The Kingdom of God came into being when Christ Jesus rose from the dead.

Every time a human being is born again it is Christ who is born in him and formed in him. This is a further incarnation, a further revelation of the Lord God of Heaven. God in Christ is seen in the saint who is crucified with Christ. God is eternally enlarging His Being in saints who have become a unique expression of His Person.

Christ died that we may live. Now it is our turn. We must die so Christ can be enlarged. If we cling to our life Christ cannot be revealed in us.

If we grasp our life and possessions, hold on to people and supposed advantages, not allowing the Holy Spirit to do as He will in us and to us, we will lose our life. In addition Christ will lose an opportunity to appear to the world in a wonderfully unique manner. We must die if He is to live.

When we give ourselves without reservation to God, allowing Christ to fill every element of our personality, consenting to the transformation of all that we are, our personality will become all God meant it to be.

A change in what we fundamentally are is very threatening, very difficult for people. Believers may be willing to gain victory over one sin or another. But when it comes to a change in what we are, we resist the Lord. It seems that each of us has some major aspect of personality, some part of Adam, that characterizes us, that is what we are.

Our Christian life may be occupied to a large extent with a struggle against the symptoms of our particular kind of personality, which may be romantic, or filled with a desire for power or status, or ready to judge other people, or apt to harbor bitterness and revenge, or withdrawn, or flirtatious, or capricious, or violent, or fearful, or grasping and covetous, or requiring luxury, or a manifestation of some other adamic trait.

While we may be willing to deal with various sins and shortcomings, when the Holy Spirit begins to require a change in what we basically are we may refuse to proceed with the work of transformation. God's army of victorious sons will include only those who have been willing to allow God to crucify and resurrect their personality as He will.

It is only in Christ that our potential is realized. It is only in Christ that the uniqueness of our personality is developed and clarified. Apart from Christ we are "without form and void."

When the Spirit of God moves on the "deep" of our being, order appears. There is a separation of our spiritual nature from our soulish nature. "Dry land" appears. "Vegetation" (spiritual life) is produced.

Then the all-powerful Creator begins to form us in His image, to bring us into union with Himself and with one another, and to lead us in the path which results in very great fruitfulness and dominion over all the works of God's hands.

Without Christ we remain unformed. As the Life of Christ Jesus is formed in us the image of God in us is revealed for all to witness. (from The Cross and the New Creation)