The Way of Life: Experiencing the Culture of Heaven on Earth

by Bill Johnson

It is a weak Christian culture that allows and sometimes gives honor to those who have a faith in the return of Jesus but have little to no faith in the power of the Gospel to effect change right now.

Our expressions of faith must have an effect on the death, loss, and destruction we are confronted with on a daily basis. These

could be said that wisdom gives faith a context in which to function. In the same way that the banks of a river give direction to the water, so wisdom gives faith a direction, a target.

Dreams often become aborted because of the absence of creative expression in a culture. Wherever creative thinking is missing, God-given dreams are thought to be impractical and undoable. When creativity becomes the norm, people tend not to respond to challenges with, “Oh, that’s not a possibility.” Creativity says we’ll find out how to do it. Wisdom lives from the place of faith that believes “with God all things all possible” (Matt. 19:26).

Perfectionism is religion, while excellence is Kingdom. Perfectionism is always demanding, yet impossible to satisfy. Excellence is doing and becoming our best in any situation or task.

It’s the responsibility of leaders to realize that their sins will have a negative impact outside of their personal lives.

True! True for all of us.

Knowledge of truth that is unapplied eventually deadens us to the full impact of those specific truths. Strangely, we become insulated from the conviction of the Holy Spirit concerning the truths we understand the most if they have not impacted our lifestyle.

But all too often, the beauty and wonder of His sovereignty becomes the carpet under which we sweep unanswered prayers, assuming it was His will to say no to a given request or direction. That just isn’t always the case. We have a role

have chosen not to sacrifice what I know about the goodness of God on the altar of human reasoning so that I can have an explanation for what didn’t happen as I expected. Mystery in my life is as important as revelation. If I don’t value mystery, I will cut short my opportunities to grow in trust.

It’s simply much easier to look for explanations for the lack of answers than it is to seek God until there is a breakthrough.

the will of God is revealed in Scripture, but the specifics become known through relationship. It is a relational journey. Obviously, He will never contradict His Word. Yet sometimes His Word seemingly contradicts itself, only to drive us to Him. Again, it’s about the relationship.

In the Kingdom of God, peace is the presence of someone. Peace is a person. Jesus

We must put a demand on our faith and stop allowing complacency to define our life in Christ. The idea of the Holy Spirit abiding with us always must affect how we do life. And that life can be lived with a consciousness of Him that He affects faith, attitudes, conduct, and so much more. He is the pleasure of life. We often speak of using faith for a miracle, which is right and good. But what if we were to also use our faith to discover God with us?

Jesus, forgive me. I allowed fear to challenge my knowledge of Your goodness. Thank You for Your forgiveness as I know You will be my strength when the next problem appears. I give You thanks and praise, for You’re always good.

When peace is the agreed-upon value of a community of believers who are contending for “on earth as it is in heaven,” they will not use fear to control or influence others.

Faith doesn’t deny a problem’s existence. It denies it a place of influence. Honest conversation, expressing needs, fears, and the like, must be welcome in the family of God.

We have two realms that we’re aware of—natural and supernatural. God only has one—the natural. Think about this: The supernatural is His natural, and He made the natural, so it is also His natural realm. The natural realm is not evil. It mirrors the heavenly realm in profound ways. And when He’s at work, they flow together seamlessly.

Hmm

As we grow in this journey, we will learn to celebrate natural breakthroughs in the same way we would an obvious miracle. If the Lord were to drop a thousand dollars out of the air to meet my need, or someone gave me the opportunity to earn it through labor, both are supernatural in that God provided both opportunities. One is harder to celebrate because it’s possible for me to take credit for it. Maturity sees both as from God and celebrates His grace accordingly. It

agenda-driven relationships often become controlling, and all too easily they can cross the line into manipulation. That is where good becomes evil, and we don’t even recognize how and when that happened.

people can tell whenever anyone comes to help with an agenda. The world often rejects us in that scenario. And then we ignorantly count it as suffering for the Lord, when in fact we’re suffering because we’re foolish.

Churches are known to be agenda driven and, in the process, make enemies. These enemies often haven’t rejected Jesus. They’ve rejected us. That changes when we love people for who they are and serve them accordingly.

Ekklesia, wake up! We are governmental agents, representing another world, releasing the reality of that world into this one through agreement in purpose.

