Heaven Bound: A Devotional: From the Blog Series: The Spirit is Calling

By Connie D'Alessandro

My daily conversations with the Holy Spirit began long before I recognized them for what they are. A Counselor within is a hard concept to fathom or explain. In fact, the indwelling presence of the One we call the Holy Spirit is such a mystery to our finite minds that we can and do spend endless hours ignoring, debating, or just flat-out rejecting His wisdom and counsel. The manner of hearing His voice for me is much like a thought exchange. As I meditate or ponder and inquire of my Lord, things that are on my mind, He will provide interesting new or different thoughts as another person might when engaging in conversation. Heaven Bound is a thirty-one-day collection of my early morning conferences with the Holy Spirit. Rather than a how-to formula for making a connection, this book reflects what I experienced once the connection was made. At the end of each chapter are points to ponder for deeper reflection as a personal devotional or for use as in a group study. In this chaotic world that sometimes seems to be spiraling out of control, God is reaching out to His creation and longs for His creation to respond. My prayer for each reader is that through sharing what the Holy Spirit speaks to my heart, you will hear Him speaking to yours. The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him? For more information, please visit the companion websites: click here. (http://www.thespiritiscalling.com/) click here. (http://www.thespiritiscalling.org/)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642585117

Book preview

1

One Way to Heaven

The Holy Spirit calls to me this morning. I have been so troubled by the news about the genocide taking place in far-off lands. I judge those people executing the genocide, and rightfully so. They need to be stopped and sent to hell for all they are doing and have done.

The Holy One invades my thoughts with the truth about the unsaved and the One who will ultimately judge us all. He speaks truth. Hell has no compartments that grade and penalize sin according to human values. It is hard for the human mind to grasp that concept because we have, in our own hearts, given value to our sin actions, or opposite that, we have given value to our good deeds.

What we think is fair are grades of sin as assessed within the human mind. There is a bar of good, better, best, or bad, worse, worst. We rate our sin and the sin of others by an internal standard. I guess if we are gods, then we can rest with this standard and rating system and be assured of our entry into Heaven at the end of this earthly life.

But God . . . Does the Creator God who formed us and gave us His Spirit through His Son, use the same standard and measuring rod for our life and eternity?

The Word of God given to man and the appearance on earth of God Incarnate (God in the flesh), who is Jesus Christ, reveals the truth.

Many are caught up with their own self-generated image of God. Whether we see God as a kindly, white-haired ancient person who is desperately fair-minded and beholden to men for their loyalty, or see Him as a tyrant, angry, wrathful, control freak waiting for humans to cross Him, most conjure up an image and work our way out from there.

But our image of our Creator can and must come from truth. God is Who He is. We didn’t create Him, He created us. While we were created in His image, He remains high and above the weak flesh image that we tend to judge Him according to.

God has made His Word available and, in our history, has even wrapped Himself in flesh to show us Who He is. Jesus is God. His presence, His person. His life, His death, His resurrection all point us to the truth about our Creator.

The question for each one of us is whether we will accept God for Who He is. If we do, we are promised to live forever in His presence. If we do not, then we will live forever not in His presence. It’s a simple choice, really, except for those who would choose to be their own god.

The drive to be our own god, takes us down any road that pleases the self. We justify our human mind and thinking, saying, I just can’t believe in a God who would send a good person to hell or save an evil man or__________________—you can fill in the blank, never really grasping the truth that it’s all about a choice that each human can, must, and does make before the final judgment is rendered by a holy God.

The incredible kindness, mercy, and generosity of our majestic Creator is that salvation depends on a choice that every person can, must, and does make. Our sovereign God leveled the playing field, taking off the table any condition of birth, goodness of deeds, talents we may have, or any relative comparison of our personalities, appearance, or innate character.

The only thing that God uses in His assessment for salvation is the question, What have you done with the truth that Jesus Christ was sent from heaven to earth by Me to save you? We are to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the Savior of mankind and the One sent by God to pay the price for God’s wrath against sin, wickedness, and evil—all of which every one of us is guilty when using the standard of God’s holiness as opposed to the standard of our human goodness.

To those who say the way is too narrow, especially those who follow counterfeit gods, the truth that Jesus gave us is clear when He said, Small is the way and narrow is the gate that leads to life, broad is the road that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:14).

It is not the rigid requirements of the law that leads to life, but rather the One, the only One, who represents the gate. Jesus is the Gate and the only Way to access heaven.

For those who deny the truth reject the one and only provision God has provided for our salvation and eternal life in the presence and company of our Creator, the end will come as a shock to all those theories about heaven and hell. For hell is isolation and separation from all that we know as life and light. A miss of the only way to heaven will translate to the same hell for all regardless of the best or worst actions we accomplish on earth.

Either we are or are not saved, and Jesus alone knows who are His. Do you belong to Jesus? Have you entered into a relationship with the Son of God? Or will you get to the gate and be turned away?

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?

Points to Ponder—Chapter 1

Have you been guilty of grading your failures (sins) and judging others by that standard? Has the subject matter of today’s study changed your thoughts about salvation and God’s simple requirement?

