Each one of us has his own mark, a mark given from the beginning of the world. We shall be eternally joyous and fulfilled only as we find our predestined place in the Kingdom of God, whether it is a highly exalted role or one of far less preeminence. Neither personal ambition nor sluggishness are permitted in the Kingdom.

If we cannot cheerfully clean up behind the horses in the royal parade we will never have a place in the front chariot.

Predestination is not inevitability. If we do not diligently use the Kingdom talents we have been given, whether ten, or five, or one, what we have been given will be removed from us and entrusted to another, and we shall be thrown into the outer darkness. This is what God has stated clearly.

So we set aside all else, forgetting the past, and press forward toward that which God has set before us as an individual. Let as many as are perfect be thus minded, for this is the mind of the lowly Jesus.

The sum of what we are saying is that we must serve the Lord with utmost diligence, for not all believers will be ready to be raised from the dead and to ascend to meet the Lord in the air. The church will be divided temporarily into a militant remnant and then the remainder of the Bride.

The Four Aspects of the Divine Decree

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (Genesis 1:27,28)

When the Lord God created man He made four decrees:

Man is to be in the image of God.

Man is to be male and female.

Man is to be fruitful.

Man is to have dominion over the other creatures.

Such is God's eternal will concerning mankind.

There are to be two fulfillments of the Divine edict. The first fulfillment to a great extent is somewhat animal in nature. The second is of the Divine Life of God.

To the present hour, the only man that ever lived on the earth in the eternal fulfillment of the proclamation concerning the image of God is the Lord Jesus Christ.

As far as male and female are concerned, whether some form of gender will persist into the new world remains to be seen. However we do know we are to be one in Christ in God. This is a true and eternal expression of male and female. Such union can never be true of angels for they were not created in half as we have been. Angels do not need another person to complete them.

We have been called to bear the fruit of the moral image of Christ in ourselves and then in other people.

Our dominion, the fourth aspect of the Divine decree, has been extended to cover all of the works of God's hands.

To be continued.