The truth, peacemaking and sonship are synonymous - one single package. God is one and anything pertaining to Him speaks of that glorious oneness.
[John 17:17-19] Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
Truth sanctification speaks of conformation and dedication to the quality of the heavenly truth in which hypocrisy, double-mindedness or ulterior motives are never possible. Even Jesus sanctified Himself for us so that we might abide in Him.
[John 18:37] Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.
Jesus came to bring this complete honesty and straightforwardness—the brightest of all lights in existence—to earth. Those who are of the truth kind will hear and will come to Him; and also to those who preach the truth in His name.
[John 18:38] Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice. Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” (39) And when he had said this, he went out…
God’s sons’ characteristic is peacemaking, no intrigues, deviousness, double-mindedness or ulterior motives—which we are busy figuring out and, I assume, nail down the culprits by calling them liars. In the peacemaker’s mind that is already settled; and so the peacemakers are busy with higher things than just being busy finding out what’s hiding in darkness.
[Matthew 5:9] Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.
Lambs are always peaceful. It means that both sheep and sons are God’s seed. “My sheep hear My voice”—they heard the voice of truth and respond to it quite naturally; they do not hear or follow hirelings because the hired hands are strangers. Hirelings do not belong to God's family and do not deal with the truth; their job is catching. These fishers of man cast their nets into the sea and drag onto the shore many fishes; and then the ministering spirits - God's angels - do the sorting out ("by their fruits you will know them" - Matthew 7:20-22). They only preach salvation and church belonging and not much beyond that point. – Justification by faith, being saved; and after death going to heaven. Perhaps they do not know anything else?
[Luke 10:2] The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
It can be compared to a marathon race where the marathon runners start to run, but they are being prevented from running the full race. They are stopped at 100 meters being treated as sprint runners instead. Imagine the frustration of those who go to church just to make it to heaven being taught to trust Jesus. Justification by faith is only justification, it is not yet righteousness, but a positional justification, or exemption from duty, but is it? Since we will be accountable for every careless word—said Jesus in Matthew 12:36—then how much more for our deed. But that does not fit in the present theology. As a result we are being taught to see ourselves as God sees us and accept ourselves as we are, on the basis of the done work of Christ on the cross. Then we must believe of course that we are saved and made holy. But, we keep on struggling with that faith for we are constantly kept on the outskirts; as if not allowed to go deeper into God's most glorious kingdom. A marathon runner wants to run the full race and overcome the distance and outgrow the babyhood and its ‘diapers’ but is prevented from doing so.
Overcomers run the full race and they go deeper into God's kingdom. The further or deeper they go the less struggles they have with faith or with trusting God; for they indeed outgrow the elementary things. The kingdom of God becomes plainer to them.
The hirelings do not have much else but hype, firing people up in faith, and using psychology, e.g., stop speaking your own words; you must declare God's word only. Stand firmly in your faith because the roaring lion the devil… Do not give the enemy an opportunity. Or they tell you that God loves you as you are. Well, if we hate children rapists, and serial killers and we are repulsed at these things, and at those committing those crimes, then this also comes from our Creator. In Noah’s flood sinners and their sins both perished. Jesus did not only die spiritually, but also physically. The sinner and his sin are one unit. The sinner repents the sin is removed, but the unit remains one and the same yet cleansed; and in due time even sanctified.
I don’t think that God loved Hitler, but if Hitler would have repented and turned to God then God’s love would flow toward him also; but then he would not have murdered millions and brought great suffering to the German people.
God’s love needs connection. It is not a whimsy feeling or sentiment it is active. So God loved the world that He gave His Son… (John 3:16) But He gave. He did something and He connected with us through His Son who died and rose again. When you confess Him as such then you are saved—registered in the Book of Life in heaven. You are seated and positioned, but there is more. The next birth is of water (God’s Word) and the Spirit. And there is still another birth when the marathon runner completes the race and has fully entered into God’s kingdom; and no longer struggles with faith or sin, but is indeed born of God and is like wind. No one knows where he comes from and to where he goes (John 3:5-8).
It’s a strange philosophy, which we constantly try to prop up lest it should fall. The New Testament is the extension of the Old Testament. The first button on your shirt has been already buttoned up, which is the sin-defining law, but grace is its extension, which came to us through Jesus Christ. You cannot keep these two separately. It’s like telling yourself that you no longer need roads or traffic lights, you sort of grew wings and your car became a plane. If everyone did that then we would have chaos and many deadly accidents. Without the first button there would not be the second. Without sin definition there would be no repentance etc.
The next verse happened to be written to the Jews (in order the avoid this now “dirty” word, because the anti-Semites trashed the Jew; “Hebrews” is a nicer word). It is not written to the Romans or Greeks, it’s directed to a quite different mind, which gentiles either do not like or subconsciously resist.
