When the kingdom of God is able to assert its authority over a company of believers, those believers can be built up into the church (see Col. 1:13; 2:19; Eph. 4:15-16). How wonderful it is to be in the kingdom of God!
However, many believers and unbelievers alike have been lied to by the enemy concerning the kingdom of God; they think that God’s kingdom is His authority and rule to “crush them”, and God is there with a “whip” ready to strike them when they do something bad.
The only person in the universe that is actually afraid of God’s kingdom is Satan; we all as human beings are meant to be regenerated with the divine life to enter into the kingdom of God so that we may enjoy God, be under His pleasant rule, and be one with God.
The church today is the kingdom of the Son of God’s love; by believing into Christ, we were transferred out of the authority of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love (Col. 1:12-13). Here we enjoy God as life, love, and light, and we are ruled by God simply by our enjoying Him, receiving His shining, and being cherished by Him.
The kingdom of God is actually the realm of the divine life; no one can see the kingdom of God unless he’s born anew, unless he is born of God with His divine life (see John 3:3-6). God’s reigning over us in His kingdom is not an outward matter but a matter of the innate ability of the divine life.
When we are regenerated by God with His divine life, we enter the kingdom of God, and our revived spirit has a sense of life, knowing the kingdom of God and giving us certain feelings concerning things, situations, and persons. As long as we live by the sense of life in our spirit, we live in the kingdom of God in a practical way.
May the Lord have mercy on us and change our concept concerning the kingdom of God so that we may realize that this kingdom is a realm we enter into by regeneration, we sense by our mingled spirit, and we practice to live in by living according to the sense of the divine life within.
The Church is the Kingdom of the Son of God’s Love: a Pleasant and Delightful Place!
We need to give thanks to the Father, who has qualified us for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light and has delivered us out of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Col. 1:12-13). Hallelujah!
We were once in darkness but are now in the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, which is the church today. The church as the kingdom of God is the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, and this is a most pleasant and delightful place where we are ruled by God’s life, His light, and His love.
On the one hand we have been delivered from darkness and brought under the authority of God, and on the other hand God rules in us with His love, life, and light.
Here, under the heavenly ruling and restriction, we have genuine freedom! In the kingdom of the Son of God’s love we have the proper freedom in love, with life, and under the divine light.
Christ rules in us and over us not in an outward way but inwardly by cherishing us, nourishing us, feeding us, and caring for us – this is why He commanded through Paul that husbands love their wives even as Christ loved the church (see Eph. 5:23-25).
Under the Lord’s ruling there’s cherishing and nourishing; there’s authority here, but the light is shining with love, it subdues us, and we love being here in the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. What a pleasant atmosphere we live in today in the church life: so full of life and light and enjoyment, under the Lord’s ruling through His cherishing and nourishing!
Thank You Father for delivering us out of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of the Son of Your love. What a pleasant and delightful place we are in right now: the church life is full of God’s ruling through life, light, and love. Lord, thank You for bringing us into real freedom: out of darkness and in love, with life, and under light! Praise You, Lord, here there’s no opinion or division but only the enjoyment of Christ in the church life! Praise the Lord!
Living in the Kingdom of God as the Realm of the Divine Life by the Sense of Life
The kingdom of God is not only the reign of God but also the realm of the divine life, a realm that requires the divine life (see John 3:3-6, 15). In order for us to get into the kingdom of God we need to be born anew, born again, born from above, born of the Spirit.
We cannot see the kingdom of God by thinking about it or understanding it but by being born into it. We are part of the human kingdom by our first birth, and we become part of the divine kingdom by our divine birth. The kingdom of God is the realm of the divine species; here we have God with His divine life, and through being born again we and God are of the same species!
A species, in a general sense, is several living beings that share the same characteristics and features and can be designated by the same name. All genuine believers in Christ have the same life and nature as God; we are born of God, He is God in the Godhead, and we are part of the divine species by nature!
God is truly and actually our Father: we have been born of God the Father, and we are the same as God in life, nature, constitution, appearance, and expression, but not in the Godhead or as an object of worship. Hallelujah! And in actuality, God’s reigning over us in His kingdom is not something outward but something inward: it is the innate ability of the divine life we received through regeneration (Rom. 8:2).
The kingdom of God is an organism constituted with the life of God as the realm of life for God’s ruling; in His kingdom God reigns by His life and He expresses Himself in the divine life (see John 3:5; 15:1-8, 16, 26).
There’s only one unique way that man can enter into God’s kingdom: by receiving God in Christ as life and thus gaining God Himself through regeneration (1 John 5:11-12).
Once we are regenerated by God through believing into Christ, we are born into the kingdom of God, and the divine life in our regenerated spirit knows the kingdom of God. Our flesh is against God and His kingdom, our soul-life wants to live for itself, but the divine life in our spirit knows the kingdom of God, honors it, respects it, and is one with it.
Day by day we live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine life by the sense of life in our spirit (see Rom. 8:6). We daily need to enjoy the Lord and develop the sense of life within us so that we can live in the kingdom of God in a practical way.
God’s life is the highest life, higher than our human life; this life has a sense, the keenest and highest sense. The divine life in our regenerated spirit not only knows the kingdom of God but also causes us to have a sense, a feeling, concerning the Christ in whom the life is, and this sense lets us know where we are at any given time.
We need to allow the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit to operate, and we need to live in the law of the Spirit of life. This innate sense of life requires us to live in spirit and by the spirit, and when we live by the sense of life we will exercise to set our mind on the spirit so that we may live one spirit with the Lord. This is to live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine life.
Lord, cause us to see, know, and live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine life. Thank You for bringing us into Your kingdom through regeneration. Hallelujah, we are now in the realm of the divine species, and we are the same as God in life, nature, expression, and constitution, but NOT in the Godhead! Lord, thank You for the divine life in our spirit; we want to set our mind on our spirit so that we may live one spirit with You. May we be those who live by the sense of the divine life within so that we may live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Kingdom and the Church, chs. 1-3 (by bro. Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 11 / msg 11, A Portrait of the Kingdom of God,
- Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
# Born of my father, descended from Adam, / A life in my flesh is God’s enemy. / I have inherited God’s condemnation, / Death and sin were reigning in me. / But love eternal appeared and He called me, / Out from the lost and hopeless race. / Into His Son now I have been transferred, / Born of the Spirit, into His grace. (Song on being transferred into Christ)
# ’Tis by His reign within our hearts / That life to us He e’er supplies; / When taking Him as Lord and King, / His wealth our being satisfies. (Hymns #942)
# There is a certain sense of life / With life of every kind; / And in th’ eternal life in us / It is a sense divine… / ’Tis by this sense that God we know, / The sense of inner life; / ’Tis pow’rful and spontaneous, / And not of any strife. (Hymns #738)
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The kingdom of God is an organism constituted with His divine life, and this kingdom becomes the realm of life for His ruling. He reigns in it by His divine life and expresses Himself in His divine life. It began with the Old Testament saints and is realized in the church in this age. It will be completed in the New Jerusalem in the millennium and ultimately consummated in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. (Witness Lee, Truth Lessons—Level One, vol. 2, p. 171)