Walking In The Spirit

Eternity Daily Bible Study
(A ministry of Eternity Christian Fellowship)

Walking In The Spirit - 31

Studies in this series can also be found online at www.globalchristians.org/walkspirit/

Topic: Downloads From Heaven Part 1

Date: 25th August 2009

1 Corinthians 2:9-10 HCSB (9) But as it is written: What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and what has never come into a man's heart, is what God has prepared for those who love Him. (10) Now God has revealed them to us by the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God.

Now which things God has revealed to us by the Spirit? Things that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man. This is Heaven's true 'extra-sensory perception'! [ The Devil's ESP is but a poor imitation] It is God's information, information that lies beyond the physical senses or even beyond our own deductive abilities. And it is information about our blessings! About what God has prepared for those who love Him. The 'deep things of God' (v.10) are His amazing and astounding blessings!

Ephesians 2:4-7 MKJV But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us (5) (even when we were dead in sins) has made us alive together with Christ (by grace you are saved), (6) and has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, (7) so that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

It seems that we are so blind to our blessedness that it needs an act of divine inspiration to reveal God's love that is freely given to us!

1 Corinthians 2:11-12 MKJV (11) For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of man within him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. (12) But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and the passage above tells us that He alone knows the things of God (though Jesus, being God, is also included John 16:13-15). The Holy Spirit alone is truly aware how much God loves us and cares for us and has given for us!

Only the Holy Spirit knows the amazing plans and power of God and how He will act on our behalf. Only the Holy Spirit knows the full nature of God and can reveal Him to our hearts. Only the Holy Spirit knows the fulness of our redemption and can show us what we will inherit in Christ Jesus.

Only the Holy Spirit knows the Glory and how God will receive us into that glory and transform us to be like Himself, an immortal, imperishable spiritual being full of the life of God. And only the Holy Spirit understands the full meaning of scripture, the promises, the prophecies and the covenants that are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus!

During the Last Supper Jesus explained how the Holy Spirit would reveal all truth to the apostles:

John 16:13-15 MKJV However, when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatever He hears, He shall speak. And He will announce to you things to come. (14) He will glorify Me, for He will receive of Mine and will announce it to you. (15) All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and will announce it to you.

So we see that the Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ, which have been delivered over to Him by the Father, and He announces them to us. This includes the things to come – that is blessings that the apostles had not yet entered into (such as Pentecost) and the unfolding of God's plan. All these are: the things that are freely given to us by God. (2 Corinthians 2:12 above) These are things into which angels long to look!

1 Peter 1:12 MKJV To them it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us, they ministered the things which are now reported to you by those who have preached the gospel to you in the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

No w no amount of logic or persuasive preaching on its own can convince you of how much God loves you. You will still have doubts. The human heart is like that. We are naturally guarded about things that 'seem to be too good to be true'. But when the Holy Spirit swoops down in revival power people KNOW – and they know that they know – that God loves them absolutely and completely. You need a download of God's love from Heaven if you are to understand such things!

Romans 5:5 MKJV And hope does not make us ashamed, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us.

Only God can open your eyes to His goodness so that you truly fall in love with Him!

Ephesians 3:16-19 MKJV that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; (17) that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, (18) may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, (19) and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.

As the Holy Spirit goes to work in our inner man we receive power and strength to understand the love of Christ which 'passes knowledge' (Heaven's extra-sensory perception again!) and we begin to download the glory so that we are filled with all the fulness of God.

Downloads from Heaven come about when God's Spirit blesses your human spirit with the knowledge of God and of Christ and of all the good things that we will inherit. Downloads from Heaven may happen as we worship, as we study the Bible, as we discuss things with other believers or even as we look at the night stars. A divine 'Aha' moment will happen and we will understand a bit more than we did before.

Now some people make a false distinction between the Spirit and the Bible, as if a really Spirit-led person does not need the Scriptures. On the contrary even the most casual reading of the New Testament shows that Jesus and the apostles had a very high regard for Scripture ( Matthew 5:17, 2 Timothy 3:16). Now if their priority as 'the ministry of the Word and prayer' (Acts 6:4) - that should be our priority also!

Downloads from heaven occur in conjunction with studying the Bible and do not, in any way, replace or over-ride the Bible. I teach exegesis and hermeneutics and take verse-by-verse bible studies in a local bible college. I also teach on the spiritual life in these devotionals. Both go together in a balanced Christian approach to revelation.