Saul was renamed Paul, quite possibly by Sergius Paulus, for it happened after he and Barnabas ministered to this influential Roman citizen.

Huh, I always thought God renamed him.

The sovereignty of God is one of the most beautiful things in existence. For me the picture of Jesus using secular words to reveal His Kingdom purposes is a wonderful look into that sovereignty.

This is once again evidence to me that God loves and believes in the world around us, long before they deserve it or even believe it for themselves. In reality it is the same for all of us. That’s why it’s called grace. It would not be good for us, or for the world around us, if everything came from and through the Church. We need the privilege of recognizing and giving honor to the greatness that is outside of the Church. We need it. And so does the world.

Amazing! I've never thought about it that way before.

Our assignment by nature is to build ourselves up in our most holy faith, keep accountable, and go out by two or three to agree in prayer and bring change to every environment we touch. We are salt; we are light. This is ekklesia. This is us.

What we assume about people affects our expectations of them and in turn influences how we treat them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a believer or a “pre-believer,” our assumptions have extreme significance on what we give them of ourselves.

Biblically based assumptions set a correct course that brings the best out of the people we love and serve.

It rarely works if we’re talking to people who have no value for the Bible. It makes the believer feel good because we’re using Scripture. We sometimes even feel good about being rejected, which is a normal outcome in those situations. It qualifies as low-grade persecution to some. But we don’t get any points when we suffer as a fool.

Ouch! And Amen!

The law of God is written in the heart, and speaking in this manner awakens such a God-given conviction to truth. That means the truth we speak of stands on its own, causing the hearer to rethink their values because of what we’ve said.

Yet if you look at much of church ministry, it is aimed at keeping people from sin, instead of launching into their destiny in righteousness.

Launching, I like that.

It’s so sobering to realize that we can live for years with a perception based on an understanding of the Word of God that was deficient and as a result be totally wrong.

Amen!

Believing they want to obey God has a profound effect on what you teach and how you treat them when they’re in crises or even if they have failed.

We confess we are saved and are thankful for His forgiveness, but our self-image is often inconsistent with His work on our behalf. Our beliefs about ourselves often deny His work of redemption. His work on Calvary was so complete that He said, based on that reality, to “think of yourself as dead to sin.” I think we have lessened the impact of this word by considering it to be an act of mere positive thinking.

There are many who will take a bullet in defending the death and resurrection of Christ, and rightly so. But these same individuals question their own new nature in Christ.

The word consider basically implies “do the math.” Add up the facts: Jesus died + He was raised from the dead + our faith is in His redemptive work for our salvation = we died with Him and have the nature of the resurrected Christ as our own.

His work on our behalf must become the foundation for our new identity.

Seeing ourselves correctly changes how we view other believers. Is it then not required of me to think of them in the same way He commanded me to think of myself?

Yes! He is putting into words what You have been teaching me. This is the hility of Your Spirit!

THE REASONING BEHIND HONOR

This whole section needs highlighted. Good, good stuff!

Every believer is a builder.

There are many views and teachings about the last days, but for my taste all too few of them expect the Church to be victorious and glorious.

Isaiah 60:1-2 deals with this concept quite profoundly: Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth…but the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.

Believing in the beauty of honor given to people, anticipating the best about them, encouraging them for a glorious future, all have one obvious outcome: If I believe this about an individual, then I can no longer hold to the teaching that sin will get so bad that Jesus will have to come and rescue us to take us to Heaven. Sadly, that is a typical approach to eschatology, with so little faith in the power of the Gospel.

Many have faith for the return of Christ, but not in the power of the good news of Jesus Christ to save the world from the very problems released by sin.

It’s hard to believe in darkness winning when the reality of Heaven permeates our values, attitudes, and ambitions.

If the vision for my life doesn’t require the help of others, it’s too small of a vision.

Any time we leave the concept of family, we’ve left the subject of Kingdom.

I know this is true. I must participate.

Fellowship is the exchange of life, one member to another. We need each other to become all that God intended.

Live with friends to whom we can give an account for how we are managing our strengths and weaknesses.

An additional way of describing accountaility.

It is the heart of God to have a group of people discover what could be accomplished through the sometimes-painful process of doing life together with other empowered people. There are conflicts. There is pain. And there are great letdowns and disappointments. But there is also honor, growth, breakthrough, and unexpected blessings.