we need to be born of God with the divine life in order for us to be part of the kingdom of God

It is not by our doing, our striving, or our behavior that we become part of the kingdom of God, and neither is it by our being affiliated to any of the “churches” that are out there. The only way we can become part of the kingdom of God or even see the kingdom of God is by being born into the kingdom of God! Unless we are born again, born of the Spirit, we cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God! It is only the life of God, the divine life, that qualifies us to be in the kingdom of God. Not even knowing a lot about the kingdom of God or knowing about God – no Bible knowledge apart from being regenerated can transfer us and place us into the kingdom of God! Just as you become a human being part of the mankind by being born as a man and thus are part of the kingdom of man, so you become a God-man by being begotten of God and thus being a part of the kingdom of God! Hallelujah, it is only the divine life that can qualify us to enter into the divine realm! Here’s what John 3:3 and 5 say,

v. 3 … Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God…
v. 5 … Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God…

Actually, even if we were not sinful – even if Adam would have NOT partaken of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – we still need the divine life to come into us in order for us to be part of the kingdom of God! The human life – as high and perfect and clean as it would be – is not adequate for us to be in the kingdom of God! This is why we need to treasure our regeneration: when we believe into the Lord Jesus(John 3:16) we receive the divine life of God and enter into the kingdom of God! Just as a MAN begets a MAN, a cat begets a cat, etc – so God begets someone His own kind: God begets “gods”! When we are born of God, we become a God-man! We as believers are no longer ONLY human, but also divine; we no longer belong only to the human species, but we are also part of the divine species – we are God-kind! Now we have the divine life within growing, developing, and transforming us until we become the same as our Prototype / our Forerunner Jesus Christ. We have the reality of the divine life within us and at the same time this divine life transforms us and conforms us to the Lord’s image in our entire being.

As the ones living in the kingdom of God, we are now learning to live no longer by the human life / our self, but we deny ourselves, our natural man, our natural life, and live by another life – the divine life within! The more we live by the divine life in us by allowing this divine life to live in us freely, the more we are living in reality in the kingdom of God! The reality of the kingdom of God as a realm of life is our living by the divine life today! This living of the divine life and by the divine life is the expression and the practicality of the divine life – this is the kingdom of God in reality! It is here, in this kingdom, in our living by the divine life, that God can be freely expressed, He can reign, and He can accomplish His will and His purpose. Today in the church life we are those who enjoy the divine life and live by the divine life more and more, until we are “swallowed up in life” and we become persons of life! We are children of God in the divine and mystical realm of the divine species, living and moving – doing everything and having our being – by the divine life, in our mingled spirit! [inspired by the morning revival on the Crystallization-study of Isaiah(1)]

O, Lord, Amen, we want to be in the reality of the kingdom today! Save us from being just men – we want to be God-men living by the divine life within! Thank You Lord for showing us the kingdom of God and for making us part of Your kingdom! Lord, we need You to grow in us more today and even be expressed in us and through us!

by enjoying Christ we live in the Principle of the Restoration of Life for a New Revival(Isaiah 11)

I very much enjoyed that we need to enjoy Christ in the principle of the restoration of life as a sprout from the stump of Jesse and as a branch from the roots of Jesse. Especially seeing that Christ is the sprout and the branch for us to enjoy Christ and grow in Christ.

Hebrews 6:5 says: And have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.

This tells us of an “age to come” which is the age of the coming kingdom, and this verse also tells us that we have tasted the good word of God. This is the word of the beginning of Christ when we first believed in the Lord Jesus (Heb 6:1). From this beginning we have to be brought on to maturity by enjoying the deeper word, the word of righteousness, which is concerned not mainly with God’s redemption but with the way of His economy.

The principle here is to stay in the enjoyment by following the Lord – which is a foretaste of the divine power of the coming kingdom. This divine power restores, renews and revives the things that have become old. As we enjoy the Lord every day in a new and fresh way, this divine life with its power renews and restores us inwardly!

Titus 3:5 says: Not out of works in righteousness which we did but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 19:28 says: And Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you that you who have followed Me, in the restoration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

In Matthew 19:28 quoted above the word restoration has the same meaning as regeneration. The King James version says “in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory…” Regeneration or restoration means to change from one state to another. The washing of regeneration in Titus 3:5 begins with our being born again and continues with the renewing of the Holy Spirit as the process of God’s new creation, a process of reconditioning, remaking or remodeling of our entire tripartite being with the divine life. The washing of regeneration purges away all the things of the old nature of our old man, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit imparts something new – the divine essence of the new man – into our being. This is a passing from our old state into a wholly new one, from the old creation into the status of a new creation.

