Seeing from Heaven

by Randy Finlay

Overview

Having heaven’s perspective while walking on the earth seems like the impossible dream to most of us. But by understanding the life of Jesus Christ and His finished work, we can learn how to see all things from heaven’s viewpoint. Seeing from Heaven focuses on understanding heaven’s perspective by seeing through the eyes of God our Father who is in heaven. We being seated with Him provides us the opportunity to see as He sees—being in Christ and seeing through His eyes.

How does seeing from heaven affect everyday circumstances and everyday life? Though in the world, Jesus was not of this world. Our citizenship is in heaven even while we dwell on the earth. Taking a closer look at Jesus will always open a heavenly view to us. Our beliefs should only draw us closer to God, and see Him more clearly so we might freely partake of His life. Then it is with that impression of His life in us that we live and move and have our being.

Seeing from Heaven presents a detailed, biblical examination of this way of living and encourages us all to live through God’s eyes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781450277600
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/06/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	505 KB

Read an Excerpt

SEEING from HEAVEN

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By RANDY FINLAY

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Randy Finlay
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7759-4

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Chapter One

JESUS IS THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE

How can looking at a foundation give anyone a view from heaven? Jesus Christ was from heaven, and He is the foundation of heaven by which the earth was made. That foundation came in the flesh as the Chief Cornerstone for all our lives to be built and formed on. So, looking at Him is not looking at earthly things, but heavenly things manifest in the earth. Jesus totally meant it when He said, "The kingdom of heaven is near," and "The kingdom of God is within you." Heaven is as near to you as your inner man, your spirit. Heaven is the atmosphere/aurora of the kingdom of God that is within you. Now, for an earth dweller to see from Heaven, he most likely cannot physically go there to look and see. He must see from that same heaven that dwells in us all. That heaven within us does not need to be developed, for it is already complete. It is after all heaven, the dwelling place of God, the presence of God, and the kingdom of God.

All we need is to look at and understand the Chief Cornerstone. He is the Son of man from heaven and He brought heaven with Him; therefore, seeing Jesus the Christ is seeing heaven. This reality causes us to come into Christ as one in Him. Being in Him who is seated at the right hand of the Father is looking out from within heaven. We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It is a spiritual place that is pure and much higher than our natural minds or what our five senses can comprehend alone. But, the Christ in us, being unveiled to us is our hope of dwelling in such a place called Heaven.

You are not a physical house trying to become spiritual. You have a physical body wherein the living Spirit of God now dwells. You are a spiritual house! You have been given a physical body in which you are able to manifest the presence of God in and through that body. It is really the presence of God that keeps the physical body, not the other way around. What is the presence of God? Is it not heaven? We do not need to die first in order to experience heaven. Heaven is in you, and if you can see from God's perspective, heaven is all around you.

If God was to move the spiritual life out of the physical body, the physical body would become as dead. The spiritual life is eternal, but the physical house is temporal. So, it is the physical body that depends on the spiritual life for its existence. It is the owner that lives in the house that does all the maintenance on the house that keeps the house from collapsing. Most of us spend too much of our time looking at the appearance of the house, outer man, the body of flesh. We dress it up to make it look good, and exercise to make it look healthy. While all this time and effort is good for the body, we seem to forget that it is the Christ in us that holds all things together. We can dress up Adam all we want and heaven is not impressed one bit. It is when we put on the inner man, and clothe ourselves with the life and love of God, that all of heaven takes notice. The joy of the Lord empowers or strengthens our natural body.

It is a good idea to dress up Adam, the natural earthy man needs it; but putting on the new man is far more valuable and beneficial to all. It is when we put on the Christ man, that people have a tendency not to notice our outward appearance as much. The Chief Cornerstone reveals the Christ in you. It is a spiritual awakening and revelation, not a physical one that can manifest the Cornerstone to us; therefore, any interpretation of the scriptures that points us to some future physical event in time falls way short of the greater view from heaven and a spiritual understanding. A true spiritual revelation reveals to us the hidden man of the heart, our hope of glory.

No more does God see us as having filthy rags since we have come into this grace of His. He now sees the glory of Himself living in us! If we could just see what He sees, then look out world! For a man of God will truly be walking the earth! And you are that man! Not the physical man, but that spiritual man that comes from heaven! If you can see from heaven, then you can come from heaven with your thoughts, presence, and life giving power.

This place called heaven is also described as a city whose maker and builder is God. It is not a physical location, but a spiritual knowing and understanding. Heaven is a spiritual place, and the foundation of that city lies within you and all who have believed! Looking at the foundation and looking from that place of the foundation gives us a view from that city that God has built. Within that city dwells all who now believe on the Lord Jesus Christ which is why there is such a wonderful manifestation of the presence of God when we meet together. It's not because we are such great and wonderful people in and of ourselves, but because the Living Stone of the foundation makes us all lively stones. We are the expression of the life of God which comes from heaven or from His life giving Spirit.

