This Brief Life

"We are shortsighted, locked into our vision of earthly things. God asks us to come up higher."

BIRTH AND DEATH ARE BUT A VEIL, an entrance and exit in and out of this earth. They are but a blip on the radar of all of existence. Before, before. Before Genesis 1 and the earth needing replenishing, God existed and God’s things and supernatural beings and many other things we have no idea of. Before man was stuff, and after men die there is more stuff.

Jesus came to earth, having always been God. He came knowing the plan of redemption, knowing the prophecies spoken of Him, having full awareness of what He was on earth to do. He came as an infant, so He had to grow up into these things. But before Bethlehem and Mary speaking to Gabriel about His conception, He existed and did God-things. He laid all that aside in choosing to become human, and He lived as human and died as human, and His body was resurrected, glorified, flesh and bone (no blood), and now He’s in heaven with a body as a human. He did, in fact, as human, after death, walk through a wall. He died physically and still exists because death was just a doorway to the season He had risen into.

He mentioned Paradise to His followers and the thief who hung beside Him. Paradise existed before He came to earth, and He went to it after He died (Luke 23:43). He mentioned heaven to His disciples. Those in Paradise were taken to heaven because of His redemption. God’s throne is there, and mansions, and more amazing stuff. Outside of this brief life, there is life, or for some, too much death. Physical death is not all of death. Eternal life is all of God’s life.

“No human now living on earth has gone into heaven except the One who lived in heaven and came to earth from heaven—which is I, the One speaking to you—the Son of Man.” (John 3:13, Remedy)

“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2-3)

Being alive on the earth does not guarantee you eternal life. Jesus does that. Think of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man ignored Lazarus, the poor man, on earth. Then finding himself in Hades, he asked Abraham, Could he send the poor man to dip his finger in water and cool his tongue? A damp finger will not help you in Hades. Abraham replied that there was a gulf between them that could not be crossed.

Only one would cross it – Jesus.

We are shortsighted, locked into our vision of earthly things. God asks for us to come up higher. He revealed the mystery of the gospel so that we could become His children who see and speak from His perspective. He actually wants us to come boldly to Him each day. He wants us to act and sound like Jesus, including moving in the Spirit to preach and teach and heal under His power. He wants us to live beyond this short life.

Jesus knew He had to die to move from this earth back to the righthand of God, and He spoke of it that way. We hear prophecy and, in our mind, it’s somewhere out there. But it isn’t. We argue over it and doubt about it and forget what was said by the prophets. Prophecy is a window into greater things, into a world of the Spirit that He asks us to go deeper in. Deeper, as far as we want to go, as far as we’re willing to walk by faith and believe. Why do some see angels and others hear words of knowledge or wisdom? Because they listen and guard it and use it wisely. Why do some pray and move great mountains? Because they determine to lean in, to use the anointing of prayer given to us.

We’re looking at our life like a wildflower, here today and gone tomorrow, and that’s a beautiful image, but once the wildflower dies, where does it end up? Some have seen heaven. More people than we are aware. And we can choose to believe in it and learn from the Word and from the Holy Spirit of the world that is beyond our vision, of the life that extends beyond death (we are not to fear death when we are in Christ), and become intimate with the Father at a level beyond our current understanding. Nothing stops us from it on God’s end. He welcomes us. All that holds us back are those same earthly things that block our view.

“Immediately the Spirit filled me, and my mind was opened; and before me was a throne in heaven with a person sitting on it. The one who sat on the throne shimmered with dazzling brilliance, like polished stones in the sun: fiery reds at the base and resplendent hues of green surrounding the throne.” (Revelation 4:2-3, Remedy)

Jesus walked on earth one with God, and He is our example. He experienced a gruesome death, but He expected a foreordained Resurrection and to see the Father and sit at His righthand and to watch history unfold here, to see the church grow and expand, and for those men who followed Him to die one day, walking through that veil, to see Him. He expects to return for His church. We talk about this. We hope for this. But all of the power of God is ours today, to live beyond the veil of the flesh, and truly walk in the Spirit and enforce the defeat of the devil that Jesus accomplished through His acts on earth.

He reached out beyond the physical to what is to us unseen. That all of these things which do appear were made of what does not is the Scripture. And Christ’s victory is ours while on the earth, not only after we die. We are not meant to live defeated and locked into temporary physical things, to accept this or that sickness because it’s in our family or because life is cruel or for any other stupid reason the stupid fathead devil comes up with.

“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Hebrews 11:3)

We are not meant to stare at the sky and hope for Jesus to fix all this. He will return and there is a plan for the earth when He does. But we are meant to live the gospel each and every day as one with God on the same level Jesus is (John 17:11). Ignorance is our choice. Revelation is also ours to take hold of. And the Holy Spirit is with us every second of every day whether we ignore Him entirely or if we take hold of His gifts to us and push forward.

I will take hold and see what God will do through me because what feels like a lot of years left in my lifespan will, one day, be only hours, and I want to get there satisfied as God has promised me I can be (Psalm 91:16). Not in my self-effort or any self-promotion, but in that I did what He called me to do, and I glorified Him in it. That my life reflected Him at a level beyond what I could dream this year or any other, and what I have accomplished is because He chose to use little ol’ me, and I didn’t let my natural vision hold me back from what is beyond the veil. Which rent in twain when He died on the cross, opening the way into the Holy of Holies.

That place of the Spirit previously hidden from all but a few men is now ours to behold and what beauty it holds. Greatest of all, the One who made the way possible by becoming the sacrifice that would crown Him King.

Leaves Image by Julia from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com