I present this Word with fear and trembling. While the Scriptures to be presented are familiar, and the truths that will be brought forth have previously been touched upon, this teaching remains one of the most revolutionary truths ever to come forth in the Living Word. It is revolutionary inasmuch as it can lead us to a change in our prayer forms, in our way of worship, in our view of ourselves.
We have all been experiencing the work of the cross. Essentially it was accomplished most of the time with our cooperation in faith; yet always with an unwilling willingness, I suppose, in our hearts. When Satan sensed the way we were going, he began to move against us very violently.
It is one thing to mortify the flesh; it is another thing to be risen with Christ. The work of the cross always has to be followed by the resurrection. Whatever God does to discipline us, we know that devastation is not the end that He has in mind. Devastation is only part of the process that leads to His fullness coming forth in us.
We face this truth: Many of us do not realize or appreciate what our Lord is becoming within us, and what we are becoming in God, and that these two things are inseparable. In reality, they are not two things; there is only one thing coming forth, the Lord. A realization of this will help us so that Satan does not destroy us in our feelings of unworthiness, which are so often well placed. Nevertheless, we believe in His worthiness coming forth in us.
In the Old Testament, we see that God essentially was an entity apart from His people. Consequently, we find it in Genesis 4:26b, Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord; because man was alienated from God. Basically, until Christ came, prayers were made to God not as though He was dwelling within mankind, but as though He were an entity apart from them. It remains, therefore, for us to come to the New Testament revelation, which we read of in the first chapter of Colossians.
For in Him (Christ) all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him. Colossians 1:16–19.
We have no greater revelation of what the Father was bringing forth in the great plan of redemption and the restoring of all things to Himself than this passage in Colossians. What was God saying through the apostle here? He was saying that the fullness of God, all fullness, dwelt in the Son. It was the Father’s good pleasure that in Christ it should all be there. Without question, all His fullness was to be there.
Later in that chapter, Paul unfolds this truth when he speaks of the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Verses 26–29.
Now we see the next step. Not only was Christ to come forth as the fullness of the Father, but we are to come forth as the fullness of Christ also. We are to be His manifestation. God had something more in mind than just the incarnation of Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory (John 1:14). That was good; but that was only the beginning of God perfecting the process by which He would come forth in us also, through the indwelling of Christ in us, with we ourselves seeing the fullness of God dwell within us.
The book of Ephesians presents the same picture. In Ephesians 1:18–23, Paul wrote: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He (the Father) put all things in subjection under His (Christ’s) feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
The Body of Christ is to have this as more than a doctrine. This was the reality that God sought, that we would become the fullness of Him who fills all in all, just as Christ was before us in that first stage of redemption. That is why Christ must indwell us and open the door for all of this fullness to come.
This very truth was expressed earlier in that first chapter of Ephesians: He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. Verses 9–10.
What a beautiful picture! What came forth then is being practically executed now. We must see that if we suffer with Him, we are also to reign with Him (II Timothy 2:12, KJV; Romans 8:17). There can be no question in our mind concerning what God had in mind: It was not just our salvation for eternity in an existence which had escaped hell; God wants to indwell us. As the Word says, He was bringing many sons to glory when He made the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings (Hebrews 2:10).
This wonderful truth of God indwelling us will become very real and practical to us—not merely a philosophical doctrine. At the present time there probably is no one who would not accept this as being true teaching of the Scriptures. They know it is scriptural. The truths concerning Christ within you and Christ coming forth in His Body are quite well accepted. But to see the principle put to practical application is where many draw the line. They do not want that. Just as the Pharisees objected to Christ saying that the Father dwelt within Him and that He was an expression of God in the earth, so we see the same thing today. The Fundamentalist is willing to believe that God was in Christ, but he is not usually willing to believe in this practical step of Christ actually coming forth in us now. Once again, religion resists what God is doing in the earth.
Let us look at this whole picture in the second chapter of Ephesians. Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Verses 20b–22.
Here this truth is presented in another aspect, saying that all of us are being built up to become the temple in which God is going to dwell. This is far from being an unfamiliar topic in the New Testament. In I Corinthians 3:16 we read, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that God dwells in you?” This is a familiar truth to us, but do we actually believe in this indwelling—that God is going to be primarily and principally located in us, even more than He is in the heaven of heavens?
