Heaven Is Near

By Karen L. Tarango

Heaven Is Near will captivate you. It will draw you into your future eternal life with God Almighty. You will have the realization that while here on earth you can have happiness, joy, and healing, because heaven is closer than you think.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483534350

Book preview

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Introduction

Clouds of Heaven

When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams.

Nu. 12:6 NIV

It was November 15th, on a Sunday morning, when the adventure of my life began. Like every morning I sat up in bed and prayed. But this day was the beginning of my visions of heaven, twenty-four to be exact. To be honest, there were ten visions of hell mixed in there as well. Have you ever noticed the Lord never gives us a one sided view of anything. I think of good and evil, the Law and grace, heaven and hell. I believe it is His way of keeping us in balance.

I remember that first vision which was so breathtaking! What surprised me the most were the clouds of heaven. I remember standing on them, giggling with delight! However, before I reveal to you any more of my visions, I need to build a foundation and understanding of this gift from the Holy Spirit. This gift is really the gift of prophecy. I receive prophecy in the form of visions more than words.

Visions are not like dreams. I am awake when I receive a vision. Most of the time I am in deep prayer. It can be described as a movie in your mind. The important part I want you to know is that I cannot make myself have a vision. I cannot add to it or take away from it; the Holy Spirit gives it to me when he wants not when I want. These visions are from Abba Father, Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit and sometimes angels.

But when the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

John 16:13-15 NIV

These visions are prophetic messages to me either about the past, present or future. And just like what Lord Jesus said in the scripture above, The Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. The Lord is making it known to me what He wants me to know. He has taught me many lessons through visions as well. I want to share with you the first vision I ever saw. It was short and simple.

For the first time, in prayer, I prayed the armor of God for protection. As soon as I was done I had a vision of a black wall made of stone or some type of rock in front of me. I looked up to see the top but it was so tall I could not see it at all. I looked side to side but that too went on forever! And that was it, my first vision.

I believe God was showing me when I put on the armor of God his protection is complete and has no end. These first visions I experienced had no sounds or any people in them. As time went on my gift of visions has developed quite a bit. I can now hear during a vision and frequently Jesus, Holy Spirit or Angels are with me. Let’s see what the scriptures say about visions. A person who sees was originally called a Seer in the Old Testament.

Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, come let us go to the Seer, because the prophet of today used to be called a Seer.

1 Sam. 9:9 NIV

Today instead of the title Seer, a person would be called a Prophet. But in my case I would be called a Prophetess. There are many ways to receive messages from the Lord and for me that is through visions, dreams and words. As with all spiritual gifts the Spirit imparts to us, they are developed according to our level of faith. Also our willingness to be teachable.

Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.

Amos 3:7 NIV

Having the gift of prophecy is not for my benefit. However, I have learned many lessons from the Lord through this gift and that is a great benefit to me. But the main reason I believe that this gift was imparted to me was for your benefit. So I could tell you what the Lord wants you to know and understand about His will for you. Since the beginning God has spoken through others with this gift and here are a few found in the Old Testament.

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

Gen. 15:1 NIV

And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, Jacob! Jacob! Here I am, he replied.

Gen. 46:2 NIV

During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision.

Da. 2:19 NIV

An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

Na. 1:1 NIV

During the night I had a vision and there before me was a man riding a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses.

Zec. 1:8 NIV

In the New Testament, there are many people who had visions as well. Notice how some answered the Lord and spoke to Him or His angels. Visions and seeing into the spirit realm are so close they can cross over each other and many times are hard to tell them apart.

In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive.

Lk. 24:22-23 NIV

In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called him in a vision, Ananias! Yes Lord he answered.

Acts 9:10 NIV

One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, Cornelius! Cornelius stared at him in fear. What is it, Lord? He asked.

Acts 10:3-4 NIV

During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, come over to Macedonia and help us.

Acts 16:9 NIV

Visions, dreams and prophetic words are nothing new. They were given in the Old Testament and New Testament times and I believe continue today. My prophetic visions of what I saw in heaven and hell and what the Lord wants you to know is the main focus of this book. What He wants you to know is how close heaven really is. That you can experience heaven here on earth, not all of it but some. You can have solutions to your problems here on earth. You can have some of the benefits right now like happiness, joy, and blessings that you would in heaven. And that’s what this book is truly about.

Part One– Introduction

Meeting God at the Park

The title of this book is Heaven is Near. I know you may be wondering how that is possible? I will try to answer that in the next few pages. It was Memorial Day and my husband Art and I we’re at the park, it was 6:45 am. This early morning had been planned a month prior. In prayer God said to come to Him he had many things to reveal to my husband and I. Abba Father even gave us the time to meet Him, between 6:30 and 7 am. We were to pray to Him alone, apart from each another.

Isn’t that the way of our earthly parents too? Giving their children details and instructions, because they love us and want us to do the right things. To obey what they tell us because they know what’s best. Art stayed in the truck and I went out by myself and found a tree to sit under. I spread out my blanket, had my note pad and pen close by, and got comfortable as I prepared to meet God.

As I went into intense prayer His words began to come to my mind. Father God spoke and I wrote. In the middle of His prophetic words, He revealed to me what the title of this book would be; Heaven Is Near. No other explanation was given. I was very excited! I love the fact that God named my book! As the weeks went by I felt the need to look into this title more and to find out the reason behind the words. What I discovered is what I’m going to share with you. Let’s start in the book of Matthew.

John’s baptism, where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men?

Matt. 21:25 NIV

Sometimes we use Heaven and God interchangeably. I have found this was also true in the biblical times as well. Lord Jesus was asking in Matthew, did John’s baptism come from heaven, or from men? He could have easily said, did John’s baptism come from God or from Men? You see how Heaven and God are sometimes used to mean the same thing. In this case to mean God Himself. Let’s go back to the title of this book, Heaven is Near. It also means, God is Near. They are one in the same. Now look at this scripture it reads,

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.

James 4:7-8 NIV

I know this is a well-known scripture but what caught my attention was the order of words. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Can you see that we humans must take the first steps to be near to our heavenly Father. Then and only then will He come near to you. God is waiting on you. He isn’t going to force you to come to Him. He isn’t going to beg you to come to Him. He isn’t going to command you to come to Him either. God wants you to take the