Fight the Battle for the Kingdom of God, the Spreading of Christ as Life in Believers

As believers in Christ, we today fight the battle for the kingdom of God, for the spreading of Christ as life in the believers, for Satan attacks and frustrates the building work of God.

The kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life into His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life; Satan is fighting against God’s spreading but we proclaim the kingdom of God for the propagation of the resurrected Christ. Amen!

This week, the last week on the first part of, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ, we have been enjoying three main nuggets in the book of Acts.

First, we saw the matter of the Divine Trinity as the framework of the New Testament and the structure of the book of Acts.

The book of Acts seems to be about the spreading of the gospel and the setting up of local churches, with many missionary trips by Paul and his co-workers.

What this book shows us is the propagation of the resurrected Christ as the gospel through the disciples for the establishing of the local churches as the kingdom of God on the earth.

The structure of this book is the Divine Trinity, for everywhere we see the Triune God dispensing Himself and propagating Himself through the disciples to gain a kingdom for Himself, the churches as the kingdom of God.

The second nugget in Acts is the Spirit of Jesus; this specific mention of the Spirit has to do with the leading and guiding of the apostles in their gospel journey.

The apostles were not led merely by the Holy Spirit, who had much to do with Christ’s incarnation, but even more, they were constituted with the Spirit of Jesus.

In their suffering and persecution, they were bountifully supplied by the Spirit of Jesus so that they would preach the gospel for the propagation of Christ.

In particular, the apostles were limited and interdicted by the Spirit of Jesus. Just as Jesus was on the earth, so they were in their ministry – limited, confined, and restricted, but always being inwardly supplied with the Spirit as the bountiful supply.

The third nugget in the book of Acts is the kingdom of God.

From the beginning of this book, where we see the Lord Jesus remaining with His disciples for forty days to speak to things concerning the kingdom of God, to the last verses of the book where Paul taught concerning the kingdom of God, we see this kingdom spoken of everywhere.

The main subject of the apostles’ preaching was the kingdom of God, and the result of this preaching was that the churches were established to be the kingdom of God on earth.

The resurrected Christ propagates Himself in His ascension by the Spirit through the disciples to produce the churches as the reality of the kingdom of God. Hallelujah!

The Kingdom of God is the Spreading of Christ as Life into His Believers to Form a Realm in which God Rules in His life

What is the kingdom of God? It is not just the rule of God but even more, it is the realm of the divine life, the realm of God’s life and God’s species.

The kingdom of God is the wonderful Person of Christ who spreads Himself in man.

The kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life into us, His believers, to form a realm in which God rules in His life.

In 2 Pet. 1:3-11 we see that the kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life with the result that there’s an outward development, the living of a God-man life with many wonderful virtues for the expression of God.

To enter the kingdom of God we need to be regenerated, and for this kingdom to develop in us, we need to grow in life.

Repentance and regeneration is the entrance to the kingdom of God.

In a sense, we simply need to call on the name of the Lord; in another sense, in a very practical sense, we need to repent, thoroughly repent, under the shining of the divine light exposing our sinfulness and fallen being, and we need to confess our sins so that our being may be open to the Lord for His life to come in.

We need to ask for the Lord’s forgiveness for our sins and accept the washing and cleansing of His precious blood.

To enter into the kingdom of God, people need to repent of their sins and believe in the gospel so that their sins may be forgiven and so that they may be regenerated by God to have the divine life, which matches the divine nature of this kingdom (Mark 1:15; John 3:3, 5).

When we confess our sins as a result of the Lord’s shining on us through the gospel, the Lord forgives us of our sins and He also forgets our sins.

We may still remember our sins and may try to repent for them again, but the Lord has forgiven them and has also forgotten them. Amen!

Today we as the kingdom people need to live in the church life and allow the Lord to grow in us, develop in us, and spread Himself in us.

The kingdom of God is the spreading of the Lord Jesus in our being. As we live in the church life today, we live in the kingdom of God, and this kingdom will develop into the coming kingdom as an inheritance reward (Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5) to the overcoming saints in the millennium.

Praise the Lord, today all the believers in Christ can share the kingdom in the church age for their enjoyment of God in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).

We all have been delivered by God from the kingdom of Satan and transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love (Col. 1:12-13).

He reigns over us in love and light; the realm is love, and the means is light.

