COME UP TO THE LORD

By Dan Luehrs

 

 

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28 NKJV).

 

Several years ago I was going through one of the worst times in my life and I did not know if I could make it another day. Then one Sunday as I was in a worship service the Lord Jesus grabbed my two hands and pulled me up twice and said, “Come with Me!” I believe what He was saying to me was, “Come up here by Me in my realm where you will receive peace and rest for your soul.” When I yielded to the Lord of peace my circumstances did not change, but I did, going from fear and worry, to peace, rest, and even joy in the presence of my enemies. His peace and rest does pass beyond all comprehension!

 

Unless we know how to apprehend the presence of God daily we will not have the strength we need to live in the joy of the Lord. We must remember that it is the joy of the Lord that gives us strength! When we praise God in the midst of our trials, we are bringing joy to the Lord and His joy is what gives us the strength we so need. One Sunday service a week will not cut it for a growing believer, Jesus is to be our daily bread, not weekly! He wants us to come to Him each day to eat, drink and to fellowship with Him in Spirit, “… So they saw God, and they ate and drank” (Ex 24:11). God invites us to come up into His realm to eat and drink of His word and presence; His word is spirit and life to our inner man, as we would enjoy a nice steak. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him (Our heart) and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev 3:20 NKJV). Lets open our heart to Him and to His presence daily and not let the Lord of glory dine alone!

 

The Lord has given me a message from the life of Moses when God had invited him to ascend the mountain of God to spend time with Him. We may say, “Boy I wish that God would invite me to such a place with Him?” I can tell you unequivocally that He has! Read on my friend!

 

THE ASCENT

 

“Then He said to Moses, "Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you shall worship at a distance. Moses alone, however, shall come near to the LORD, but they shall not come near, nor shall the people come up with him” (Ex 24:1-2 NAS).

 

When God called Moses up to the mountain to meet with Him, it was not just for himself that he went up, but to receive from God the words of life to give to all people throughout time. Had God wanted to just chat with Moses on the mountain he would have stayed by the burning bush and would have just left Him in the wilderness fellowshipping with him. But God wanted to share Himself with everyone, to bless all nations with His word so that they may know His heart and draw close to Him. God gave them His law so that they would follow it and obey it, so that His presence could stay in the midst of the people. This is the very purpose why Jesus died for our sins so that He could come into our heart and have fellowship with us. What a loving and mighty God we serve!

 

Had Israel not followed the directions for building the tabernacle in the wilderness, which God had given Moses on the mountain, Israel would have died right there because God made a way for His holy presence to stay with them by the sacrifices of the tabernacle. “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it (Ex 25:8-9 NKJV). God wants to dwell both in and upon us, but we have to follow His pattern and His ways that are found in Jesus Christ, which is the way of the cross (Sacrifice). Just as Israel had to shed innocent blood to seek God’s forgiveness of sin in the wilderness daily, so we too are told in the Lords prayer to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin if we will confess it and seek for His mercy each and everyday. This is how we stay close to God and have His presence in and upon our life.

 

Our God is a holy God that invites us to dwell with Him in His holy mountain, but we must be holy, because He is holy and we are His temple that He abides in. Just as Moses was called to bring God’s word and presence down from the mountain to the people, so we are called to bring heaven down to earth. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” But how can we bring the realm of God down to earth if we are not ascending in the realm of His presence? We are a bridge between heaven and earth for the people that are living around us, especially those of the faith. Many Christians are weak in their faith because they do not go unto the mountain of God to breathe the air of heaven and eat and drink with the Father. 

 

Now you might be saying, “How can I ascend the mountain of God like Moses?” When you came to Jesus the Bible says that you came to Mount Zion. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb 12:22-23 NKJV). We right now are sitting in heavenly places with Christ, but most Christians are not even aware of there spiritual surroundings because they do not take the time to be alone with God everyday, nor do they see with their spiritual eyes to understand these great truths. It is foreign to them!

 

The enemy is running rampant upon the earth because he knows that his time is short and if we do not know how to ascend into the protection of God’s presence we will be crushed by his power. A lady had a dream that the devil was going around with a steamroller crushing the churches and the people and the only way for her to escape was to quickly ascend into the realms of God above all the destruction. Revelation 13:7 says, “It was granted to him (The devil) to make war with the saints and to overcome them…” But God has made away for our escape if we will take the time to ascend into the realms of heaven and receive His strength for each new day. “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Rev 12:12 NKJV). There is still time for you to learn how to ascend into the realms of God if you will start now! Take time, make time for God each and everyday to ascend into His presence for sustaining your life.

