As we have been studying, it is the calling of every Christian to dwell in the heavenly places with Christ and to bring the blessings of heaven to earth. However, our ultimate goal is more than just bringing the blessings of heaven to earth, but rather to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. Because a kingdom would not be a kingdom without a king, this means the kingdom will never fully come to earth until the King does.

Jesus used His heavenly powers, but never to fulfill His own human desires, or to testify of Himself as Satan tried to trick Him into doing. When Jesus used the power of the heavenly realm, it was in obedience to the Father in heaven and as a witness of the Father. Because He gave Himself to be a witness of the Father's love, the Father sent the Spirit to witness of the Son. The power of heaven is never used selfishly. That is why selfish ambition can be found at the root of almost every ministry that falls.

As we have learned, it is the calling of every Christian to experience heaven now, and to live a life that demonstrates the reality of heaven on this earth. We do that by living in heaven now. It is our calling to bring heaven to every place we go, to our homes, our jobs, where we shop, everywhere.

 

As we grow spiritually, our homes, our hearts, and our perspectives, should be heavenly ones. The Christian life is supposed to be filled with the bliss of heaven.

A fundamental calling of Christians is to experience heaven, and bring heaven to earth. The prayer the Lord gave us to pray is for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Daniel gave a very specific prophecy about how this would happen when he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

 

This dream is remarkable for its accurate foretelling of the coming great empires of men, which have now been fulfilled just as he foresaw.

We have been looking at our call to enter into and live in the heavenly realm now. We addressed Jacob's ladder, and how it represented Christ. He is the Way by which we climb into the heavenly realm. We discussed how the messengers of God are ascending and descending upon this ladder. We are called to enter into the heavenly realm, but we are also to descend back to earth with what we receive in the heavenly realm. This is what I want to discuss a little more at this time.

 

As a jet pilot I used to love flying at the highest altitudes.

For today's study we will look at Ezekiel 8:3 for a very important understanding about the prophetic:

 

And He stretched out the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head;

and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven

and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem,

The Lord gave a great promise that Peter quoted from Joel on the Day of Pentecost, which we see in Acts 2:17:

We need to understand a crucial matter which is essential if we are to enter into and dwell in the heavenly realm. This is typified by the "manna test," the first test given to Israel after their departure from Egypt. It was so crucial that the Lord said this test was given to see if the people would walk in His ways or not. Likewise for us, this is one of the primary tests that determine if we will walk in the ways of the Lord or not. We see this in Exodus 16:4, and Deuteronomy 8:16:

Genesis 28:12-17 tells of a remarkable experience that Jacob had, which is also relevant to us today:

 

     And he had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth

     with its top reaching to heaven; and behold,

     the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.