For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:15.
Thus says the Lord, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord. “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” Isaiah 66:1–2.
Where is God’s throne going to be? In us. It has to be in us because He promised that if we suffer with Him, we are going to reign with Him. Our sufferings were real; and the rule of Christ in us means that He must make us His throne and we must actually become the expression of God in the earth.
This truth continues to unfold in the third chapter of Ephesians with Paul’s famous, wonderful prayer from verses 14 through 21.
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God (filled up to all the fullness of God). Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us (notice that phrase: “according to the power that works within us”), to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
What is happening now, as I Corinthians 2:12 indicates, is this: The Spirit is teaching us those things which are freely given to us by God, and we are coming into a realization of the power that works within us.
We are beginning to realize that being filled with all the fullness of God means that we have to treat the whole approach to God as though more and more He is taking over, or we are taking over God. If that sounds irreverent, just remember that everything you have of God or from God, you have appropriated by faith, and He has imparted it by His grace. So God is taking us over, and we are taking God over. That is the literal truth.
If those words cause you to flinch a little, stop and think of it again. Isn’t that the whole secret of salvation? Doesn’t He stand at the door ready to sup with you? But you open the door; you open up to Him (Revelation 3:20). You invite Him to take over; and He is taking you over, because He never sits to eat without being the Head of that heart which communes with Him.
The fourth chapter of Ephesians seemingly departs from what the third chapter has been speaking about—being filled up to all the fullness of God. But in the fourth chapter, verse 11, we read how He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. For what purpose? Note verse 13: Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. The Word comes right back to that fullness again.
A man may say, “I’m an apostle.” Good. But is he ministering to the people until they come up to the fullness of Christ? That is the whole purpose of an apostle—to equip the saints and bring them up to the place where they are mature and come up to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
Then verse 15: Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ.
It says how the Body functions because the members have grown up into Him.
Then in Ephesians 5:18b–19a we again read about fullness: Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Let’s go back to the teaching of Christ and note again what He said in what is a classic picture of this truth of God dwelling in us. In the fourteenth chapter of John, Christ was telling His disciples that He was going to leave them. He was trying to explain to them that they had known the glory of God in Him; they had seen the Father in Him. He said, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father. I am dwelling in the Father. Whatever I speak, the Father is speaking. If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (verses 9–10). Then He immediately shifted to a most amazing picture. He said, “I came not only exhibiting the fullness of the Father to you, but now I’m going to bless you and My Father and I will take Our abode with you. I’m going to give you the Holy Spirit, and He will be with you and dwelling in you. Then you will become the ones who go out with the fullness of God dwelling in you.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.” John 14:23.
We simply do not fully appreciate that the purposes of God are in that total, complete, indwelling, incarnation of God in us, so that we become the expression of God in the earth. We can become all that God wants to do and all that God wants to say in this generation.
Let us look carefully at a little more of this chapter. John 14:16–17: “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.”
Once again we see the whole key of it: God, His Spirit, His Son will not be an entity apart from us. Wherever God has been with us, He is now going to be in us.
John 14:18–19: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.” Now note verse 20: “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
In a way we can accept this reciprocal indwelling of God in us on vague terms, but we must accept it as a practical reality and begin to live accordingly—live God in the earth.
Verse 21: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.”
In verse 23 Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.”
Notice the theme of what Jesus was saying: “We will make Our abode with you. We are going to live in you. My Father and the Holy Spirit and I will all live in you.”
In John 15:7, Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.”
Why? Because it will be the same as Christ speaking it into being. “Oh,” you say, “I never saw it that way.” I know we don’t see it that way, and that is probably why it doesn’t work that well for us. We pray as though we are apart from God. I think some of our prayer forms are pure unbelief, because we are not accepting God as what He wants to be in us and what He wants to do in us and through us. We are still praying as though the prayer is a petition to be granted by some wonderful entity who might hear us, but one who is apart from us, far off in heaven someplace; and we hope He hears. That isn’t the true idea of prayer.
We have the promise in Isaiah 65:24: “Before you call, I will answer; and while you are yet speaking, I will hear,” because He is closer to you than your own thought. He is more a part of you that your own thought. And you are more a part of God than you think.
