Bill Johnson: ‘How I Invite Heaven to Invade My Life Daily’
Eternity is written into our spiritual DNA.
Living aware of that reality is both natural and necessary for those who are born again. The writer of Ecclesiastes says in chapter 3, verse 11 that He has put eternity in our hearts. This connection with the reality of heaven is at the very foundation of who we are as believers. We’ve been given access to God’s Kingdom—more real than anything we see in front of us—through Jesus. That Kingdom is the present-tense reality of the King’s domain, to be realized in the most broken conditions of humanity. He is the Person of heaven. Abiding in Christ is actually a foretaste of eternity, as there is nothing that exists in heaven that is separate from Him. Hosting Him is the great privilege of our lives.
We have been created, at our most fundamental level, to live aware of His presence. It’s not something we have to strive for; it’s the most natural thing in the world. He is the predominant feature of our lives, and His presence never grows stale. Christian routine, specific worship songs, or expressions of faith can all become familiar, but we can never outgrow the freshness of the presence of God. The main focus of the enemy is to do whatever he can—through manipulation, accusation, division—to distract us from the gift of His presence. He would love nothing more than to have us reduce our lives to religious routine and lose sight of God’s true design for us.
Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). He is telling us that if we live in the felt realization of His presence and we intentionally embrace what He has to say, treasuring His Word in our souls, we can ask for anything we desire, and it will be done for us. God isn’t condoning self-centered Christianity. He isn’t setting Himself up to be some sort of vending machine through which, if we read our Bibles and pray enough, we’ll get what we want. He is telling us something vital, though. Jesus is inviting us to immerse ourselves into a journey where our hearts begin to beat so consistently with His that He can trust our dreams. And it is from that place, as a co-laborer, that we are called to impact the world, releasing heaven onto the earth.
The Gospel of John describes a moment when Jesus is standing with Nicodemus, attempting to describe heavenly realities that have no earthly correlation. He said, “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13). He is describing Himself. He is the One who came down from heaven and was ascending into heaven, while on earth. And He was, at that moment, in heaven. No wonder Nicodemus was confused! Jesus was portraying the ascended lifestyle that would be available to all believers. He lived acutely aware of His connection to eternity. Paul would later find language to describe this: We are seated “in heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6).
If we think that our present reality is all there is, we’ve been deceived. We’ve been invited into the most vibrant, powerful relationship with the Father. We’ve been given all the authority needed to release the reality of His world into ours: on earth as it is in heaven. We cannot allow the magnitude of this truth to shrivel down to a doctrine without an experience. Living aware of God’s presence, abiding in Him, means living from the place of absolute, triumphant victory. This is the normal Christian life.
Jesus was setting a standard for us in everything He did. He was and is eternally God, but He chose to live with human limitations, modeling a lifestyle we could actually follow. He taught His disciples about abiding in Him because it was the key to His ascended lifestyle. He stayed constantly aware of and connected to the Father, only saying what He was saying, and only doing what He was doing. Being seated in heavenly places does not mean whipping ourselves into an emotional frenzy so we can imagine heaven. Living from heaven to earth is all about a relationship with our heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit. Living conscious of His felt presence enables us to see the world through His eyes.
My wife, Beni, was so good at that. Brian and Jenn’s first baby, Haley, was in very serious condition soon after she was born. Our whole family was gathered in the hospital waiting room when we got the troubling news, and Beni quickly separated herself to pray. She went off to the side and asked, “Father, what are we doing?” Fear was creeping in, and she knew that we all needed to anchor ourselves in God’s perspective. She prayed, got a very clear word, and partnered with what the Lord was doing. Within a very short period of time, Haley had completely turned around and was a perfect, healthy baby.
Prayer was never meant to look like merely begging God to change a situation. Prayer is about joining with the Father, seeing His heart, and making the decrees necessary to bring about His will on the earth. I ache to see the realization of what Jesus taught. I long to see the world through His eyes. I want to look at my city and feel what He has in His heart. I want to become so united with Him that He can trust me to ask anything. I’m not interested in getting my way; that’s terrifying. But I am interested in the felt realization of His presence released into the world. My desire is to host His presence and carry His Word in my heart to the extent that, when I speak, heaven will invade every situation. This is what we have been destined for—to live the reality of Christ on the earth.
This is why I created a devotional that focuses on crying out for heaven to invade your life.
My prayer, as you read through this book, is that you would encounter the living, transformative presence of God. May your hunger grow for the reality of eternity. May every aspect of your being—your physical senses, your intellectual capacity, your emotional perception—become more and more sensitive to His Spirit. May we all become more aware of heaven, how it functions, and what it means to live an ascended lifestyle. And may we release heaven on the earth through our relationship with the Father.
