encouragement, and grace overflowing as we are transformed in how we think, we love, and we live...how we see ourselves and how we relate to others. God gives us rest on every side. He is not blind to our circumstances or our choices to confide in Him, entrusting our every breath to Him. Because of God’s care we have a confident certainty in Jesus Christ. We are confident and certain of his very near return. We are confident and certain that it is impossible to be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We are confident and certain that in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. We are confident and certain those whom he predestined he also called, those whom he called he also justified, those whom he justified, he also glorified. Because God cares, we are certain. Certainty is rest, peace, blessedness. God cares for us in His hereness, in His nearness, and that presence is punctuated in Jesus Christ. Psalms 139:7-10 God is not a being that can be moved away from. His people have a constant awareness of His presence and the attentive acknowledgment of His workings. Please do not confuse feeling close to God and being intimate spiritually with God are the same. What is it when you ignore Him, or when your humanness falters? How good it is to know that every moment of our living is filled with His meaningful care. God has deep affection for us. There is no care of ours that He does not care about. And He so loves us that He wants our cares to align with what He cares about the most. God cares most for His people and whether we love Christ and whether that love is expressed in our love for others. That is the beauty of the circle of care. Pause for a moment. Consider the God who upholds and guides the stars, the planets, the worlds unseen. Who controls the winds, the rains. This God cares about you. In your consideration, consider first the person Jesus Christ. Then consider how God cared so much that He sent His only begotten Son into this world in the form of a man to die because He so loved the world. Now consider the love, the forgiveness, the compassion, the mercy, the justice and so on...God cares. God cares because He wants to be in an eternal relationship with His children. He cares because He wants His children to love each other. Jesus showed us the way. God is watching the misery of His creation. When we love as He cares or when we care as He loves, we too will reflect on such suffering. Why does He care? The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered into His own heart. Scripture confirms this incredible truth...Jesus wept. His caring is so much experienced with us until he allows evil to exhaust itself that the power of sin is so completely drained that there cannot even be, there cannot be even a thought of it. It cannot be a thought, a word, a choice. God will finish His plan in today’s age and save the people He knows wants to be saved. He cares for those who follow Him, the ones of His salvation, the ones who have been made complete by Him in Jesus. He cares so much that He will wait for us as long as He possibly can as He has determined. God’s care is so abundant, it is so essential that it will be for the full salvation of His people. God cares...

15 Minutes The experience of the sweetness of Sabbath is coming to be tempered by awareness of the sorrow to surround this holy of days. Soon we will be deep into the brokenness of the day that God sanctified, made holy. In this most uplifting of times there will be a descent for the sake of ascent. We experience others detaching from God as we are to draw closer. These fall rather than choosing to rise. I am not talking about the fall of man. I am talking about a falling away. Most who hold the Sabbath in holiness will have to “go down” in the days to come. But this will be their “going up” to the promised land. We will fall from favor of friends, of family, but ascend to be more like Jesus. We will bear hardship and cry out to God because of those things to be done to God’s people on His day of rest. But God hears our cries and remembers us and brings us forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Because we are low and we cry out, God hears us and lifts us out of sorrow: descent for the sake of ascent. Entering into covenant with God, was the event that formed us as a peculiar people. It is in the peoplehood that God prepares us for an incomprehensibly awful litany of tragedies that will be brought upon us. Our thoughts dive deep into the world's sorrow and suffering and brokenness of the day. But our hopes, our prayers launch us toward the Day of Awe. Out of our deepest grief the light of truth brightens the soon return of our Redeemer. Authentic spiritual life demands that we sit both with life's brokenness and life's wholeness. A spirituality that's only "positive," only “feel good”, isn't real and isn't whole. When we sit with what hurts, that's what enables us to rise. Descent for the sake of ascent. Looking at the world around us, it's easy to feel that everything is falling apart. Migrant children torn from the arms of their parents and imprisoned in cages. Hate crimes on the rise. People of color killed by police who are supposed to be sworn to protect. Incidents