Seeing the Chief Cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ, His life, His character, and His accomplishments will change our thinking and renew our minds. If you do not desire a further change of mind, stop here and read no farther. But, if you still desire more of God and to know Him more intimately, then you must also desire change, a change of mind. It's been quoted, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always have what you've always had." Thinking the same way and doing the same thing but expecting different results just doesn't add up. But, if you desire more of God, then seeing God will shake your heavens and your earth thus bringing change in both realms. That desire is from God; and you are a prime candidate for seeing God through the eyes of a little child and understanding the simplicity of His word. Even the most mature sons of God must remain as little children in their own eyes before they can live like manifested sons of God. When Jesus said, "God is My Father"; He was also saying that He sees Himself as a little child. A little child desires and clings to love, relationships, guidance, knowledge of the truth, and is thrilled about discovering who his family is. In this manner the child discovers who they are. Children are easily encouraged and empowered. Seeing God and partaking of His life freely gives us all these things.

All that may be gleaned from 'Seeing From Heaven' is up to each individual or group of people who study the Cornerstone and yield to the great teacher, the Holy Spirit. It is my sincere prayer that in every person there be a hunger to know Christ in a greater light of knowledge and understanding by His Spirit. We may be looking into a mirror today and seeing ourselves from an earthly perspective, which is seeing dimly, but then face to face. When is the 'then' going to come so we can see Him face to face? When we come to an understanding that we are today as He is, which is according to the word of God. We are the light of the world and not just a reflection of the light, because the light of His life is in us. Our spirit is face to face with the Spirit of God, which is where the light comes from. True Christianity is not an attempt to imitate Christ, or Jesus, or Paul or anyone else, but a reality of knowing and experiencing oneness with Christ. The first is an imitation, the latter is being who you were created to be.

Our being face to face with God is not like a Moses view of the backside of God with the understanding that comes from a works mentality. Nor does seeing God face to face include what we have done or are doing. Nor does it identify God by the experience of what we think He's done in response to our failure to keep the law. But Christ, the very presence of God, is already laid in us as a living stone separate from the law by which we are already in His image and likeness. A further unveiling of Christ in us causes us to see Him as He is, as one who is face to face. Never in the Old Testament scriptures did it say, "You are the light of the world." It is Jesus Christ, the foundation laid in us that makes us lights, for He is the light of every man that comes into the world. That light causes us to see Him face to face. If we are looking into the light, we are looking into His face. God is light.

Have you ever asked yourself; how do I see God face to face when God is a Spirit? How do you see a spirit? By faith in His living word, and by the life of Christ that dwells in us. Seeing God face to face is knowing what God is about to do before He does something, not after He does it. Looking into the face of God creates in us corresponding action that expresses His life. Looking at the Chief Cornerstone, which is not a thing but a description of a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, is seeing the Father face to face. Looking at Him is looking into the eyes of God. It reveals the character, thoughts and intents of the heart of God, and the finished works of Jesus Christ. Too often we have in the past looked at our own flesh, which reveals only the man of the flesh, sinful flesh. God has instructed us to look at no man after the flesh, and that includes ourselves. But looking at Christ reveals only the new man hidden in that body of flesh. He is the pearl of great price in the field, and you are that field.

Looking at one another after the flesh is having an earthly perspective. That is Adam's view point or opinion which none of us are interested in.

2 Cor. 5:16 — Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.

The word regard means to see, know, behold, look upon, consider, or understand. We even knew Christ according to the flesh. In other words, we judged Him by what He did. We used to judge one another by what they did. But now, we know or see no one according to the works of the flesh but according to the Christ that dwells in them. If you see someone do wrong, how are we who are spiritual supposed to restore them? By ripping them apart with words that condemn in hope that they learned their lesson? No! In the spirit of meekness, we remind them of who they really are. You are not the person of the flesh but of the new creation in the image and likeness of God. We have a tendency to forget who we really are; and therefore, we need reminded that we are of God little children and have overcome them that are in the world. Our flesh is of this world, but our spirit is of God. It is our mind that needs a true image of who we came from and who we are and to whom we are going.

Training ourselves to look from the living Cornerstone as our perspective will cause us to look anew into a mirror and see only the Christ in us. This is how the corruptible puts on incorruption and the mortal man puts on immortality. It is then that we are seeing face to face and know that we are loved. Then we are able to love others as He has loved us. We can only love one another as we love ourselves. When we are loved by our Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot help but love who He has made us to be. We actually love who we are because He loves us! We are able to love others with the same love He loves us with.

In the same way we can only minister as we have been ministered to. Jesus ministered many times after being in prayer all night long. Jesus was being ministered to by the Father. Now He was able to minister to others even as He was ministered to. To the same measure that Jesus was loved by His Father, He was able to love others.

