Perfect Template

God looked to create a great many children to share His Kingdom and serve Him as priests. It would mean creating such a people as a new creation starting with children of Satan who lie and murderously hate and creating them anew into children of His own who lovingly obey Him and behave like Him. So He needed a template from which to make copies but it had to be a template that was right and true and the plumbline God uses is perfect at measuring what is right and a proper right angle to the ground when it has to point exactly upwards as in a well built building. So the template has to be as good as the standards God is applying and conform perfectly to those standards or else the outcomes of copying children as building blocks based on this template will be imperfect from the start and get worse as more copies are made from the copies. Well He chose His Son from all time  to be the template and sent Him into the world to start His Kingdom and they called His name Jesus, The Christ.

What Lord Jesus is Like

He, the Lord, Jesus, The Christ, did take human form and was born and He did die so He was mortal and when He rose from the dead He was no ghost but flesh and blood. The disciples who saw Him alive after the crucifixion and resurrection testified that He ate food in front of them to show He is no ghost and said "See no ghost has flesh and blood like you see I have". So what is He now He is with God. Still flesh and blood and no ghost surely. We do not know from scripture alone but the Holy Spitit can inspire our hesrts and spirits to know what He now is, now that He had back the glory with God The Father He had before the foundation of the world. This is foretaste of what the future people of the resurrection will be.

A Building Of Stones Not Cut With Human Hands

I notice that some people over time change their thinking about Jesus from seeing Him as an important teacher in Jewish history who lived around 5 BC to maybe almost 30 AD to thinking with increasing certainty that Jesus existed before being born and even before the Universe came to be. This corresponds with contemporaries of Jesus recognising Him to be the Christ because the Christ or Messiah was considered someone who would come into the world. Into the world might have been a concept that people understand differently over time too from being merely born to being incarnated, as pre-existence become better understood to apply to the person prophecy had called The Christ, The Anointed Prince, The Messiah. Simon Peter was one in the time of Jesus' ministry around Roman era Judea and Samaria who came to an understanding that Jesus was the Christ who was to come into the world. Jesus firstly said this understanding was blessed because it came from the Holy Spirit as from God The Father Himself and secondly that Peter, renamed from Simon to Peter meaning stone or rock  at that time, was to be first of many such stones with which Jesus as The Christ would build His Church, in fulfillment of prophecy of what The Christ, The Branch, would come to do - build the Temple of God. So to me it becomes clear that God's Temple is being built of the stones not cut by human hands by the Messiah Jesus and this temple is built by the forming together of people inspired by the Holy Spirit to understand Jesus is the Messiah or Christ who came into the world having pre-existed with God from before all things.

Deflation and Life

A rubber tyre on a wheel can lose its air and get deflated. Air is lost from the tyre as time goes by and this is normal. It is like death. We feel deflated as death creeps into us because we are mortal. We lose life as time goes by like a tyre loses air. This makes us weaker and less able to take on the challenges of life. God has given an answer. His Son is Jesus Christ alive from the dead and if we love Lord Jesus He can give us revelation of Himself as He is. The very thought back to such a revelation is like pumping air into that tyre. The very nature of living Lord Jesus, The Christ, imparts life into a deflated person such that they no longer feel deflated. Dwelling on the knowledge of Jesus imparts life. Jesus Himself imparts life just by who and what He is. He is so full of life that it spreads to those who dwell on Him, on a revelation of Him. This is God's gift to those who believe. God The Father's gift. God has given life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life.

Ghost Baby

The baby enters the world being born. No allegiences. No mistakes. It looks around for its mission and reason to be there. It looks for its God to love who brought it into this existence. It is born. Like a ghost. No territory. No home as yet. Everything that will happen is yet to happen. Ghost baby. "See I have come to do Your will O God." Be born again of spirit - of The Spirit. Be a ghost baby again.

