Growth in our union with God through Christ takes place as we learn to look to God's will for every aspect of life, every decision, every detail. It takes a great deal of patient exercise, a continual cooperating with the Spirit of God, until we flow peacefully with the flowings of the Godhead. This is the rest of God and brings a peace that is well worth pursuing.

God is able to rest in us as we learn to rest in God.

It appears that the vast majority of the Lord's people are at the imputation level. They may have gained a smattering of knowledge of God and His ways but the massive work of converting them to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God has not been their experience as yet.

The Scriptures are crystal clear that there indeed shall be a Bride without blemish of any kind, a personage as terrible as an army with banners, a fully mature Body and Bride of the Lamb. There indeed shall be a holy city, a new Jerusalem, and the nations of the earth will glorify God when they see righteousness and praise streaming endlessly from the city of God. Every pot in the Lord's house shall be holiness unto the Lord.

But we know that such glory is not by imputation. If it were, then there would be no new creation, no Kingdom of God. In that case the army of the Lord would be filled with backbiting, gossip, slander, fear, fornication, pride, lying, witchcraft, jealousy, self-seeking, presumption, arrogance, and all the other characteristics of the Christian churches. The soldiers would be marching in great Divine glory and anointed with the Spirit of God but they themselves would be unchanged.

Some Bride this would be! Some holy city! Some army with banners! Some royal priesthood! Some brothers of Jesus! Some judges of men and angels! Some eternal tabernacle of God!

I would rather go live in the woods somewhere with my family than to have anything to do with a city full of people at the imputation level of salvation. Who knows? Maybe Jesus Christ feels the same way.

We think transformation will come to all of God's people and eventually to the saved nations of the earth.

We think that transformation will begin with a remnant of Jews and Gentiles, and that they, having a double portion of God's Presence, will nourish the remainder of the household of God.

When all of God's Church has been transformed the Law will go forth from Zion (the Lord's warrior remnant, the camp [fortress] of the saints) and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, from the beloved city.

The saved nations will come up to Jerusalem to be discipled by the Law and the Word. They will return, beat their weapons into implements of construction and fruitfulness, and live in justice, peace, and security.

The Lord has promised to gently lead those who are with young, that is, those of us who carry the immature and the weak until they are strong enough to walk on the highway of holiness, the only street of the new Jerusalem.

How about you? Are you ready to press forward in the program of transformation?

"So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth." (Hosea 6:3—NASB)

(from Imputation and Transformation)