Earlier this week, I found myself on the road driving to a meeting that I had just found out about. It was one of those unplanned things that I felt I needed to attend, and so I jumped in the car and made my way to it.
The drive was uneventful except for the weather. It was cold enough in the atmosphere for the rain to turn into snow, but not cold enough on the ground for the snow to stick. It also wasn’t cold enough in the lower levels for the precipitation to remain snow, and so it was kind of this messy mix of rain and snow, along with that yucky feeling snow lovers like me get when we’re so close to snow, but not close enough.
As my windshield wipers worked to keep my vision of the road clear, the Holy Spirit began working to give me a clearer vision of the road ahead.
“There’s always a messy mix when heaven invades earth,” I sensed the Spirit say. “Until the atmosphere on earth matches the atmosphere in heaven, the blessings that are released won’t be able to fully stick.”
You and I may not have a lot of control over how cold the temperature is outside (and trust me, if I did, we’d have snow ALL THE TIME!), but we do have control over the temperature on the inside. The atmosphere of heaven is full of the worship and wonder of God. In heaven, we will see Him as He is! Ask yourself, “How would things change in my life if I saw Jesus as He is in my circumstances?” What would happen if the atmosphere on earth matched the atmosphere of heaven?
The messy mix would turn to accumulating snow.
In the messy mix, we can find ourselves unsure of our identity, uncertain of our forgiveness, unsettled about our purpose. You know you’re in the messy mix when you can hear a truth, be emboldened by its clarity, and then be just as confused an hour later. The messy mix is filled with flakes of eternity that are quickly overtaken by the rain of the temporal. Nothing seems to stick, and nothing seems to satisfy.
But the snow of heaven brings clarity about what God has done and who God is. When our atmosphere is full of expectancy because we’ve seen Him as He is, the revelation of heaven begins to grow and deepen until we’re living in a revelation accumulation!
“Come, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are crimson red, they will be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18 CSB, emphasis mine)
God wants us to be settled about what He has done and about what He wants to do. He wants the reality of His forgiveness to bury the doubts we have about being able to be forgiven. To settle the matter literally means to reason together so that we can move on from the matter. In other words, it means to leave the messy mix and live in perpetual snow.
This is what Jesus meant when He taught us to pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” He knew that in the place of prayer – and more specifically, in the place of that prayer – we would find our atmosphere shifting into one that can receive and keep what heaven is releasing.
Today, live in such a way that the blessings of heaven will accumulate in your life, family, church, and city. We want accumulation, not dissipation.
