Return to the Beginning • Apr 13, 2026
Simpler, Higher Life • Mar 01st 1969
What does it really mean to live as a Christian?
In this profound message, Gene Edwards challenges one of the most deeply rooted assumptions in modern Christianity—that the Christian life is something we achieve, perform, or improve. Instead, he presents a radically different reality: the Christian life is not human life improved—it is an entirely different Life.
The Life of God.
This teaching explores the difference between living by human effort and living by divine Life. According to Edwards, the church is not a building, a system, or even a gathering of people trying to live better lives. The church is the expression of a people who are living by a Life not their own—a Life implanted within them.
Drawing from the book of Acts and the experience of early believers, this message reveals why the first-century Christians lived with such boldness, freedom, and power. They were not trying to imitate Christ—they were living by His Life within them.
This teaching also confronts modern religious assumptions. Much of what is called “Christian living” today is actually an attempt to act like something we are not—like asking a penguin to behave like a human. The problem is not effort. The problem is the source of life.
The invitation is simple, but deeply transformative:
Stop trying to live for God—and begin living by His Life.
This message will help you understand:
If you’ve ever felt that something is missing in your walk with God… this message speaks directly to that tension.
I tell you, the place where they gather, and the way that they live, as they live by Divine Life together, is glorious! I’ve been there. For this civilization, this habitat, this glorious and unique place is where Jesus Christ dwells.
Where is it located? How can you become a citizen of it? How can you migrate or immigrate there? What is it? You became a citizen of that nation by birth from the very day that Divine Life was born in you. It is a nation located somewhere on this earth, irrespective of where other forms of life are, or any rules of any other form of life. It doesn’t go into the water to build like the beaver; it doesn’t go into the islands to live like the seagulls; it does not model itself after any pattern of any other lower life, of any lower life form, on this earth. It doesn’t copy them, it doesn’t interfere with them, it doesn’t pay any attention to what the other life forms are doing in their habitat; it is not interested in what the bee, the seagull, or even fallen man is doing. It is a species apart, and it is living for that species.
Unlike third-class men, this species does not set up patterns, boundaries, philosophies, political ways, or organizational structures. For sure, it does not do that. It does not engage in the way that bees and men do. It is not patterned after any other form of life in this universe, but I will tell you one thing it does do: it kidnaps.
Every once in a while, it goes out and kidnaps the lower life form that had been chosen before the foundation of the ages to receive a higher form of life. It kidnaps them and brings them to their proper habitat where the divine race grows together, living by a Life not human, but living by the Life of God.
Kidnapping is called by a process known as the new birth. What is this mission like? It spreads all over the earth. It’s very difficult sometimes to even find that they meet, and when they meet, they talk, they share, they rejoice, and most of all, they follow their King together. If you’re one of this new species, you really ought to give up your third-rate ways with its religions, its ways, its habitats, and everything that it has, and come to live with your own life form, and come to the nation of which you are a citizen by birth. You really don’t need to be out there, running around with lower life forms, like a dog trying to be a chicken, or an eagle trying to be a fish. Come up to the glory of your own nation, turn to your own people, and take hold of the Life that is within you, and live by a higher Life.
And you know the name of this glorious nation. You know its name, the name of this kingdom. It’s called the Ekklesia; it’s the Church, and no other life form in the universe has anything like it. Hallelujah!
Now, if you are a new Christian, you’ve learned how to do things the wrong way. Like the ugly duckling, you need to figure out that you are a swan and not a duck and stop trying to imitate those ducks. Find that swan life in you and live by that life and run around with swans. Let the ducks take care of their own problems and let them have their own ambitions to achieve. You go with the ways of the swan.
You have two things to do. One is to learn to live by the life of God, then live by that life together with those who have the same life. Or to put it another way, learn to live by Christ, and live out that Life of His in the Church.
Pack your bag; join the rest of your species…in the land of ekklesia.
Return to the Beginning • Apr 13, 2026
Stop Playing Church • Feb 18, 2026
Escape Religious Cage • Jan 10, 2026