Let us go on to a passage which I think you should study very carefully: John 14:7–14. Here Jesus was telling the disciples, “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.
“Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; otherwise believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
These unlimited, fantastic promises of answers are based upon the fact that the Father was in Christ; and now as He goes to the Father, the Father and Christ and the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within us. The result will be greater works than even Christ did with the fullness of the Father in Him. The fullness of God in us will bring forth greater works in the earth at this time. If you have ever believed that promise about the greater works, you must see that it is related to this fullness. This is what will bring forth the glorious victory of Christ in the earth.
Several chapters in the book of John unfold in an amazing way, so that we see all of this coming forth as a beautiful picture. In chapter 17, Christ picked up this whole theme again in that wonderful hour of prayer before the cross.
“I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.” John 17:20–23.
What a fantastic passage! It throws the light on this truth that the will of God will never be brought forth in the earth by beautiful Christians who are running around trying to do God’s work for Him. It will happen when they do God’s work with Him, and one in Him.
In the wonderful passage in II Thessalonians 1:10–12a Paul referred to the coming of the Lord: when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our testimony to you was believed. To this end also we pray for you always that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power; in order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.
Notice again: He wants to be glorified in us. And He is “coming to be marveled at among all who have believed, and to be glorified in His saints on that day.” Now if all of this was true in the New Testament time, from the time that Christ spoke it—and we know it was true—then we are now coming to an even greater fulfillment of it, because we are at the threshold of the Kingdom in which the oneness of spirit and the way we relate in God and relate together in God is the great key of the Kingdom of God coming forth in the earth. So we can see that this becomes a very necessary part.
No doubt much of our worship, our prayers and intercession, our faith and our relating together will be very much involved with this truth, and therefore they will be changing in their form. To illustrate: When you send a letter to someone who is at a distance, you cannot communicate as freely as you can if he is standing right at your side; then you can communicate in every way. So Christ is not an entity afar off, though we say that He is seated at the right hand of the Father. Yet the prophecies and Words say that He is coming, and He is coming to be glorified in His saints (II Thessalonians 1:10). He is coming to manifest His Kingdom through them (Luke 17:20–21, KJV). Essentially they are His Kingdom, and therefore they must recognize that it is God coming forth in them, in all of His fullness. We must not speak to God; we must speak God. All of this is clearly taught in so much of the Scriptures, but I wonder if it is not another truth of the Scriptures that we have taught over and over again but have never seen the full, practical depth that we are to see in it.
II Corinthians 6:16–7:1: What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” This means that God does not want to be an entity separate from you; He wants you to be sanctified and to open up your heart and let Him dwell there. “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
This truth is brought forth also in the preceding chapter.
Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. II Corinthians 5:16–17.
We have applied this to the simple, elementary experience of salvation. Yet in many instances we know it is not true; everything does not become new and old things do not all pass away. There is still a struggle. But once we get into this abiding in Christ, we will see that it is a true verse of Scripture and it will be fulfilled exactly.
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ (just as Christ is in us now) reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us (God is speaking through us); we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5:18–20.
Isn’t that fantastic? This passage has new meaning to you now, doesn’t it? This is exactly the way God is speaking to us.
We find this truth brought forth not only in the writings of Paul, but also in the writings of Peter.
I Peter 4:11: Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
This means that God wants to speak through us. If you are going to speak, then speak as an oracle of God. If you are going to minister, minister as a steward of all of the wonderful treasure of God that is actually in you.
If we acknowledge that all of this is true—all that has been stated up to this point—then the following statement is absolutely essential: In every changing age a problem arises in the way men pray to God. If God is now an entity apart from you, then you should pray to God through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you are among those in whom Christ is beginning to come forth in the earth, then you will have to change your prayer form.
Several chapters after the account of the fall in Genesis, we read: Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. Genesis 4:26b. In the days of Abraham and of Job, men built altars and made sacrifices to the Lord. At a little later age, David came along and said to God, “You don’t want sacrifices; You don’t want burnt offerings. A broken and a contrite heart, a broken spirit is what You desire; that You will not despise” (Psalm 51:16–17). Then when Jesus came on the scene, bringing forth the fullness of God to us in the flesh, He rebuked the traditional prayers of the Pharisees because they were still locked into a form that had lost all meaning, and He taught us to pray to the Heavenly Father (Matthew 6:5–13). He taught us about the indwelling, that the Father indwelt Him and that the Spirit would indwell us.