Things Above

Prophecy and the 'translation' of Enoch, seventh from Adam, points to heaven and the place of the throne of God The Father as being in an immense crystal cave joined to another immense crystal cave inside a high mountain north of three volcanoes and west of three other volcanoes. A mountain like this might be Cocopaxi in Ecuador and crystal caves maybe of much smaller size are found in the mountains of Mexico normally not connected to the outside world but one or two were revealed by very deep mining shaft digging. So we have a picture of a revelation of where God is enthroned in the Book of Enoch made clearer by modern discoveries and other knowledge distributed by Internet and television. It shows a single crystal cave of huge size where is enthroned God and Jesus The Lord with Him then another cave connected to it. Thoughts about this: Perhaps the second cave emphasises that it is important to pause in the outer cave before entering the throne cave. Do not instantly rush straight to the place of God. The prophet Enoch might not have known what we know that there is one reason alone a person can hope to be allowed to approach the place of the throne of God The Father and that is that The Lord Jesus, The Son of Man as He was known to Enoch, was crucified to shed His blood in sacrifice like a sacrificial lamb. This even allowed Enoch thousands of years earlier to approach God because the sacrifice counted good in God's eyes even before it happened such that God shows Jesus, in the Book of Revelation, to be the lamb slain since the foundation of the world.

Care

Taking care of people is a principle part of what God The Father does. He wants people to do the same and teaches it. He especially watches out for those who believe and have received the Holy Spirit and manifest the Holy Spirit in spiritually gifted ways. He watches that they are gotten out of difficult or unfortunate situations. He teaches this is what He wants done. Learning this behaviour by watching what God does and doing it was first practised by Lord Jesus Christ. It is what He then teaches others to do in immitation of God The Father. Learning it by watching Jesus do it was what the first Apostles did. Jesus told Peter after Jesus rose from the dead to look after and take care of the followers of Jesus. When Peter did this it must have been imitated by disciples who observed it as they listened to and followed Peter's preaching and teaching of God's counsel. The influence spreads. Just as God The Father still does this today, so does Jesus. He still imitates His God-and-Father's actions with the immense power God has now given Him and He does it gloriously. He illuminates us with it, showing forth the care of God, especially getting His followers out of bad situations with almighty faith in God. Nothing is beyond His power in this. Ever alive to do it too. Yet now Jesus has returned to the Father who sent Him: Not very far away for someone so almighty but out of sight and in the presence of God and gloriously divine like God. So He still visits followers at special times but is not usually seen with the eye (exceptions have happened though) but in His place He gives the Holy Spirit from before the throne of glory who brings the same power and authority and care of God and Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit shows delightful care and absolute ability to watch out for the believer to get them out of problems and look after their needs. He is not seen with the eye usually but shows it is Him by the words and powers and miracles and other spiritual gifts He gives when He visits in His caring way; God's way. He will always be around to watch out to see who fears God and believes what God says and teaches. He brings help and comfort to such people and delivers from tricky situations constantly all around the world wherever people are. Never will He leave the followers of Jesus as orphans. He certainly cares. Jesus promised that when He returns, far sooner now than when He said it, He will be as all pervading in His coming around the world as lightning is when it fills the sky with light. His care will be as far reaching then as lighting is across the heavens. The awakened sleeping saints martyred in all history will be with Him. The lion will lie down with the lamb in all the places His care is extended. This time of the Spirit now is but a foretaste of that time to come - soon.

Getting Heavy

Due to the real authority everywhere in the world and beyond the Lord Jesus has now that God has given Him to power-share God's throne it is truly amis to refuse His teaching. He said this, that, in view of all authority being given Him, we can go everywhere to make every creature - every human - a recipient of the gospel of His teachngs and a disciple of His commands to obey them. And He follows up with His power demonstrations. The Spirit of Truth testifies but we also testify of what we too have seen and heard and touched of Lord Jesus in following Him. So backslidng is denial of the authority of His Name.

Dreams and Superpowers

It seems from the Gospel of John that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, took special care to ensure the Holy Spirit would be sent to people believing in Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes dreams into special private lessons when He comes and gives us one-to-one counsel from God through the living Jesus. Maybe this one-to-one capability of spirit to spirit is much more effective than one-to-many instruction Jesus would have given believers if He had stayed among the people after His resurrection. The possibilities of receiving each one direct revelations of God from the sevenfold Holy Spirit (literally seven Spirits, described in 'Revelation' in scripture) are such that many many people can have comfort of being led by Him and be children of God. His leadings are not just through dreams and visions but in spiritual gifts shared in church services and outside church services like powers similar to the concept fictionalised in comics and prophecies and acts of inspired mercy and angelic utterances and their translation into intelligible words. All the Holy Spirit's work in humans who believe what God says.