As we live in the reality of the kingdom of God today by allowing the Lord to spread in us, we will be rewarded with the kingdom of God in its manifestation in the coming kingdom.

The kingdom of God will become the kingdom of Christ and of God for the overcoming believers to inherit and enjoy in the coming age so that they may reign with Christ for a thousand years (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:5; Rev. 20:4, 6). Amen!

May we be believers who personally and individually cooperate with the Lord today so that He as the sevenfold intensified Spirit would produce us as His overcomers.

May we give ourselves to the Lord today so that He would do in us whatever needs to be done, spread in us to the uttermost as the kingdom seed, and make us ready to be the overcoming saints at His return.

We want to be not only in the kingdom of God in a general sense in this age but even more, be the co-kings with Christ in the coming kingdom.

As the eternal kingdom, the kingdom of God will be an eternal blessing of God’s eternal life for all God’s redeemed people to enjoy in the new heaven and new earth for eternity (Rev. 21:1-4; 22:1-5, 14, 17).

For eternity we will enjoy the Lord; we will have this joy forever and ever. Our Triune God who is infinite, unlimited, all-inclusive, and universally rich, will be our enjoyment for eternity. Hallelujah!

The infinite Triune God is becoming our joy! What a wonderful God we have!

May we today allow the Lord to spread in us and saturate us with Himself as life, and may we cooperate with Him for His kingdom to come in us today so that, when He returns to rapture His overcomers, we will be ready to be raptured by Him to share in the kingdom of God and of Christ for one thousand years.

Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing us into the kingdom of God through repentance and regeneration. Thank You for shining on us to illuminate the glory of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Hallelujah, we are now in the kingdom of God, for we have repented, confessed our sins, and believed into the Lord Jesus to receive His life. Praise the Lord, we have our sins forgiven and we’re regenerated with the divine life which matches the divine nature of the kingdom of God! Amen, Lord, grow in us today. Spread in us as life. Gain a realm in us in which You can rule and reign in Your divine life. We want to share the kingdom in the church age for our enjoyment of God together with the saints! Hallelujah, in the church as the kingdom of God today we enjoy God in His righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit! Amen, Lord, we want to live in the reality of the kingdom today so that we may be rewarded with the manifestation of the kingdom in the coming age! Amen, Lord, we fully open to You. Do in us what You need to do in order to gain us and produce us as Your overcoming saints who will be raptured at Your return to share in the kingdom of God and of Christ!

Satan Fights against God’s Spreading of His Kingdom, so we Propagate Christ and Fight the Battle for God’s Kingdom!

On the positive side, the kingdom of God is the spreading of the Lord Jesus as life in the believers to gain a realm in which He rules and reigns by His divine life.

On the negative side, however, Satan is fighting against God’s spreading of His kingdom on earth (Acts 19).

Satan does not want to lose ground in man; he is fighting against the spreading of Christ in man.

We need to have a prevailing ministry for the propagation of Christ, and this ministry is a fighting, a battle, for God’s kingdom (vv. 23-41).

On the personal side, we believers in Christ enter into the kingdom of God through many tribulations and sufferings (Acts 14:22).

This is because the enemy fights with all his might through people, situations, and environments to frustrate the spread of God’s kingdom and the spread of Christ in us.

The whole world, which lies in the evil one, opposes our entering into the kingdom of God.

For us to enter into the kingdom of God is for us to enter into the full enjoyment of Christ as the kingdom.

We can all testify that, when we cooperate with the Lord for Christ to spread Himself in our being, the enemy rises up and many things happen in order to frustrate us.

Even more, when we try to preach the gospel or share the word of God with others, persecution rises up, the people around us rise up, and even our own family may persecute us or speak things against us.

Especially the saints who live in Europe realize that the enemy is intensifying his attacks against the saints and against the churches.

He hardens people’s hearts and rises up all kinds of persecution and frustrating things before the saints in order to stop the spreading of the kingdom of God.

Satan is fighting against God’s spreading of His kingdom on earth; on our side, we are fighting for the spreading of God’s kingdom on earth! Amen!

We stand with the Lord, we stand with the church, and we stand in the Body to have a prevailing ministry for the propagation of Christ, and our ministry is a fighting for God’s kingdom.