of prejudice increasing: against religious minorities, and against people of color. Our political system is broken. International relations seem to be broken. There is brokenness everywhere we look. Our work, the spiritual work of this moment in time, is twofold. One: we have to resist the temptation to paper over the brokenness with platitudes and pretty words. God has a greater plan we have to try to understand. And two: we have to face the brokenness, even embrace the brokenness, and let it fuel us to adjust our path, to correct our missteps. We feel what's lacking, we ache to fill that void. In our sorrow there is to be no distance from the divine Beloved. We are to draw nearer. Our distance is to be from the world. Difficult days will be sown in tears, but the joy of reaping souls returns the gladness of the spirit. We have a higher purpose. To heighten the hope of experiencing the divine Presence. To balance the sorrow with that which is affirmed in our hearts. We are going to struggle with sorrow. But as we cultivate compassion for others we access the gratitude and joy of showing Jesus in the life. Jesus will not ask us why weren’t we as faithful as Abraham. Why didn’t we wrestle like Jacob. Or why didn’t we serve like Joseph. He will ask why weren’t we striving to be the best we could be...even in sorrow and joy. The world today is a “black hole”. Black holes are powerful, but they pull energy into themselves. God needs some suns. By contrast, suns are unique in giving light...that give of themselves. The sorrows of today cannot be our black holes of despair. We are called to radiate light, to reach out in closeness for others even as we know that God gives days of adversity. We are for God in this world to confront and overcome challenges; to choose, when we are tested, to remain firm in our belief and trust in Him, in every situation. Because we have a “why” to live for, we can bear any “how”. In all our learning God teaches us that sorrow and joy, grief and rejoicing, mourning and comfort, life and death, destruction and rebuilding are intertwined. Our purpose is to endure. To believe in God and to trust that every aspect of life has meaning and takes the course He has determined. Remember, the greatest Sabbath of sorrow ended with the most blessed expression of joy. Our faith is going to be stretched to the limit, when we are asked to overcome the greatest of limitations, that is when we must remember to praise God for the Sabbath. We may want to understand that this is the time of the fulfillment of God’s promises. The rhythms we have developed give stability amid the chaos: we observe the Sabbath. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world. God finished His work. And for us who keep the Sabbath, God has an even greater and better plan. We will experience grief raw and overpowering. But we will cope and reflect. The time is coming when we will keep the Sabbath in the midst of pain, in the midst of sorrow, when the soul is seared, and throats are tightened. This is when our faith moves us to the beginning of an awareness of what eternity means. God has promised a greater reality beyond what we are currently experiencing. Our sorrow in the Sabbath is that which we share with our God. God has great sorrow for the effect of sin on His people. His sorrow swells in our unrighteousness. It is simply not in us—not in any of us—to have genuine, authentic, righteousness without first having God’s nature within us. God alone is without darkness, or impurity, or flaw. The pause that God wove into the seven days is intentional. In observing it we are thankful even in sorrow because it will forever prove that God is right...we can obey. The Sabbath is the ever-mindful way of understanding the awfulness of sin. What if our every thought were recorded on the Sabbath...oh the sorrow. The Sabbath is truth. And truth divides. Nothing divides like truth. Nothing divides like Jesus. Not all search for the depth of truth in the word of God and the deeper the truth, the deeper and wider the division. Wherein then is the sorrow? In the slow drift of compromise of the truth. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is truth. Any drift from the word is drift from the Sabbath...it is drift from Jesus. People decide what truth fits them best. Real truth requires a standard, a baseline to rest firmly upon so all know where truth stands. Truth is not a series of shades of gray or just situations where we decide what’s right based on how we feel. It is a black or white, life-dividing, all or nothing issue. You either fall on the side of error or rise to the truth of God. Jesus wept. Because of our unbelief Jesus groaned in the spirit and was troubled. We sorrow that we have no power but to give God’s word, to speak of His amazing love to us. All that we can do is to plant the seed and trust God to harvest that seed. It is difficult to trust in something that we cannot see, but this is faith. We want so much for souls to be safe, for eyes to be opened, for others to see their need for a savior in Jesus Christ who paid for every sin. We sorrow because Jesus had to be our sin even as we refuse to be his righteousness. It grieves God. Let no sorrow cause us to question our faith.