Virgin Birth

When it is considered true that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth called Jesus Christ came about as a virgin birth and that there were prophecies fulfilled from the Book of Isaiah written centuries earlier matching other details like the name given this baby Isa or Jesus or Yeshuah, considering this was all so mysterious and astonishing and other things happening involving Jesus ever since are not unbelievable. It was the time Jesus came too that was prophesied by Daniel in the Book of Daniel. It is the existence still of bone fragments likely to belong to the cousin of Jesus recognised as having truly lived and become well known, John the Baptist, that adds weight to the Messiahship of Jesus. John the Baptist had a ministry fulfilling prophecies from centuries earlier involving his teaching of economic levelling of the playing field by richer giving to poorer, ministry akin to Elijah of old, ministry in the wilderness to prepare the way for Jesus his cousin. Then there is the teachings of Jesus  about the Son of Man who was prosphesied in the Book of Enoch found now among the Dead Sea Scrolls in fragments preserved in the Ethioptic scriptures. The Son of Man mentioned in the Second Book of Parables described so well the person Jesus professed to be having existed before the Bronze Age and even before cosmic beginnings. So to say Jesus lives and works miracles today still is hardly surprising yet everything about Jesus is astounding and takes me aback even though I remember much in my own memory of what I have witnessed. He is the ultimate being of perfection besides the God who is His own Father and God. Devoid of deficiency and defect. Wondrous with glory reaching out to the depths of the human heart from His own now Human heart but firstborn from the dead, alive forever. This Son of Man has been crucified, has suffered ultimate death by crucifixion yet lives and lives forever. This Jesus is High Priest over the true House of God, those who believe and keep His words forever no matter what, even to the point of death. This Jesus is hope of acquiring righteousness which is His own freedom from slavery to doing wrong. Jesus who is hope of being made worthy by Him for resurrection. This Jesus, Himself Resurrection and Life, who can of Himself by power God has given Him raise the dead and give them life to eternally know Him and God who sent Him. This Jesus who will raise those worthy of resurrection when He comes so they escape the future death which is beyond death at the Final Judgment. "Have faith in God" He says and He practices what He preaches too, gloriously as Son of the Most High God who alone is the true living God, The Father who sent Him. Your work given you by God is to have faith in God and faith in Jesus who God sent. Jesus has completed His own work of dying and rising from death having testified to the truth. Now He can complete what is deficient in yours by completing what is lacking in your faith.

Key To Knowledge Stolen

"You have stolen the key to knowledge. You yourselves do not enter and you prevent from entering those who want to enter." The words of God given by Jesus Christ in His ministry in early first century AD. This is still relevant and the words never pass away. The knowledge necessary to understand scripture and obey commands of God in scripture according to true knowledge and understanding remains available to some educated in religious history sufficiently well to understand but so many with this knowledge fail to follow it through to actual true obedience because of lack of love towards God. Others who love God are unable to understand scripture confidently enough to obey the commands of God like the Christ Jesus taught and the knowledgable ones do not help enough. The dicotomy widens. The hypocrisy of the knowledgable is merely a stumbling block to those willing and wanting to be true followers of God. Holding to the life-giving words of God as testified to by Jesus Christ His Son is key. The teaching against such hypocrisy chastens and cuts to the heart the knowing hypocrite if they are not too hard hearted. The teaching encourages the budding would-be disciples to know that Jesus and the Father and Holy Spirit are aware of the problem and concerned for the ignorant who want to learn and understand. The Holy Spirit can and does break the deadlock by revelation of the true counsel of God and testimony of Jesus applying it in real situations to those who believe God.

