Out of the Box!

The more I study and read about heaven, the more I am convinced of the supernatural power, omnipresence and omniscience of God… and more importantly for us… of His strong desire for us to experience it within our daily lives!  As I look at various accounts of dreams, visions or out of body experiences emanating from a diverse mix of individuals, who represent different backgrounds, with a wide range of religious affiliations, I continue to be amazed at how strikingly similar their descriptions of heaven are and of the way things seem to operate in that realm.

This picture of heaven gives me a good feel, for lack of better words… of God’s “modus operandi” (M.O.) which is simply defined as “a particular way or method of doing something, especially one that is characteristic or well-established.” (Oxford Dictionaries)

This study has, to me, acted as the clinching confirmation to my long-held conviction of the belief that God wants us Christians to think out of the box and have big and great requests, unbelievably humongous dreams and wild imaginations in our faith life that are lived out through our daily activities… because that is EXACTLY where HE lives… Out Of The Box! (See: Ephesians 3:17-19)  Do you catch a hint of excitement here?  I SURE hope so!

If you’re anything like me, then you’ve been spending a lot of time in Psalm 91 throughout this world-wide Covid-19 pandemic.  Within that Psalm, the writer seems to summarize all the protection, abundant provision, healing, worry-not, encouragement, confidence and comfort scriptures that are found throughout the pages of our Bibles!  The fourteenth verse boldly declares:  “For here is what the Lord has spoken to me: ‘Because you have delighted in me as my great lover, I will greatly protect you. I will set you in a high place, safe and secure before my face.’” (The Passion Translation) 

The King James Version states the section described as "delighting in me” as, “because you have known my name.”  The word “known” is a familiar one from both the Hebrew and the Greek that is used many times throughout the scriptures and refers to having an intimate knowledge (or relationship) of or with something or someone.  In this reference the connection is with the “name” of Jesus.

Thayer’s Greek definition of “name” explains that “the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i.e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds etc.”  In layman’s (or laywomen’s) terms, these two words infer that this verse works best for those of us who endeavor to have an intimate knowledge of everything that the name of JESUS covers!

It is my personal belief that many Believer’s live below God’s best in their lives and/or deny the reality of the supernatural power and blessings of God in their lives, because they don’t understand the way He thinks and operates.  We tend to try and understand the supernatural within the limitations of our natural minds!  In other words, we’ve got God in a box!  For more information on this, take some time to study out the book of Romans, chapter eight from a variety of translations.

There were a couple of times when reading about heaven this weekend where I couldn’t decide if I wanted to cry or stand up and shout… so I did both! (that’s one perk of living alone!)  Isaiah 55:8-9 seems to be a very accurate explanation of what I have been growing in understanding about lately.  Here the prophet declares the simple truth of what God had and has been trying to get through to us for centuries… mainly that: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways," declares the LORD.  (for) "Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts." (God’s Word ©)

Do you mean that God’s love, God’s grace, God’s peace, God’s joy, God’s abundance, God’s wisdom and His understanding of anything could possibly be more than what I can conceive of?  YES!

Piper and I discovered that life was a lot more interesting and exciting when we sought to let go of ourselves and our (and the world’s) preconceived ideas of how things should be… and then followed through by doing our best to see, do and believe for things THE WAY THAT HE DID… and still does today!  That when HIS WORD says He can… we simply, with a child-like faith believed Him!  Is life perfect?  Did it always turn out the way we thought it would?  Did we always do it right? NO!  But the YES’s sure out did the NO’s, we learned a lot along the way and had a lot of fun doing it HIS way!

How about YOU?  How Out Of The BOX are your dreams, desires, hopes and imaginations today?