We need to repent and be born again for the kingdom of God, for unless we are born of God, we cannot see the kingdom or be part of the kingdom; as God-men, we have been born of God to be God in life and nature but not in the Godhead, and we have the divine right to participate in God’s species.
Lord Jesus, we repent! We repent of our ways, our thoughts, our concepts, and anything about us. We are wrong, and nothing of our natural being or seeking can be part of Your kingdom. We open to You. We come to You. We want to be filled with You. We want to live one spirit wth You. Amen, Lord, may we exercise our divine right to participate in God’s species today! May we realise that we believers in Christ are God’s species, and we’re God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead! Amen!
This week we are going on in our prayerful consideration the urgent need for a new revival, and we want to consider, Living the Life of a God-man by Living in the Kingdom of God as the Realm of the Divine Species.
There truly is a need for a new revival.
We may have heard concerning the new revival, we may have read very much, and we may have had some personal prayer about it, but the Lord wants us to actually enter into a new revival, a genuine revival, even the last revival that will end this age and bring Him back.
The age is about to turn, and the Lord has to have this new revival. He will not come back to a destitute situation among His people.
But we are still so short. We may have a heart of unbelief, seeing in the church history how revivals have come and gone, and thinking we will not be much different.
May we remain under the Lord’s present speaking today. He has not given us up. He wants to carry out what is on His heart. It is a matter of faith, from our side.
May we not have an evil heart of unbelief, as we see in Hebrews 3:12, in falling away from the living God, but may we exhort one another each day, as long as it is called today, lest any one of us be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
We are living in a very critical stage of time in human history.
On one hand, the Lord has opened up His heart to us and He has shown us what is the new revival into which we must enter.
He has revealed to us that we can enter into a new revival by arriving at the highest peak of the divine revelation, living the life of a God-man, and shepherding according to God.
On our side, however, we need not only to understand this and agree with it but even more, to cooperate with the Lord by endeavouring to be those arriving at the highest peak, living the life of a God-man, and shepherding others according to God. Amen!
Repent and be Born Again to Enter into the Kingdom of God, the Realisation of the Reality of the Lord Jesus as the Spirit
In the New Testament, the first thing that is preached by both John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus is repentance of the kingdom.
The gospel is not merely for us to believe into the Lord; the gospel is preached for us to first repent and then be born again of the Spirit and of water. John the Baptist first came and said, Repent, for the kingdom (Matt. 3:1-2).
The gospel is not merely for us to be saved from eternal perdition or from our sins so that we may have peace and joy; the gospel is for us to enter into the kingdom of God.
What does it mean to repent? To repent means to change our mind, to have a change in our way of thinking. To repent is to change our way of reasoning, to change our concepts, ideas, philosophy, and even our theology.
We all need to repent. We cannot enter into the kingdom by means of what we are, how we think, and what we can do; we ned to repent.
We need to repent from our old concepts, from philosophy and systematic theology, from the old Bible knowledge, from the old expositions and interpretations of the Scriptures.
We need to have a change in our point of view by coming to the Lord in His word and repenting. Why do we need to repent for the kingdom? It is because, regardless of how good we think our concepts are, we are not for the kingdom.
We may be for a great work for God, for education, for religion, for Christianity, or for so-called churches. We may be for gospel preaching, for the mission field, or for doing good.
We may be zealous for the spiritual gifts, or we may see God’s power. But we definitely are not for the kingdom; therefore, we must repent. We must repent for what we are, from where we are, from what we are doing, and from what we are thinking.
We must repent of all our concepts. We must repent for the kingdom. We must repent and be born again so that we may enter into the kingdom of God.
In John 3:3 and 5 we see that, unless we are born of water and the Spirit, we cannot enter into the kingdom.
It doesn’t say that we cannot enter into heaven; the Lord said that by being born of water and the Spirit, we enter into the kingdom of God. Regeneration is not for us to go to heaven but for us to enter into God’s kingdom.
Just as you cannot enter into the cat kingdom unless you have the cat life, so you cannot enter into God’s kingdom unless you have God’s life.
By repentance and regeneration, we enter into another kingdom, the kingdom of God! We don’t just decide to be in God’s kingdom, nor do we merely agree with the gospel to be in God’s kingdom: we must repent and be born again for God’s kingdom!
The kingdom of God is not only the realm where God can rule and reign; the kingdom is the Lord Jesus Himself as the Spirit (Matt. 12:28). He cast out demons by the Spirit of God so that the kingdom of God may come upon others.
The kingdom of God is the spiritual realisation of the Lord Jesus. Where Jesus is, there the kingdom is. When we realise Christ in spirit by repenting and being born again by exercising our spirit, we have the kingdom.
The kingdom of God is not something outward for us to see and physically enter into; the kingdom is the Lord Jesus, His person, His reality, being realised by us as the Spirit.
Just as the reality of a man is his person, so the reality of the Lord Jesus is His person, and His person is the Spirit.
When we exercise our spirit to repent and touch the Lord, we are in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the realisation of the reality of the Lord Jesus. Praise the Lord!
Lord Jesus, we repent for the kingdom! We repent of our ways, our thoughts, our concepts, our old way of thinking, and everything that is of us. We simply come to You today and we repent. We are not for Your kingdom, but we repent and take You as our life. We don’t want to merely be for doing good, for spiritual gifts, or for having God’s power; we want to be for the kingdom of God! Praise the Lord, we enter into the kingdom of God by repenting and being born again! Amen, Lord, thank You for ushering us into the kingdom by us repenting and believing into You to receive Your life! Hallelujah, we are now in the realm of God, the kingdom of God, for we had a genuine repentance and we were born of water and the Spirit! Amen, Lord, we want to enter into the realisation of the reality of the Lord Jesus as the Spirit today! We want to live in Your kingdom by exercising our spirit to be one spirit with You in all things. Bring us further into the enjoyment of Christ as life so that we may live in the kingdom of God in reality! Amen!