Ruler of All Rulers

When the Apostle John wrote in Revelation words about Jesus being Christ and faithful and true as God's witness but also Ruler of the kings of the earth it might have been a striking revelation indeed that even the Ceasars of Rome are ruled by this Lord. Now today He still shows supremacy over kings of all kinds. Yet surely He often leaves them alone in their decisions to see what is in their hearts, as God His Father did with kings in ancient times scripture writers inspired by Him tell us. So Jesus can call the shots or refrain from doing so as and when. We cannot assume rulers are acting in His will or God the Father's will even rulers who acknowledge Jesus as being their own Lord. But what a Ruler Jesus is, completely devoid of defect. Full of faith. Son of God.

Unlimited

God doesn't confine His circles of influence to meetings and services or religious buildings. His influence is most marked when people exhibit gifts of grace given by God. It might be a timely miracle. It might be a startlingly well worded poem. It might be a flash of inspiration of some other kind. It might be supernatural utterance in an angelic language spoken or sung. It might be a sense of overwhelming awe or a sudden moment of liberating peace. It might be in private. It might be in company. It might be in a religious service. It might be in the workplace. It might be sudden. It might span days. It might be perceived to span decades. It is often unrecognised as God. It might be recognised years later or hours later. It is sure and faithful and true and edifying though when it is God and it manfests God as the Father and Jesus as the Son of God and the Holy Spirit as coming from God in Jesus' name as God's word and Jesus' testimony and that of His faithful servants is believed. God with us.

Cotopaxi

Enoch described Heaven so clearly but where is it? In a mountain surrounded by six in an L shape perhaps volcanoes and there might perhaps be a cave below in the depths underground like the crystal caves in the mountains of Mexico found recently during mining but normally unconnected to the surface.

In Book of Enoch chapter 14 verses 12 and following

And drew nigh to a spacious habitation built also with stones of crystal. Its walls too, as well as pavement, were formed with stones of crystal, and crystal likewise was the ground. Its roof had the appearance of agitated stars and flashes of lightning; and among them were cherubim of fire in a stormy sky. A flame burned around its walls; and its portal blazed with fire. When I entered into this dwelling, it was hot as fire and cold as ice. No trace of delight or of life was there. Terror overwhelmed me, and a fearful shaking seized me.

A candidate might be Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador, east of which are volcanoes Antisana, Cayambe and Reventador and south are Chimborazo, Tungurahua, Sangay. Cotopaxi is thought to be home of gods in local lore and is truly majestic like a throne of a god. The match to the description in the propecy in the Book of Enoch seems worth considering.

Love God with your Voice and Vote

There is a duty of every created human who has their Creator as their one true God to love Him with their voice as well as with all their heart and soul and mind. Love towards your Creator needs to reach the voice you have. Voting for leadership choices and in referendums and the like might be part of that voice you have. I believe it is a command of God to let that love you have and ought to have for Him as your God influence your voting and any other voice you have so that His will is more likely to be done on earth as it is where He resides and reigns. His judgments can be turned aside and tragic disasters averted by allowing His will to influence politics by people who love Him using their voice and voting rights to bring about His will with leaders appointed and referendas decided according to the love people have for their one true God. This is all the more so if people know and rightly discern God's will in who to appoint or what referendum decision to make. A sign of all this is found in the existence of that eye in the sky, mass surveillance in all its forms (Hosea chapter 8 and modern prophecy too).

Nothing New - Conclusion

My conclusion to my previous post (http://stephendgreen.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/nothing-new.html) is that Jesus Christ is and for all of time been the one who was there with God the Creator Father as a son with a father by whose name nature has been obeying God doing His will in all natural lifecycles and planetary movements and stellar processes since they came into existence with God involving His beloved Son in all His creating and ruling from His glorious Throne. So He, Jesus, is Lord now He is risen but was with God reigning over all things and all angelic spirits since the very beginning. This was known by this prophet Enoch (it seems from archaeology the contemporaries or later decendants of Enoch called him Enmenduranna, meaning 'ruler between earth and heaven') who wrote about this Jesus so long before Jesus was born a flesh and blood baby knowing Him in His ancient times preincarnate form as the Son of Man who went always with God the Lord of Spirits. So Jesus knowingly invoked this truth known since ancient times when He introduced Himself and taught of His divine mission and purpose as the Son of Man who had come to die at the hands of evil men and rise from the dead.

