Our minds are transformed as we meditate in the Scriptures and as the Lord keeps on sending us Divine guidance and help. The Glory of the Lord is revealed to us in many different ways.

The Holy Spirit reveals our sins to us and removes them from us as we confess them and forsake them.

The Spirit leads us into the suffering of Christ. As we endure the humility, the thirst, the pain of the cross, our self-will is broken and the Lord Jesus ascends the throne of our heart.

Christ has been born in us through the Spirit, and through the Spirit is being brought to maturity in us. Also, the Father and the Son come through the Spirit and dwell in the new inner man who is being formed in us.

We are being changed into Christ's image from glory to glory, command upon command, rule upon rule. We are being changed eternally and are being brought into eternally inseparable union with Christ and the Father. There is a new creation. God is making us new so that our entire personality is of Himself.

These are the means through which we are made fit to enter through the gates into the new Jerusalem.

There are no other means of making us fit for citizenship in the holy city—absolutely none!

A profession of correct doctrine does not make us fit to enter through the gates into the new Jerusalem. Dying and passing into the domain of bodiless spirits does not make us fit to enter in through the gates into the new Jerusalem.

Only those who do God's commandments have a right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city, and it is only through the Lord Jesus Christ that we can be changed from obeying sin and self to obeying God.

There is no Scripture that states we enter through the gates by grace, by mercy, by forgiveness, or by "faith" in the sense of a doctrinal position of belief. Although it is believed commonly that we shall enter the Kingdom of God by grace, there is no Scripture to support this notion. We enter the Kingdom of God by being born again, by being transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

If we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven (into Heaven as it is put commonly but unscripturally) only by being changed to the point where we are walking in righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God, where and when does such conversion to righteous behavior take place? For it is obvious many churches are not striving mightily to achieve righteous conduct. Rather, the emphasis is on being saved by "grace."

It is clear we must be transformed by the Lord before we are eligible to receive the Glory of the Lord.

Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest [pledge] of the Spirit. (II Corinthians 5:5)

"He that hath wrought us."

God is preparing us now so we will be in a position to inherit His Glory.

To be continued.