We can choose to yield to Adam or we can choose to pray. If we choose to pray Christ feeds us with His body and blood until the flames of Adam are totally quenched and God's peace once again reigns over our personality.

As Christ feeds us with His Body and blood He is formed in us and we are married to the Lamb. We see therefore that believing God spoke to us this commandment concerning the proper response to persecution is of no benefit until we go to God for help in actually doing what God said. It is in our obedience to the commandment that Christ is formed in us, not just believing God said it but faithfully doing what has been commanded.

The Christian salvation is moral transformation. Our personality is not transformed so it can go to Heaven but so it will be acceptable to God in His Kingdom. It matters not whether we are in Heaven, on the earth, or someplace else. It is acceptability to God (the definition of "righteousness") that is salvation. Salvation has nothing to do with living in Heaven but is directed toward fellowship with God.

What you and I believe is of significance only as our belief leads us to continual interaction with the living Jesus. If our beliefs do not lead us to continual interaction with the living Jesus they are of no value whatever, even though they may be absolutely accurate.

To possess the manual is not the new covenant. To believe what the manual says is true is not the new covenant. To memorize the manual is not the new covenant. The new covenant is the forming of Christ, the Word of God, in our mind so we comprehend the will of God and in our heart so we love the will of God and perform it.

We are not to call Jesus, "Lord, Lord" and then not do what He says. To know what Christ has commanded, to believe the commandments given by Christ and His Apostles came from God, will save no one. It is only as we actually do what Christ and His Apostles commanded, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount and ending with the need for overcoming sin expressed in the Book of Revelation, that we are building our house on the rock.

God will never dwell in any human being. God dwelled in none of the patriarchs or prophets of the Old Testament in the same manner in which He dwells in the true Christian. This is why he who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than any of the prophets.

God will dwell only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the Father's House. It is only as Christ is formed in us that God dwells in us, for Christ is the eternal Throne of God. The more of Christ that is formed in us the more of God we can experience, because God dwells in Christ and only in Christ.

Christ is the Rest of God. Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. Christ is our joy, our strength, our life, our wisdom, our song. It is God's will that Christ be all in all to us. This is what it means to be born again.

To be continued.