It is significant that the Church Age opened up with the first evidence of this infilling within the believers. The Holy Spirit came, and the Word says that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4). When the Church Age opened, the people had one thing in mind: When was the Kingdom of God going to come? But Jesus had said, “Just be filled with the Spirit, and you go and be witnesses to Me. Then in time God will take care of bringing forth the Kingdom” (Acts 1:6–8).
Then all the epistles and the book of Revelation came forth. In them we see again that appropriating the fullness of God and coming into oneness with God was the principal thing that they were teaching.
The New Testament, then, was not teaching religion; it was teaching a new relationship—where God actually indwells His people.
Now as we come to the days of the Kingdom, we again see changes taking place. We watched our intercession change to prophetic proclamations. That was a step in the right direction, letting the Holy Spirit proclaim our prayers through us instead of begging God as though He were someone apart from us or apart even from the workings of our emotions and feelings which He has wrought in us by abiding in the Word. Now He is teaching us to speak as an oracle of God. With the greater indwelling of the Lord in us, the time has come when the lesser prayer forms could become an indication of our unbelief.
Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” John 15:7.
The time has come for you to “ask what you will.” Declare it at this Kingdom level. Assume that God has no other voice in the earth but you, the Body of Christ. You are going to speak God into the earth.
Revelation 19:11–15a is an outstanding passage: And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations.
We realize the importance of this when we see what happened earlier in the chapter. This wonderful being, who was speaking to John, had said, “These are true words of God” (verse 9). Then John had fallen at his feet to worship him (verse 10) because he felt that this was Christ.
And he said to me, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Verse 10b.
In other words, it was the testimony and utterance of Christ that was coming forth from this man. John recognized that it was God speaking; it was his Lord speaking; and he fell at his feet to worship him. He said, “Don’t do it. I am just of your brethren. I’m one of the brothers who have the testimony of Jesus, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
We are coming to that highest level of prophecy where it will not be utterances by the Holy Spirit’s anointing alone, but it will literally be Christ speaking. Are you thinking, “Why, that’s absurd. It isn’t scriptural”? Notice that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If I come again, I will not spare anyone, since you seek proof of Christ speaking in me” (II Corinthians 13:2–3). He didn’t minimize it. If there was any doubt about it he said, “I think I also have the Spirit of God” (I Corinthians 7:40). But outside of that, he said, “This is Christ talking to you; you listen to it. This is the Word of God” (I Thessalonians 2:1–6, 13). Does that sound arrogant? No, it is not arrogant. It isn’t arrogant if it’s true. If it’s true, it becomes a simple statement of fact. Arrogance is presuming something that is not so.
Let us declare the Word at the Kingdom level, as though God has a voice on earth and it comes through from your own mouth, and you believe that. “Well,” you say, “I do think that God wants us to speak His Word. I see the great keys of success in passages like Joshua 1:8, ‘This book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth.’ We’re going to meditate on it. The Word will dwell in us richly. We’re going to speak it forth in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16).
But remember that God wants you to speak His Word—not quote it. Speak it! Do not just paraphrase it, explain it, and expound it. Take it a step further: come to the place where His Words so abide in you and you so abide in Him, that you will speak His Word and whatever you ask will be given to you (John 15:7).
This, of course, is the wonderful key contained in the first Psalm, which tells us that the blessed man is one who meditates on the Word, on the law of the Lord, day and night. Whatever he does prospers because he is in tune with truth—more than in tune with truth; he is living in God and God is living in him. His roots are planted by that living stream (verses 2–3).
There is a need for a few people to cross over the line and come to the place where their prayer is more than faith in a God apart from them. Rather, their prayer should be speaking God into the world, speaking God into judgment, into blessing, into grace, into a thousand situations. There is a need to cross over that line into the Kingdom Word. Basically, all of the mystical processes that are going to come forth in the manifestation of the sons of God will develop from this. There will be no greater effectiveness in prayer than when it is God speaking. We have suffered with Him; now we are going to reign with Him.
