'Preparation for the coming to us of the Father and the Son'
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In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2)
There is an "inner man of the heart," a "new creation," in each true saint. The new creation indeed is a new person who has been born of God through Christ. The new man, the unique compound of the believer and the Lord, is the Kingdom of God. It is in the new man that the Father and Christ will abide eternally.
It is all-important to the Christian that proper attention be given to the development of the new creation. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, it is the new creation who has been born of God who inherits the Kingdom of God and is the Kingdom of God.
Christ had to go to the cross in order for us to become the abiding place of God. Christ opened His heart to us so that we may enter Himself and find green pastures and quiet waters.
Christ’s body was broken and His blood shed. He made an atonement for us by His death on the cross. Now He feeds the new man of our heart with His body and blood so that His Divine Substance and Nature, which form the dwelling place of the Lord God of Heaven, may be in us.
If we desire to be part of the Father’s house we must eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ. We must be living by Him as He lives by the Father. Our whole inner nature must be re-created as a suitable abode for God and Christ. The Ark of the Covenant always comes to rest in a prepared place.
Christ is making intercession for us as we experience daily the death of the old man and the strengthening of the new man of our heart. The cloud of witnesses surrounds us, the saints in light urging us forward to the perfection in which they will share.
Many obstacles appear before us as we seek the fullness of the inheritance. We overcome every one of them by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony, and by loving not our life to the death.
Divine grace coming to us from Heaven is preparing us so that the Father and the Son may find rest in us. The Holy Spirit is strengthening our inner man.
Testings and afflictions are sent our way. We pray in our affliction. We put on the whole armor of God. We hold up the shield of faith. We learn to stand in the evil day.
We put on the mind of Christ. We meditate each day in the Scriptures, becoming wise therein. The Word of God renews our mind resulting in the transformation of our personality. We beat our body down, refusing to indulge its lusts and appetites. We present our body to God a living sacrifice.
The various ministries and gifts of the Holy Spirit given to other members of the Body of Christ, and to us, play their role in shaping and forming the Temple of God in us. God helps with dreams, visions, and other kinds of special guidance that strengthen and direct us on certain occasions.
God freely has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness for our preparation, just as Esther was given "things for purification" so that she would be a fit wife for the King of Persia (Esther 2:9).
God has been prepared. Christ has been prepared. We are being prepared.
Christ was wounded. We are being wounded. Wound is pressed against wound and bound in place. Then the Life from the eternal Vine flows into the branches, and buds, blossoms, and fruit appear. This is the Kingdom of God—God in Christ in us in Christ in God. God is All in all in the Kingdom.