When I first started my journey into deeper intimacy with God, I had no idea it would take me into uncharted territory. When I say that, for years, I said the standard, “Father, come down here and meet with me” that I was taught in church. However, over time, I began to realize that if we’re the temple of the Holy Spirit and God is as close as the air we breathe, He’s already here. My problem? I wasn’t looking in the right places. In Revelation 4:1, why did God tell John to “Come up here” to talk with Him?

Since God is as close as the air we breathe, and the Holy Spirit makes our body His temple, and we can “come up here” to meet God, then that’s what we should do. He’s in us, around us, and above us. It’s a matter of stepping into the realization of that fact. How do we do it? Well, for me, that was rather difficult figuring out. I asked questions for years about many things and people just didn’t have answers. Those questions continued to sit on a shelf until the first time I heard Ian Clayton. I had no clue what he was talking about but what he said witnessed with my spirit and… he was the first person who had answers to the questions I’d asked for years. A couple of years later, I started listening to Mike Parsons and others who mirrored what Ian said.

In a nutshell, I learned that as a Son of God (no male or female in Christ), I can live an “ascended lifestyle.” What exactly is that? I’ve coined the phrase “come up here principle” where my focus is on spending time with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit “up here.” I see things through the spirit rather than in the natural. John even says throughout scripture that he was “in the spirit.” If he could do it, so can we. We see in the spirit through our imagination. For the longest time, I didn’t know how to do that. I practiced and practiced and practiced daily seeing with my spiritual eyes. As with all things in life, the more you practice, the better you get at something. Seeing in the spirit isn’t a gift. It’s part of what we’re supposed to do as believers. For some, it comes very naturally. That wasn’t the case for me.

Many of you may remember Rick Joyner’s book The Final Quest. That’s a wow book for me because it’s so vivid. The first part grossed me out but never-the-less, I read beyond the gross part because something about the story intrigued me. Joyner was in the spirit and shown many things. In the two other books of the series (The Call and the Torch and the Sword), the rest of the story is told. The overall gist of the books focuses on repentance, humility, and a deeper understanding and relationship with God. I had all but forgotten about the books until I began to have similar experiences. That’s when I pulled them back out and read them again with my spiritual senses rather than physical.

Learning to live “from heaven to earth” is like anything new. It takes practice. Oh, and did I say that it takes practice? The age-old teaching based on gifts has nothing to do with this principle. I never functioned in any of the spiritual gifts so there’s nothing special about what I do. I practice and practice and practice ascending and staying in the kingdom realms where I’m seeing things from a heavenly perspective rather than our normal run-of-the-mill boring life. Oh wait, and I should say overly-dramatic and often negative, too. Somehow, I managed to stay away from much of that because I always had a sense that God is good… ALL the time. No, I didn’t understand everything that happened but in most cases, I chose to see how God used a situation to help me mature. My most recent experience with that involved losing my home to the eminent domain process. That story is for another time…

Living an ascended lifestyle is simply focusing on being in the presence of God through the “come up here” principle of being with Him in the kingdom realms of heaven. Yes, there are lots of amazing things that I see but those all direct me to Him… Yahweh… God… my Creator. In that place of the ascended lifestyle, I get to know the persons of God (Yahweh), Jesus (Yeshua), and the Holy Spirit. Just like best friends, we sit and talk about many things. I watch and learn, then “do” myself. Not only do they want to get to know me but I learn about their desires, too. Friendship goes both ways. It requires two to make a relationship work. If I’m always going up saying, “God, I need this!” and never spend time getting to know Him, that’s no different than writing a check for goods. There’s no relationship involved in that at all!

How do we learn to live an ascended lifestyle? You guessed it… practice! If seeing in the spirit is difficult, go to Ian’s website (www.sonofthunder.org) and type in “I Can See” into the search bar. That’s a great teaching to get you started. It was my first introduction into learning to see with my spiritual eyes. I then added my own exercises. I journal and write what I see, hear, and sense even if it doesn’t make sense. Check it for scriptural accuracy later is my best advice. If we second guess what we’re writing, we’ll often miss the good stuff. If we ask God to give us bread, He’s not going to give us a rock. There’s no need to be concerned about deception when our hearts are pure and our goal is intimacy with Yahweh. When our eyes are on Jesus, they aren’t on the enemy. Who cares what the enemy does anyway! As they say in the book Teaching With Love and Logic, ignore the bad behavior and focus on the good. We learn best by focusing on the good things, not the bad. If there’s still concern, decree and declare a sanctified imagination and go for it!

Happy practicing!

Del

© 2019 by Del Hungerford