Forever and Ever. This is who we are. One foot in Eternity, one foot in Time.
Actually, that’s about as inaccurate a description as you can get… However, it's also in some way paradoxically true. (One of the joys of living the way we do, there's a paradox around every corner, sometimes two paradox may assault you and treat you to a Morris dance!)
We live in these clay jars, right. (2 Corinthians 4:7, Genesis 2:7.) But for those of us who have chosen the Narrow Way, we have the Life of the Resurrected Christ in us.
...as He is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:17 (KJV)
As such, we are seated with Christ in Heavenly places at the right hand of God the Father. (Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 3:1)
CS Lewis said “You don’t have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body.” It’s too easy to forget in these articulated clay jars (2 Corinthians 4:7), that the stuff of the body is all compostable, even the situations and circumstances we find ourselves in. Money, temperature, weight, hormones, the things that define the fickleness of humanity, all are compostable.
Once discussing with a friend about the times when we get jarred out of the place of living from the place of worship and being lead by the Holy Spirit back into the place of time and the temporal, we compared it to having a lead jacket dropped over everything, physically, mentally and spiritually.
It is possible to live from the place of the throne room all the time, and be here as the Sons of God revealed in body in order to fulfill our mandate to restore all creation and make disciples of all nations so the Glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Jesus himself said;
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these John 14:12 (NIV)
The belief has been mostly bred out of us, but the drive hasn’t. I don’t think it matters if we get it right all the time, just that we keep going. Also that when the enemy tries it on, we jump into worship, because as Grahame Cooke says: “if he (the enemy) knocks on the door of the Most Holy Place, he knows who’s going to answer that [door], and it’s not going to be us!” [A Way in the Wilderness]
So back to the point. Our bodies are tied to this construct we call time, but there is so much more available to us out there in the context of our relationship with our Beautiful Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus walked through a crowd as though they weren’t there, he walked on the surface of water, he healed more people than we may see in a lifetime, he deliberately reproduced food, and it is written (again) that “they (we) will do even greater things than these”. The early church documented some of these things, Peters’ shadow healing people as he walked past, Paul not succumbing to snake bite, walking out of prison, enduring torture and other things that are not possible without the intervention of a life lived so closely with the Father that these things are made possible.
Honestly, maybe controversially, I am not looking for another revival. I really want people to remember that the God of the Universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Jesus of the New Testament, The Holy Spirit is not a white veiled pious virgin church building filled with politicians, but is 5 people in the supermarket who don’t know each other, on separate occasions say hello to you, tell you that Jesus wants your arthritis to be healed and by the time you get home you realise it has gone. I want the church to be farmers whose next door neighbours watch for their schedules because they know that the weather depends on what Mr/Ms X next door is doing because they have cultivated an open heaven.
We live here in time. We get one shot. There’s a daggy saying – no idea where it comes from, that says ‘bloom where you’re planted’ I always thought it was a great little mollifying pat on the head. “There, there dear, you’ll never get what you want so just do what you can”.
However there is some truth in the essence of it. If we look at who we are and who God is, and cultivate our relationship with Him until our fingers bleed from binding ourselves body and soul to Him, and then keep going, we can’t NOT bloom. Except you won’t just bloom, you’ll explode. Who you were made to be in time AND eternity will be manifest in a way beyond your wildest imaginings. You’ll break through the veil of the temporal and corporeal because the light of the Holy Spirit will be always on you and the Fire of the Holy Spirit burn through you.
The Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ is already in you – the expectation of Glory; and if He isn’t ask Him to be now.
I heard Bill Johnson say once – more than once, chase God, He wants to be caught. God is limitless, what could He do with us if we purpose to chase Him til He lets Himself be caught by us in His fullness?
God Bless You Very Much
Anita