We can only truly live as we see His life in us. The Chief Cornerstone gives us such a view from heaven, the throne of God. It causes us to see ourselves as God sees us, which has no condemnation and is without fault finding. Now the Church will have a much greater impact in this world. Instead of calling themselves Christians, others will call them Christians because they see the real Christ in them.

'Cause and Effect' — 'Cause I see greater things than these earthly, natural, and limited things, I have greater effect. Just as Jesus came from heaven, so are we coming from heaven because His life is giving us His view from heaven. I'm not talking about knowing a bunch of stuff about Him that we have learned along the way. Those things might be good, but I'm talking about recognizing the Christ in you as your life source that then gives you the mind of Christ. Christ making impressions from within you upon your mind is the light of your life. If our citizenship is (now present tense) in heaven where God is light, we ought to be seeing the light of heaven now! Amen?

Php. 3:20, 21 — For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly (earthly image) body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

From our dwelling place in heaven, we wait, look for, and expect fully the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Too often we put off into the future what we can have now. Our citizenship is now in heaven, not just after we die. If the U.S.A. sent an ambassador to China, the American is taken out of the U.S.A.; but the U.S.A. cannot be taken out of the American. He is free on the inside and expresses himself not as a Chinese citizen, but as one from the U.S.A. He may for a short time live in China, but He lives according to his raising, training, and heritage he received while in the U.S.A. This ambassador still sees from the perspective of the U.S.A. and ministers from that point of view.

We do not live according to the lower earth life, but we look for His appearing as the Christ in us from heaven. That communion with Him will transform or change our earthly lower perspective so we might live according to the higher life as a citizen from heaven. Now the lowly body has put on Christ, incorruption, and immortality. This is how we are changed from glory to glory and are conformed to His glorious body. It's not just a futuristic hope of receiving a new body like that of Jesus Christ after He rose from the dead; it includes that. But, it is a present hope for a glorious mortal body that is now being further clothed with immortality and living according to what we see from heaven right now.

Was the appearing of Jesus on the earth in a mortal body glorious? Absolutely! Jesus did have a mortal body. But how could He walk through the crowd that was about to cast Him off a cliff? How could that mortal body walk on water? How could that mortal body be transfigured? The mortal body put on immortality by having the Father's perspective from heaven. As long as we think we are nothing but a corrupt, weak, frail, mortal human being, that is all we will be able to live in and manifest. That is nothing more than weak humanity putting on more of the same. Whatever a man thinks in his heart, so is he. But we desire to be further clothed with immortality. Then put on Christ!

That's what God sees when He looks at us. Why? He looks upon the heart or the spirit of man, not the flesh. God sees the fullness of Christ in you! How would you live if you saw yourself every minute of the day the same way God sees you and that is having the fullness of Christ dwelling in you? We are on earth now so that we might manifest heaven on earth. Without us, Christ's body transformed and seeing from heaven, there is no manifestation of God in the earth. We need God, and God needs us to be all that He has created us to be in Christ Jesus. So, He joined us together with Himself in Christ Jesus as One. God never declared He would do anything without us but with us. We are joined to His living word. Seeing as God sees is a must if we are to represent Him fully and correctly as His ambassadors.

The ambassador from the U.S.A. must see from the view point of the U.S.A. if he is to represent the U.S.A. correctly. He is not there to represent or manifest himself as though he is self-centered and self- seeking having another purpose in mind. While he is there, he is a transformed person in the image of the U.S.A. for as long as he sees correctly from that view. While in China, if he forgets who he is, then the spirit of the U.S.A will not be manifest. If he fails in representing the U.S.A. and that view, he is brought home and his view is corrected. He is further equipped by the President himself and then sent again. No condemnation, just a better understanding or view of what you are, an American! This parable is not about being an American, for every natural country has its strengths and weaknesses. But, we have a country or city whose builder and maker is God! It is a dwelling place that has no weaknesses, but is manifest in our weakness now so that we might see His appearing to us from heaven. When I am weak, then I am strong! Why? Seeing from heaven is seeing the grace of God working in my weakness. God's weakness is stronger than my strength by myself.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from SEEING from HEAVEN by RANDY FINLAY Copyright © 2010 by Randy Finlay. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Chapter 1: Jesus Is The Chief Cornerstone....................7
Chapter 2: Jesus Is The Lamb of God....................55
Chapter 3: Jesus Is The King of Kings....................91
Chapter 4: God Is Love....................128
Chapter 5: God is Good....................145
Chapter 6: Who Is God....................183
Chapter 1: An End To The Law....................201
Chapter 2: Jesus Finished What He Came To Do....................218
Chapter 3: God's Judgment And Wrath....................239
Chapter 4: Redemption Is A Finished Work....................253
Chapter 5: Jesue Reconciled The Whole World....................261
Chapter 6: The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand....................274
Chapter 7: The I AM....................281