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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Inner Kingdom, #4
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21)
The essential aspect of the Kingdom of God is in the individual. The churches of our own day emphasize an external salvation by stressing the ascension ("rapture") of the saints. The churches of Laodicea will emphasize an external salvation by stressing group activity and human welfare.
The Kingdom of God indeed does have an external dimension and it will be revealed throughout all the earth. Also, group activities and human welfare do have a place in the Kingdom of God. God is concerned that people live together in love and harmony and that the needs and desires of the individual are satisfied.
But the most important dimension of the Kingdom of God is the establishing of Christ in the individual. The Kingdom of God does not come by observation but grows in us. When we can say, "It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me," then we have become part of the Kingdom, the rule of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ will be revealed to the world. But before Christ is revealed to the world He will be revealed in His saints (John 14:18-23). As soon as we begin to dine with the Lord in the Most Holy Place in us, our Christian life takes on a different character.
Prior to the forming of Christ in us and the entering of Christ through the Spirit into our transformed inner man, our Christian discipleship consists largely of a daily battle against the world, Satan, and our own lusts and self-will. In the Laodicean age, only the most determined individuals will be willing to forsake the abundance of pleasure and ease that so readily will be available to them and give themselves wholly to seeking the Lord.
The battle, the struggle against the pleasures of the world, goes on seemingly without end. But one day the Lord comes. Because the saint has been holding himself in readiness he can hear the voice of the Lord. He opens the door of his heart and the Lord enters.
The battles continue. The trials of faith may become more demanding than ever. But there is a difference. The Christian pilgrimage changes from a seemingly hopeless, blind effort to obey the Scriptures into a romance. Now the Song of Solomon begins to take on increased significance.
This does not mean the battles are over, that there are no more temptations, that the flesh must not be subdued constantly. But when our eyes are opened to the indwelling of the Lord and we begin to gain a glimpse of our destination, our discipleship becomes more joyful, more certain of ultimate victory and fulfillment. The passages of Scripture concerning crucifixion of self and denying the flesh that used to be so irksome are now accepted as the means by which we shall come to exceedingly great glory.
The typical Laodicean believer, possessing an abundance of material wealth, can enter the Kingdom of God only with the greatest difficulty. Material wealth, with its emphasis on the visible, physical world, blinds us to the desirability of the invisible Kingdom of God.
To be continued.