Saved by the graciousness of God. We find eternal salvation only by His grace and not by any works of our own righteousness. Only His righteousness can save us. God is complete and holy and His ways forever right. In order to attain the fulfillment of His righteousness in us, we must fully desire to be as He is…not as He was…or is going to be…but as He is. He is forever the same. He always has been and always will be.

What is righteousness? Righteousness is the complete observance and doing of all the commandments of God. Sounds easy doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled. It takes the indwelling and empowerment of God to achieve righteousness before God. You cannot do it yourself. The physical man who became enslaved to his fleshly desires and stumbled at God’s commandment in the Garden of Eden is forever resident in all humanity and always will be. It was God’s intention that all men would be as He is. Satan tempted Adam and Eve with the deception that they would be as gods when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How ironic… They already ruled the earth as gods. The dominion of all creation had been given to them. The great and almighty God personally communed with them. They lived unencumbered in innocence. What they desired to obtain in disobedience was already theirs. Although created in the likeness and image of God, they lacked the indwelling of the Spirit of God that it took to have the power not to succumb to temptation. They were free to eat of the tree of life and if they had partook of the tree, they would have in essence become keepers of the way, ruling with God in the heavenly and spiritual as well as all the earth. That would have endeared them to God as true and faithful sons. They and all their children would have rightly inherited all that was God’s…All power in heaven and in earth and the completeness of His righteousness. The way of the tree of life is God’s way…sinless…life eternal. The soul that sins will surely die the spiritual death. The spiritual world cannot be viewed through carnal eyes. God is spirit When a man becomes one with God, he no longer views life through his fleshly carnal nature but sees all things as God… through the spirit. The eyes of the heart become opened.

Jesus… born of the spirit…the second man Adam, was faced with the same temptations. After fasting without food for forty days in the wilderness, he too was tempted as Adam and Eve. Satan approached him in his hunger and weakness, "If you are the Son of God command this stone that it be made bread." Jesus answered him saying, "It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." Then the devil took Jesus up to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. The devil then tempted him again saying, "All this power I will give you and all the glory of these kingdoms...for it is delivered unto me and I have the power to give it to whosoever I will it to.

Jesus answered and said unto him, "Get thee behind me Satan: for it is written, thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve." Satan then brought Jesus to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said unto him, "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus answered him, "It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Is it any wonder God called Him His beloved Son? He was one with His Father, called by His name. The wishes of His Father were His wishes. He saw all things through the spiritual eyes of His Father. He fully understood that the responsibility of the keeping of the way of the tree of life was His. He was the express image of God manifested in the flesh. He and the one true God were one. God came into the world in the form of a man. The world finally saw God in a physical form. 1Timothy 3:16 "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." God was received up into glory ascending to the throne bringing all power unto Himself.

Many have still not seen the light on this subject. They will not accept the absolute oneness of God in Christ. It is because they try to understand this truth through fleshly eyes. Jesus the firstborn and all them that have and will follow after must fully die to the flesh. The old man is put to death and we are recreated in the image of God. As the man Jesus Christ was one with God…we are to be also. The greatest error is to physically try to mirror God through the devices of the flesh. It is not possible. The doctrine of a Triune Godhead was not the doctrine of the first church. The apostles and the first church fully understood that God, the Son, and the Spirit were one. They knew that to walk in the power and might of God it was imperative not to just know of God, but a person must be in God and as God. The inability to completely die to the old man inspired the doctrine of the Trinity. Persons believing such cannot see Jesus Christ and God as one anymore than they can see themselves and God as one. There is no glory due the man that is completely lost in God. All the glory is His. The man then does not exist any longer. He may physically be in this world but he will not be of the world. To not believe in the oneness of the Father, the Son and God’s Spirit is completely antichrist*. The Jews crucified Christ because they could not see this great truth. It is not so much that they hated the fact that He professed that He was God and thought Him to be blasphemous…it was His message of the Kingdom of God and total surrender to Him and death to the flesh that brought their condemnation on Him. They lived to the letter of the law but it had become a form of vanity. They prided themselves in something that could not save them from themselves and their fleshliness. They sought the judgement of the law but did not seek the Lawgiver. The letter of the law could only bring condemnation. They condemned the Christ because they themselves were condemned. The whole of the law was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He yielded not only to the commandment of physical circumcision but also yielded to the circumcision of the heart and the law was then not just read and understood but it became alive within His heart and soul and His actions. The Word of God and His commandments became flesh and dwelt among people in the form of the obedience of Jesus Christ.

