(tm) We have so much to learn!

So much to become!

The eternal habitation of God is the glorified Church, the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb. Revelation, Chapters 21 and 22 informs us that gold and precious stones predominate in the construction of the new Jerusalem. The pure, transparent gold is the Substance of Christ in us that has been refined by suffering—the only method that accomplishes the desired transparency—until we are as clear as glass (I Peter 1:7).

The assortment of precious stones that embellish the foundations of the wall of the city speak of the different Christian personalities that have been formed by extreme heat and pressure, under the precise supervision of the Holy Spirit, until their infinitely-varied radiance illumines the creation. The Holy Spirit being manifested through the separate personalities produces one hue, and then another, in a heavenly rainbow of color.

The gates are pearl because pearl is created in response to suffering. The "pearl" in our nature is built layer upon layer as we patiently bear the cross that has been assigned to us. As God sends the grace to bring us through the day in victory, another layer is added to our pearl.

The pearl in us is hard material, not easily changed, because it is formed at the deepest level of consecration—the secret place of the heart of the saint where God and he work out the transformation day after day. The gates that control entrance into the city are of the highest quality pearl.

It is only by prolonged patience in tribulation that we become capable of serving as a door through which the poor and needy can be admitted to the Presence of God and the Lamb.

The new Jerusalem is the eternal resting place of the Ark of God’s Presence. The city is perfectly proportioned and of incredibly immense size. The light of God and the Lamb fills the city and the whole earth.

The pure light, the beauty of holiness, the Glory of God, renders unnecessary the light of the sun and moon, as was true during the first three days of creation.

The Bride of the Lamb will be perfect in every detail. No longer will God be required to compromise His deepest wisdom and desires in order to dwell among His children. The Church will have been so wrought upon by the Holy Spirit of God that it will be a suitable dwelling place for the Lord God Almighty and His Son, Christ.

No adjustment will be needed. God will be perfectly at home in every area of His Temple. As the billions upon unnumbered billions of eternities go by, the house of God will become increasingly imbued with all that God is until God and His Temple are indivisible—one magnificent Divine Entity.

God will be in His house, and His house will be in God, to the degree that separation no longer is possible. This is true marriage. Physical marriage is a type of the one true marriage, which can exist only between the Lamb and His Wife.

The reason for the delay in God coming to us and dwelling in us, in accordance with His eternal purpose in Christ, is that we have not as yet been fully prepared. We are being brought to maturity in the present hour.

Our service to God and mankind throughout the thousand years of the Kingdom Age will result in an ever-increasing refinement of our nature because of our close contact with Christ. One fact is certain—the new Jerusalem will not descend in radiant beauty until after the thousand-year Kingdom Age, the Millennial Jubilee, has been completed.

We are being prepared today for the abiding of God in Christ in us.

God dwells in Christ in His fullness because Jesus is a perfectly prepared place for God. In all of Jesus’ ministry on the earth we see God the Father. Jesus always is perfectly at rest in the Father, and through Him the Father is able to dwell among men.

Every person who sees the Lord Jesus sees the Father. Men do not need to ask to see the Father or to inquire what the Father is like. We can witness the Father’s moral character in Christ. We can behold His works of power in Christ. We can hear His words from Christ., Christ is the perfect spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles, in that God dwells in Him to the fullest extent.

The destiny of the Church is the attainment of perfect rest in Christ in God. The Day will come when mankind will be able to observe God Almighty through Christ in the Church. Men will see the moral Character of the Father, behold the works of power of His hands, and hear His words—all through the members of the Body of Christ. The Church will be the revelation of God in Christ, and God will find His rest in Christ—Head and Body.

The Church will come down from the new heaven and remain forever on the new earth. Through the Church, God will be approachable to the nations of the saved of the new earth.

In our time, the Body of Christ is the dwelling place among men, the manifestation, of God in Christ. But our sinful flesh muddies the water of eternal life and obscures the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 4:6).

We who are members of the Body of Christ (and you, dear reader, may partake of the Glory if you pursue the fullness of Christ) are destined to be filled with the fullness of God in Christ through the Spirit. Just as the Lord Jesus eternally is filled with the Presence, the love, and the Glory of God, so shall we—when we have been prepared—be filled with the Presence, the love, and the Glory of God in Christ.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:22,23)

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