by Del Hungerford
We begin by asking the question... what is "ascension?" To many, it's a new age word that has nothing to do with Christianity. If you think about what it involves, there's really a better word for it. I call it the "come up here" principle as described in Revelation 4:1 where John was invited by the Lord to see into the future. Many believe John literally went into the heavens for this encounter or that Ezekiel did the same thing when he saw the wheel in Ezekiel 1. Who knows for sure HOW it happened but... there are clues to better understand.
Here are some truths that we do know:
- God (Yahweh) is as close as the air we breathe. (Acts 17:28)
- WE are the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 6:19)
- We are seated with Christ in heavenly places. (Eph. 2:6)
- We are IN Christ and He's in us. (2 Cor. 5:17, Galations 2:20, Colossians 3:3)
Now, let's put this together to describe "ascension." Since our bodies are a living temple where the Holy Spirit resides, we must remember that in the Holy Temple, there was a holy of holies. That's where the priests went before God once a year to atone for the sins of the people. Our personal holy of holies is in our heart. Many are now calling that place either the "castle of our heart" or the "garden of the heart." Science says that the heart is a greater thinking organ than the brain. When we refer to our gut instinct, that's also a reference to the heart. It's the most intimate part of our being where all life comes forth. Without the heart beating, life ceases to exist.
In The Cloud article, I give a definition of ascension. Here's what that article says...
I asked AI to provide a spiritual definition of ascension. I was told that "in spiritual contexts, ascension generally refers to a process of awakening and transformation, where one moves from a state of limited awareness to a higher consciousness and connection with the divine. It's often described as a journey of self-discovery and spiritual evolution, involving shedding old patterns, integrating different aspects of oneself, and aligning with one's soul purpose."
AI can be hit or miss but in this case, it seemed to spell out ascension quite nicely. Notice the words "awakening and transformion." This occurs first when we become a Christian (salvation). Sadly, this is where many believers stop the process. From here, we move from the limited state of awareness (our natural mind within the soul), and turn inward to the spirit where we step into our "God Consciousness." Instead of simply self-discovery, as AI puts it, we learn who we are in Christ. Communion is FOR this purpose and helps us understand our identity as Sons of God. The above definition also mentions "aligning with one's soul purpose." Well, that's hard to do unless we're seated in Christ (from our spirit, not the soul) in heavenly places. Christ did it first. That set the example for us to follow. He went ahead of us, showing the way to our "inHimness" with God. The final stage is the Perfection of God.
We are seated in Christ in heavenly places. That heavenly place is within you - in your heart. We are IN Christ and He is in us. I call this "in himness." Acts 17:28 also tells us that God is as close as the air we breathe. Well, the last time I checked, I breathe here on earth so that must mean God is literally inside me because that's where my breathing begins. It's just common sense. We've tried to spiritualize this WAY too much.
Look at the picture of the Holy Temple. Now, visualize your body as this temple. The Ark of the Covenant represents your heart. It's the place of great intimacy with the Trinity.
I propose that the word "ascension" actually refers to turning into the very core of your being - into your heart where you meet with God, just like the priests did in the Old Testament but in a physical temple. The new age movement calls this a higher level of consciousness but the part they are missing is that God is the Creator of all things, including our consciousness. How can we function properly unless we include Him in the process? Most new agers function from the soulish level of "self" rather than partnering with God in the spirit.
The temple became a part of our being upon the death of Jesus. Remember when Jesus said to the disciples that the Holy Spirit was being sent? Not long after that, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed (A.D. 69). This was a sign that the temple is now WITHIN us. When the veil in the temple ripped after Jesus died on the cross, that was the moment He fulfilled what was spoken in the Old Testament. The problem (just like today) is that the "old guard" didn't recognize the shift in seasons.
At that time, they were shifting "ages" from Aries to Pisces. (An "age" typically lasts about 2,000 years.) Pisces is represented by the fish symbol, which was the beginning of the church age. Have you ever wondered why Christianity uses the fish symbol? Aries was the sign of the bull, which was also very prevelant in the previous age. Remember the golden calf at the time of Moses that Aaron built while Moses was on the mountain. Have you ever wondered why it was a calf and not a lamb or some other animal? The ancients understood the ages. What we call the Zodiac is really the Mazzaroth, which tells the story of creation. It was corrupted into what we now call "astrology" in the 1950's. But, we'll discuss this further in another post.
The point here is that WE are the temple of the Holy Spirit and that when we "ascend," it literally means we are going into our living temple into the the holy of holies (our heart) where we learn of the mysteries of God. From that position, we release it in the natural realm. This concept can be difficult to understand so that's one reason many of us use the picture of a mountain to describe it. I'll put that picture below as a visual for you.
Our heart is the inner part of the mountain where we meet with God. The outside of the mountain represents the three parts of our being - spirit, soul, and body. At the top of the mountain is our spirit, which is supposed to release direction into the soul, which then flows down to the body. In a sense, this is a circular thing where the flow comes from the inside to the outside, much like the toroidal shape science uses to describe how energy moves. Hmmm.... Does this mean science is finally catching up to what God has been saying all along?
My Journey of Discovery
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?
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” which means that my focus is on spending time with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit “up here,” where 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 do this through our imagination – it’s how we “see” in the spirit. 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 can all do. 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 that part because something about the story intrigued me. It wasn’t until nearly 20 years later that I realized Joyner’s book is based on the come up here principle. He 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. I encourage you to get the books and read them if you haven't yet done so. They will open your eyes to many of the things we talk about in NW Ekklesia.
