No one has ascended into Heaven, but He who descended out of Heaven, the Son of Man, who is in Heaven. Jn 3:13
The Holy Spirit brought my attention to the phrase Jesus used here in speaking to Nicodemus, "who IS in heaven". I really didn't want to miss this, for Jesus was intimating the present tense "is" in this sentence. In other words, Jesus was actually saying that He lived in two places at one, the Heaven and earthly realms. It certainly lines up with Eph 2:6
"and raised us up WITH Him, and made us to sit WITH Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
We know that scripture teaches us that truth is established out of the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses. Well we certainly have this here - Jesus testified to it and the Holy Spirit inspired the same message through the Apostle Paul.
So...... How do we live out of these two realms? Actually I don't think that we are too! Jesus said we are not of this world even though we are in it. (Jn 15:19; 17:16; 2 Cor 1:12). That leaves us, living from the Heavenly realm, of which the Ephesians passage also teaches, we have been given every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. (Eph 1:3)
We tend to focus our prayers from earth to heaven, hoping to touch God's heart of mercy and compassion. But our prayers should be focused from where we sit.....in the heavenly realm. Practically what does this mean....doing what Jesus did as we are to follow Him. He went about doing good, healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38) Jesus was bringing Kingdom light and life, exposing the darkness and healing all, effectively making void the kingdom of darkness on earth in the lives of those He touched.
I believe that everything comes out of intimacy with God firstly, and having a correct and truthful belief of our identity as Kingdom Kids. God's desire is that we imitate His Son and do good, but doing good on earth is not His first priority. He desires that we know Him and that He loves us for who we are (who He created us to be and not like anyone else) - not for what we do. He certainly does not love us more or less based on what we do. We don't put the great commission above the first commandment (from a wonderful preacher Graham Cooke). The first commandment, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and body is our priority and out of that relationship with Him will flow the good works (rivers of living water Jn 7:38). Works that He prepared before hand for us to do (Eph 2:10)
Jesus was totally confident in His identity and relationship with Father, as the Father's beloved Son. (Matt3:17; 17:5). Having an intimate relationship with God, and knowing who we are in Christ gives us the heart of compassion for the human condition. It is out of the Father's love and compassion for humanity that we are compelled to move and pray for people, touch them and command healing to their bodies and souls.
We need to understand and fervently believe that the authority Jesus gave us as His disciples was for us and didn't pass away with the Apostles. We need to "kill" this traditional way of man that makes void God's commandment to us. (Matt 5:6). Thankfully God is raising up followers of Jesus Christ who understand their identity, who are filled with the Holy Spirit power, to see the most amazing healings, miracles and salvation around the world, because they have the audacity to believe that they have the authority over darkness that Jesus gave them in the great commission. That is living from
Heaven to earth.
Another "religious tradition" we have to break out of our belief, and beloved ones of God, I do not want to offend you, but we need to consider this. God is our loving Father and what good Father desires to inflict His children with illness. Yet we, beloved ones of Jesus, believe if we are sick or poor we are more holy. Sorry, this is incorrect because we try to match up our experiences with God's word to make excuses as to why someone was not healed. We need to stand firmly on God's truth rather then our experience for His word teaches us He is our healer. (Ps 41:3; 103:3; 107:20; 147:3; Is 53:5; 58:8) we are hypocrites if we think God has inflicted us with sickness and then go to doctors to be healed.
When the bible talks of trials and tribulations, I believe these are not in the line of sickness but persecution. People will reject us because we stand up for Jesus and righteousness, and we are told to rejoice in these as they will ultimately bring us great reward. (Rom 5:3-5, Pet 1:6, Jn 16:33)
Something a lady preacher said the other day really stuck a cord in me. When sickness, depression or pain comes upon her, she immediately rejects it because she didn't "order" it. Satan will find any legal entry to afflict us and make us lose faith, joy, peace or health, but we don't order these things. If you went to a restaurant and ordered something you wanted off the menu and they brought you a wrong order, you would respectfully ask them to take it back and bring what you ordered. This spoke to me as a spiritual principle. We reject the wrong order and we command the right order with the authority we have in Christ. We have the authority to "order" healing and life, the abundant life that Jesus died for us to have.
