I enjoyed my break. Rest is absolutely necessary, because we are this journey with God for the long haul. That said, I am very glad to be back. I am beginning my 22nd year of Today’s Word this month. The past 21 years have been a tremendous blessing and I am excited about year 22.
As I prayed over what to share for this year, the Lord kept speaking to me about earthly manifestation. I sense the Lord saying that this is a season in which many of us are going to experience the earthly manifestation of the things God has been speaking to us for years. In heaven, in eternity, these things are considered done. In the earth, as I have taught you for years, it is only a matter of time before we see (in our hands) what God has revealed (in our hearts). I believe it is time for us to experience heaven’s desires in this world. So all year I will be teaching series designed to help us open our hearts to experience Heaven on Earth!
So what does this mean to you today? I have an entire year to teach on it, so I am not in a hurry. But for today, I will share a few introductory and overarching thoughts on the topic.
1. Rev R. G. Lee was a preacher in the 20th century. In 1926 he preached a message entitled, “Payday Someday”. The message was so well received that he wound up preaching it nearly 1300 times in his lifetime. The point is that many Christians live their lives fixated on getting to heaven some day. This fixation often keeps them from opening their hearts to experience heaven on the earth, now. Jesus did not die so you could spend your life focused on a “someday” experience. Jesus wants you to experience heaven everyday.
2. Through history certain Christian people-groups have experienced so many challenges in this world that they embraced doctrines of escapism. All they wanted from God was a ride to heaven. They wanted God to swing down His chariot so they could ride home to a place of no-more tears and no-more fears. While such doctrines are understandable, because of difficult circumstances, they are simply not Biblical. God does not want us to live our lives focused on leaving the earth and going to heaven someday. God wants us to bring heaven to the earth every day.
3. The disciples followed Jesus for three and a half years. They had a front-row seat to His ministry. They carefully watched and participated as the Father used Jesus to perform the supernatural on this planet. They never asked Jesus to teach them how to perform miracles. They never asked Jesus to teach them how to multiply fish, cast out demons, or walk on water. The only thing they ever asked Jesus to teach them to do was to pray. They saw prayer as the key to Jesus’ ministry. In response to their request, Jesus gave them a model for prayer. In that model Jesus explained that when we pray, we should pray for God’s will to be done on the earth, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. Jesus did not teach His disciples to pray for God to help them leave the earth and go to heaven. Jesus taught them to pray for heaven to be manifested on the earth.
4. Whatever you see in heaven is what you are to pray for in the earth. Whatever you do NOT see in heaven is what you can pray against in the earth. There is peace in heaven, so we can pray for peace down here, in the earth. There is no sickness in heaven, so we can pray against sickness down here, in the earth. In this way your prayer is aligning with heaven. The Apostle John said, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (1 Jn 5:14,15 NIV). When you pray prayers that align with heaven, you can have the confidence that your prayers are also aligning with God’s will. Because God’s will is manifested in heaven. John teaches us that when we pray with this type of confidence, God hears us and we have whatever we asked of Him!
5. Don’t just hope and wish for heaven to be manifested in the earth, in your life. Open your heart to it. Think about it. Meditate and medicate on it. Then pray for it. Ask for it in earnest. Live every day in expectation of it. This is how Jesus lived and it is how we should live as well. In 2019 we will experience heaven on earth!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I know it is Your will for us to experience heaven on earth. Jesus did not live His life focused on leaving the earth so He could return to heaven. Jesus left heaven so He could bring heaven to the earth. As Jesus is, so am I, in this world. I live like Jesus lived. My desire is to see Your best manifested in the earth. Heaven is an environment where Your best is on display. I peer into heaven and I come back from that experience, not ready to leave the earth to go there, but ready to bring what I saw down here, on this planet. Father, Your Kingdom has come and it is time for Your will to be done, ON EARTH, AS IT IS in heaven. I will experience heaven on earth in 2019! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
