OPEN HEAVEN

If I really believed followers of Christ were expected to be an open heaven for God, how would it effect my relationship within the family? What about my relationships where I worship, work and socialize? I have given serious attention to this question in the last six months and it is transforming me.

In this life there will always be conflict points due to opposite personality traits, baggage from early childhood wounds and unconscious belief system coming from ones history and upbringing, etc. If I am conscious of being an open heaven, then I will be able to respond to all things that rob me of happiness and contentment with the firm declaration, "Thy will be done Father, on earth as in heaven." I will then listen to what the Father is saying about the current situation and respond in agreement with Him. I will expect to experience a demonstration of heaven in the situation, and He will be seen as powerful and good and adequate for whatever I face. The world is not impressed or encouraged by the average Christian message because of how we live before them. We are followers of Jesus mostly in doctrine.


When my husband is short with me or somehow triggers a negataive response in me, I have a choice. I can feel crushed, devalued and endulge in a pity-party or anger explosion. This can lead to hours of troubling vibes between us. Or I can take my hurt feelings and anger to Jesus. He will interpret the event from heaven's perspective and empower me to bless my husband. This opening of heaven creates powerful results. I am able to release peace into the atmosphere that we both can feel. It is like turning on a light in a dark room.

The Church has a problem. We talk about a God of power, authority, and love, but we show so little of that power and love in our daily relationships. Are we satsified with correct doctrine and religious form and activity, so that we tolerate a weak display of the character and works of Jesus? Are we too preoccupied with getting and spending that we have laid aside the character and power that comes from intimacy in our relationship with God?

Many of us have all but closed up the portals of heaven by neglecting our private inner life. We wrongly think that few others know what is going on in our head, what we are thinking and feeling. This is pure deception. Our bodies are carrying around the evidence of emotional and mental stress from unforgiveness, bitterness over unresolved issues, negative self-talk, anger that shows up in many ways (depression and anxiety being two), daily hurts that accumulate until the relationships are destroyed. We just have too much on our plate to nurture the soul in God. We are paying a high price for this neglect of intimacy with God.

Our gracious Father takes all of that and says to us, "Jesus, My son, has cancelled the debt for all your failures, blindness, and struggles to have it your way. The Spirit of my son has come to live in you, creating an open heaven between you and Me. As you die to yourself and surrender to Me in you, I will continue to do through you what I did through Jesus in a human body. Wisdom and love for every responce needed and overcoming power for everything that seeks to overpower you. Rehearse my promises and my faithfulness. I have you covered."

Since Jesus has created an open heaven with me, I am highly motivated to see that that open heaven is available to everyone I come in contact with.

I have been given authority to forgive others and expect to see God go to work in their lives to create heaven on earth.

I have been empowered to release peace in a room of conflict or in someone I see struggling with emotions that threaten to swamp them.

I pray for a shift in our paradigm of "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I must learn to still the raging storm of my emotions and thinking, get in agreement with heaven so I will be able to call heaven into every situation.

Don't forget that we serve the God who calls those things that be not as though they were, so that they will become what He calls them. He lives in us, expecting us to call things as He sees them, not as we see and feel them. He is a miracle working God today, but who believes it among Christians in America?