The Day of New Beginnings

Two Realms

 

It is God’s purpose to make us increasingly aware of the two different realms in us and around us. One realm is set against the other and the conflict is becoming more intense. There was a time when it seemed these realms co-existed in relative peace without too much furor. These realms embrace both the old nature within and the divine nature of God’s world. The Lord wants to work in us to establish His realm, His world, and to bring us out of the realm of Darkness. It is of great necessity to see that we are to be of a different world. We are to be a new race of people inhabiting another plane of existence than those around us. This is a difficult transition because the enemy wars against us, from within and without, frustrating our efforts and attempting to keep us bound to a realm that produces nothing but futility and death. Satan also knows that it is his judgment when a people come forth functioning in the Life realm of their Father.
 
1Jo 2:16* For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
 
1Jo 5:19* We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
 
Col 1:13* For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son…
 
To function in God’s realm necessitates a change of nature. That is why we go through the work of the cross, to see the old nature crucified and His nature created within us. This doesn’t happen all at once. We learn to open our hearts and appropriate both His death and His life. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life  (Rom. 6:4). This passage of Scripture must be something we experience, not something we assume because we have accepted Christ as our Savior.
 
The battle from within is set off by our appropriation of Christ’s nature. We have an antichrist, fallen Adamic nature, born of Satan, which opposes everything of God. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
  in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Eph.2).
 
As Christ’s nature is established within, we discover a different battle set against us. This is the war from without. It originates outside of us, and its purpose is to destroy any manifestation of Jesus Christ in the earth. Satan is not that concerned about millions accepting Christ as their Savior, as long as they remain in an infant stage. But he is very concerned about a people growing into maturity, becoming a channel for the divine nature to be manifested in the earth. This is what he opposed the first time Christ came. Satan stirred the Jews at Christ’s first coming in order to cut off the Divine Nature from reproducing (spiritually speaking) in his domain (1st Cor. 2:8). But Satan could not perceive the wisdom of God in the cross, the means by which the Father brings many sons to glory.
 
This is the battle at the present time. Jesus Christ is to be manifested in His body, His nature is to come forth in a people in such a way that, among other things, executes Satan’s judgment. (Rom.16:20).
 
John 15:
18* ¶ "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
 19* "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
 20* "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
 21* "But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
 22* "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
 23 "He who hates Me hates My Father also.
 24 "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.
25* "But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, 'THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.'
 26* ¶ "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,
 27 and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
 
There is a hatred generated out of the world toward the Lord Jesus Christ. The world cannot hate us apart from the manifestation of the Lord in us. In Jesus Christ is the realm of the Kingdom of God. His nature fills that realm. As we come forth mature in Christ, with His nature being formed in us, we discover a relentless battle to impede our spiritual progress. As stated earlier, its not initial salvation that Satan is concerned about, its mature sons coming forth bearing the nature of their Father. The attempt to cut off Christ when He was but a baby is an example of this (Mat. 2:1-16). Satan wanted to kill Jesus before He ever came to sonship at the Jordan River (Luke 3:22). 
 
As we read carefully the above passages in John 15, one common theme emerges. The hatred generated from the “world realm” toward Jesus Christ is not just against Him, per se, but against the Father-Son relationship. It is the Father-Son relationship that reproduces the divine nature in the earth. Jesus makes it clear in these passages that he who hates the Son hates the Father as well. Satan hates the coming forth of sons in Christ’s likeness. This is why where ever there is the Fathering ministry of Christ operating in His body, there is satanic resistance.
 
There is only one way the “world realm” of Satan is destroyed. “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith (1st John 5:4). “Whatever is born of God…” What does it mean to be born of God? Contrary to fundamental Christianity, being born of God means a lot more than just accepting Jesus as our Savior. Being born again is not something that happens instantaneously when we accept Christ. It is the beginning of a birth process. We come alive to God in our spirits at the point of accepting Christ, but His nature is not operating in our lives. We have not overcome the world at the point of accepting Jesus. To be born of God is to grow into His nature, it is having His life reproduced in us. Jesus was the first born of many brethren. As His life and nature are reproduced in a people, then collectively they overcome the world. The overcoming on a collective level means the destruction of the “world realm” entirely. It’s more than just having victory over the world realm, it is seeing God’s judgment upon it.