The Daily Word of Righteousness

Our Christian Pilgrimage, #22

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:23)

Emmanuel. Emmanuel is God with us. We Christians are being made a part of Emmanuel. This is the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth, the doing of God's will in the earth as it is in Heaven.

When we become part of Christ we become part of the Incarnation of God, making visible and material the invisible God. When the individual believer becomes one with Christ a new creation emerges. Each new creation is a unique expression and revelation of the invisible God.

The Lord God of Heaven is hindered in His ability to draw near to and to bless and guide the nations of peoples whom He has created. God loves these peoples and it is not His will that they stagger about in spiritual darkness, becoming the prey and sport of demons.

God has chosen to reveal Himself to mankind through Christ. Each saint who presses forward into eternal life until he is an integral part of Christ becomes, as a result, an integral part of the revelation of God. This revelation of the invisible God is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the rule of God through Christ—Head and Body—over the nations of saved peoples of the earth.

The new Jerusalem is the revelation of God in Christ in the saints. There is no temple in the new Jerusalem because the new Jerusalem itself, being the Wife of the Lamb, the Body of Christ, is the eternal Tabernacle of God. The members of the Wife of the Lamb will see the unveiled face of the Lord God.

The Tree of Life grows on either side of the River of Life. The Tree of Life is the Lord Jesus. We are the branches of that tree. The River of Life is the Holy Spirit.

The righteous are "like a tree planted by the rivers of water" (Psalms 1:3). The nations will eat of our "fruit" and live forever, and will be healed by our "leaves."

It is God's determination that the nations be blessed through the Seed of Abraham, who is Christ and those who are part of Christ.

Of all our "Canaan," our inheritance, the most important part is God. God Himself is our inheritance, our rest. After that in importance comes the individuals whom Christ gives to us as He shares the inheritance with us. We inherit those individuals by nourishing them with the Life of Christ in us until they are created in Christ's image. We gain dominion over our inheritance by giving life to it. It is an act of love on our part—a love that comes from God through Christ through us to those persons whom God has chosen to be a part of us.

To be continued.