A Place In the Wilderness

4 The Coming End of the Age

thing as loss that he might gain Christ. Paul did not care for anything, whether good or bad, except Christ alone.

This inward life process consummates when we, the believers, reach maturity. This is to enter into the full, divine sonship as God’s children. Though we believers have been born again as children of God, we must mature to become full-grown sons of God. This occurs when Christ has been fully formed in us, and when we, in turn, have been fully conformed to the image of God’s Son. This process culminates in the transfiguration of our bodies, which is our glorification. At that time, through the operation of God’s life-power within us, our bodies will be instantaneously changed that we might be fully like Christ in every way.

The Requirement of the Divine Life

Matthew 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.

The Lord’s return is altogether dependent upon the believers’ growth in the divine life. In Matthew 13 the Lord makes this requirement absolutely clear. For the harvest to be ripe, the crop must grow unto maturity. It is this growth in His life that the Lord is desiring and expecting to see.

It is not miracles, works of power, knowledge, or good behav- ior that accomplishes the Lord’s desire for our spiritual maturity. Growth in life is not even affected by the Spirit of God as

Consider, for example, the Old Testament picture of Samson. He was a man upon whom the Spirit of God came in power. In human history there may not have been another person who performed such feats of physical prowess. Yet, though the Spirit of God was upon Samson, his life was particularly sinful. He repeatedly indulged himself in lust. By this, we can see that the

coming upon the believers outwardly, objectively. Rather, growth in life comes solely by the Spirit of life operating within man subjectively. Although in both these cases it is the same Spirit who operates, He does so in an altogether different way.

power

Spirit of God as power is not sufficient to bring forth the holy and