Nothing New

The modern day work of the Holy Spirit in Pentecostal churches and some of what He teaches through charismatic gifts leads to a conclusion that some or all of the ancient prophecies collected in the Book of Enoch were inspired by the same Holy Spirit in ancient times.
The Holy Spirit's lesson is truthful speech and truthful written testimony so those prophecies must be a work of truth since they are inspired by the Holy Spirit of Truth.
Archaeology findings found in the last century dating from the time when the prophesies and testimonies in the Book of Enoch themselves record that they were first written down are evidence supporting these deductions.
They show a sudden emergence in Mount Hermon in Lebanon and in the surrounding areas of certain cultural arts that were previously not found anywhere. The evidence of these arts is found later and later in the local archaeological layers as you look further and further from the epicentre of Hermon, in places such as in the Levant coustlands, Cyprus and Egypt (Predynastic). This evidence is consistent with the testimony of the Book of Enoch which states that spirits watching over humans conspired on Mount Hermon to take very attractive human girls as wives and that they taught these wives and other people these same arts. The spread of these arts was a great evil in the world. The prophecy relates how God severely judged these spirits for spreading such worthless teachings. The evil was even greater when offspring of the liaisons between these watching spirits and the girls became sorcerers of spiritually gigantic greatness. They wrought great evil and ruled over humans making the humans worship them.

Truth in the Book of Enoch relevant to our own times includes on one hand the truth that demons are real and include the ghosts of these sorcerers of such ancient times (around 3500 to 2500 BC) and on the other hand that supreme over the spirits of that time and now is the God who created all things and the Son of God called the Son of Man and the Elect One through whom God created and whose name spirits since such ancient times have invoked to overcome evils in the Earth like these demon ghosts. So clearly it means the coming Christ we know as Jesus who called Himself the Son of Man was there with God in ancient times before the pyramids or the dawn of races like the Semites.

Never Forget

It is good to take time out to remember the mighty thing Jesus did when coming from heavenly home of His Throne and His Father and taking up the mission to die in saving humanity. The circumstances of the thing He did are complex but as simply understood amounts to guilt of centuries of multitudes of lives through time resulting in ammassed liability for great judgment and the need for a substitute sacrifice of the purest kind and Jesus alone being worthy and doing what He did in ancient Roman times in Jerusalem. It is such a worthy action that it is all the justification God needed for putting His Son once He had raised Him back to life to reign on His own most glorious Throne. The shedding of Christ's blood is the greatest invocation we can make in interceding for humanity to God and only this plea it seems can turn aside God's most awful wrath when terrible situations arise because of masses committing atrocities over years of abuse and greedy power struggle. We get pretty bad sometimes - this human race - and then the balance goes from bad activity on man's part to awful retribution on God's part and simetimes back and forth like that worse and worse till the whole world gets to be at risk. Then we so need to be able to invoke a mighty good to counter the mighty bad and the blood Jesus Christ The Lord has wondrously shed is all there is to count in the pure and perfect eyes of God The Father. It took a great big blessed act of love to bring about this grace in history that counts for all time. How awful if any sin against it and ignorantly or unbelievingly set it at nought. How much worse if after knowing better, still a person gets to despise it by neglecting the benefits of taking in the ministry of the Holy Spirit who encourages us to hold high the cross and never forget what Christ Jesus did.

The Most Huge and Ancient Bird

If spirits are in many ways like birds then there is one bird greater than all other birds and more ancient like an ancient dinosaur of a bird and this is a way the Holy Spirit can show what He is like. He came as a dove upon the baptised Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth as The Father from heaven by His Angel spoke to testify that Jesus is His Beloved Son. He can be like a huge bird of dinosaur proportions and ancient eternal life to show He is greater than any spirit in this world. Having Him as someone you know at your side is triumphant and a mighty comfort. Even His offspring made by His power as disciples of Lord Jesus are huge baby birds even if the haven't learned to fly yet. That which is born of Spirit is spirit.

