Why Should You Settle For Less Than Heaven On Earth?

2 Chronicles 5:12-15 (NIV) All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:

“He is good;
    his love endures forever.”

Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

Do you see the cause and effect in this passage of scripture? Does it inspire you? It should! This happened before Christ was revealed and before the way was opened for all of us to enter the Holy of Holies! We have a better covenant and better promises than they did! And even so, when they sang and gave thanks, God’s glory manifested so they could no longer stand to minister.

Why should you experience anything less when you have full access to God’s presence in this New Covenant (something the Levites in 2 Chronicles could barely imagine) and you have been raised and seated with Christ in heavenly places?

Did You Know You Can Cause A Cloud Of God’s Glory To Form Around You?

1 Corinthians 12 is known as a passage on “spiritual gifts,” but as we’ve studied elsewhere, the idea of “gifts” as “special superpowers” is not found in the original text. Verse one would be better translated “I don’t want you to be ignorant about spiritual things.”

I notice a lot of ignorance among Christians about spiritual things. I minister to people of several other religions and notice they understand a lot more about spiritual things than many Christians do. They know the mechanics of spiritual things, but they don’t have discernment and are deceived. They have received evil spirits that disguise themselves as angels of light and end up bringing oppression into their lives. But at least they know, better than many Christians, how the spiritual world works.

The spiritual world works through declaration. There is cause and effect. In those spiritist religions, there is something they do to open themselves up to a spirit and invite its influence. There is something they do that causes that spirit to manifest. There are things they do that cause a house to become haunted so that paranormal events occur. It’s not just a mysterious “gift.” There is cause and effect.

This is what I would like Christians to understand. There are things we do that release the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. There are things we do to open ourselves up completely to His influence. There are things we do that result in angelic activity and tangible manifestations of God’s presence. It’s cause and effect. And it works for anybody who puts it into practice.

The declaration of God’s glory, combined with a heart on fire, causes the manifestation of God’s Spirit.

While a lot of Christians are sitting around hoping God might do something incredible, or saying “that’s not my spiritual gift,” people who aren’t even Christians are acting on spiritual principles of cause and effect with very real and tangible results. They are demonic manifestations, but they have far more manifestation than many Christians because they understand the spiritual world better than many Christians.

How To Set Your Heart On Fire!

John 7:38 (NIV) Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.

Matthew 15:18 (NIV) But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart..

Romans 10:8-9 (NIV) The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 

Proverbs 4:23 (RSV) Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.

Anybody can act on spiritual principles of cause and effect in order to see God’s glory manifest. It’s all about your heart and your mouth. Your heart is your garden. You cultivate it and you decide what you plant in it.

Fill your heart with God’s glory, then release it through your mouth. There are three important components of this.

1. The first is filling your heart with God’s glory by filling it with His promises, the message of the gospel, and testimonies.

Meditate on the promises of scripture and on the message of the gospel. Fill your heart with scripture. If a scripture is speaking to you, write it down and keep going over it. I used to write scriptures on my arm and on my wall with permanent markers, but you can also use a notecard or whiteboard! Take some time to listen to praise and worship music, and find what moves your heart. Find what moves you to tears. Speak and sing in tongues. Cry aloud to Jesus! Proclaim scriptures out loud.

I have had many experiences in which a promise of scripture or the lyrics of a song moved my heart, so I focused on that and the result was a physically tangible manifestation of God’s glory. There are certain lyrics that I find move my heart. For example, when I’m listening to the song “Break Every Chain” I get to the part that says “All sufficient sacrifice! So freely given, such a price. For our redemption, heaven’s gates swing wide…” At that part, I often find that suddenly the tears are flowing freely and I’m crying aloud to Jesus. My heart is completely open. When your heart gets in that place, keep it there! Play the song several times if need be.

Often recounting what God has done in my life spontaneously brings me to tears. Write down or record what God has done for you and through you. Remember how you were first saved. Spend time watching, listening to, and reading testimonies. When your heart is suddenly overwhelmed and you are either laughing or in tears, your heart is in a good place. That’s the start of an electric atmosphere in which a cloud of God’s glory is forming around you.

