His Lordship

The absolute supremacy of God, now working through Christ Jesus, tells only part of the story of His dealings with
mankind. Although all things are under His control, and His purposes will not be prevented, He chooses to not force our
wills. That is because He seeks us to be love-slaves, not puppets nor bond-slaves. He seeks us to choose to serve Him from
our free wills out of love for Him, and not to be forced to obey Him.
Therefore, in His dealings with us individually, He is ever leading and urging us to repent unto His Lordship in all areas of
our lives: that is, for us to change our ways of thinking to acknowledge and depend upon Him in all things. Also, for the
vast majority of us who do indeed choose Him to be our Lord Adonai, we in fact allow Him to reign as Lord only in some,
but not all, aspects of our thoughts, goals, motives, actions, dreams and behaviour. So He deals with us in strange ways,
including through the circumstances in our lives, to bring us to yield yet another aspect to His Lordship. He does this in our
lives one aspect at a time.
He is building and perfecting His Body on earth! His dealings to adjust us to maturity, to sanctify us unto His Lordship,
comprise a life-long process over time, whereby He works unto us His very Holiness. And during this process, He also
deals with us collectively, both to: (1) build us as living stones into His Holy Temple for praise and worship of Him (hence
His dwelling place, since He dwells in the praises of His people); and (2) order us as members of His Body (His physical
manifestation on earth). This first form of adjustment emphasizes our relationships with one another, and that we become
fitted and adjusted to one another; the second form emphasizes our functioning in ministries and service to one another
and collectively to the world. Christ is not only building His church to manifest His love and grace on earth; He is also
building His army to subdue the Kosmos of satan and to manifest His glory on earth. The full physical restoration of
His Kingdom on earth is future (upon His Parousia return). But He now is building His army, to conquer and lead His
children into the Promised land, so that there will exist on earth (before then) a physically tangible foretaste of His Kingdom,
that the rest of the world will see His glory. And how shall He demonstrate His glory on earth? Through us (John 17:22a)!