Live On

Stay alive to know God better and better. The new Way opens up for whoever wills to come a means to live on. To live on and on. A new way of survival and real life by intervention of the Holy Spirit who comes to the person in this way who believes what God speaks and Jesus testifies. The Holy Spirit comes when life is waning to take it forward and break the power of death and danger. These interventions keep a believer alive over and above what the old way of the Law from God could do for the person under it. The keeping alive of the believer who follows this Holy Spirit sent by God the Father allows this believer life as an opportunity and time in which to gain ever better knowledge of God The Father and Jesus Christ His Beloved Son who died and lives and ever lives. So therefore since you can know God if you believe Him and love Him as you live on, live and let The Spirit give you life. Ahead is The Resurrection and The Life. Embrace it; embrace Him.

Isaiah and Jesus

The coming of Jesus as The Christ was such a big deal there was a whole book prophesying it written hundreds of years beforehand by a great prophet whose name even reflected Jesus' name being just like the name for Jesus in Arabic, Isa. This was the book of prophesies of Isaiah. The prophesies hint (ch 8) of the name sign. There were other prophesies by other prophets especially Daniel. Isaiah has a theme prophesying Jesus throughout. Why such a spiritual big deal as to be prophesied like this? Because there is a new way to be saved from the divine wrath and become the kind of person God sees as right and so be saved from the worse judgment of the Final Judgment when all will be judged. This is by loyally sticking with the teachings of this Christ Jesus.

Ninety Degrees

Why believe in God? Why believe He exists? Why believe He is true? I like to think a right angle proves there is such a thing as right. A ninety degree angle is very special. It exists and its existence has immense importance for human buildings and civilisation in general. Yet the existence of a concept of right and true as shown by a plumbline used to keep a building at right angle to level ground is not quite enough. God must be behind the need for keeping things right and true like a building or the walls of a room to eachother and yet governments get things wrong and can be evil and subject themselves to evil rather than rightness and goodness. So the existence of God can be found higher than that. It can be seen when there is true and good and right government that aligns with God's right and true and good plumbline. This is faith. God's existence is seen in faith and yet where can we see faith? In Church which might have become too close to evil government to show the true existence and nature of God? Even the best believer with the purest faith might not be enough to convince some. Yet the purest truest faith is seen in One man, Christ Jesus, chosen by God Himself as the best proof of what God is and how real He is. If you see Jesus you see the best faith which best proves God. Faithful and True.

A Watchman's Warning

As we live a life led by the Spirit we get told to watch and to pray. Watching the news has been a lesson I've been taught over the years as my prayers are answered by God in ways that make it to the TV news sometimes and remarkably often when the Spirit was teaching me this years ago. Some news you have to be very cautious how you watch and listen when persuasion is incorporated into it like yeast in dough: There is good yeast, said Jesus, and bad and be wary of the bad. Today it proved worthwhile to be watching. Last week too. The signs in Revelation Apocalypse are coming to pass these days and worth noting. The monarchs of Europe and use of the name "I AM". The far eastern use of names like CH X on trains and railways built by the undaunted masculine spirit that overcomes barriers like the mountains of Tibet by sheer determination. These aspects of empires are there in the news and I find them in the Apocalypse of Jesus in Revelation too. Watch out for 666 as it  might not appear as evil but cloaked as good.

Small Beginnings

Do not despise small beginnings. Lord Jesus stood alone on a lakeside shore after His greatest achievement and saw the fruits of His most momentous achievement of all time as a small group of fishermen were out on the lake in a boat. His work of agony and solid obedience unto death on the cross was done and now God had raised Him from the dead. Those fishermen were a small group who had believed in His position as Christ and were together that night before catching nothing. Now He saw them His first beginnings as the tiniest following but certain to grow and little did they know what they were to receive because of Him. He now showed the sign of the living power available to them in Him now that He was victorious over temptation and even death. Did they have any fish from  a night of fishing? No. Just put the nets on the side He told them to put them and obedience would reap reward showing it was Him they were obeying. When they caught so many they knew it was Him. Then they found He had fish cooking for their breakfast already and friendship and fellowship with Him was set before them as they ate what He had cooked. God with them in Christ Jesus The Lord.

The Lord is the same today and forever.

