glory to GOD FOR TRUTH Amen ! Jewish thought was fond of dividing the heavens into seven different strata, the “seventh heaven” being God’s dwelling place. But God does not dwell in one certain heaven — the third, the seventh, or any other. He is in the heavens, and above and beyond all heavens. A philosopher of yesteryear once referred to God as “God, whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” Ah, that is it! If God’s center is everywhere, then wherever I may be the center of that center would be in my deepest being. From where I stand the center of God is right in the innermost part of my life, and His circumference is infinite. The Greek word for heaven, in the New Testament, is most often in the plural. When you read Jesus’ great parables of the Kingdom of Heaven it is really the Kingdom of the Heavens. Also, where Jesus teaches sons to pray, He says, according to the King James version, “Our Father which art in heaven.” But in Greek it is plural — “Our Father which art in the heavens.” So, contrary to popular thought, there is more than one heaven where God dwells. Paul spoke of being caught up into the third heaven, and God, our God, is the God of all the heavens. God dwells in heaven. He fills every heaven. He rules in every heaven. He is above every heaven, beyond every heaven, higher than all heavens and greater than the reality of each heaven. The great king Solomon cried out, “Behold, I build an house to the name of the Lord my God, and the house which I build is great: for great is our God above all gods. But who is able to build Him an house, seeing the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I, then, that I should build Him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before Him?” (II Chron. 2:4-6). In other words, that heaven that is so vast, so expansive, so extensive, so all-inclusive that it embodies within itself all the other heavens — even that heaven cannot contain our God! And yet I hear some say that God is not omnipresent! God is the God, not of heaven, but of THE HEAVENS. And in our journey into God we pass through all these heavens. Jesus passed through all the heavens on His way into the glory of the Father. “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10). In His ascension to the right hand of Power He passed through — experienced — all the heavens. But not only did He pass through them, He has also FILLED THEM ALL so that God in Christ is the essence in every heaven. You will find Him on a different plane, in a different dimension, in a different aspect of His life, in each heaven. Heaven is not a place, not a geographical or astral location — it is a sphere or realm of reality. It is a dimension of life. It is a level of God-consciousness. It is the invisible realm of spirit that transcends this gross material realm. It is as omnipresent as God is omnipresent. It is co-existent and co-extensive with the physical universe, but on a different level of reality and being. It is the dimension of spirit reality, of being where God is all that He is. Heaven is also the realm in which God is revealed by the Spirit. Heaven is the realm in which God is known by the Spirit. Heaven is the realm in which God can be touched in the Spirit. Heaven is the realm in which God can be experienced in the Spirit. God is the God of the heavens, and if ever you will see Him, if ever you will know Him, if ever you will touch Him, if ever you will experience Him — it will be in the heavens where in dwells, in the realms of His Spirit. Heaven, as I have pointed out, means “height, eminence, elevation.” God is in heaven. God is Spirit. Heaven is the high and holy realm of the Spirit where God exists. To be in heaven is to be in the Spirit. To experience God spiritually is to experience heaven. Thus, heaven is the realm of spiritual experience. The heavens are the various realms or levels of spiritual experience where we meet and know God. When God is revealed to you by the Spirit, heaven is opened and you behold heavenly things. In the lower heavens you know God in a more elementary way. It is wonderful to know God in His heavens. Each heaven speaks of a plane of relationship with God by the Spirit. When the Lord unveils Himself to you on a higher plane, in deeper measures, in richer and fuller dimensions of His life, wisdom, and glory, and you experience Him in it, you ascend in Him to a higher heaven. As you pass through the heavens you come to know God in greater and grander measures. You experience Him in a deeper way. You come to know God more fully. Let all who read these lines clearly understand that God’s heaven is not the inexhaustible universe of stars and suns and planets — swirling nebulae. Heaven has nothing whatever to do with the time-space continuum or matter in any form. The true heaven is beyond it all, above it all, before it all. Heaven is that high and holy and invisible realm of SPIRIT, the pure and divine and eternal and incorruptible realm of GOD HIMSELF, which existed before ever a star or a planet appeared. Heaven, therefore, can only be entered BY THAT WHICH IS SPIRIT. Let every man know for a certainty that natural eyes cannot pierce the invisible realm of spirit. The Russian astronauts returned from space and said, “We have been up there, we looked around, and we didn’t find or see God.” Of course not! Natural minds know nothing of that realm, for we perceive only those physical things recognizable by the physical senses. Natural ears are unable to hear that which is spoken in the realm of the spirit, for spirit vibrates on a frequency higher than and superior to the low vibrations of matter. Heaven is all around us, in us, and through us, just as radio waves and various other rays are all around us, within us, and through us without our knowledge. We must be raised out of our natural consciousness in order to touch it. But the dimension of heaven is ten thousand times MORE REAL than this gross material realm to which our mortal form has been subjected.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 14:25:57 +0000