 

“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians (The devil), and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself (Ex 19:4-5 NKJV). We too are given eagles wings to fly safely to God over and above all the destruction in this earthly realm. These wings are the word of God (Salvation) and the baptism of the Holy Spirit that causes us to mount up into the realms of God by the wind of the Spirit. But the woman (The church) was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent” (Rev 12:14 NKJV). Unless we learn how to come up higher by the grace of God we will not be able to understand all that God wants us to see. God has many revelations of Himself to give to us from His word, but unless we take the time to be with Him in the spiritual Mount Zion we simply will not be able to see it from our earthly vantage point, so we must go higher.

 

Moses had to go up to see the revelations of God, just as John the Revelator went to a great high mountain to receive The Revelation of Jesus Christ. “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God” (Rev 21:10 NKJV). As we daily ascend into the presence of the Lord through thanksgiving and worship, we are literally entering into His gates and courts in the Spirit, and as we soak in His presence we are having fellowship with Him on Mount Zion. This is our daily bread and drink as we commune with Him in Spirit. It’s that easy, as we run after Him with all our heart and seek His face, He will draw nigh unto us! “Draw me! We will run after you” (Song 1:4 AMP)!

 

As stated before, the two wings of a great eagle are given unto us to fly, one wing being the Word of God, which is the Passover Feast that we all have partaken of when we have received salvation through Jesus Christ. The second wing is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is the Feast of Pentecost that causes us to mount up with wings of eagles to fly into the realms of God by the wind of the Holy Spirit. This is so that we will receive the Truth, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ. These two great experiences of salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit are the will of God for us and are very real to those who have experienced them. Both of these experiences have to do with us receiving them by faith and then growing in them to receive the greater revelation of who Jesus is in us. But if we do not believe that they are for us today we will not experience them in our life and we will call people crazy who do and miss the best that God has for us.

 

There is one more feast for us to experience called, The Feast Tabernacles, “Now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand” (John 7:2). We are to be experiencing this along with the other two feasts; this is the last feast and it pertains to the fullness of God’s Spirit being manifested in and through our bodies so that we become like Him. These three great feasts of the Lord are found in Leviticus 23, that we the church should be experiencing in our day. We are all awaiting the final redemption of our bodies into the likeness of Jesus. But in order for us to receive this experience of the feast of tabernacles we are going to have to have the other two feasts to give us the wings of a great eagle to go higher into the realms of God. And as we do this we will receive the revelation of Jesus Christ just as John the Revelator did as he ascended in the spirit. “After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this." Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne (Jesus) (Rev 4:1-2 NKJV). When we chose to ascend the porthole into the open heavens, we are immediately in God’s realm because Jesus paid the price for us to see and experience Him Who is spirit. Much of the book of Revelation comes straight from the throne of God where John was told to come up to; no other book makes such a claim.

 

On night Jesus came to me while I was sitting on a dock by a lake; His presence came upon me mightily. For about a week I had not been able to get into His presence very well, but that night He came powerfully. He came to me and said, "Do you want to go up higher?" I thought, "There is more?" He said, "Yes, My glory!"

 

For Him to invite me into His glory like this means that we all must go up in His realm to receive His glory, this tells me that we must ascend into the realms of His Spirit to receive the revelation of Jesus to change us into His image. There is no other way for us to know Him more and for us to receive the revelation of Jesus other than us ascending daily. I received two other prophecies several months later from other people on this same subject of going higher.

 

A lady took my hands as she was standing on a stage and I stood on the floor and she said, “The word of the Lord to you is, come up higher, come up higher Dan!" She then pulled me up on stage and said, “The Lord knows you can't do it on your own, but the Lord will pull you up! It will not happen the way you think it will, but that I am to trust the Lord to bring it to pass, for now is the time.”

 

Another confirming word came a few days later. “God will bring you into a higher realm of experience and revelation because you seek for truth.”

 

The Bible tells us in many places that Jesus is coming back in the clouds and in the air. A cloud is ascended moisture that waters the earth with abundant rain. As we ascend into the realms of God we become apart of the great cloud of witnesses of which Jesus will appear in. “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” (Heb 12:1 NKJV). We want to be where He is and the Bible says that He is coming in the clouds. So lets go up higher into His realm of the clouds!

