"If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching."

As the Father and the Son take up Their abode in us the issue of what is morally clean and righteous and what is morally filthy and wicked is raised continually in our thoughts, words, and actions. God says, "Be holy because I am holy. If you wish to be part of Me you must be righteous and holy in behavior and sternly obedient to me in every aspect of life. There is no room for questionable behavior, no gray area in which there is confusion concerning what is right and what is wrong."

There is no possibility of our being with Christ where He is except as we are willing to embrace that which is righteous and holy and utterly renounce and reject that which is morally filthy and wicked.

The way of the Lord must be made straight in our personality.

As God enters us He deals with that which is unrighteous in our personality and behavior.

What will God do after He is satisfied with our personality and behavior? He will return from Heaven with us and set up His Kingdom on the earth. The nations then will have people who can teach them the difference between right and wrong so they can be blessed by the Lord. There will be a holy, royal priesthood who will portray the law in themselves, in what they are and say and do. They will be a living, holy city by whose moral light the saved nations will learn to walk. The saints, God's holy ones, will magnify the law, making it great and glorious, understandable and approachable.

Right now the Lord Jesus wants us to be with Him where He always is, to be an integral, incorruptible part of His living Person and Presence. This is not for our aggrandizement or for any "religious" purpose. It is so God may be increased in His creation, so He may have a living temple.

As we look back through the Scriptures we can see how the plan of God has developed until finally, in the last days, the ultimate purpose of God can be revealed: Christ in us, the hope of glory.

From Adam and Eve through to Abraham, Moses, and John the Baptist, God has required obedience to His righteous laws. Then the Lord Jesus Christ began to speak of many rooms in His Father's house. We in our carnal reasoning supposed He was speaking of building elaborate dwellings for us in the spirit realm. If we had read the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John carefully, keeping all the thoughts in context from the second through the twenty-third verses, we would have seen that Jesus was speaking of God residing in Him and then God and He residing in us.

But we did not have eyes to see. The Book remained sealed. Christianity remained as another religion in which we endeavored to live so one day we could be with the Lord.

To be continued.