Authority

Authority. All over the world things are done and duties fulfilled concerning authority. In the UK where I live the police are called Her Majesty's Police and bear the badge of the Crown as a mark of authority and people are generally required to obey police officers because of this 'name' of The Queen, Her Majesty. Usually this helps people understand their duty I would say and usually people comply so if police direct traffic or control crowds there is usually order (with notorious exceptions we can recollect and are reminded of constantly in the news these days with blame sometimes directed at official failings and sometimes at the people failing to obey). In nature there is authority too, the Holy Spirit teaches, although scientists might deny it. In nature the name of authority obeyed as required by natural things is the name of authority of the Lord Jesus the Christ. Trees put out buds year after year by it. Tides ebb and flo by it. Moons orbit planets by it. Always as aeon succeeds aeon. This same Jesus as has always bourne this authority since time began and whose name has commanded nature's obedience became a human with flesh and blood and was crucified and raised from the dead and now has again forever this position and glory He had with God The Father, His Father and God, from the beginning. Holding to the truth from God which comes to us through Jesus by the Spirit as we hold to His teachings we can be made as obedient as nature is to the authority of His Name, just as He too has been obedient to The One True God, His Father and His God, ever living.

The Lord Elected By God

In Bristol, UK, where I live, we have two mayors, one elected by the people of Bristol and the other elected by the City Council each year. What gets me thinking is that the mayor elected by the council is called The Lord Mayor. In the case of much more heavenly things it occurs to me there might be something to derive about God and The Christ. The God who Jesus Christ calls The Father is always referred to in scripture of the New Testament from around Jesus' time on Earth "The God". In English it is translated "God" but in the language of those scriptures, Koine Greek, it is "The God" which means The Father, whereas "God" can sometimes mean divinity or anyone divine and not just The Father, The God. Now Jesus Christ, on the other hand is always referred to, including, by allusion, by Jesus Himself, as The Lord. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is called The Lord too but usually it is Jesus who is entitled "The Lord" and "Christ". It is worth considering that He too is Lord by election by the top authority. In His case The Father has elected Him as The Lord.

In the Book of Enoch, "The Son of Man" clearly seems to me to be a title and reference to the Christ, Jesus, before He came in the flesh born of Mary by her overshadowing as a virgin mother by the Holy Spirit. In these scriptures which precede the Old Testament scriptures there is clear indication that God The Father (entitled in those scriptures as The Lord of Spirits in translation into English) has elected or chosen or designated the Son of God who is called usually the Son of Man to be regarded as the Elect Righteous One. So God sets Him above all others. So the dedignation The Lord indicates perhaps that He is the One supremely elected by God The Father.

Overcome the World by Faithful Adherence to Truth

How very strange that it is not usual for humans to persistently obey or submit to the authority of God and even justice itself and right behaviour is distant and alien to many humans. Faith is needed to overcome this. It overcomes the 'world'. It overcomes humans driven by desire and not justice and right behaviour and the authority of God. The judgment will be against those who persistently forsake what is right and includes a lake of fire in the future new order but in this life there is the promise of being made righteous if we adhere to Christ's teachings. One major teaching is to have such faith in God that you or I commamd nature and by the power of God nature obeys. It is a sign of the greater order of things like this to come when Christ returns. It is a fortaste.

The truth we need to adhere to is not so much out there but is bound up in testimonies of faithful and true witnesses and especially found as the word that God gives on things which He sends people to testify concerning it. Jesus is most renowned as one such faithful and true witness. The people we are when we are part of the 'world' is characterised more by lies and illfeelings however but Christ promises transformation to us if we hold to what He has said and continues to say and teach. Then we too can become truthful and this as we know the truth that sets us free.

Even the Dead Can Rise

Everything taught and preached by Jesus of Nazareth, The Christ, comes from God The Father, the One True God who does not ever lie. So the word God speaks and the testimony Jesus gives of it must be truthful and lies are abhorrant to God and The Son of God and The Spirit of God. So exciting and astonishing is the teaching and word from God in truth that anything in nature is subject to command and to the authority of God such that if God stands by a command given to something in nature - trees, mountains, beasts even - He, God, will ensure by His supreme power over the natural world that the thing commanded in good faith and unwavering certainty and singlemindedness will come to pass. So a storm can be commanded to stop and if done with undoubting faith in God it will stop. It will stop in good prompt time too the way I have witnessed. An animal can be commanded and will obey if God's power is without doubting imvoked in the command. A battle can be won. A goal scored. Victory ensured. If there is no doubt and the faith is true. Be wary lest it be subject to temptation to vanity though as it is not overlooked if you take God's name in vain. But when it is for the glory of God or salvation of the situation rightly in His name in good faith even the dead can rise.