Take every limitation off your Christianity, because God’s glory is extreme and unlimited! Many Christians have so many limitations that come through in their religious talk, disqualifying themselves from the promises of scripture. T.L. Osborn asked “Is God limited by living in you?” Find promises in scripture to challenge and remove every limitation from your heart. God can do far more than you can ask or imagine according to His power at work in you.

2. The second is releasing miracles by acting on God’s word.

Act on the truth you have filled your heart with. Don’t let it just be theory. Act like it’s true. Act like you really are seated with Christ in heavenly places, and have God’s riches to give to the world. Act according to the truth that you are in Christ! You are His hands and feet and have been sent with His authority! Lay your hands on people and rebuke the sickness, pain, or demons afflicting them!

This forms a virtuous cycle with the first and third points. There is something about persevering in miracles. I pray for as many people as I can and I keep talking about what God has done. Miracle upon miracle and testimony upon testimony build up what is in my heart and the manifestation of God’s glory increases. Miracles and healing testimonies also fuel praise and worship to keep your heart burning.

The miracles and testimonies inspire praise in other people and begin to build a culture of miracles. They start to set other people’s hearts on fire!

3. The third is continuous praise.

This forms a virtuous cycle with the first and second points. Praise flows out of what you have filled your heart with, and praise also fills your heart and directs where you want it to go. Praise triggers miracles, and seeing God’s miracles fills your heart with praise. The effect of praise and worship coming from a burning heart is the tangible manifestation of God’s invisible Spirit.

Singing to the Lord as they did in 2nd Chronicles 5, and talking about what He has done, are both praise.

As you talk constantly about the Lord, His goodness, His miracles, and His Word, heaven begins to manifest spontaneously. You may begin to tangibly feel currents of God’s power and love flowing through you. The manifestation increases as we go on, so that even your proximity may expose evil spirit and people are spontaneously healed in God’s glory even without the laying on of hands.

You Stop Asking Certain Questions If You Understand How Spiritual Things Work

When Christians don’t understand how spiritual things work, they often ask questions like “Why didn’t God heal that person?” A lot of Christians then allow what they don’t understand to stop them from seeing Jesus and walking in faith.

When you understand spiritual things and also understand the gospel, you understand that God is an invisible Spirit and it’s His nature to heal, so it’s not a matter of God deciding or not deciding to heal someone, manifest His glory, or send revival. God’s glory manifesting is a matter of cause and effect. Just as we can do certain things that result in the effect of God’s glory manifesting around us, we can continue doing those things so that it intensifies. As it intensifies, the manifestation increases and you begin to see things happen that you weren’t seeing before.

Persevering in miracles intensifies the manifestation of God’s glory around you. And here’s a big key I have learned: This is true even when you stepped out boldy, spoke God’s word, and didn’t see a thing happen, but you didn’t let it stop you from seeing Jesus and you went on to minister to the next person just as boldly. Don’t worry about what you didn’t see yet. Just keep going.

On Saturday I saw a guy in a wheelchair at the open-air market before we went to the recovery house. His legs were paralyzed. I laid hands on him and commanded the spine to be restored. I said “I release God’s glory in all your body in Jesus’ name.” I didn’t see a thing happen but what’s important is that the fire in my heart stayed the same. I didn’t ask questions. I’ll do the same with the next person.

I have often seen an increase in the manifestation of God’s glory around me and miracle after miracle right after stepping out to pray for someone like that and not seeing a thing happen! Just keep going and declaring God’s praise all the more, and as the cloud of God’s glory around you increases, so will the manifestation, the miracles, the healing! Stop asking questions and just keep praising the Lord and declaring His glory until you see it manifest, and then keep going so the manifestation of His glory increases!

Progress In The Last Few Weeks

Every healing is so special, because it shows God’s love for the person. It’s about so much more than the healing. It’s about God’s love being revealed through it, and it’s about our hearts seeing Jesus and His goodness through the miracle so our hearts are consumed with His presense and the cloud of God’s glory over us thickens.

Here is an account of some of the highlights in the last three weeks. I couldn’t tell you all the stories any more than I could tell you every meal I ate over the last three weeks. Sometimes we pray for so many people and things happen so fast that we don’t remember every detail.

