Jesus said that even though we are in the world, we are not of the world, even as He was not of the world. John 17:16
As new creations on this earth, we are both earthly and heavenly. We are both seated in heavenly places in Christ, and yet our feet are squarely standing in this world. Every single believer is in union with Christ as an actual fact, but as our oneness with Jesus grows more functional and operational our heavenly One consciousness becomes more dominant.
I’ve discovered that getting older is awesome because even though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day, for momentary, light affliction is producing in us an eternal weight of glory that nothing can compare to.
Something else I have discovered since Olivia’s death is that my heavenly identity and consciousness have accelerated at an unexpected level. I think part of what’s happening can be explained like this. When Olivia was alive on this earth, she and I were one, and both of us were half heavenly and half earthly creatures. When she gave up her earth suit and was consumed by heavenly life, then in a real sense, a larger chunk of me made the transition also. Therefore at her death, it wasn’t just that a part of me was seeded into heaven, but a greater consciousness of heaven was seeded into me.
I have not experienced depression or longing to die since Olivia’s transition, but I have experienced a greater liberation from the pull of this world, and a greater immersion into the kingdom of heaven because she’s fully there, and took part of me with her. I did not know when I was finishing up teaching from the book of Galatians last fall the God was preparing me for what was to come in my brother’s and my wife’s death when he seared into my soul Galatians 6:14 – 15. Paul is talking in those verses about the identity and the reality of being a new creation in Christ when he said, “But may it never be that I should boast, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
John 3:31 says, “He who comes from above as above all, he was of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from above is above all.” I’m finding since Olivia’s death that I’m living from heaven toward Earth in a more profound way than I ever have before. Holy detachment from being too earthbound liberates us from being too chained to the panic and pettiness of this fallen world. Instead, living from above, from heaven gives us a gentle authority to bring heaven to earth and change the atmosphere around us, in a way that brings hope. What