Jesus is life in Himself. Those who live in Him will live completely and eternally. Nothing can be added or subtracted from Jesus. He is all sufficient and fills the universe with His Presence. There is no such thing as a Baptist Christian or an Adventist Christian. Christ is not divided. Jesus is one. He re-creates people to be one and draws people into Himself to make them one. Jesus heals us, draws us to Himself and together with each other because God is love.
You either live in Him or you don’t. Add anything or subtract anything from Jesus and you have created at best a sect and at worst a cult. Phrases such as ‘we as Adventists’ and ‘since I became an Adventist’ and ‘our perspectives on’ indicate that something is amiss. This phraseology need not be used by those who are Christ’s. It does not have to be. Those who believe have a place in Him. They have the same place that Jesus had with His Father, which means that you and the Father are one. There is nothing more glorious than this.
Followers of Jesus find their life in Christ. Indeed He is their life because He manifests His light and righteousness through them. Jesus is either the righteousness of God in you or you are embroiled in the vain attempt to prove your righteousness to God. Nothing surpasses being in Jesus as a son/daughter and one with His loving embrace of the universe.
‘And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself’ Eph 4.10 NLT.
Jesus is your life and the life of the world. This is not always well known, even by Christians, not a few who think Jesus is an addition to their life. Jesus is the life and the light of the world. So why is the world in such chaos? It’s writhing and thrashing because people live in their own light and life. This is what is meant by living in the knowledge of good and evil. Living in this mind-set people can live ‘a good Christian life’ without ever representing the Kingdom of God. People can be moral and ethical yet powerless, blind and continually defeated. But to have Christ as our life is to reign as kings and priests today!
The Kingdom of God is the realm where Jesus reigns, where He is worshiped as Lord and lived in by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in us and on us means that we are never orphans and always sons. It is by the Spirit that we can live in God and He in us. By the Spirit of Sonship we become the Kingdom of God.
Eternal life is Jesus. So is temporal life. The Kingdom of God is eternal life in you today and every day. It is Christ in you. The Body of Christ is those joined to Jesus and who are literally His life because they become who they are – new men and women in Jesus. This is the manifestation of Christ on earth, Christ in the work place, the kitchen and the nursery.
Live from the law and you will know perseverance but never glory. Live in the Spirit and you will reign as daughters and sons.
The Kingdom of God cannot be lived by planting the Old Testament in the New. In the Old Testament God lived in no one. He was with men and women of God and His anointing rested on some, but He did not live in any.
It was not until God became incarnate in Jesus that Jesus became incarnate in people. The latter occurred when the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. Pentecost made possible much more than the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost achieves the reality of Christ in you. This is the mystery of the ages revealed in Jesus. Those who live in the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
‘And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ’ Eph 1.9 NIV.
Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly’ Eph 3.2-3 NIV.
‘This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people’ Col 1.26 NLT.
‘To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory’ Col 1.27 NIV.
Keith Allen
Daring Adventist.com 
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