Breaking Through To The Heavenlies # 2

Breaking Through To The Heavenlies # 2

I am just starting to realize a little bit of where God calls me to, how far it is, and how hard it is to get there. The missionary that I mentioned had a wonderful ministry. People used to say, "Oh, he has such a grace. It seems that he just comes and gives God's bounty to us, just flows and the people weep and cry and they are overwhelmed. It's glorious!" But one thing they did not realize was where he had to go to get that. How far he had to go. With all his years of experience, he would spend hours seeking God before an hour meeting! He would come to the meeting having made a long, long, journey. I think many times our problem is that we quit!

THE CHILD OF EARTH HAS GOT TO GO TO HEAVEN IF HE IS GOING TO GET HIS PRAYERS ANSWERED.

I think it was one of the old Puritans, who said words to this effect, "God will not refuse the answer to any man's prayer who goes to heaven with his need."

I've got to get beyond a self-seeking and a self-interest. I've got to get beyond an earthly concept of the thing. If it's a selfish prayer I'll never get to heaven with it. Once I leave the earth, the selfishness which is of the earth stays in the earth.

You follow what I mean? The hang-ups, the complexes, the doubts, the fears, all of those things are of earth. I reach through to heaven. It means I go beyond all earthly things and I get into that place where their influence cannot reach. I get into His presence. This is the challenge that God puts before us. We are called to pray in the Spirit. We are called to reach through to the heavenlies. That is the place where we possess our inheritance.

"Hallowed by Thy name." The Spanish Bible says, "Your name be sanctified." I believe it's practically the same. It means separated. We tend to bring God down and mix Him in with our earthly scene. It says, "Be your name separated."

God's Kingdom and man's kingdom do not mix. God and the devil do not mix. God's nature and man's nature do not mix either.

"Hallowed by Thy name." Be Thy name separated in my thinking. That God's name be set on a high and holy pinnacle unreachable for all else. Separate from every other thing:

All my religious drives, all my religious ambitions. All my desires that God would bless me, that God would work through me. All those things must be set to one side.

Let there be no taint in my life on the name of God. Remember one of the first commandments, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." It's not just swearing or anything of the sort; it's not just sinning in the sense of outward sins. It's taking something of God and not realizing the potential of that which we have taken. It's like having a 200 horsepower car and never exceeding 15 miles an hour. It's in vain to have a motor that can reach 100 miles an hour and never go more than 15 miles an hour. Likewise, it's in vain to take all of heaven and apply it to my poor miserable life, so that I feel free, so that I feel happy, so I don't have hangups, and I'm not condemned dragging a sense of guilt.

You know, we are so limited. We are like the horses with the blinders on. We look in one direction. We see one thing. We follow a path that others have marked out for us. God want to set us free.

We are the painters that paint miniatures - tiny little paintings. Maybe in that little painting they have a whole landscape. They paint hills, mountains, a lake, a village over on the far side, people skating on the lake, birds overhead, rushes, flowers, everything in that tiny little painting. I think that is what we do with God, we try to reduce it all down. "Oh, here is God, all the fullness, look, there are mountains, there are lakes, there...you know."

Or say it another way, we live in a Lilliputian world. You've read the book of Gulliver and Lilliput, the man that went and lived among tiny little people. I think the average Christian is something like that. Tiny little things that are our enemies - we get so fearful. A tiny little enemy and the child of God is going to pieces. On the other hand he has a tiny little victory over a tiny little thing and, "Oh, I feel so good." You've seen these people that hear a new teaching or some little thing and they have a tiny dimension of truth, and you ask, "How are you?" "Oh, brother! Yesterday I learned Jesus loves me." Well, that's great, but we ought to know that and we ought to be going on.

God does not paint miniatures. The dimension of God is universal. I think we are going to find out many things when we get to heaven, but one of the things is that eternity is not only a line that goes on without end. That it's not only ear after year and century after century; it's not a line of time. I think we are going to find out that eternity is as broad as it is long. There is a dimension of fullness that that we can't begin to understand. Paul says to one of the churches that they might understand the length and breadth and depth and height. In everything God does He wants to lead us through to a greater realm of the spirit and give us something beyond.

~Paul Ravenhill~

(continued with # 3)