On July 8th, a Friday, I had a break of about two hours between classes and I walked to a store nearby to put a new protective covering on my cell phone screen. On the way back I met a man at the bus stop in a wheel chair. I prayed and the pain was gone so I asked if he wanted to get up. He got up and walked with no pain. Then I prayed for his son, and his son tangibly felt God’s peace come over him.

The next day was a big BBQ. It was behind the church building, and a cleaning lady let us through the building. As we were going I saw a dark spot in my mind’s eye on the right side of her lower back. I asked and she had pain there that was affecting her whole leg. Jesus healed her quickly. At the end of the BBQ various people were healed, including the guy who grilled the meat and previously couldn’t lift his arm very high. He lifted it with no shoulder pain. Others were healed of back pain. A woman had a nodule in her throat that she could feel with her fingers, and after praying one time she could no longer find it. A woman had bladder stones and felt heat as we prayed, then felt no more pain.

On the 14th I was at Casa da Paz, the recovery house I most often visit. I spend the afternoon working on our aquaponics project, and then preached at night. There were many new people and healings one after another. A special one was the case of an old man who had been screaming and having trouble sleeping because of pain in his shoulder, and now he was moving his shoulder without pain. I could tell it moved the hearts of the people around. It was also great to see him touched by God because after persevering before, praying various times for an issue in his feet, without seeing much progress the first few times. Persevere. Believe and you will see the glory of God!

On Saturday night I went to an all-women’s recovery house with the “Mova-se” missions group. The lady missionaries were doing most of the personal ministry, and the guys prepared the food. After the preaching I shared three words of knowledge. One was a vision of God’s power hitting a woman’s lower abdomen like heat. Another was a vision of a man hitting a woman on the head with something wooden, like maybe a broomstick. Another was of a right lung that was bad and God was restoring.

These were very brief, mental visions. Women responded very quickly to each one. I also shared the vision I had at another recovery house of a huge screen going beyond my field of vision, covered with green checkmarks, pointing to the truth that every one of God’s promises is yes and amen in Christ. We asked anybody else who needed to come for healing to also come.

Our lady missionaries did almost all the praying and I just coached them on how to pray and asked the women what they felt before and after prayer. “Just put your hand on her back, command the pain to go in Jesus’ name, and thank God.” Every single lady who said she had pain or physical symptoms before prayer testified that it was gone after prayer. I lost track of how many there were. One of the best parts for me was that it was the lady missionaries doing the praying, not me. I have been working hard to help them to understand that I don’t have a gift of healing and this is about Jesus and who He is, not about me, so you can do the same thing.

On Saturday night, July 23rd, we went to another recovery house. That was the evening that I prayed for the paralyzed guy in the market. Before I left home, I had felt like I might encounter someone with a broken arm. On the way from the market to the recovery house, there was a bad accident and we stopped to help. A 16-year-old boy was laying on the side of the road bleeding. We called an ambulance. I put my hand over him and kept releasing God’s power. There was nothing I could see happening but we don’t look at what we see but what is unseen. The mission’s leader is a doctor and looked at him, and comforted the mom explaining that the boy had no serious internal injuries, but might have a broken wrist. Another guy in the accident had a broken arm. Was the word of knowledge for him? We didn’t have a lot of time but I also prayed for him. We couldn’t see anything at the moment but who knows what I’ll find out in heaven!

On the way, I had three or four impressions of physical issues we would encounter at the recovery house, and I got more words of knowledge during worship. Before I could even give words of knowledge, Jose had prayed for a person’s lower back and all the pain left. That had been one of my words of knowledge. Then he got a word of knowledge for an old man, and he was healed. I had just been teaching Jose about words of knowledge in the way on the car, and I encouraged the others in the car to be attentive for them.

Jose had a vision of a guy walking without his crutch. It was one of those ones that has a brace for the arm, and the forearm goes inside it. Jose found him during worship, prayed for him, and he moved his knees with no pain. I took the crutch and encouraged him to walk without it. He walked up onto the stage without his crutch and testified he had no pain.