INFO: Only recently many gentile Christians are realizing that God has not rejected the Jew; and that they should bless the natural seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; for God’s blessings flow through that line, both physically as well as spiritually.
[Hebrews 5:12-14] For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
INFO: Martin Luther suggested that it was Apollos who wrote the Book of Hebrews.
[Hebrews 6:1-2] Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
Matthew 13:41 & 48-49 speaks of angels doing the separation of the good fish from the bad, the chaff and stumbling blogs, tares from the field, etc. It is one and the same act being portrayed with many similes for the reader to grasp the one and timeless spiritual dimension. The good fish are ‘kosher’ (fit to be eaten); the disciples of Jesus did that also. But other fish, like catfish, serve as cleaners or vacuums of the sea floors; they have no scales and they are deemed as being unclean, not kosher.
[Luke 10:3-6] Go; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money belt, no bag, and no shoes; and greet no one on the way.
We are pacemakers, like lambs, amidst warlike people—wolves. Peacemakers have deeper trust; and hence, a deeper dependence on the Father regarding the mammon of unrighteousness—money.
This sentence, “greet no one on the way” means to be decisive and single-minded. This clarity of purpose and mission is prophetic in nature; it comes from the higher intelligence. Then comes the further instruction,
“Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.”
It means that you must only seek the sons, His lost seed who’s characteristic is peacemaking. When you find God’s ‘hidden or lost’ son then you will also find His seed whose fruit would be peace. In a response to your greeting of peace they will make room for NAVEH, the habitation place for the dwelling of God’s gift of faith. Preach, teach the truth, and let your greeting of peace remain on that entire household and then more blessings will follow.
Jesus continues saying,
[Luke 10:7-9] Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house. Whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you; and heal those in it who are sick, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
Quite obviously, just the observational basis does not satisfy the kingdom’s requirements. Divine healing needs love, compassion and connection; it does not work from a distance, as if watching a show, or analyzing and trying to figure out the preacher with one’s suspicious or prejudiced mind. The preparation of NAVEH—for the gift of faith, for His word, for His peace and above all for the messenger of God—takes more than willingness. If we find a man of peace then as the first step our peace then found its resting place, then more is on the way. Sons always will respond to the same quality, which is sonship.
Jesus is the vine; even a tree, the Tree of Life, and God’s sons are the branches of the same tree. The Tree of Life has fruits that fall to the ground and each fruit contains the core with one or many seeds. The right milieu or environment makes this seed grow yet another tree, but in fact it is the same tree because it is the same kind. That tree’s seed produces another tree with the same fruits; hence, anyone not being of that kind will not be called a son, but a hireling.
Jesus continues, but now in the negative part of the Tree of Knowledge of TOV (good) and RAH (bad).
INFO: At first we were directed by God to eat of the first tree, the ETZ DA’AT (Tree of Knowledge). (One must be reformed to understand it.) Through the right choices we will eventually be escorted to the other tree in the middle of God’s Garden—ETZ HEI’IM (Tree of Life).
People often avoid anything negative, having almost an aversion to anything negative, yet the negative emphasizes the positive. God’s seed has no problem with it because the seed is good. The good discerns and quickly recognizes anything evil. We are IN the world but not OF the world. One must make a choice; left and right; right and wrong; blessing or curse, life or death, etc.
Jesus said, “But If you do not find the ‘hidden’ sons—God’s own seed, for you will see the fruit—the appropriate or inappropriate response to your greeting of peace; then act accordingly. If it is negative; then do not stay in that house, take back your greeting of peace and go elsewhere. You are not called to waste time or scatter God’s treasures. “Do not throw pearls before swine.” In other words, He said “Find Me the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, the lost seed, lost sons and those that love the truth.” Those who are of the truth will come to Jesus for the Father will draw them to His Firstborn; and naturally so for they belong to the same tree being its branches or extensions. In time they will bear much fruit and thus prove to be His disciples (John 15:8-10).
[Luke 10:10-12] But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet we wipe off in protest against you; yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I say to you, it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city.
The “yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near,” means that with the preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Peace comes God’s Kingdom. It comes near to those who do not respond to the greeting of peace, or make no provision for it; and make no room for the lodging of God's word in their hearts and in their midst.
The truth is the fruit of the Tree of Life and Jesus was God’s Firstborn Son to Him all things belong in heaven and on earth. We are His brothers; hence branches.
[John 15:5-6] I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
[John 15:8-10] My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
The marathon runners finally arrive, being born of the Spirit. They eat fruits of ETZ HEI’IM and like Enoch and his students serve God in a completely different dimension. They run according to different laws. They come and minister to us like those people on the sides of the road with bottles of water refreshing the marathon runners.
Obviously, we are partaking of the ETZ HEI’IM. Love, joy and peace come from the same tree, the Tree of Life. Have you made the choice?