We are fighting under the authority of the victorious Christ and we’re seated with Him in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:6), looking down at the enemy in the air to declare Christ’s victory.

We stand on the victory of Christ, we proclaim His victory, and we stand in the Body to be prepared as the bride of Christ and trained as the army of God, being ready for the battle with the enemy. Praise the Lord!

And we are looking forward to the day that we will return with Christ as His armies standing with Him as the enemy is cast down and thrown into the abyss. Praise the Lord!

The enemy will be cast into the lake of fire, and the Triune God will marry His bride to live an eternal married life with the regenerated, transformed, and glorified man as the bride of Christ. Praise the Lord!

Until then, we proclaim the gospel.

The last verse of Acts 28 tells us that Paul proclaimed the kingdom of God to propagate the resurrected Christ (Acts 28:31).

This is proved by the words “teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ” which go together with “the kingdom of God.”

For us to teach the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ is for us to spread the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God, therefore, is the propagation of the resurrected Christ, a process that continues to be carried out through the believers today (v. 31).

We the believers in Christ are the continuation of the book of Acts; we continue to allow the Lord Jesus to spread in us as life to enlarge His kingdom in us, and we proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ as the gospel for the propagation of Christ today.

The book of Acts did not end yet; it was left open and we are continuing it, for the work of the Holy Spirit is continuing in each one of us and through each one of us, the believers in Christ.

Today we are one with the Lord to carry out an evangelistic work for Christ’s propagation, multiplication, and spread for the producing of the many sons of God (Rom. 8:29) that they might be the members of Christ to constitute His Body (12:5) for the carrying out of God’s eternal plan and the fulfilment of His eternal will.

This is what the Epistles reveal and the book of Revelation concludes with.

Praise the Lord, the God who was incarnated, lived a human life, died, and resurrected in the Gospels is now being spread through the many believers in Christ as the continuation and duplication of Christ for the bringing in of the kingdom of God!

All this is for the producing of the church as the kingdom of God in this age, so that God may have a realm in which He can rule in His divine life.

For eternity, the New Jerusalem will be God’s full expression and His eternal kingdom as the sphere in which He reigns in His divine life in eternity forever and ever.

This is the reality and goal of our gospel preaching today.

Lord Jesus, we stand with You on earth today for Your kingdom to come and spread. We want to continue in faith until You return, knowing that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God. Oh Lord, even as the whole world opposes our entering into God’s kingdom, we want to enter into the full enjoyment of Christ as the kingdom! Amen, Lord, may we have the prevailing ministry for the propagation of Christ by fighting the battle for God’s kingdom on the earth today! Your kingdom come! May Christ spread in all the saints! We stand one with You, Lord Jesus, to proclaim the kingdom of God and propagate the resurrected Christ! We want to teach others the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ so that the kingdom of God may spread and be established in them. Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to propagate the resurrected Christ as the gospel so that God may gain a kingdom on the earth, the church in this age consummating in the New Jerusalem!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Acts, msgs. 55 and 69, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (2024 July Semiannual Training), week 12, The Divine Trinity, the Spirit of Jesus, and the Kingdom of God.
• Similar articles on this topic:
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  – The word of righteousness – the kingdom of the heavens, article via, Affirmation and Critique.
  – Message 2: The World Situation in Relation to God’s Move on Earth (2), video message via, LSM Youtube.
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• Hymns on this topic:
  – We must repent for the kingdom’s at hand; / All that we do, think, or feel, or have planned / Must be abandoned and changed in our mind; / Leave all the world and self-seeking behind. / But now the kingdom to us has been shown, / It is no less than our Jesus alone. / It is the Person of Christ in us all, / And it begins as a seed when we call. (Hymns #1301 stanzas 2 and 4)
  – The Church’s seed is nought but Christ Himself / Sown into human hearts as life, thereby / Growing as wheat, producing flour fine / For bread both God and man to satisfy… / Cause us to grow in life divine each day / That we may be transformed and built by Thee / Into a body to express Thyself, / That Thou in us Thy Church and Kingdom see. (Hymns #829 stanzas 1 and 9)
  – Come let us speak till the kingdom of the Lord comes down. / Yes, let us speak till the kingdom of the Lord comes down. / Why hold your peace? / The Word release. / Let us speak until the kingdom of the Lord comes down. (Hymns #1294 stanza 1)