15 Minutes When we know Christ, we get wisdom. Compare wisdom with anything else we can get, and wisdom is better because wisdom helps us know what to do with what we get. And wisdom tells us of our greatest need...divine guidance. And without this guidance we are not to even trust in our wisdom. We must be inclined toward godliness. And so, God gives us wisdom that we might primarily discern when divine guidance is leading us. This wisdom is one of God’s means of discerning the will of God. And wisdom and divine guidance must be based upon divine revelation. And divine revelation is given through the word of God. And it is the authoritative word from God which serves as a measure of our thoughts and deeds.And every word of God is tested, every word is pure. Divine revelation is formed in precepts, principles, and patterns. Precepts are the commands of God, specific and straightforward. Principles are set down for those who ask to know God’s will and to do it. Patterns are those truths of scripture which have great relevance in showing us the ways of God, His character and conduct, in determined situations. It is with this wisdom that divine guidance seeks the will of God rather than self-sufficiency and self-trust, natural reasoning. Divine guidance rests upon the promises of God, on those “things which are not seen” yet having faith in the Determinate Counsel which declared the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done. And by this faith we know that the counsel of God will stand. These are God breathed words. It’s called wisdom. I Corinthians 1:30 Righteousness for our past whereby we have been justified by God that we might be born again. Sanctification for our present by which we are being made perfect, transformed in our mind, our will, God’s expression permeated to a divine life. Redemption for our future by which we will be like him, glorified. Though he grew in wisdom and stature the perfection of truth rested in him. The purpose of wisdom and love triumphed in him. Wisdom does not regard the past as the exclusive source of truth. Truth is relative and expanding; it lives always in the present, achieving new expression in each generation. Wisdom, like reason, is allied to faith. Reason, wisdom, and faith are our highest human attainments. Reason introduces us to the realm of particulars, to things; wisdom introduces us to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates us into the path of divinity, a spiritual experience. Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to full enlightenment; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending journey in the sole company of TRUTH. When reason once recognizes right and wrong, it exhibits wisdom; when wisdom chooses between right and wrong, truth and error, it demonstrates the leading of the Spirit. And so are the functions of mind, soul, and spirit ever closely united in proportion to the spiritual love and perfection with Jesus. Our devotion to truth is unquestioning. God will have His elect function with the power of choice through the wisdom bestowed until the last earth struggle is over. When we truly worship God in spirit, that worship will lead to wisdom, and wisdom eventuates in the finality of thought in the mind fully contemplating Christ. Wisdom embraces discretion as well as courage in that we submit our lives to knowing God and believing in the Son. It’s called wisdom. Wisdom does not come without great effort. Wisdom is only for those who will diligently seek it. Remember what we were taught in Proverbs 2:1-11. Doing wisdom will not be without sacrifice and commitment. We must do what we know to be right. Jeremiah 42:1-6 Jeremiah brought the word of God as it is by God. Without wisdom divinely guided the people considered it as being false. They chose natural reasoning opposing to conform to God’s way. Too many want the word of God to agree with their estimation of what they think rather than precept to principle to pattern. God is doing for the good of our character. The wise is slow to speak and weighs the spoken words. The wise gives thought to the consequences of the actions to be taken. The wise are counseled not to teach or correct the fool. A fool does not want direction. This is why and how character is so crucial in matters of divine guidance. Nothing that we have heard here is new. But nevertheless, needs to be said by way of reminder that we hear again the reasoning of God. Our character is, perhaps, the determinant factor in responding to divine guidance. Too many neglect the paths which the word of God so clearly defines. God said go to Nineveh, but you want to go to Tarshish. For the time we ought to be teachers...what does our doing say of our character. Wisdom and divine guidance overcome every deception. The wisdom afforded the first pair was ordered in harmony as they stood in innocence. Adam bore a mental likeness to his Maker. When presented with controversy Adam knew the right but abandoned divine guidance for selfishness concerning the woman given him. What felt safe to his feelings deceived his flesh thinking he was doing right. The only power that satan has is the power of deception, and the thing about deception is that you don’t know you are being deceived. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be deception. But, once the truth is revealed and received, deceit loses all its power. The devil never changes his tactics. Wisdom and divine guidance filled with faith is the potent antidote. Religious services will be satan’s deception in these final days. He uses it to attempt to replace the power of the Holy Spirit. He mimics the Holy Spirit that many sincere believers think is leading them when in fact it is a religious spirit. You do religious services thinking you have some control. Therefore, it feels safe to your flesh because it tells you what to do externally and when you do it, your conscience is deceived by feelings of doing right. This replaces the inner peace of the Holy Spirit that comes from being in right relationship with the Lord. You become focused on doing good works for God and outward appearances instead of being Spirit led. The ultimate goal of religion is to cut you off from a vital relationship with the Lord Himself. Religion allures you with the false promise that you can be spiritual. In the end, you are left without. Don’t limit God with small thinking. The surety of our inheritance is wisdom under divine guidance. It is the mind of Christ. Most fail to deepen their faith in the word of God because they seek to find fault with things they do not understand. So rather than ask an innocent question, they oppose reasoning. Coming to God with humility and sincerity would give them divine wisdom. Whenever we come face-to-face with the profound wisdom of God, we will experience awe and holy amazement at the depth of truth found in His word. It is with divine guidance that wisdom silences and reveals the hidden malice of all opposition to truth. When you live your faith openly and with confidence as in Christ, you will be attacked. Your understanding will be called into question. Divine guidance has you turn to God and in your reasoning with God for truth you are careful for nothing. The sacredness of your study opens the mind to the clear voice of God Who speaks pure truth, pure wisdom. And under divine guidance you are prepared for every encounter. It’s called wisdom. Brothers and sisters, please heed this warning...if you are not seeking wisdom under the guidance of God you are on the path to spiritual failure. You are being hardened. When you think you are wise enough to judge God’s word you are becoming spiritually insensitive. When what hurts the heart of God doesn’t hurt you the way it used to you’re in a dangerous condition. We little consider how threatened each of us is by being willingly ignorant of all that the word of God offers. That in itself is deceptive in its very character. Like climbers rope together on a steep mountain, like soldiers team together on a battlefield and keep track of one another. One of the essential means by which Christ guides, protects, and perfects his people is through reasoning with his Father and the active participation of other believers in their lives. The day of Christ's return is fast approaching, and it will be a day of judgment for all who fall away. Remembering this, we ought to have sober reflection to the spiritual concerns of our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is not a difficult thing to believe when you reason by wisdom under divine guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is by faith, through faith that we can become like the word of God. For the elect are brought by calling into the fold of Christ, not from the very womb, nor all at the same time, but according as God sees it meet to dispense His grace. Before they(we) are gathered to the Most High, they(we) wander dispersed in a common desert, and in no respect differ from others, except that by the special mercy of God they(we) are kept. This does not mean that before they(we) were enlightened they(we) were aliens of scripture, they(we) just had not clear revelation. So, we ask this question... I Corinthians 4:7 Acts 13:48 Intimation that some excel others, not by their own virtue, but by the mere favor of God. Our wisdom is to be defined according to the mind of Christ. Wisdom is not knowing good and evil. Wisdom is knowing good from evil. Reasoning with God means we are not tempted to be wise above what is needed. I ask for wisdom. I bow my head, close my eyes, and prepare to hear His answer as the Holy Spirit assumes the role of guiding into truth studied. However, if unable clearly to ascertain the truth, let us not decline to be somewhat in ignorance in regard to the depths of the divine wisdom. There is a view above to explain His way, in His truth. All truth is God’s truth, that is true. But the only “truth” we know to be truth is the “truth” which is in Christ, the truth revealed in God’s Word. These are necessary for life and godliness. We transcend our senses until such time as it shall be given us to know how He mysteriously wills in us to know and to do. God is taking His time in revealing and bringing to completion His marvelous plan decreed in eternity past in the Determinate Counsel, which in its culmination discloses His infinite wisdom. And there are no rewrites. God determined that we be purposed in this lengthy drama to display His wisdom. It is shown to us as we are privileged to become wise. God selected a people for Himself and became their Father, and why, from that one people, He plucked only a small number as if they are His remnant? We can only stand in awe of the wisdom of God to determine such a thing and to bring it about. It’s called wisdom.