II Corinthians 3 ¹Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? ²Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: ³Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. ⁴And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: ⁵Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; ⁶Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. ⁷But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: ⁸How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? ⁹For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. ¹⁰For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. ¹¹For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. ¹²Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: ¹³And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: ¹⁴But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. ¹⁵But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. ¹⁶Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. ¹⁷Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

II Corinthians 4 ¹Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; ²But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. ³But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: ⁴In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. ⁵For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. ⁶For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. ⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit…Church ponder this. Let it sink in. This is the secret of the Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom is not a futuristic event. God was…is, and always will be King. He was Adam’s king until sin blinded the heart of man through Adam’s lack of servitude to his king. Anarchy reigned from then until the complete dominance of God was made flesh in the person of the man, Christ Jesus. The Church of the living God rules this earth as kings and priests, not in their own power but in His… not in their own righteousness but in His. Christ is our head…we are His body. He is ruling till all things are put beneath His feet. God has always ruled the heavens and the earth. It is the world that He is bringing into subjection. Any and all things which are not subject unto or mirroring His image and likeness will be destroyed from the face of the earth. The world was created by God’s creation…mankind. It is temporal, as is man. The earth is forever. Man was set here to govern the earth but primarily the earth is subject unto God. It will live forever as God does. Though the world may wreak havoc upon the earth through greed, vanities and the quest of the godliness of self…it cannot completely destroy it. It is completely regenerative through the processes set forth by the creator of the earth. The earth praises God and shines forth His glory. We who were created through the dust of the earth, now living through the breath of life have an even more glorious inheritance. The earth is governed by God…but cannot be as God. The redeemed are those who desire to be as God…not be God…but as Him…full of His Spirit…His wisdom…His humbleness…His faith…His beauty. Nowhere in the Word did God ever remove the righteous and leave the wicked. It is entirely unbiblical to believe that God will take the saints out of this world before the sinner. At God's chosen time this carnal world will cease to exist. One day He will awaken the dead in Christ and they shall rise first. At that time the righteous and the sinner will all be judged together and our eternal destinies determined by the judgment of God according to His Word. Then we which are alive and remain shall also be caught up together in the clouds with the risen dead in Christ and will meet the Lord in the air and will be with Him forever. He will keep you till the end of the world. He will keep you till all unrighteousness will be removed from the earth. To believe otherwise is Anti-Christ and suggests that God is not the King of all things. Adam did not believe that God was all power and look where his belief left him. We are hid in Him. We do not fear as God performs His will on earth. In fact we pray for it as Jesus taught us to do in the Lord’s prayer. Famine will never destroy the Church of the Living God. Earthquakes, floods, wars, nuclear holocausts, persecutions, tribulations, sicknesses, rejection cannot destroy the Church of the living God. As with Samson we are destined to destroy the Philistines, the ones that bow to the gods of the flesh and will not serve the Living God. Through Christ we have already overcome All things. To even die for His cause is great also. When we ascended with Him through our death to ourselves we became eternally alive in God throughout our life on earth and whatever follows after our death. We are not armed in this spiritual battle with guns and missiles. The Word of God is our weapon. It is even more powerful than His Name. We are armed with His likeness. The likeness shed forth when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. Our lives are hidden in Christ as His life was hidden in the oracles of the Word of God that day which became flesh and dwelt among us. The teachings He revealed that day on the Mount are the true principles of the Kingdom of God. Don’t waste your time waiting for a mansion in some city in the sky. Don’t be anticipating grandma’s fresh biscuits every morning before you head to the throne. Don’t anticipate being physically surrounded by all the beautiful jewels we long for to acquire wealth on this earth. Anticipate a relationship with the Creator of all things. Hidden in Him is so rich I know John, the revelator, reached as far as he could in the physical realm to relate to humanity what God showed Him. The Kingdom of Heaven is not meat and drink…it is not physical. Do not reduce the wonder of God for what Adam chose. Contrary to satan's deception you will never be your own god…you must find yourself in God.