 

IN THE CLOUDS

 

"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him" (Daniel 7:13 KJV).

 

“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt 24:30 NKJV).

 

The Bible clearly teaches us that the Lord is coming back in the clouds of the air, so where do you think we the church need to be so that we are ready to meet Him? In the air, the realm of the Spirit! “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matt 24:44 NKJV). If we do not know how He is coming or where He is going to be because we are just to busy to spend time with Him to find out that He is coming in the air. Please hear me in this, the air that Jesus is coming in, is not the air that we breathe, nor is it the air that the birds fly in. If that would be the case we would be able to see the devil in the flesh because he would not be a spirit, the Bible calls him “The prince of the power of the "air" (Eph 2:2). This is where his dominion is in the realm of the spirit called the “air.” In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 it says of us, "Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the "air," and thus we shall always be with the Lord." Do you see where we will always be with the Lord? In the "air," the heavenly realm of authority where we must be ready for His return.

 

The word heaven simply means, “The place of authority.” Adam gave this realm of authority to Satan in the garden by obeying him rather than God. Satan has been using it to control and dominate over mankind ever since. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). A heavenly place is something over and above those who dwell on the earth which God made in Genesis 1:1. But we who know how to ascend high above the demonic realms of fear, doubt, and unbelief will be able to overcome him because where we sit in Jesus is far above all other kingdoms.

 

Those who have died in Christ are the great cloud of witnesses and are already in spirit with Jesus, but we who are still in the flesh have an earthly body, although we still have the ability to be in the realm of the spirit with God. Our bodies have a double function, not only to be physical, but also to dwell in heavenly place at the same time in the spirit with Christ. This is what we should be seeking with our whole heart! “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col 3:1-3 NKJV). To set our mind on things above means, to set our entire life’s focus on seeking God, which is above all earthly things. We live in God’s parallel creation that has different realms in it, in one realm there is the time bound natural side and in the other, there is the spiritual side that will last forever and ever. There should be no question where we should be spending more time in, we should become more comfortable in the spirit realm then the natural because this is our eternal home. Dreams, visions, and angels should be the norm for all us who are seeking to go higher with God, because we are going into their realm, not them coming into ours.

 

Jesus was clearly taken up in a spiritual cloud to heaven, so let us not make the same mistake as the disciples did while they were looking to the natural heavens for Jesus. This is because a natural cloud will not bring someone to heaven, period! Jesus was taken up in the cloud of the Spirit, which I believe is a part of the great cloud of witnesses. 

 

“Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven (Acts 1:9-11 NKJV).

 

Jesus visited with me one day in my office and then I saw Him ascend into the heavens out of my sight and not once did I think of looking up into the natural sky to see if He was there. Because I knew He was in spirit and if I wanted to see Him again I would have to look no closer than my own heart, for that is where He abides in us. 

 

As Jesus was taken up to heaven in a cloud He will return in like manner, but this time He is not be returning alone! Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen” (Rev 1:7 NKJV). He is returning in us, His people the cloud of witnesses! If Jesus were coming in the natural clouds all the tribes of the earth would not see him at once because the earth is not under one big cloud! But when He comes in millions of His people all the earth will stand up and take notice and mourn over their rejection of Him. “So that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints (1 Thess 3:13 NKJV).

 

When He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed” (2 Thess 1:10 NKJV).

 

CONCLUSION

 

Please let me write this as clearly as I see it, unless we are seeking after the heart of God in the heavenlies where we have been raised up with Him, we simply will not be ready for His soon triumphant return. All the truths in scripture have been given to us for this time so that we do not miss out on what the Lord is about to do. The Lord is about to return in His people, are you ready or are you to preoccupied with all the deceptions of the world as Lot’s wife was and missed out on her day of visitation?

 

“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God (Rev 21:3-4 NKJV).

 

The Lord is one day going to make His eternal abode on the earth in the tabernacle of His people, Christ’s body. Throughout the ages God has been building a spiritual tabernacle for Him to dwell in and minister through, and by the end of the book of Revelation we see the tabernacle finished and coming down to earth. That He might dwell in the midst of the people of the earth as He did with Israel in the wilderness tabernacle, but that was only a shadow of what was to come to the whole earth. As believers we have a wonderful future ahead of us if we will continue to believe and obey Him. Our future has never looked brighter!

 

 

 

Dan Luehrs

1717 Conifer Ave

Kissimmee, FL 34758

www.nonprofitpages.com/elm7