glory to GOD FOR TRUTH Amen ! Heaven is our Father’s native realm. It is His natural environment. It is His home and habitat. Heaven is heaven by virtue of the fact that His presence, nature, power, wisdom and glory make it such. If God dwells in me, then heaven is within me, for He is my Father “in heaven.” When teaching His disciples this magnificent prayer, Jesus was not thinking of a distant Being in some remote area of the universe. He was referring to One whose existence was the very essence of His life. What was true of Jesus Christ as He lived in Palestine twenty centuries ago, is equally true of all sons and daughters of God today. Our Father is in heaven and also in our hearts. To know this is to know a new and deeper dimension to life. To know the presence and person of God our Father within is to experience heaven in the here and now, to be in heaven. But even more than that, we will see our lives now as the residence and habitation of the Most High. We will know ourselves to be the home of our heavenly Father, just as Jesus did. “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works” (Jn. 14:10). Thus, we and heaven are one. To say that God is in heaven and also in my heart, and to then separate between the two, is to entirely miss the mark. Once God’s sovereignty has been established in any human heart, the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven is accomplished in that life. That is heaven. That is where God lives. That is where we see, know, touch and experience God in His heaven. Every child when thinking of his father associates with that personality an abode or dwelling place of some kind. It may be a tumble-down shack on the other side of the tracks or the king’s palace, yet it is home, sweet home. Home is where father is. Home is the storehouse where father keeps his resources to meet the need of his son. Home is the place from whence emanates peace, love, wisdom, joy, harmony, security and provision. It is the place where the child goes to find comfort, understanding, counsel and strength. It is the one place to which the child can go to express his joys and share his happiness. That is the picture of the abode of our heavenly Father which we call heaven. Heaven is our home — not in the sweet bye and bye, but in the here and now! Heaven is where the Father is, the realm from which He radiates and sends all His love, wisdom, power and purpose. Jesus went to prepare a place for us in the Father’s house, and He has come again in mighty Spirit power to receive us unto Himself, to bring us to the Father, seated together with Him in the heavenly places. In the true and inspired words of the old hymn: Once heaven seemed a far off place, Till Jesus showed His smiling face; Now it is here within my soul, ‘Twill be while endless ages roll. O Hallelujah! yes ‘tis heaven, ‘Tis heaven to know the Son that’s given; O’re land or sea, what matter where, Where Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there! We must realize Him as our living, ever-present God within. He is closer to us than the air that we breathe. Yea, closer is He to us than the blood that courses through our veins. He is in our spirit, and He is our very life. He is in heaven and we are in Him and He is in us. There is such a commingling that we cannot tell where heaven ends and earth begins, where God begins and we end, or where we begin and God ends. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Some time ago a brother shared a word and I now communicate it to you as faithfully as I can. He pointed out that heaven does not have a present significance in the mind and spirit and understanding of vast numbers of God’s people. Somehow the churches relegate heaven as an aftermath, something beyond this life, the category that awaits us after death. And that is to the great detriment of the Church. The Church is, by definition, a heavenly institution on earth and in time — NOW. Those who dwell in heaven (spirit) are required to bring the dimension of heaven into their present experience and expression. So if we save the word heaven for the future we are striking a death-blow to the very nature and character of the Kingdom of Heaven and God’s purpose in His people as a heavenly people presently in time. We need to become alive to heaven; heaven needs to become vital; it must be made real; it needs to have substance within our hearts, our lives, our speech, our thoughts, our convictions, and our manifestation. In a word, we need to be made HEAVENLY MINDED!
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 15:05:35 +0000
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