The Daily Word of Righteousness

Reconciliation by Fire, continued

For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. (Isaiah 28:11,12)

As soon as we are filled with the Holy Spirit we are to begin to move

forward into resurrection life. Speaking in tongues is not a sign we have "arrived" spiritually. Speaking in tongues is the means God has given us to learn to flow in eternal resurrection life. Speaking in tongues enables us to enter the "rest" of living in the Spirit of God (Hebrews 4:1).

The feast of Trumpets is celebrated after the feast of Pentecost. Tongues is the beginning of the "trumpet of the Lord" in our Christian life. It is our awakening to life lived in the Spirit of God.

The awakening of resurrection life in us, which is the result of our baptism with the Holy Spirit, is associated with the coming of the King, Christ, to us. The King's coming is announced by the blowing of trumpets. It is the beginning of spiritual warfare. We enter the conflict that will culminate in God settling down to rest in us.

The goal of all the works of redemption is God in Christ settling down to rest in us. We are being constructed the eternal Temple of God.

Christ is the incarnation of God, the appearing of the invisible God in bodily form. Because Christ is being formed in us and will abide in us in His fullness for eternity, we also are becoming an integral part of the appearing of the invisible God in bodily form. It is our body that is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:19)

The goal of redemption is not to go to Heaven when we die, although the saints do go to Heaven when they die. The goal of redemption is, rather, the construction of the eternal dwelling place of the Father in Christ in us. The Father will become All in all: first in Christ, then in us, finally in the entire universe.

It is our point of view that God and Jesus will come through the Holy Spirit, prior to the return of Jesus to the earth, and be formed in us in a much greater measure than we have experienced thus far. He will come to us as the "rain," the Scripture declares. The increased formation of Christ in us will make possible a greater indwelling through the Spirit.

However, it appears that the fullness of indwelling that is the Lord's goal for us cannot be realized until our present body has been glorified. The saint who has attained the inner resurrection of life will proceed to the resurrection and glorification of the body, at the appearing of the Lord, and be filled with all the fullness of God. He then will be a living stone of the holy city, the new Jerusalem.

To be continued.