The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13:14.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Do you want to know how to serve Me? Obey My Word. But if you want to know how to please Me, it is by fellowship with Me. Obedience is better than sacrifice, but fellowship is better than obedience. Why is that? Because if we are in fellowship with a deep and bonded relationship as I was and am with Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Samuel, David, Mary, and Paul, faithfulness and loyalty spring out of our relationship and in walking with Me you become like Me and My Word becomes the way you operate. Obedience does not necessarily make a relationship, it can develop into one, but many times it results in burn out, resentment, bitterness, and judgmental behavior towards those whose actions appear disobedient to you. And if those you abhor as disobedient prosper, you are jealous and mad. Like the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son. He had obedience but no relationship with the father. He had the mentality of a slave and not that of a son who is in fellowship with the father. A servant does not know what His master is about, but friends do know what the other is about. I called Abraham and Moses My friends. And Jesus called those in close relationship with Him His friends, He no longer called them servants because a servant does not know what His master is about, but Jesus told you and showed you what I am about.
I take care of things for you and I take care of them in ways you cannot. Why is that? Because I am making all things work together for good for the totality of those involved and you are only working from the aspect of your self-interest. I do not look at outward appearances, that is, the way things seem on the surface, but I look at the inner man of the heart. I know what you and all those involved need and I am pulling things together—My Word holds all things together—to work out for the good. Your good but also the good of all involved.
My goal is goodness and wholeness (shalom), to build up and not tear down, to do justice for all but in a way that gives the wicked a chance to repent (change their minds) and be saved. My sun shines on the good and the bad and My rain falls on the just and the unjust to bless your earth and make it fruitful, giving bread to the eater and seed to the sower, but in the end of your time on earth or of all time, My angels will go and separate the good from the evil and the evil ones will be locked in the fiery furnace with their master, Satan, and the good will go with their Master, My Son, and into My Kingdom. But for now I permit the weeds and the wheat to grow together. It is still the age of grace, the Church age, and in My dimension, weeds can be turned into wheat that will be gathered into My barn (Kingdom) at harvest time.
How do I do that? By love, My everlasting Covenant of love that I have made with My Son as Son of Man and Son of God, and with all those who will receive Him and enter in through, with, and in Him. In Him I have justified you and made you righteous.
IT IS BY MY DOING YOU ARE IN CHRIST JESUS WO BECAME TO YOU WISDOM FROM ME, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AND SANCTIFICATION AND REDEMPTION. 1 Corinthians 1:30.
I make you into an entirely new creation in Christ—weeds become wheat. Fruitful. Worthy. Altogether lovely. You are the clay and I am the potter; you are all the work of My hands. And I can put you back on the potter’s wheel to make you anew, to shape you into the true YOU I planned you to be since before the foundation of the world.
For you are My workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which I prepared beforehand so that you would walk in them. Ephesians 2:10.
Why do I do this for you who all have turned your backs on Me and went your own way since Adam? Like Cain who refused My fellowship and went his own way. Why do I remove all that iniquity and lawlessness simply by your reception of the gift of My love to you, that is, My Son? John 3:16.
My friend and apostle Paul put it this way, “But God being rich in mercy, because of His GREAT love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7.
I so loved the world I gave My only begotten Son that all who believe in Him will never perish but have eternal life. John 3:16.
Why this love? I am your Father.
Jesus showed you how I feel about each of you in the parable of the prodigal son. Neither of the father’s two sons loved the father or had a relationship with him though he loved them and longed for a relationship with each of them. The sons only thought of themselves and used the father, but even so the father gave them everything he had and continued to do so in unending supply even when one abused it and squandered it and the other in self-righteousness refused to take and receive it. Even though the sons had a bad opinion of the father, the father had a good opinion of them.
Even the elder son had an unforgiving heart to his father and to his brother. But the father kept loving him, letting him live off him, and gave him everything that was the father’s. Remember the father told the elder son, “Son, you are with Me always, and ALL I have is yours.”
The younger son too had no respect or regard for the father and only sought him out and returned because he wanted what the father had to meet his physical needs and not the father himself.
The father here rejoiced over both sons and treated them equally but neither had a heart for him. But I tell you that I do make a difference between the disobedient and the sons who serve Me with delight, My prophet and friend Malachi wrote, “Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. ‘They will be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’ So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.” Malachi 3:16-18. And My friend and apostle Paul takes it further, “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:6-10.
You see Malachi speaks of obedience and Paul speaks of fellowship. But both are speaking of a close relationship. Both are telling of those whose hearts are Mine and who delight to be in My presence and spend time sharing My Word.
Imitate Me as My dear children and walk in love. Love one another as Christ loves the Church, which is made up of each of you who believe. He washes you in the living water of My Word and presents you holy and blameless before Me. And that is how you should help one another, by the Word and the Blood, singing hymns and spiritual songs and making melody in your heart unto Me, your Father who loves you so and sings over you with joy.
My eyes go to and fro across the earth looking for those whose hearts are towards Me to show Myself strong on their behalf.
Like Joseph the son of Jacob, you ought to see things in the light of My love looking to work for the good of all. He told his brothers who had meant what they did to him for harm him and to result in evil in his life, but he had no rancor in his heart toward them for his heart was Mine, he told them that they meant what they did to him for harm but I worked everything together for good for by it I saved many lives in a time of severe famine and preserved the Messiah’s line.
One son who has close fellowship with Me (I told you again and again that Joseph was with Me and I was with him) can change the whole world for good and save many lives. You are wise to win souls, for that is the desire of My heart, that all be reconciled with Me as One. Fellowship is what pleases Me the MOST of all.
I love you. Do you want to do what pleases Me? Talk with Me, walk with Me, abide in Me, meditate on My Word day and night, and speak, eat, hear and be My Word. You can be, My Word became flesh in Jesus and if you eat enough of it, so it can in you.