Many Dwelling Places

It may be true by now that most Christians understand that John 14:2 is not talking about expensive houses in Heaven. The Father’s House is the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the eternal Temple of God. In fact, Christ is the Chief Cornerstone of the eternal Temple. There are many more living stones that all taken together will compose the Father’s House. You and I are stones, or dwelling places, in the eternal house of God, provided that we diligently follow Christ.

(3/2/2008) The fifth chapter of the Book of Second Corinthians tells us about the dwelling places of God. The thought begins in the fourth chapter, where we are told that our suffering is achieving for us a weight of glory.

Then in the fifth chapter, we find that the weight of glory is a body from Heaven that will clothe our mortal body when our mortal body is raised from the dead, in the Day of Resurrection when Christ appears with His saints.

What about this body, this house, this robe from Heaven that will swallow up our mortal body? It is fashioned from our behavior.

In the Day of the Lord, we will receive what we have done in our body. This does not mean that we will be rewarded for what we have done, it means exactly what it says in Second Corinthians 5:10. We will receive what we have practiced.

For instance, if we have made a practice of lying, Christian or not, we will receive lying in that Day. Our mortal body will be swallowed up by a house from Heaven that wants to lie. If we have been faithful to Christ, we will receive a body what wants to be faithful to Christ.

So often in our present circumstances, we have to fight against our body. Our sinful nature wants to lie, cheat, steal, fornicate, commit adultery, fight, covet, and so forth. Every unclean thing you can think of—that is what our sinful nature coaxes us to do.

If we yield to our sinful nature, then we are going to receive a body from Heaven that is filled with that sinful nature. Then the rottenness that is on the inside will be revealed on the outside. We will flee from the presence of the righteous, because we are ashamed.

If we resist the motives of our sinful nature, then that very resistance is added to our house which is being formed in Heaven. Every godly decision we make becomes part of that body. In the Day of Resurrection, when our mortal body is raised and clothed with our body that has been fashioned in Heaven, we will beside ourselves with joy and gladness because now we are living in a house that wants to serve God and resist evil. This is our reward for serving Christ faithfully.

I do not know about you, but I can think of few things as wonderful as being clothed with a body that wants to serve God. Yet that will be our state of being if we are faithful in living a victorious life in Christ.

Our body, our dwelling place for eternity, has the potential of being filled with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as well as our own soul, spirit, and mind. In addition there will be people who are living under our influence. They will look to us to bring God to them. We will be to them a source of life and healing.

Our inheritance is people. As God loves Christ, Christ will love us. Then that boundless love of Christ in us will extend to those people whom God gives us. Except for God, The only inheritance worth having is people.

Christ has prayed we will be one in Him and the Father, and one with each. Paul, in the Book of Ephesians, prayed that we would be strengthened in the inner man until we can be filled with all the Fullness of God.

Today Satan is attacking the idea of gender. Have you noticed that? It seems to be the new thing in America, particularly in the public schools. Little children are being asked if they want to be a boy or girl. This is, of course, satanic confusion.

Why would Satan be so interested in gender? It is because gender is something he does not have. No angel or cherub has gender. They are “its,” not he’s or she’s.

Because Satan does not have gender, he cannot truly love another creature. And so he molests children, rapes, perverts normal sexual drives, because he wants to experience the ability that God has given to His offspring, the ability to love, that is, to enter union with another person.

By enter union I am not referring to the flesh. Animals are flesh and have gender, but they cannot enter union with God or with one another.

But we humans can love God and enter union with Him. We also can love another person and enter union with that person. Again, I am not speaking of human love but of the Divine love that can come as a gift of God. According to Paul, we have to be strengthened in the inner man before we can have that love of Christ that passes knowledge.

God gave me that kind of love one time when I was on a brief missionary trip. He gave me such an overwhelming love for the people that I would have laid down in the middle of the street if one of these people could be brought to God. I guess I had to have that experience so I would know what Paul was talking about.

God is Love, and we are being formed in His image. Love is the desire to enter into union with another person, just as Christ prayed in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John.

In God’s House, that He is forming, Jesus Christ is the Chief Cornerstone. We also are living stones in that one House. The House is for God, so God can live among His offspring—human beings.

We of God’s family, His elect, have been formed for the purpose of providing a house in which God can dwell and through which He can love and bless (and also judge) the people He has created.

God brings each of His elect through deep waters and hot fires. Sometimes we think we are going to perish. But then we find that we did not drown and were not consumed in the flames. Rather, we came out of our trials with a knowledge of God we did not have prior to our ordeal, just as was true of the patriarch, Job.

There are so many wonderful things at hand today. In the midst of the satanic playground that the United States of America is rapidly becoming, God is revealing to us through His Spirit treasures beyond our imagination. Such is His love for those who love and serve Him.

A future beyond description in its glory awaits each person who serves the Lord Jesus Christ diligently. A future beyond description in its pain and frustration awaits each person who understands what God wants of him or her, and turns aside in disobedience and rebellion.

The horrible travesty of Paul’s intention, when he taught the Jews that Divine grace has freed them from the laws and statutes of Moses so they can be married to Christ without condemnation, has destroyed the Gospel in the United States. Instead of people who are being transformed in the image of God, we have “grace” that we think trumps every commandment of Christ and His Apostles

We have been, and are now, terribly deceived. Grace is not an acceptable alternative to obeying Christ. How could it be? How have we been so blind we cannot see what was written by the Apostles of the Lamb—all godly men who taught godly behavior, not merely a profession of theologic facts about Christ and His redemption.

America is on its way to becoming a minor power in the world, because of the demonic practices it permits, particularly abortion. God is not mocked. Our nation is going to reap what it is sowing, and it is sowing the seed of demons.

We do not have to fall with America. If we will turn again to Jesus, keep His commandments and those of His Apostles, and walk humbly with God, we can save ourselves and our loved ones. But if we do not, if we stiffen our neck, as some have done, and say that God has to save us because of grace no matter how we behave, we are facing a terrifying future in the present world and in that which is to come.

I think it is time to blow the trumpet in Zion!