Be Led by the Spirit

The leading of the Holy Spirit takes several forms. He actively seeks out those to lead and interacts directly with them by powerfully connecting with their inner beings sometimes by verbal communication (which can seem like telepathy) and sometimes by powerfully strengthening them in a way that communicates as much as a hand on the shoulder does from human to human. There is indeed a sense in which this is human to human in that what comes from the Spirit comes from God the Father to the Lord Jesus the Son and from Jesus who is resurrected in flesh and blood but now become more than just flesh in glory and this is through Jesus to each disciple with the faith to receive the Holy Spirit. Then there are indirect leadings of the Spirit through His use of others. Then there are writings inspired by Him including recognised scriptures. In essence the dealings of Lord Jesus with people is spirit and truth. He makes Himself and His truth and grace known to people like He did with Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and to the Apostle John on the island of Patmos. The Father too can reveal Himself as He did in a dream to the disciple who He sent to lay hands on Saul of Tarsus. These dealings include signs or miracles sometimes which are direct testimony of The Father who originates them yet all are spirit and truth which leads into truth.

Obedience to God

What is it to be obedient to God? God commanded that people love Him as their God and obey Him. He commanded that people turn from idols and believe that He sent Jesus Chirst into the world showing Jesus to be His Son by raising Him from the dead. Obedience starts with love for God and necessarily for His Son too. Love for His Son includes allowing His Son to make you right in your living and actions with a righteousness from Him. Love for His Son means belief that He is and was and that He will ever live even though He died and that His name is supreme and invoking it conquers evil and brings salvation and peace from God. Believing means always enduring in this loyalty as loyalty to Him is tested. The apostles of Jesus have given by God's authority commands too as has Jesus Himself. First is love for other believers and this means having and recognising other believing fellows and being dovoted to each other as friends. The Apostle John taught this command plus a command to live by truth and that this truth is known by the love between you and Jesus as you are loyal to Him in believing and learning from Him and He in turn is liberator to you in giving you knowledge of the liberating truth. Truth is to be lived by as others too have attested as being a major necessary part of obedience. Truth includes a judgment which will come as others have testified and the judgment of immorality and evils like it means setting aside such things in this life as the truth liberates you to do so. The Apostle Paul taught in his letter to Galatian believers and his letter to  Roman belivers to live by following the Spirit who you receive as leader when God recognises your belief in what He says and in the living Word of God that is His Son.

What Can You Say?

What is to be believed when a spirit can start and stop storms in this modern age and communicate to the inner mind of a person without technology and when another spirit attributes to this spirit the authority from all time to bring about the processes of nature by the power of their own name? When you just know within you that this spirit is Jesus risen from the dead and there is nothing he cannot do now he sits with God you believe only one thing is rational to say about Him - that this Jesus is Lord and the Master of you.

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was a real person whose human remains might even have survived to this day. The preaching he gave centred on social justice and balancing wealth yet most notably he pointed to the mysterious Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah in whom people are to put their trust and to whom people are to give allegience. John has died and what may be fragments of his bones are known today but the Messiah ever lives having died. There were prophesies in scriptures at the time of John the Baptist it seems which surely he fulfilled: "I will send my servant ahead of you. A voice of one calling in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Every valley shall be exalted and the mountains made low and the glory of the LORD will be revealed." The last of these so well matches the cries of John the Baptist to give to one who has no coat if you have two. This levels the field. On a level field there is a better view by which the many are to see an approaching light and the Lord who comes would not need the distraction of having to curse the hearers for social inequality but could concentrate on delivering the message and teachings so important as to warrant His coming and the glory of the One who sends Him could be revealed. Yet John the Baptust in particular foretold the then coming sacrificial death of this Jesus of Nazareth as The Lamb of God to be slain for the sins of the world. This was before John the Baptist himself met a terrible end being beheaded by King Herod.