What, then, should we be expecting from God?

The order is as follows:

First, we are to be saved. We are to receive Christ, repent of our worldliness and fleshly lusts, be baptized in water, and then the Divine Seed is to be conceived in us.

Next, we are to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us the wisdom and power to overcome sin and also assigns gifts to us for our profit, for the building of the Body of Christ.

Then the Lord Jesus comes to us in the Spirit and brings to light the hidden darkness of our personality. We are baptized with the fire of Divine Judgment of which John the Baptist spoke.

Finally the Father and the Son enter us and make Their abode with us.

The entrance of the Father and the Son into us marks the completion of our redemption, the establishing in us of the inner dimension of the Kingdom of God. The Day Star, Christ, has risen in our heart. The Throne of God and of the Lamb has been created in us. We have experienced the personal kingdom age, the personal day of the Lord.

Now we are ready for the manifestation stage, the outer dimension, of the Kingdom of God. Now we are ready to serve as kings and priests over the nations of the earth.

Now the Lord Jesus Christ can be manifested to the nations of the earth. His manifestation is not possible until His Body is ready to be manifested.

We see, therefore, that the second coming of the Lord, the return of Christ to the earth, is not only a coming but also a manifestation to the nations of the earth of that which already has occurred in His people.

The Lord Jesus is here now and is working powerfully in the hearts of the victorious saints. By the Spirit, Jesus is guiding each believer through the various stages of transformation and reconciliation until complete, restful union with God is possible. He is here now. He is with us now.

The concept that Jesus is a trillion light years away and suddenly he will appear in the clouds and whisk away a surprised Church is destructive. It is destructive because it turns the attention of the saints away from the supremely important establishing of the inner kingdom, the inner day of the Lord.

The coming of the Lord will not catch the victorious saint by surprise.

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. (I Thessalonians 5:4)

If Christ already has manifested Himself to us, has come to us, how then will His outward manifestation catch us by surprise?

Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. (John 14:19)

We live by the Life of Jesus. How can we be taken by surprise?

It is the wicked who will be taken by surprise.

Any Christian who would be caught by surprise by the coming of the Lord is not nearly ready to be manifested together with Him. That person has been living by the light of the world, not by the light of Christ.

To be continued.