Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tells us that we are hidden in Christ in God. That is a very secure place and cannot be attacked or trodden down or can we be stolen from that place in other words this is a very secure place.
Verse 2 “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”
In another passage of scripture he writes; and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6 knjv)We have to change what we look at or what we are thinking about, we have to as the scripture says set our mind on the things that are above for this is the place where we are hid in Christ.
One way we can do this is, as we come to worship as a family on Sundays. This is where we have the opportunity to open our minds to embrace what is ours, and as we do we visualise what is ours and all that is all ready in front of us in the word which can take us on this journey into heaven or the heavenly realms.
Worship is a great place to start. What do we call worship? And what do we set our minds on when we do what we call worship? What do we see when we worship?
If we just silently stands each Sunday with folded arms and watch the band or the worship leader or others in the church, this is not worship. One reason I propose that these people stand there with folded arms could be that they do not yet have a revelation of the One who sits on the throne and of the Lamb.
When true revelation comes, revelation of grace, forgiveness, acceptance, destiny and our future when we have a revelation of who God is, worship follows; it is a natural response. Jesus taught his disciples to pray that God’s kingdom would come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
There will come a day when we will join in with the myriads of those on the sea of glass and the 4 and 20 elders around the throne and sing without hindrances, without reservations and worship the Lamb of God with all of our being.
The great news is we don’t have to wait until we die, we can experience heaven’s worship and the manifest presence of God today. What we have in heaven Jesus wants us to experience on earth.
The scriptures are full of just ordinary people just like you and I who have had heavenly experiences or who have seen the worship and experienced the worship of heaven and the presence of the living God and there was one common denominator that all of them had, that all of them stepped into for them to have these experiences and that was they believed that it could happen. They did not limit them selves from entering into this place. They had faith for it to happen to them.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for; what do we hope for in god? What do we set our minds on in the heavenly realm that causes our hope to be secure? What does the scripture say again? Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. The cry and the demands of the earth with all the disappointments and unfulfilled expectations scream for our attention and scream out to us to exercise our faith and hope in that realm rather than towards God in the heavenly realm. Failure is another voice that keeps us setting our minds on the earth rather than getting a vision of heaven.
So what do we do? Well firstly we have to come to a realization, come to the knowledge of that even in the midst of failure and disappointment there is growing inside of us a greater awareness of what we have in God even if in the natural we cannot see or the realisation of it there is still a growing going on deep inside of us. The bible says that from glory to glory he is changing us. We may not see the change but the change is happening anyway
Samson is named with some of the greatest men in the bible, why? Well the reality is this, to live in the realm of the life of faith, it is not how you start that proves you but how you finish. Samson finished well; in his death he destroyed more of the enemies of God than in all of his lifetime. Faith we all have it.
The bible says that we all have the measure of faith and we may think that we don’t have the faith to get up or to keep going or to believe for some thing new, well the reality is we can if we use this key and that is change our focus; we need to look up rather than around. Heb. 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God
To see the things that are described in the book of revelation to return to the heavenly focus we need to put these things aside change our mind set and focus on what is above not what is around. Our worship must be centered in him and so we need to see our selves worshipping him as it is in heaven so it shall be on earth. Like all Christian disciplines we need to practice this visualization but if we don’t believe it we will not see it, for what we declare about what we believe then we will see and what we see we will do.
I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! (Revelations 15:2-3 nkjv)We need to realize that we went down so that we can come up. We died with Christ we raise with him. We can rise up to the heavenly realms because that is the place we are seated. If we want to communicate with him we do it by faith and that is why we need to retain our hope. Open our eyes and our mind to heaven. Faith, hope and love will help us set our minds on the things that are above where Jesus says we are seated with him
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