Learning to live “from heaven to earth” 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 into the depths of my heart where I’m seeing things from a heavenly perspective rather than our normal run-of-the-mill boring life. Somehow, I managed to stay away from much of the negative "churchy" stuff 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… but, in case you're interested, I tell about it in my latest book, Transforming Mindsets.
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 via our personal temple. 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, Jesus, 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 into the blog posts on this site and look for the one about seeing in the spirit. I created my own exercises, similar to what I put in the blog post. 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!
Below is a recap of my version of an image that Nicolas Acuna shared with a private group as he talked about ascension, which is really different levels of consciousness. There are 7 levels of ascension. They are also 7 levels of communion with Christ through our consciousness. This is often done through deep meditation where we are "in the mind of Christ." That's difficult to do when we have an expectation of what something should look or be like.
First, we look at a version of the image he shared in the meeting that I revised based on my own revelation of the process....
We are seated IN Christ at whichever level of communion we choose. The bottom represents the lowest level of consciousness and communion while the top represents the highest (expanded) level.
- We are "born again" (incarnated) in Christ.
- We are crucified with Christ.
- We are resurrected with Christ.
- We sit with Christ in heavenly places.
- We sit with Christ in our position of understanding that we existed at the beginning.
- We sit with Christ in the fullness of who he is and entrain with that fullness as we see and function from that position.
- We sit with Christ in the position of perfection in the "allness" of God, who is Source.
The + and - represent a time reference with the minus being the beginning. The plus is physical reality, where we exist on earth. Ascension brings the reality of heaven to earth.
Nicolas' (my version) image helps us visualize what the process looks like. Jesus was ALREADY in heaven seated in His heavenly position and functioning in the "Allness" of God BEFORE he chose to come to earth as a physical body.
In His heavenly position, He's Christ
In His earthly position, He was Jesus
Scripture says we're seated with CHRIST, not in Jesus. This is the resurrected Christ who is bringing the fulfillment of who he is as fully human and fully God. This is one reason he came to earth to "redeem" us. We can't be seated with Jesus because that's not his full identity. When we "ascend" seated IN CHRIST into the heavenly places through our consciousness (our inner self that resides in our holy of holies), we rule and reign as Sons of God. We begin the ruling and reigning process with self, then family, then our neighborhood, community, and so on. Just like a child, when we show a certain level of responsibility in one area, we're given more. This is what the parable of the talents demonstrates. (Matthew 25:14-30)
You shall know them by their fruit
If you don't know which level of consciousness (ascension) you're functioning from, look at the fruit in your life. What level of love (or fear) do you reside in? How are people around you affected by what's coming from within you? Do you see positive change in your life? How have things moved forward over the last year or even several years of your life? How is your overall health (spiritual, emotional, and physical)? The answers to these questions determine the level of fruit you're bearing that can also determine which level of ascension you're engaging with.
At which level on the above chart do you "commune with" daily? This goes beyond the body and the blood that we take on Sunday mornings in church. This is interacting and partaking with the very essence of the resurrected Christ who has ascended into heaven. It's FROM that position, we see, hear, sense, and feel the very heart of God where we entrain (attune to) His very thoughts. It's from those thoughts we are co-creators. This is sonship at its highest level as we go through "kingdom school." I talk about that in my Maturing as a Mystic series. The workbook that goes with it has several examples. The incarnate level on Nicolas' chart is like Kingdom Grade School. The top level is like Kingdom Graduate School. We choose which level to function as we mature from being spoon fed to co-creating with Christ.
As you'll hear in many articles by those within NW Ekklesia, the "ascended lifestyle" is all about functioning from our positions as we're seated in Christ. From there, the lessons in co-creation begin as we mature into different levels of authority. This takes time, a few mistakes, and a good amount of practice. The ascended lifestyle isn't a gift - it's a lifestyle that requires daily practice. Like anything else in life, the more you do something, the better at it you get. So, let's move on to an activation!
NOTE: Even Nicolas spoke in the meeting that the imagination is a starting point for the ascension process. This is why Jesus taught in parables. He used things the people understood. So, sanctify the imagination and then go for it!
Activation!
Here's another activation based on a teaching I heard from Ian Clayton. As usual, I took the teaching and created an activation that would help me understand the concepts of living an ascended life. It started out with stepping into it through the "Law of Faith." I believe that I spoke this daily for at least a year until it was deep within my spirit. Again, it's about practice as I renewed my mind to align with God's truth and character.
Here is that declaration. Say it as often as you feel led to.
Yahweh, I come by faith, stepping through the veil into the kingdom of Your presence here on earth. I turn towards Your presence and embrace Your presence and Glory. I turn towards you with my spirit, soul, and body. I fold them around you and embrace You with my heart, mind, and will. By faith, I engage the Law of Faith and come under its government. I receive the full measure of what I have to receive through the Law of Faith. I'm sanctified by the Law of Faith. I receive increase. The Law of Faith presides over all that I do and the supply of God moves through me. As I stand in Your presence, I release the Law of Faith to funciton in and through me. Yahweh, I open the gate of Love and allow that to flow towards You. Father, I ask now that you'd release the River of Glory from the throne of Your presence inside of me. In your presence, by faith, I receive all from you: All the kingdom promise, purpose, destiny, dominion, power, authority, sanctification, all that's on my scroll for me to live here on earth and all the mandate - everything, Father! I receive the ministry today of all the angels that have been assigned to me, my family, my Ekklesia, my entire country, the planet, and the universe - that have been loosed to madate and fight for me on my behalf. Father, I walk by faith, I stay in Your presence and recieve all my angelic assistance.
Enjoy your ascension journey!
Del
