Spring 1976
Reality of Kingdom Living

Joseph A. Nieves
Academic Dean of Pinecrest

God is doing a work today in a way that we never thought possible. These last days are not an end but rather the beginning of a new era, a new dispensation in God. What God is doing today in a people He is doing by His Spirit; that they need not go through the same way that previous generations have gone. God’s intent for Israel was that they might come out of Egypt and go into the Promised Land in a short period of time. But because of their unbelief and their rebellious ways, they had to encamp in the desert for a period of forty years. We think that we have to go the desert way also. But the Lord “will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth” (Romans 9:28). If God’s people have an ear attuned to hear what the Spirit is saying and working in them, they will go by a way which they have never gone before.

God is calling a people today to spearhead a way where there is no way, and begin to press into His kingdom. It is demanded of the Church in these last days that we begin to enter into and function in that which God has purposed. Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord declares that He will do a new thing in the earth, and He is seeking out a people today that will allow Him to reveal Himself and bring forth that new thing. This may be so contrary to our own thinking that if we are not careful we can miss what God wants us to do or be. But if we will have an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying, and a heart that is submissive to the Lord and allow Him to work in our life, then He is going to bring us through.

God is calling His people to walk in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit is not ethereal or superfluous, but it is very natural and down to earth. Acts 17:29 says that “in him we live, and move and have our being.” This is what walking in the Spirit is all about—the fact that we are in Him and moving in Him and having our being in Him.

The Lord Jesus Christ was supernaturally natural. He was born by the Spirit, and walked and lived in the Spirit. The Bible says that He gave Himself on Calvary by the Spirit; He was resurrected by the Spirit; His whole life activity was ordered by the Spirit, yet He had to be singled out from a crowd of people by a kiss from Judas.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not complicated or complex. The Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian church said that he feared for them lest Satan through this subtlety should beguile them, (deceive, or corrupt their minds) from the simplicity which is in Christ Jesus. He was talking about a singleness of purpose, or intent; keeping our eyes on the Lord in simplicity and following Him. The writer of the Hebrews says, “Looking unto Jesus,” that is, looking away from everything else which would be a distraction and fixing our gaze upon Him.

Galatians 1:15 says, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb.” In this hour God is separating unto Himself a people who are being severed or cut off from their mother’s womb. That womb may be the church, the organization, or religious system in which we are in. Today God is bringing to birth a people. In Revelation 12, the Bible speaks of this as a manchild that is being birthed by the woman, the Church. God is cutting the umbilical cord, severing its identity with the religious systems of today and is identifying it with a new nature, the Lord Himself.

When we look at ourselves we say it is impossible with us. But then we realize that it is the Christ within us. As the scripture says, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me.” God has called us for the purpose of revealing the Lord Jesus in us. It is “Christ in you the hope of glory.” That is why Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who empowers me, who strengthens me from within.” We must not look at ourselves, but at Him who has called us and is able to complete His work in us.