Everything we are and possess is temporary and corruptible. All we can bring into the Kingdom of God is that which we give over to death in Christ. When we yield to the death Christ is demanding, then that which we have given to Him is raised in Him and given back to us, provided it is worthy of the Kingdom and will bring us eternal joy.

That which we first are given is temporary and corruptible, whether relationships, things, or situations. That which dies and is raised again in Christ is eternal and incorruptible. This is why Jesus said if we save our life we will lose it.

The fruit of the Kingdom is born only as we are sown to the death of the cross.

When we die in Christ we are legally free from the Law of Moses. We are free to be married to Christ. The union of Christ and the believer, after a season, will bring forth fruit. The fruit is the image of Christ in the believer and then in those whom the believer influences.

A period of great change has come upon us. The two thousand years of church history have brought us to the present hour. Now God is ready to reveal to us His eternal plan to bring forth a fullness for His Son, a fullness formed from the Son's Substance and Virtue. The fullness is the Body of Christ, the Church, the Wife of the Lamb.

We are in a new day with new challenges. The world around us is changing. It is difficult to predict the changes that will occur in the church world. But from this maelstrom of confusion will emerge the Bride of the Lamb.

During His sojourn on the earth the Lord Jesus Christ always was filled with all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. He thought, spoke, and acted from the Presence and Life of the Father who dwells in Him.

Yet, when Jesus prayed to the Father He did not address the Father dwelling in Himself but the Father in Heaven.

So it is that we, being created the fullness of Him who fills all in all, must keep in mind that Christ is not only being formed in us and dwelling in us but also is in Heaven at the right hand of the Father. There is the internal Christ and then there is the external Christ.

We are not to pray to the internal Christ but to Christ at the right hand of the Father.

Jesus is never to become one member of a many-membered Christ. Jesus is the Lord of the Church, the heavenly Bridegroom. He is from eternity. We are none of these things. The concept of the many-membered Christ is a trap that some fall into in their zeal to show we really are part of Christ.

Indeed we actually are being formed an integral, incorruptible part of God's Christ. But Jesus remains Head and Lord and we pray to Him in Heaven.

To be continued.