After the worship and the message, I gave several words of knowledge. Nobody responded to some of them and I thought maybe I had missed it, but then we found people with those conditions after the service! I had felt God touch a specific spot in the lower right side of my abdomen during worship. The pastor’s son had been feeling a constant, sharp pain in exactly that spot and complaining about it for days. It disappeared during worship before I even shared the word of knowledge, but we would not have known what God had done if not for the word of knowledge, and the little boy might have just thought it disappeared by chance instead of realizing that Jesus had healed him!

After the service we talked to people specifically. I found a guy with a bad headache and called Guilherme to pray for him. If left instantly. I had been teaching Guilherme for some time, but at first he would only pray timidly, asking God to touch the person. This was the first time he prayed boldly and commanded the pain to leave, and he saw Jesus do two miracles through his hands. I was very happy about that!

I overheard a lady complaining of pain. It was on the right side of the upper back, which had been one of my words of knowledge that nobody had responded to! I called one of our female missionaries to pray for her as I talked to other people. Later I checked back, and she had been healed of that and other issues.

I felt impressed to talk to a certain guy and found he had pain in his right forearm, which had been another word of knowledge nobody responded to, as well as pain in his chest and joints. All the pain left the first time I prayed. I told him “Look at how God loves you! He showed me this condition while I was still in the car on my way here! Did you hear when I shared it from the front?”

Another lady mentioned her shoulder had been healed and I don’t even know if it was spontaneously under the cloud of God’s glory, as the little boy was healed during worship, or if one of our team members prayed for her.

Get More Hearts Burning Until The Glory Cloud Covers The Whole City!

It’s one thing to get to the place where your own heart is burning and bursting with the Holy Spirit. You’re constantly on the verge of tears, you may sometimes feel currents of power and love flowing through you, and you start to become aware of a cloud of God’s goodness all around you.

Then there are those times when you persevere in miracles and healing and suddenly it’s like the air is electric because other people’s hearts are moved and overwhelmed with God! That happened when we were ministering to the homeless on the street and a guy was healed of pain on one whole side of his body from a car crash. Most of the people were gone already, but for the few who were there it was heaven touching earth and more miracles followed.

But my goal right now, what I’m working for, is to see other hearts burning long term, so that they live this way even when I’m not around, and so that we can burn together and the manifestation of God’s glory intensifies even more. Can you guys agree with me for that, in the church of Goiania?

I’m much more excited when I see someone else experience God doing a miracle through THEIR hands than when I myself pray and someone is healed. Then they see that it’s really about who Jesus is! And I’m so excited to see how many miracles have happened in the last two weeks through the hands of the people in our missions group who I have been encouraging and teaching for months now. (Most of the teaching has been in the car or in conversation over hamburgers after an outreach in which I prayed, miracles happened, and people asked me questions later!)

There is a lot of work to do. God’s heart overflows with compassion. The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few! We need more workers in God’s harvest!

Yesterday I wrote a list of some of the miracles that had happened the night before and sent it to the missionaries’ WhatsApp group. Many of the miracles had happened through THEIR hands. The leaders/founders of this local missions group replied. “Wow! This is what we dreamed of when we started! And now we are living it!” I sensed an unprecedented excitement and expectation.

A culture of the miraculous is starting to form, and I’m going to keep persevering to see more people set on fire, burning bright so they will persevere and continue even when I’m not there. When my heart is in the place of praise and bursting with God’s love and Christ’s compassion, I walk around with a cloud of God’s glory over my head. And if enough hearts start burning, we will soon see a cloud of God’s glory resting over this city. Let’s build a big old bonfire, and see it scattered by the winds of heaven to become a wildfire that runs through Brazil! With every miracle, every person touched by God, that is what I want to see. Every heart captured and acutely aware of God’s glory, and people crying aloud with all they are to Jesus! Surely the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

If you liked this post, you may want to check out my Heaven Now book trilogy. It’s full of insight into understanding simple gospel truths and exercising heaven’s dominion on earth. It’s also filled with testimonies of what happened when I put these truths into practice. I’m sure these books will encourage you and help you learn to walk as a heavenly person. Not only that, but your purchase supports our missionary work in Brazil and in every other place we go!