We are God’s Species, the God-men having the Divine Right to Participate in God’s Species
Because we believers in Christ have been born of God, we are God’s species; that is, we are God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead (John 3:3, 5-8).
God created us, men, different from the way He created the animals, the fish, the birds, etc which were all created after their kind.
God created us after our kind; He took clay, molded it and formed it, and made man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26).
It was after man fell that man became fallen mankind; but man was originally created in God’s image according to God. Man fell and lost the image of God.
But Jesus Christ came as God incarnated, four thousand years after man’s creation, and He came proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. God still wants to have His kingdom, His species, to express Him and rule for Him in this universe.
Whoever receives the gospel, repents, and believes in the Lord Jesus is born again and enters into the kingdom of God.
Repentance is not merely to turn over a new leaf and have a new beginning; it is to have a change of mind with deep regret and to receive God’s life to be born of God.
We believers in Christ are born of God to be children of God, part of the species of God (John 1:12-13).
We are not merely sinners saved by grace and redeemed by the blood to be good Christians behaving properly, helping others, and being religious.
We are of the divine species, in the kingdom of God. If we see this, our life will be revolutionised.
We will realise that Satan is working to blind us by our failures, by different situations, by our shortages, and by many things so that we do not see that we are God’s species, that is, we are God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. Wow!
May we exercise our spirit today to contact the Lord and live one spirit with Him, for we are God’s species, one with Him, and we can live the life of a God-man because of what we are in Christ. Praise the Lord!
As God-men, we have the divine right to participate in God’s species (John 18:36). Just as we as men have the human right to participate in the human kingdom, so we have the divine right to participate in God’s kingdom.
Just as those who are Americans have the right to be an American and benefit from the rights of being an American, so we who are children of God have the inalienable right to participate in God’s kingdom and partake of all that God is for us to live Christ as we live the life of a God-man.
We have the divine right. We are citizens of the highest and most advanced kingdom, the kingdom of God, and we have the highest rights: we have the divine right to participate in all that God is, for we are God’s species!
Do we know that we have the divine right? Do we claim our rights? Or are we defrauded by many things brought in by the enemy to forget who we are and what our rights are?
Oh Lord, we have the divine right to participate in God’s life, God’s nature, God’s mind, God’s being, God’s image, and God’s sonship.
We have the right to participate in God’s glory, in God’s manifestation, in God’s likeness, and in God’s species.
We are God’s species, we live in the kingdom of God, and we have the divine right. We need to know our rights.
If we are in a certain country and are citizens of that country but we do not know our rights, others may mistreat us and take advantage of us.
Similarly, in the spiritual realm, we are born of God with His life and nature, and God’s divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).
We have been granted all things that relate to life, the rich supplying divine life, and godliness, the God-expressing godliness.
We need to claim all these things and enjoy them.
Instead of bemoaning of our situation, our shortcomings, and our failures, thus accepting Satan’s lies and allowing him to defraud us from the enjoyment of Christ, we need to exercise our divine right to enjoy all that God is, for we are God’s species.
May we be filled with faith, for we are believers, and may we believe that God has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness, that through these we may partake of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.
May we learn to claim the divine right so that we may no longer complain or be disappointed about our failures but enjoy God in all His riches for our daily living.
Lord Jesus, thank You for regenerating us with the life of God so that we may be God-men, part of the divine species! Hallelujah, we believers in Christ are part of the kingdom of God to be the species of God! Praise the Lord, as God-men we have the divine right to participate in God’s species! Amen, Lord, we exercise our right today to enjoy all that You are. May we daily exercise our divine right to participate in God’s life, God’s nature, God’s being, God’s mind, God’s image, and God’s sonship! Amen, Lord, may we exercise our divine right to participate in God’s glory, God’s manifestation, God’s likeness, and God’s species! Praise the Lord, God’s divine life has given to us all things that relate to life and godliness, and we can partake of the divine nature by means of the divine promises, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust. Amen, Lord Jesus, we exercise our spirit to escape the corruption and partake of what God is so that we may live a God-man life, one with the Lord! Amen!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” chs. 1-3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Great Need for a New Revival (2026 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 4, “Living the Life of a God-man by Living in the Kingdom of God as the Realm of the Divine” – day 1.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Man without Christ will perceive / That all things are vanity. / Human life is meaningless / Without hope or purpose. / But when man takes Christ as life, / He’s in spirit born anew. / When he daily lives by Christ, / Vanity is turned to song. (Hymns #1404 stanzas 4-5)
– In Thee God is the life to us, / In Thee He is the light; / In Thee His nature we partake / And with Him we unite. / In Thee the grace of God subsists, / God we enjoy in Thee; / His truth in Thee is also found, / His full reality. (Hymns #56 stanzas 4-5)
– I have come to the Fountain of Blood / That for guilt and uncleanness doth flow; / I have washed in its sin-cleansing flood / And my garments are whiter than snow. / I count not my righteousness mine— / ’Tis Jesus that lives in my soul. / I partake of His nature divine, / And in Him I am perfectly whole. (Hymns #523 stanza 2)
