We Christians are not being created primarily imitators of Christ, or followers of Christ, or friends of Christ. Such relationships are necessary and useful at various stages of our experience, but they are not the glorious fulfillment God has in mind.

We are being made an eternal part of Him. We are not "Christs" (plural), we are Christ's (possessive). We are an eternally inseparable part of Him and essential to His Being. We are essential to His Being because He has chosen to make Himself dependent on us, just as Adam was dependent on Eve for the fulfillment of the Divine purposes.

Christ is the House of God Almighty and we are additions to that one House. We are being created in Christ part of the Divine Tabernacle, a pillar in the Temple of God (Revelation 3:12).

I go to prepare a place for you.

A place for us where? A place for us in the Father. A place for us in the Father's House. A place for us in Christ.

Where did the Lord Jesus go in order to prepare a place for us?

He went to Gethsemane and then to the cross. He descended into Hell and preached to the spirits in prison. Then He came back into His flesh in the cave of Joseph of Arimathea.

Christ ascended with His own blood to the Mercy Seat in Heaven, there to sprinkle the price of reconciliation to God upon the Mercy Seat and before the Mercy Seat. The blood of God's Lamb is the most important preparation of all.

Then He sat down on the right hand of the Father, waiting expectantly until His enemies have been made His footstool. As He sits at the right hand of the Father He is making intercession for us.

This is one of the principal ways in which He prepares a place for us—by making intercession for us.

A place must be prepared for us in God, and we also must be prepared if we are to dwell in God and God in us.

Why must we be prepared to dwell in God?

The experienced saint understands the reason well. First of all, we cannot even approach God because of the guilt of our sins.

After we have been forgiven, our personality still is chaotic. The sin and self-love that dominate all people have left us totally unfit to find rest in the Father and the Father in us.

Each of God's elect has been appointed a unique place in the Father, and a unique program has been designed to prepare a place for the individual saint.

This is a personal invitation. Christ has prepared a place in Himself for you, dear reader. That place has been prepared for you, and you alone. It is never for two people at a time.

The Gospel net is let down and then pulled in. Many are called as the good news of the Kingdom of God is announced.

To be continued.