Living in an heavenly experience can be enjoyed by you even though you still experience your life in a physical body and in a physical world.
Jesus said, “ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me” (Acts 1:8). It would be one of the most mystifying statements of Jesus to his disciples. They would continue to have a physical body with all of its weaknesses. They would continue to live in a physical world with all its limitations. However, they could receive power in those times to have a heavenly experience. Even though they would not be able to know just when troubling times would come, they would not have to be ruled by the pressures of those physical troubling times.
A Heavenly Experience Can Be Experience in a Physical World.
In fact, as Peter would later write after he came to know the power of the Holy Ghost, “the same afflictions [that] are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world,” God would use to “make [the believer] perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you” (1 Pet 5:8). They could experience the coming of the kingdom of God as they received power to rule over the afflictions, the tribulations, the hardships of living life. Mysteriously, the afflictions of life are in fact the path to experience the coming of the kingdom of God for everyone who put their trust in the spiritual Jesus of the heavenly experience.
Jesus had said to his disciples, “For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence” (Acts 1:5). John had baptized them with water. In essence, baptized with the water of life to reveal that the baptized one had confessed, were confessing, their failure in experiencing life as they should have experienced their life. John baptism was a baptism of repentance for their way of thinking had failed them. On the other hand, God the Father would baptize the believer in the experiences of living life with the Holy Spirit, thereby enabling them to experience life as they were meant to experience life. The baptism of God the Father was a baptism of enablement giving them a new way of thinking. They would be able to rule over life instead of being ruled by the life they were experiencing.
A Heavenly Experience Can Only Be Understood in the Return of the Resurrected Jesus.
The key to understanding this mystery of peace in the time of conflict, joy in the time of suffering, health in the time of sickness, and the Spirit in the time of physical pressure is to understand the ascension and the return of the resurrected Jesus. After Jesus had spoken, “ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you,” Luke recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, “while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). They were seeing the resurrected physical body of Jesus leaving the earth and ascending into heaven. They watched until they could see him no more passing out of sight in the clouds. In other words, they could no longer see the earthly Jesus having passed into the heavenly experience.
They were seeing the final moments of the physical Jesus, limited by time and by space, becoming the spiritual Jesus that would know no limits in time or in space. The disciples had seen the resurrected Jesus ascending into heaven, but they also needed to see, to experience, the concluding reality of that ascension. Luke recorded, “And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.” These two men said to the disciples, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” They needed to see this same Jesus to “so come [back to them] in like manner as they had seen him being taken up from them.
They experienced Jesus being taken up. They would experience Jesus being sent back. They saw him until he was out of sight in the clouds. They would “see” Jesus come back “in the clouds.” They could no longer see him with their physical eyes as he went into heaven passing through the clouds. They would not “see” Jesus when he returned to them being in the clouds of the heavenly realm. As Jesus himself had prophesied, “they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
A Heavenly Experience Can Be Enjoyed in the Power of the Holy Spirit.
As Peter said on the Day of Pentecost, concerning the death, the resurrection, the ascension, and the return of Jesus, “this Jesus [who had been crucified] hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.” The resurrected Jesus had returned to them not in a physical body but in the spiritual essence of the power of the Holy Spirit, the heavenly experience.
As Jesus said, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Teaching about the coming Comforter that would give power in the times and in the seasons of life, Jesus added, “we [the Father and the Son] will come unto him [the believer], and make our abode with him [the believer].” How? The Father and the Son would take up their abode in the believer in the essence of the Holy Spirit. The death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus, and the return of Jesus can enable you to live the days of your life in the heavenly realm, the heavenly experience, even though you experience your life in a physical body in a physical world.
You can experience the many baptisms, the many afflictions, of life in the power of the Holy Spirit being baptized with the Holy Spirit. For Jesus said, “ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” and the world around you will see Jesus as they witness your response in the times and in the seasons of life. Even though you are living in a physical body and in a physical world, you can live your life in the joy and in the glory of the heavenly experience. During the afflictions, the pressure, of life I pray for you and for me, “Heavenly Father, let your kingdom come on earth, into the experiences of my life, even now. In this physical body and in this physical world, let me enjoy living in the heavenly experience and I will never walk alone. Amen!”
