Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Spiritual Interaction (12) Now

To do God’s will on earth, we must understand what is being done in heaven. We do not need to indulge in occult practices to get this understanding. That would place in bondage. We learn about events in the spiritual realms by listening to the Holy Spirit. He sees and hears everything spoken in the spiritual realms.

When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come… All that belongs to the Father is mine…The Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you (John 16:13,15).
The Spirit knows everything that is happening in the spiritual realms. An important part of his role is telling us what Jesus and the Father are saying and doing. Jesus promised that he would reveal it Gods will to us. Once we know his will, we can declare it and pray it into being.

Hearing the truth proclaimed in the spiritual realms is essential. For God’s will to be done on earth, he needs humans living on the earth to give him authority to do his will here. Paul explains how the Holy Spirit teaches us God’s will.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us (1 Cor 2:10-13).
God declares his will in the spiritual realms. If we listen to his Spirit, he will tell us all that we need to know. The next verse is a key.
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words (1 Cor 2:13).
This verse is important. Human wisdom misses half of what is happening in this universe. True wisdom results from being taught by the Spirit. He explains spiritual realities to us in Spirit-taught words.
People who reject the Holy Spirit’s calling cannot understand the importance of the spiritual realms.
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit (1 Cor 2:14).
They cannot be seen through human eyes. This is why the rulers of the world are blind to what is really happening.
None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8).
Herod and Pilate thought they were getting rid of a minor political nuisance. In fact, they were bringing about a massive victory in the spiritual realms that would change the direction of history. They were releasing the Kingdom of God, which would sweep away their kingdoms and continue forever.

Pauls concludes this bit of teaching by saying that we have the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). That does not mean that we are theological educated, or even that we understand the truth. We have the mind of the spiritually anointed one, if we can understand the interaction between the spiritual and the physical realms. We receive this understanding by listening to the voice of the Spirit.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul explained why this is important.
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:1-3).
We are easily distracted by things that happen in the world. That is mistake. We have been raised up with Jesus, so we should fix our hearts on the things that are happening in the spiritual realms. Paul goes on to explain why.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Col 3:4).
When Jesus appears, what we have established in the spiritual realms will be revealed. The houses and businesses that we have built on earth will wither into insignificance.

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