As Jesus said, "The thief comes ONLY to kill, steal and destroy but I have COME ...(He has come).. that you may have LIFE and have it to the FULL." (Jn 10:10)
The Holy Spirit brought my attention to the phrase Jesus used here in speaking to Nicodemus, "who IS in heaven". I really didn't want to miss this, for Jesus was intimating the present tense "is" in this sentence. In other words, Jesus was actually saying that He lived in two places at one, the Heaven and earthly realms. It certainly lines up with Eph 2:6
"and raised us up WITH Him, and made us to sit WITH Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
We know that scripture teaches us that truth is established out of the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses. Well we certainly have this here - Jesus testified to it and the Holy Spirit inspired the same message through the Apostle Paul.
So...... How do we live out of these two realms? Actually I don't think that we are too! Jesus said we are not of this world even though we are in it. (Jn 15:19; 17:16; 2 Cor 1:12). That leaves us, living from the Heavenly realm, of which the Ephesians passage also teaches, we have been given every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. (Eph 1:3)
We tend to focus our prayers from earth to heaven, hoping to touch God's heart of mercy and compassion. But our prayers should be focused from where we sit.....in the heavenly realm. Practically what does this mean....doing what Jesus did as we are to follow Him. He went about doing good, healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38) Jesus was bringing Kingdom light and life, exposing the darkness and healing all, effectively making void the kingdom of darkness on earth in the lives of those He touched.
I believe that everything comes out of intimacy with God firstly, and having a correct and truthful belief of our identity as Kingdom Kids. God's desire is that we imitate His Son and do good, but doing good on earth is not His first priority. He desires that we know Him and that He loves us for who we are (who He created us to be and not like anyone else) - not for what we do. He certainly does not love us more or less based on what we do. We don't put the great commission above the first commandment (from a wonderful preacher Graham Cooke). The first commandment, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and body is our priority and out of that relationship with Him will flow the good works (rivers of living water Jn 7:38). Works that He prepared before hand for us to do (Eph 2:10)
Jesus was totally confident in His identity and relationship with Father, as the Father's beloved Son. (Matt3:17; 17:5). Having an intimate relationship with God, and knowing who we are in Christ gives us the heart of compassion for the human condition. It is out of the Father's love and compassion for humanity that we are compelled to move and pray for people, touch them and command healing to their bodies and souls.
We need to understand and fervently believe that the authority Jesus gave us as His disciples was for us and didn't pass away with the Apostles. We need to "kill" this traditional way of man that makes void God's commandment to us. (Matt 5:6). Thankfully God is raising up followers of Jesus Christ who understand their identity, who are filled with the Holy Spirit power, to see the most amazing healings, miracles and salvation around the world, because they have the audacity to believe that they have the authority over darkness that Jesus gave them in the great commission. That is living from
Heaven to earth.
Another "religious tradition" we have to break out of our belief, and beloved ones of God, I do not want to offend you, but we need to consider this. God is our loving Father and what good Father desires to inflict His children with illness. Yet we, beloved ones of Jesus, believe if we are sick or poor we are more holy. Sorry, this is incorrect because we try to match up our experiences with God's word to make excuses as to why someone was not healed. We need to stand firmly on God's truth rather then our experience for His word teaches us He is our healer. (Ps 41:3; 103:3; 107:20; 147:3; Is 53:5; 58:8) we are hypocrites if we think God has inflicted us with sickness and then go to doctors to be healed.
When the bible talks of trials and tribulations, I believe these are not in the line of sickness but persecution. People will reject us because we stand up for Jesus and righteousness, and we are told to rejoice in these as they will ultimately bring us great reward. (Rom 5:3-5, Pet 1:6, Jn 16:33)
Something a lady preacher said the other day really stuck a cord in me. When sickness, depression or pain comes upon her, she immediately rejects it because she didn't "order" it. Satan will find any legal entry to afflict us and make us lose faith, joy, peace or health, but we don't order these things. If you went to a restaurant and ordered something you wanted off the menu and they brought you a wrong order, you would respectfully ask them to take it back and bring what you ordered. This spoke to me as a spiritual principle. We reject the wrong order and we command the right order with the authority we have in Christ. We have the authority to "order" healing and life, the abundant life that Jesus died for us to have.
As Jesus said, "The thief comes ONLY to kill, steal and destroy but I have COME ...(He has come).. that you may have LIFE and have it to the FULL." (Jn 10:10)
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