We have been living in Romans 8 for a long time, but I wonder whether we understand these particular passages as we should.
Verses 9–14: However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. There it is again—that indwelling; there will be no manifestation of the sons of God without this indwelling of God in them.
But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead (that would be the Father) dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Verses 16–17: The Spirit Himself (this indwelling Spirit) bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. Verse 21: The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
All of this will be the result of the Spirit which raised up Jesus from the dead dwelling in us. He will quicken our mortal body and make it alive. We go through the sufferings, we come into the reigning, into the authority, into the sonship that looses all creation from futility, into the same glorious liberty that the sons share. And this sonship is the fullness of God in us as it was in Christ then. You can come to no other conclusion if you read the words that are there in the Scripture, and if you believe that these words mean what they say.
The Living Word in us, now, is the same as when Christ came forth and it was said of Him: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. John 1:1, 14a.
So the Word is being made flesh now, and coming forth in living epistles of God to the world.
It is time to speak; and we speak so that God speaks. If we could give one simple command to those who are being brought forth into this level in God at the present time, we would say, “God wills to speak; therefore speak. If God wills to speak, speak!” You might be thinking, “But that would be me talking.” Of course, it will be you talking. But you have to believe that it will be God speaking too; and that you both are one.
We must see that Satan is battling, doing everything he can at the present time to destroy this confidence in Christ coming forth. The chastening that we experienced destroyed our egos, destroyed our flesh, left us feeling as nothing before God. That was good, but it was only the preliminary step: God was cleaning up our situation so that He could take over, just as a landlord has to clean an apartment before a new tenant moves in. So we had to eliminate the last old traces of the religious flesh rule. Through His chastening, God brought an end to positions and said, “Now you will do what I commission you to do; you are all going to be sheep together.” Fine. This means that there is to be no different positions or levels; there is to be no spiritual hierarchy or aristocracy. You are all to be one. There are no little nobles ruling over a feudal system and calling it a local New Testament church. When nothing of that is left anymore, where do we go from there?
It is at that point Satan comes into the picture and says, “Now they are devastated; I’m going to destroy them.” But destruction was never God’s purpose in devastation; resurrection was the purpose of God in devastation and chastening. God had to bring us low so that He could be everything in us. This is not a coexistence with Christ Jesus; it is God living in us. And He is the One who rules and reigns; it is Him, absolutely. So by faith you come to the place where you speak, and the initiative of your faith turns Christ’s Words loose in the earth. This is the way it is going to happen.
These divine declarations we must proclaim in the name of the Lord. But Satan doesn’t want that, and so he begins to battle us where Christ had ended devastation; Satan tries to prevent you from taking this next positive step of faith.
You cannot accept the input or attack that Satan tries to bring. If it comes from someone who is demon-possessed you can rebuke it. But it usually comes through your brother in the Lord.
Do you remember that one of the first apostles to speak by revelation said to Jesus, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Before the chapter ends, Jesus was saying to him, “Get thee behind Me, Satan, for thou savorest not the things which be of God” (verse 23). So we see that it is possible for Satan to jump on a person’s thoughts or ideas and twist them just enough so that they become an occasion for Satan to destroy. But you don’t have to accept that. You can reach the place where you have faith for your brother, even if he stands up and reviles you. You say, “Well, I don’t understand this, but I have faith for him; I know God has commissioned him, although I’m not going to accept what he says with any devastation to my own spirit.” This is important.
Now let us come back to this basic fact: At the present time the Lord is bringing new forms of prayer with a new age. And just as the old forms of offering sacrifices in the days of Abraham and in the days of Moses were unacceptable in the New Testament Church where Christ was the Lamb of God, so today we have to say, “I see that prayer forms have changed with the ages, yet the basic essential thing of God’s provision of redemption has not changed, but has taken a new step forward in its fulfillment. Therefore today I accept this truth: God does not want to be an entity apart from me. He wants to be one with me. And therefore, through Jesus Christ the Lord, I will open up to the fullness of God and speak God into the earth. I am going to live God in the earth. I am going to be His temple. He will walk in me, live in me, and speak in me.
