The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, “See here!” or “See there!” For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:20-21)
For the kingdom of God is…righteousness {divine love} and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Rom. 14:17)
Oh, sir {or madam}, would you like to know the blessing of all blessings? It is God coming to share His Spirit with you. God wants to bless you with His life so that you may be a vessel of His divine love and be a blessing to others. “I will bless you… And you shall be a blessing.” (Gen. 12:2)
The Son is now prepared to fill you with His Spirit and satisfy your soul. He wants to set you free from the old self-centered nature that has caused you so much trouble. It will deliver you from all the inward strife that comes from not getting your way. Life is no longer a burden when His satisfying Presence is dwelling within you and He is directing all your steps. While difficulties will continue to come, His is able to keep your heart filled to overflowing with an everlasting supply of His love and peace and joy.
But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him {life from the Spirit} will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)
The Son of God has come as the Messiah to establish His kingdom-life of “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” within your heart. He wants to give you a new divine nature so you may display His life of holy love in everything you do. Because divine love does by nature what is right in relationship to both God and others, this sharing with the Son in His life of love will enable you to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law. “Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Rom. 13:10) His Spirit of Love, as He fills your heart and purges away your old selfish and self-seeking nature, moves you to live for the good of others without the need of being rewarded, or honored, or esteemed.
The Son, through His Spirit, comes to give you an abundantly full measure of His life. (John 10:10) This divine life, being sufficient in itself, lives for the one purpose of propagating itself. It meets wrath, evil, hatred and opposition as light meets darkness, only to overcome it with its own blessings. For the wrath of an enemy, the treachery of a friend, or any other form of evil, only helps the Spirit of Love to more clearly reveal God’s true glory. This love, as it was expressed by Jesus on the Cross, is always prepared to lay down its rights and to seek the good of others in order to lead them into the same heavenly life.
God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this…because as He is {as the Son revealed this divine love}, so are we {to be} in this world. (1 John 4:16-17)
Many of those who are born of the Spirit of God have discovered in their own Bibles the wonderful teachings about becoming like Jesus in love. They try their best to respond to His teachings because they want to become like Him. But in time, after continuing to find a contrary spirit in their heart, they begin to doubt and question the possibility of such a state. In a world that has so much strife and division and misery, it will appear to be a doctrine that is too refined and imaginary to be reached. But this objection will begin to fall away once it is seen from the right perspective.
As you have perceived, we are speaking of a form of love that is beyond the capacity of natural man to produce. It is not something that can be worked up or developed through human efforts. It is a supernatural life that God has promised to supply to His children when they present themselves to Him to be used as vessels of His life and works. We must come to Him with a dependent and yielded faith that expects Him to reveal His divine life of love through our mortal bodies.
For this reason I bow my knees {in prayer} to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith… {that you may} know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:14-19)
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels {weak mortal bodies}, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us…that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. (2 Cor. 4:7, 10)
You may indeed do many works of love and find enjoyment in doing them when they are convenient for you, or when they are not contrary to your current feelings. But this does not mean you are revealing God’s Spirit of Love. There is a form of love that even carnal people are willing to express as long as it receives its reward and contributes to their self-esteem. But we are now speaking of being filled with God’s Spirit so that His divine love can be naturally, universally and freely poured out even in unfavorable circumstances. Yes, this is a love that truly surpasses human understanding. And yet, it can be revealed within your inner being as a new divine nature by the Spirit of God.
God wants His Spirit of Love to become your life. His life of love knows no difference, regardless of time or place or persons involved. It naturally gives and forgives, bears and forbears. For the Spirit of Love, wherever it is, is its own blessing and happiness. In truth, it is the reality of God in the soul. Since this divine love is not something you are required to work up, but flows directly from God, it can be revealed everywhere and on every occasion. It becomes the natural fruit of a Spirit-filled life. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love…”
Since every Christian does not consistently reveal this overflowing life of the Spirit, we can know there is something that each individual must do. God requires His children to surrender their whole being to the life that was in Jesus. You put on the life of Christ by offering your body to Him to be used by Him for the display of His life and works. Those who will learn of Him and surrender their whole being to the light of truth that was displayed through Him, will be taken into the life of promise where they are enabled to partake of every spiritual blessing found in His heavenly life.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies {each and every moment of the day}, a living sacrifice,
holy {set apart for God’s exclusive use}, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Rom. 12:1)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in Him {to live through Him} before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. (Eph. 1:3-4)
We can now begin to see what it truly means to believe in Christ and to receive Him into our life. Jesus did not come to merely forgive our sins. He came to share His life of holy love with us. And while we enter into a reconciled state by trusting in His shed blood, we also need to look to Him in faith to manifest His divine life within our inner being. This is the much more of salvation that makes us like Him in His nature of love and enables us to reveal God’s glory in everything we do.
In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. (1 John 4:9)
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His {indwelling} life. (Rom 5:10)
If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus…put on the new man {the Second Adam} which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4:21, 24)
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another… But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection {yield to the life and nature of Jesus}. (Col. 3:12-14)
But as many as received Him {by choosing to receive His life and nature into their heart}, to them He gave the right to become children of God {bearing His image}, to those who believe in His name. (John 1:12)
Authentic Christianity