So then to enjoy Christ as the sprout from the stump of Jesse means to enjoy Him in His restoring power of life in freshness, and to enjoy Him as the branch from the roots of Jesse is to enjoy Him as the hidden deepening power of life with growing power and fruit-bearing power. As we enjoy this Christ in the church life He will grow in us and spread through us and will bring us into a new revival so we would be those living in the reality of God’s economy. Lord keep us enjoying You so that You can grow in us and spread through us! [sharing by bro. Moh from Isaiah 11 and the life-study of Isaiah messages based on this chapter] – read this portion in Spanish via al disfrutar a Cristo vivimos en el principio de la restauración de la vida para un nuevo avivamiento (Isaías 11).

the greatest wonder in the universe – man can be born of God and sinners can be made sons of God!

WOW! I love this wonderful delicious amazing and true quote from bro. Lee

Surely it is the greatest wonder in the universe that human beings could be begotten of God and sinners could be made children of God.

How can this be? What is this? We, human beings, to be born of God? Even us, the sinners, to become sons of God? YES! This is what the Bible says, and this is our reality & our experience! When we receive the Lord Jesus at the time of our regeneration, we are born of God! Just like John 1:12-13 says

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

As many as believe in the Lord, that is, receive Him as Lord by calling on His name to be saved(Acts 2:21), they are being given the right, the authority, and the priviledge to be called sons of God, children of God! At the moment of our regeneration, we were born of God – we received another life! We have been begotten of the Father, who is the source of life, to be the children of God. Surely this is the greatest wonder in the whole universe! Through such an amazing divine birth we received the divine life – this life enables us to be God’s children; this life is the authority for us to be children of God(John 1:12-13)!

Even more, Romans 8:16 says:

The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.

There is a Person in us, Christ as the Spirit, who witness not FOR us but WITH our spirit(whenever the Spirit witnesses, our spirit witnesses too; whenever we take the lead to witness that we are children of God, the Spirit witnesses with us)! Even when at times we’re weak or maybe backsliding or we do things to offend the Lord – deep within, once we are born of God, we have the deep conviction that we are children of God! Once we were born of God, we can never be un-born! We are forever Children Of God! And we have within us the divine life of God which is all-inclusive – it includes all that God is, His divine nature, His divine characteristics, His divine attributes, all the process Christ went through(incarnation, the perfect human living, His wonderful resurrection, His ascension, His enthronement, etc) – all the fullness of God is in this life that is now in us, growing day by day! We are growing daily to be Sons of God(led by the Spirit, Rom. 8:14) and eventually heirs of God with Christ(Rom. 8:17)!

One very sweet aspect of being a child of God, however initial it is in our Christian life, is that we can call God as our “Abba Father” – Dear Daddy! God is our Father, and we love Him! He has begotten us of Himself, and He poured out His love into our hearts… because we have now been born of God and are related to Him in life, it is so normal and also sweet to call Him Father. O, Father! Abba Father, we love You! Thank You Father for Your divine life in us…. Thank You we are children of God, being transformed daily to be sons of God, and eventually we will become heirs of God!

three main things that took place in Christ’s resurrection: begetting, transfiguration, and regeneration!

This week we’re getting into The Resurrection of Christ and the Believers’ Experience of Christ in His Resurrection Life, and I have been very impressed with what is the intrinsic significance of the resurrection of Christ. Christ didn’t just “resurrect”, He was not just resuscitated / brought back to life – there are some amazing and wonderful things that happened / took place in His resurrection! He Himself prophesied about this in John 12:24

Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Christ died an all-inclusive and all-terminating death on the cross, and after 3 days, He resurrected! On the one hand, as a man, Christ was raised up by God (Rom. 8:11), but on the other hand, as God, Christ raised Himself up from the dead (Rom. 14:9). Very mysterious, yet very wonderful! Our Christ is the God-man, the One with both divinity and humanity, who passed through such a marvelous process to become the life-giving Spirit who now lives in our spirit! So here are some of the main things that took place in Christ’s resurrection:

• In His Resurrection, Christ was begotten as God’s Firstborn Son(Rom. 8:29) –  Christ was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness(Rom. 1:3-4). Christ was God’s Only Begotten Son from eternity, but by coming into the world and putting on humanity, His human part was not “the son of God” – He brought His humanity into His divinity through His resurrection. Now Christ is not only the Only Begotten Son of God, but He is the Firstborn Son of God – we being His many brothers, the many sons of God with His divine life and nature! Through incarnation, Christ brought God into man, and through death and resurrection, He brought man into God. As such a Christ, He is the Prototype / the Model for the mass reproduction of God! We are all being conformed to the image of Christ, God’s Firstborn Son!
• In His Resurrection, Christ became the life-giving Spirit – He was transfigured into the Spirit that gives life(1 Cor. 15:45). Before His resurrection, even before His incarnation, Christ as God was Spirit essentially, but in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit, “compounded” / being composed of not just divinity, but also humanity, human living, death, and resurrection. As such a Spirit now He comes into us(John 20:22) to be breathed in. When we receive the Lord Jesus, we actually receive the Spirit, since the Lord is now the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17).
• In His Resurrection, Christ regenerated us, His believers, for His Body – Peter says that we were born/regenerated in Christ’s resurrection(1 Peter 1:3). Christ’s resurrection was a “mass delivery”, where Christ as the Firstborn and we all His believers as the many sons were “begotten”! This was a universal amazing event, that took place once and for all – and even though it was “in time”, it is an eternal event. Now, whenever we call on the name of the Lord, this begetting is being applied to us in time in our particular situation and environment; the reality of our being born again is that we ALL were born again at the same time, when Christ was resurrected!

Hallelujah for these three mysterious yet so glorious things that took place in Christ’s resurrection! Don’t you just love Him more, when you see how RICH His resurrection was, what happened in His resurrection? Hallelujah for the begetting (Christ and us were begotten as God’s sons), the transfiguration(Christ was transfigured to be the life-giving Spirit), and the regeneration(we were regenerated in Christ’s resurrection) that took place in Christ’s resurrection!

we are now in the process of becoming like Him

God became a man in the Lord Jesus Christ for the purpose of making us also the same as He is! His hearts’ desire is to have man as His counterpart(Rev. 19:7), His expression, the same as He is. That’s why He “bothered” / “took the pain” of becoming a man: the infinite God became finite and limited in space and time, as a man in the flesh! He put on something that was not yet God – the human nature. Through His death and His resurrection, this human part was brought into the divine sonship: He became the Son of God in both His humanity and His divinity(Rom. 1:3-4)! In resurrection He also became the Life-Giving Spirit(1 Cor. 15:45) – as such a One, He entered into our spirit.

When the Lord as the Spirit came into us(Gal. 4:6), we entered into a process – of becoming like Him(even as He is we will be): fully sonized, glorified, one with God and filled with God. All things work together for good for those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose(Rom. 8:28). And this “good” is our eternal good, as God sees it as being good. The process we are in today is a process of

• sanctification – we are partaking of God’s holy nature, we are sanctified both positionally(before God, in Christ) and dispositionally(our whole being is saturated with the holy element of God) – 1 Thes. 4:3, 1 Cor. 1:2, 6:11;
• renewing – our mind is being renewed in the Word of God, for us to think the same way He thinks(Rom. 12:2; Titus 3:5); we are being saved more and more from our corrupted mind; His new element is being added to us, and we become NEW more each day!
• transformation – as the new element is being added to us, the old element is discharged – as we behold Him, just like a mirror, we also reflect Him – we are being transformed from glory to glory(1 Cor. 3:18)! There’s heat, pressure, failures, mistakes – yet there’s the fresh supply of living water to help us grow and be transformed!
• conformation – our whole body is being conformed to His image by having His inner operating life in us(Rom. 8:29; Phil 3:21); eventually, our whole being – spirit, soul, and body – is being saturated with the divine element, and we have the redemption of our body(Rom. 8:23)!

As believers, we are in this process every day – all we need to do to go on in this process is to enjoy the Lord in our fellowship and organic union with Him! When we turn to Him in everything and enjoy Him(Rom. 8:6), He is sanctifying us, renewing us, transforming us, and even conforming us more to His image! More and more, day by day, we become like Him! Lord, take us on in this wonderful process every day!