Visiting Heaven

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Before you read this, be sure you understand what and where and when heaven is.  If you’re not sure, see study    Where is Heaven and When do we get there?

I was visiting heaven this morning, about an hour before I got out of bed at 7am.  I have a tendency to visit heaven, at least for a little time, sometime during those 2-3 hours before I know I’ll have to get out of bed.  Some days my visit is intense and lasts for an hour or more.  Many more days, my visit is not so intense and only lasts for minutes.

But today, as I was visiting, God asked me a question.  He asked, “Why do you only visit me?”  That was all He asked, but inherent in the question was “Why don’t you come dwell with me all the time?”

Now He was not asking me to die.  If you explore the above study on Heaven, and also understand the truths contained in the study  What is Death and Hell? , then you know God could never want me to die.  On my sickest deathbed day, God could never want me to die.

God was asking why I feel the need, once I am in His presence, to go back to the world and live in its spirit of death and vanity and decay.  And, like is so often the case whenever God speaks to me in that still, quiet voice deep within me, whole worlds of understanding opened up to me as I pondered His question.

I go back because I feel heaven is a place I like to visit (and sometimes do, even for an extended period of time),  whereas I feel like “walking by the flesh” is my home.

Romans 8:12  Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

You need to read the entire context of that verse (the verses before as well as after), in order to understand the “Therefore” aspect of what Paul wrote while he was in heaven, so many years ago.

A little bit of time before Paul wrote what he did above, Jesus spoke these words to Jews (fellow countrymen and of the same religion as he was) who wanted to kill him.

John 5:44   How can you believe, who receive glory one of another, and seek not the glory that comes from God only.

The word “glory” is the Greek word doxa.  It is translated “honor” in the King James, but should accurately be translated and understood as glory.  (See the study  What is Glory?).   Glory, the full and unhindered expression, of God is found only in heaven (specifically in the kingdom of God) by those who seek it above all else.

Matthew 6:33   But seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these (physical) things shall be added unto you.

Two great truths I have discovered during my life as a son of God.                                          1)  If God isn’t first in your life, He isn’t there (obviously, I mean in practice), and   2)  If God is first in your life, anything you do is okay with Him (obviously, as long as He stays first).

So I visit heaven because I like how it feels, I like what goes on in my heart and mind when I’m there, but (up until now anyway), I return to the flesh because I think it’s where home is.  It’s where the familiar, which has been with me all of my life, takes place.  Lust, fantasies, anger, judgment of myself and others, envies, pride, striving with and against others, etc.  Yeah I know, as I write out these words, they look really bad to me too.  But honestly, that’s how I’ve lived in the flesh all my life, and honestly,  it feels like home!

Of course, now that God has spoken to me, faith has come.  The understanding and ability (of Christ within me) to believe and receive heaven as my home, and not just a place to visit.

Romans 14:17  For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the holy spirit.

The opposite of visit is dwell.

Romans 8:11  But if the spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit which dwells in you.

I John 4:12   No man has seen God at any time.  If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us.  Here is how we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, by means of His spirit which He has given us.

As heaven (the presence of God, in Christ, my salvation) becomes a dwelling place, and not merely a visiting place, good things are going to happen.

Philippians 3:20, 21  For our citizenship (polites…..our governmental affiliation) is in heaven; from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; Who shall change our body of this humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious (of doxa) body, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

Almost 37 years ago, I began to speak in tongues more often, as a challenge to myself.  I was just learning how to housepaint in Arlington, Virginia.  I determined that every time I dipped my paintbrush in paint, I would remind myself to speak in tongues.

Soon, I began to speak in tongues immediately upon consciousness in the morning.  But the thought would come, “Oh sure, you can do it for a while, but you have to stop sometime.”  But I would answer that thought with this thought, “I only have to speak in tongues now….not for the whole day.”  And so I have spoken in tongues ever since.

Perhaps I can learn to dwell in heaven that same way.  I only have to be in the presence of God now … not for the whole day.
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See related studies:  
Holy Spirit Sanctification
IN CHRIST – what does it mean?
In Christ – Ephesians 1-14 (part 2)
HOW to Walk by the Spirit
Jobs of the Holy Spirit
Spiritual Pinball