Prophetic Article - April 2006
Spiritual Blessing In Heavenly Places
The book of Ephesians is about to be opened up to the body of Christ in a way which it hasn't since the earliest times of the Christian church. The Holy Spirit will begin to reveal wisdom and insight from this New Testament letter that will radically revolutionize the way we view church. One of the most important keys to understanding and unlocking the book of Ephesians is found right at the beginning of the book in chapter one and verse three.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
It is imperative that we come to understand what "spiritual blessing in heavenly places" means.
Most of the church does not understand the spiritual inheritance purchased by Christ on the cross because they do not understand spiritual blessing in heavenly places. We have all heard the phase so and so is too heavenly minded to be any earthly use. Unfortunately the word spiritual has too often been associated with those who have been obsessive about spiritual things in an unspiritual way. We must be careful, however, not to over react to the extremes we may at times see around us. Otherwise we are led to the conclusion that all spiritual people are extreme, over the top, impractical and not down to earth. This over reaction to anything apparently "spiritual" can cause us to go to the opposite extreme and become too earthly minded for any spiritual use.
There has been a satanic assignment to blind the church to the spiritual blessing which is our inheritance. The church is called to be glorious but first our spiritual eyes must be opened to heavenly realms of glory. The book of Ephesians uses the term heavenly places five times. Three times it refers to God's heavenly realm and twice it refers to Satan's heavenly realm. The clash between these two realms is played out in the world and the church today.
Observations from Ephesians 1:3
1. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. This is phenomenal. Jesus didn't purchase partial blessing by dying on the cross. If we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places then we have access to the infinite resources of heaven! Our heavenly Father has denied us nothing to fulfil the mandate He has given the church which is to display His glory.
2. The blessing is spiritual. You can only see them with spiritual eyes and you can only access them through faith. Something is wrong when our desire and passion for natural blessing begins to eclipse our desire and passion for spiritual blessing.
3. Spiritual blessing is accessed from heavenly places. The New Testament office of the Prophet has begun to be restored to the body of Christ. These men and women have access to heavenly places. Their ministry often draws strong opposition because it forces us to move away from our comfort and familiarity of natural things. What we must understand is that heavenly places are not the exclusive domain of Prophets. In fact Prophets have access to heavenly realms so that they can train and equip the church to have access to heavenly realms. In fact all of the five-fold ministries listed in Ephesians chapter four have access to heavenly realms and are to train and equip the body of Christ to access the inheritance that Christ purchased for us.
4. These blessings are accessed corporately. It says that He has blessed us not just certain individuals. Later in the book of Ephesians Paul prays that the Ephesian Christians, "…may comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge." An individual can come to know the profound depths of the love of Christ but it is only together with all the saints that we can truly begin to grasp the fullness of His indescribable love. I am not saying that we are not to individually seek after and experience Christ's love. However, as important as this is we have erred too strongly on the side of individual seeking after God. Although there are great men and women of God who are known for the spiritual depth that has come out of their own private pursuit of God, this is nothing compared to the church corporately accessing the spirit realm!
The Purpose of Revival
Paul the Apostle's aim in life was to establish a church that would access and manifest a greater glory than what He could personally access and manifest. Paul spent three years ministering in Ephesus. During this time great revival broke out in the city. Healings and unusual miracles became common and the word spread to all of Asia. Realize also that the word of God comes from heavenly places. This three years of revival had a very important purpose.
Many times people have been led to believe that revival is an end. In other words, once we have accomplished revival we have reached the ultimate. But revival comes for a specific purpose. Not understanding this greater purpose has caused many revivals to come only to dissipate and die away. Revival is not an end. There was a purpose to the three years of revival in Ephesus. Those three years were to establish the fledgling church. It resulted in many living stones being gathered so that they could be built into a spiritual habitation for God.
Revival is the gathering of the stones. The letter of Ephesians was written about seven years after the three year revival. Now the church which was gathered during the revival is beginning to access spiritual realms as a corporate entity. The revival was to establish a corporate glorious church, not to promote an individual revivalist ministry. God is not just after individual heavenly men and women, He desires a heavenly church. It is the passion of Apostolic ministry to establish just such a church.
Prayer Accesses Heavenly Realms
In Luke 11:2-13 Jesus taught His disciples on the subject of prayer. Jesus started by making it clear that His Father is also our Father. When we pray to the Father we can expect Him to respond in the character and nature of a loving Father. Satan works overtime to bring false accusation against the character and nature of God. His aim is to make us angry at God at the very time we most need to access spiritual blessing in heavenly places.
Jesus goes on to teach about the importance of persistent petition and faith. If we don't understand the character and nature of our heavenly Father we are not empowered to pray with persistence and faith. God is not a withholder. He willingly gives us what He has. You won't ask for a loaf of bread if you don't trust the giver to give you a loaf of bread. The same principle applies to asking for spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Firstly you have to know that the blessing exists, and secondly you have to know that if you were to ask for it you would receive it. We don't ask because we don't believe it is ours for the asking. Maybe we believe it is for the prophet or some other whom we consider spiritual. Do we ask for heavenly encounters and visitation from God fully believing that we are going to receive them?
Sons of Abraham
Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?-just as Abraham "believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham…So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham (Galatians 3:5-7, 9).
The sons of Abraham are those who access spiritual blessing in heavenly places by faith. We won't access heavenly realms on a consistent basis unless we first know that we are blessed with a calibre and magnitude of blessing that far outstrips our earthly understanding of blessing. We have the infinite resources of heaven behind us! What then should we do? Firstly, know that you are blessed. Secondly, learn to access this blessing with boldness and tenacity. And finally choose to live like a blessed person.
From www.heartofdavidministries.org
© 2006 by Nathan Shaw. All Rights Reserved.
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