Reaching for the Heavens

There's a concept that I'm beginning to believe, for which I don't have a full understanding yet, but still I embrace. In order for us as the people of God to be successful in advancing the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven, we must learn how to Reach for the Heavens. Many of us, I'm sure, have heard the saying "the Heavens are open", or the phrase "operating under an Open Heaven". I would like to declare that indeed, the Heavens are open; but what good is it for the Heavens to be Open if we as the people of God do not know how to access those Open Heavens? If I tell you that the door of my house is open, it will do you no good if you never come to my house. Yes, there is a time where God will allow blessings to "rain down" from the Heavens (Malachi 3). But I believe that we are in a time where if you can access the Heavenly Realm, you can get what you need to manifest the Movement of the Kingdom of God on the earth.

The scripture says that we are seated in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2). This means that we must make a faith adjustment and truly envision ourselves in Christ in the Heavenly Realm. This I believe is a shift; because many people in the church have been taught that Christ is at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for the saints (Romans 8). This of course is true. However, what we're not equally taught is that as children of God and believers in Christ, that we too are seated at the right hand of the Father, in Christ Jesus. Why is this significant? Because if we don't have a faith perspective that allows us to understand that "right now" in Christ we are in Heaven, we won't exercise the necessary faith to take advantage of the heavenly resources for which our spiritual location gives us access to. If I have the food I need in my refrigerator at home, why would I have to leave my home and go to the grocery store or a restaurant? Everything we need is in Heaven; but we have to exercise the necessary faith to access what already belongs to us in Christ Jesus. We can better facilitate this access if we understand our spiritual location in the Lord.

Then we have to make a shift in Affection. The scripture tells us to "set our affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3). One of the challenges for many of us as believers is that our affection is still too earth-bound. Yes we want to go to heaven when we die, but while we're living on this earth, we really try not to think much about it. Wrong. The reason we do this is because we feel like in order to get to Heaven we have to "die". And nobody's trying to think about dying, right? Once again, our course of thinking is skewed, which reaps us negative results. Believe it or not, Heaven is the place to be. Why? Because Jesus is there. So what we need to do is allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds (Romans 12) and set our affection on Heavenly things, not the things of the earth. Many of us are still consumed with the model of our car, the size of our house, the worth of our bank account and financial portfolio, the state of our family, the status of our ministry, the development of our career. Even though these things may have value, they don't necessarily carry Eternal Worth. That's why we want to make an Affection Shift. And besides, the secret of it is, God never designed man to find his satisfaction in the earthly realm. So if you're trying to find happiness and contentment through something derived and rooted in the earth, you're going to always be disappointed.

Lastly saints, we need to have an ambition to go to Heaven, before we physically die. Once again, I know this is not conventional doctrine or teaching, but it's biblical. The scripture says in 2Corinthians 12 that Paul visited the third heaven. If Paul can go, why can't we? You don't have to be a "super-apostle" to have a Divine Visitation to Heaven before you leave this earthly tabernacle. All you have to do is make the request. And what does the scripture say? Ye have not because ye ask not (James 4). We are commissioned to petition the Father, "thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven" (Matthew 6). God uses us to make this prayer an earthly reality as we learn and commit to Reaching for the Heavens.