Spring 1996
Eternal Reality
Oden Hetrick

To be among the top branches of a tall tree on a windy day is an experience that cannot be conveyed by words. We must be in the tree to know the experience. So also, we must be in the proper place, if we would experience the thrill of spiritual realities in heavenly places.

Words cannot produce experience, but following are some thoughts that apply to our entering the reality of eternal spiritual things.

A knowledge of Jesus as our personal Saviour is a necessary first step to an understanding of spiritual reality.

If spiritual reality in the Christian life were dependent upon just one thing, it would be, "Seek the Lord, and His strength: seek His face evermore" Psalm 105:4. We can trust and rest in the fact that true spiritual reality will be experienced by those who seek God because, "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him" Heb 11:6b.

Seeking God for a need ends when the need is met, but seeking God's face will lead us to the eternal spiritual realities of Heaven, which never end. When our seeking God on earth is lifted to our seeing Him in Heaven, we will there eternally enjoy His presence.

Paul the Apostle had one constant passion. Forgetting the past, he pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus that he might know Christ. (Phil 3:13-14).

To prevail in prayer until the Holy Spirit witnesses to our spirit is to receive a revelation from the Lord.

"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show
thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest
not" Jer 33:3. See also I Cor 2:9-10.

Paul instructed and encouraged others by writing of the visions and revelations which he experienced. If we count all earthly things but loss and seek God in daily prevailing prayer, we too can have the witness of the Spirit in revelations from God.

Whether God's truth is revealed to Isaiah, John, Paul, or to us, it is the same eternal, inspiring, life giving Truth. We cannot know what eternal spiritual realities are until the Spirit of God reveals to us the wisdom and knowledge that comes from the Throne of God.

Paul prayed,
"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes
of your understanding being enlightened, that you
may know what is the hope of His calling, and what
is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in
the saints ... for through Him we both have access
by one Spirit to the Father" Eph 1:17-18, 2:18.