consider this: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?” My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:1-3).
Second we ask. “Ask,[and keep asking] and it will be given to you; seek, [keep seeking] and you will find; knock, [keep knocking] and it will be opened to you. “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? “Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:7-11). And James says:“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5-). Any of us is capable of asking aren’t we? It is one of the simplest principles that is available but for some reason people who are confused about anything fail to exercise the principle and ask God for wisdom.
There must be persistence in our asking if we really want to know. Jesus gives an applicable parable on persistence. “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and from inside his friend answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence [also translated shamelessness] he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (Luke 11:5-8). Many times God seems unwilling to answer your prayers or requests but this is just a smokescreen. He is willing to give you what you want but he tests you to see how bad you want it. Persistence is also translated “shamelessness. Sometimes in your persistence in asking you can’t worry about how it looks to others (some guy screaming in the streets for bread at midnight) but if you want something so badly you don’t care what it looks like to others.
Another parable on persistence. “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. “There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.’ “For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out [one translation says “hit me under the eye”] (Luke 18:25). God sometimes works on the same principle. Sometimes you have to “hit Him under the eye” to get Him to respond. It’s not that He is unwilling--He wants to draw the violence out of your spirit and teach you something about His ways, which as we said, are higher than ours.
Sometimes it takes an intense violence in spirit (not physical violence) for God to respond. Jesus said: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and men violent [in spirit] to take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). The Lord is like a landowner with sons who are to inherit the land when the Father dies. He will drive those sons relentlessly so that they are prepared to be responsible for the land like he was. He is not just going to hand it over to irresponsible sons who would drag it into ruin. To those called of God, or those who wish to participate with Him, are going to inherit all that He has one day and we must be prepared.
We have an inheritance to receive from the Father. “Then the King [Lord] will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). When Jesus died and was resurrected the Father put Him in charge of all things in heaven and earth. “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world” (Hebrews 1:1-2). “The Lord Jesus is exalted to the right hand of the Father, has all power both in heaven and in earth, and is head over all things to the church, notwithstanding the restless endeavors of his enemies to hinder his advancement” ( Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Psalm 2:1, 3). We too are to receive a similar inheritance: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:16–18). The sufferings spoken about are the intense training we must undergo so that we too can be prepared to reign with Christ in His Kingdom.
You may say these are words on a paper, written by men, without any scientific proof and therefore without any value in your life. However the spiritual person, who you can become, does not regard them this way. Jesus said: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). God’s words are not mere words but they are spirit and life. Rather than imparting understanding and inspiration as other books do, His words impart life to your being through your spirit. The Apostle Paul said this about the spirit: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one” (1 Corinthians 2:12-15).
This book will examine these and other laws and principles applicable to the realm of the Spirit, heaven if you will, where God lives. God is real. You can communicate with Him. His presence is weaved throughout creation. He is omnipresent (everywhere at once). Only our lack of understanding prevents us from seeing Him like He is. As Paul says, the slight inconvenience of what we have to go through to see Him clearly is not to be compared to the unlimited quality of His Kingdom which will someday soon cover the whole earth. As Paul also said: “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus…. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12, 14).
Who and What Is God?
Introduction
The most important aspect of God that we need be aware is that God is a Spirit. In the Gospel of John he records a conversation between a Samaritan woman (not a Jew) and Jesus as follows: [the woman said] “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain”. The Samaritans lived in what was formerly Israel (not Judah) and there was a specific mountain where they worshipped. “and you people [Jews] say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know…“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in