What passage of Scripture would best illustrate these days when we stand at the threshold of the great age of the Kingdom of God on this earth and the manifestation of it? I think the Lord expressed it better than any words we could ever find. We could not devise words that would be so brief and so descriptive as those in Matthew 25:31–46, where He tells us that all the nations will be judged like sheep and goats. What will be the basis of that judgment?
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.” Matthew 25:31.
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ ” Matthew 25:34–40.
Verses 41–46: “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
This is not an insignificant doctrine. The whole world, all the nations, all the kingdoms of this world, whether they are religious or secular, will be gathered before the Lord, and this will be the basis of judgment at the entry into the Kingdom.
“Oh, I know that there are people out there who will not believe that Christ is coming forth in His saints.”
Let me repeat again: these will go away into eternal punishment. I don’t think we realize that inasmuch as they do it unto the “least of these,” they are doing it to Christ. This becomes the other side of the coin. While this truth is so tremendous—that we are going to speak Christ into the world—remember also, that it is going to be the basis by which the world will be thrown into judgment. And I mean the Christian world. They could ask, “Just because I don’t accept Christ coming forth in me?” Because they cannot accept that, they will not treat the ones in whom Christ is coming forth properly, or receive them properly, and therefore they themselves will be rejected. Christ cannot do anything but take it personally, because His presence is very definitely centered in these ones in whom He is coming forth.
They had no room for Him when He was born the first time (Luke 2:7). He made the world. He was in the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not (John 1:10). And it is the same now. If we look for thundering voices to bring the creativity and judgments of God in the earth, we will be greatly disappointed, because it is not going to happen that way. It will be voiced by the mouths of these little ones, who seem to need to be clothed, to be fed, to be received, to receive drink and meat, these strangers who need hospitality. All of this means that we are just about humble enough now for God to really turn us loose, and turn Himself loose in us. The restraints and restrictions born of the flesh have been devastated. Now may God loose us from our unbelief and let us take this essential step of faith!
May those who read this Word follow a real course of action, and quickly! May they begin to practice this, to put it in action.
Watch the response, the answers to prayer and faith, when you begin to believe that God is speaking, and you marvel at the words that are coming out of your own mouth.
I have seen it happen many times that as I spoke a Word from the Lord, afterwards I marveled and wondered at it because it was beyond my wisdom, beyond my understanding or comprehension that God would speak such marvelous Words. And yet, in a sense I knew it, at least the Christ in me knew it. I spoke almost as if it was spoken from memory; and yet consciously, many of those thoughts had never been thought before by my own mind, not that I could recall or remember.
This is a day of speaking by revelation. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, coming forth in the earth. Oh, let Him be glorified in His saints! Let Him be admired in all them that believe (II Thessalonians 1:10).
Do not accept this only as a doctrine that Christ Jesus is coming in His saints, but believe it. Believe that He is coming forth in you. Speak God. Let the life of Christ course through you, and by it respond to one another, for this is the basis by which the Lord will judge all in the Kingdom.
Oh, let us speak to the Christ in one another, and say, “Be free; be loosed.” Let us speak and loose one another in the name of the Lord, because the Christ in us must be ministered to. And inasmuch as we do it to the least of these His brethren, we do it unto Him (Matthew 25:40).
Lest we feel that these words could be shrugged off as unimportant, notice that the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew from verse 31 on gives only two alternatives: If you minister to the Christ in your brother, you enter into the Kingdom that was prepared by the Father before the foundation of the world for you to walk in. If you do not minister to the Christ in your brother, and to the contrary you neglect Him and don’t even see the necessity of ministering to him, it means eternal punishment. It seems as if the line has been drawn by the Lord Himself.
As Christ embodied the fullness of the Father, so we are to embody the fullness of Christ.
Is God taking us over, or are we taking God over? Or is there a difference?
The Kingdom of God in the earth is practical if we live God, speak God.
God wants to be closer to us than we are to ourselves. He wants to be us.
The New Testament does not teach a religion, it creates a relationship of oneness with Christ.
Don’t quote God; speak God.
Christ is in your heart waiting for you to declare Him and create Him in other hearts.