If one definition of holiness is wholeness, being complete, lacking nothing, how does our salvation provide for holiness? Read John 14:23. What does this verse speak to you about the relationship we have with God, the Trinity?

Our flesh is the part of our being that is an enemy of righteousness. Our transformation from flesh being to spirit being is lifelong, and salvation is the day the real battle (within) begins. That battle involves choices. If we love Jesus, we will keep His word. True love is a choice. How have you chosen to love Jesus today? Talk it over with Him. (Note: relationship is a choice as well.)

Our Heavenly Father sent the Holy Spirit to enable us to live in love with Him. Have you thought about your relationship with God as being a sacred romance and how that is the way He desires us to live out our temporal lives? If God the Son so loved you that He died in His flesh that you might be safe (from judgment) for all eternity, talk to Him about how this makes you feel.

Reread Matthew 7:14. Salvation comes but one way. What does this speak to you about the works some may be relying on as a pass into eternity? Does this bring comfort to realize it not our doing that impresses God but rather our being? Are you encouraged by this truth? Does it change your desire to be in an intimate personal relationship with the Lord? If so, tell Him.

2

The Living Word

The Holy One calls to me this morning. A while back, at a time when I was being stubborn with the Lord in my faith, the Holy One said, " I know you trust My Will but do you trust My ways? "

Since that time, God’s ways have been at the forefront of my thoughts. I pray and seek to understand the mysterious ways of Holiness. In the circumstances that touch my life, I am aware that God’s ways are much higher than mine. I cannot begin to fathom the mind that sees all things at once, the end from the beginning as it stretches out and beyond the small sequence of a human lifetime upon the earth.

The Bible is a record of seven thousand earth years that somehow sits in time and space as a brief and small interlude on eternity’s time line. God’s ways, being higher than ours, are beyond our grasp, as His thoughts and His Will deal with a multitude of factors and unimaginable connections in creation, from people to the situations they experience.

The prophetic words spoken of Christ’s first coming traversed years and generations to the point that God’s ultimate plan for our salvation and the details of the Savior’s life foretold are beyond the odds of it happening outside an eternal plan.

Knowing that God is eternal and His plans for mankind were set long before He created Adam and Eve means that He foreknew the garden, He foreknew the snake, and He foreknew the fall. He also ordained the mission that sent His Son to die on a cross, crucified for man who thought he should be like the Creator, knowing good and evil.

The concept of the world, like the concept of the Creator, is vast and so hard to fathom. The millions of people in different lands, cultures, time zones, and family groups are foreign and strange to me. But the Internet has suddenly given me the ability to connect with people far away and in real time.

Through the use of the Internet to communicate with people far, far away, the world and the unknown have become more manageable. What was, in times past, a world so vast and unknown to me is now brought into my daily life. Even the language barriers have been leveled by a program called Google Translate. The Internet facilitates communication with those of a world other than the one I am confined to by geography and time.

The Bible is the Living Word of God. It is living because it is powerful and adaptable to every generation and life circumstance of man. Hebrews 4:12 says, For the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than a double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and Spirit, joints and marrow. God spoke into the world He created. Different men were given the assignment to record and protect the priceless communication between the Creator and the created.

God is Spirit at this moment. He can be felt and heard but not seen. His activities and the effects of His presence become visible, but He himself remains ethereal. That begs the question, How can we who are fleshly tangible begin to relate to the One who is Ethereal? How can we who are flesh and blood relate to the One who is Spirit?

The answer to that is in the pages of the recorded account of God’s relationship with man which is His Word, the Bible. Each and every page is informational and directional. Our lives today are symbolically spoken of throughout the pages of His Holy Word. The most important thing to understand and accept is that the Bible is God’s method of communication with His beloved creation. The Bible is not just a history book or a poetry recital, but the Bible is God’s love letter written to and for those who desire relationship with Him.

The Bible speaks from eternity and bridges the time and space gap that exists between us and our Creator. Just like the Internet shrinks the vastness of the world, the Bible shrinks the vastness of eternity. Like communication with someone in a faraway land brings them close to heart and home, the Bible sets up the communication between us and the One who created our being. And just like the Internet keeps us informed about temporal things, the wisdom of the Living Word offers practical insight from the perspective of the One whose eyes see it all.

Every person who rests under the shade of the cross of Jesus Christ—everyone who has made the transaction with the Savior Son of God and had their sin removed—has the ability to comprehend and know God through the written Living Word He has provided.

What was once a foreign language to the heart and mind now comes alive with understanding. The Holy Spirit interprets. The supernatural intersects with the natural, the ethereal communes with the tangible, and the Creator of our being comes into focus.

I delight in the reality that I can know God’s will because it is written. His Living Word is His will. By the presence of the Holy Spirit, I can not only know His will but I can also begin to trust His mysterious ways.

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?

Points to Ponder—Chapter 2

Read John 15:16–17. God’s Word is for all generations of believers. In these verses, Jesus said something very personal that comes with a promise. Write down what He said to you and how that makes you feel.

Read John 15:4–7. What is the condition for us to be fruit-bearing?