Heb 11:13-14

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
NKJV

Right now we have been living with the challenge of praying for the people of God and especially those who have faced very difficult health issues, and some reading this maybe are going through one of these trials of their own. Right now we had a loss, in which a Brazilian youth, Matheus died and went to be with the Lord. It was not lack of prayer that caused him to pass away due to Meningitis. There was a prayer chain that extended from Brazil to many nations. This hit us hard when we received the news.

Why does this happen?

“These all died in faith”

Matheus was a worshipper, dedicated to the Lord. His mother a gospel singer who travelled leading worshippers in many places to breakthrough in their worship to the Lord. He was in faith. He was faithful. In death he was found in faith. This means that our comfort that death is not the limit of faith but the translation of faith to a new level of destiny and living. It hits our humanity hard the fact of death. In fact there is so much in the news each day, in our churches each day, news of saints and people dying suddenly, that it confronts us to the temporary state in which we live. We forget however that who died in faith is transported by this same faith to experience and live in a higher fulfilment that faith in this life prepared them for. Spiritually speaking we are not prepared for death, it comes on us suddenly. But in the spiritual it does not, because our spirit and soul, is part of the eternal project of God. Death simply leaves the body behind to decay. 

We are humanly “imprisoned” to caring this temporary “dwelling” as the apostle Paul puts it. We wash and dress each day, we watch our eating habits, we drink, we exercise, we rest. Our daily activities are spent MAINTAINING OUR TEMPORARY DWELLING. What about our spiritual “dwelling”?

What does faith in this life show us? It shows us what is beyond the confines of our temporary existence. It is a “glorious ladder” which extends from earth into the heavenly realms, the same ladder that Jacob saw in “Bethel”. The angels, the Spirit goes up and down from the heavens to the earth ministering, revealing, working, operating in us the eternal purposes of God. God knows the days and the hours He spends to get us ready for the great existence that never ends.

I deal very much with the prophetic, and I am writing a manual/book on the whole panorama of the prophetic dimension, not confined only to the ministry but the everyday reality in the life of believers. And very often when we converse with people moving in God, wanting to be obedient to His Call, our prophetic perspective can often be confined to achievements in this life. We must therefore, in my view, bring the eternal essence into the daily reality and routine of our lives. We are so “earthly” tied to the routines of the week, we forget easily the eternal journey we embarked on when we made our commitment to be covenanted to God through Christ.

We are shown prophetically projects and dreams from God. We embrace them as the scripture shows us, and cites the examples of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were given a divine deposit, a vision of a nation, a holy nation and a holy priesthood. They did not see it.

I remember in 1990 when I began to walk in the prophetic dimension, as God started to move me out into understanding how God operates. However we did get it wrong. We got it wrong because what we received was right but how we applied it was wrong! 

How many times we proclaimed this and that, not taking into account the processes involved to fulfil the prophecy, nor even the counsel we needed to give the recipients in how to position themselves to walk toward its fulfilment.

So in preparing the saints in a trial where life and death are involved, we must first understand that our life here is preparation. We must understand that death is like a birth, we depart this plane of existence and awake in a different dimension. It is a known fact to scientists that there are strong indications that the “soul” exists apart from the senses, and continues to live after all has ceased in death. Eben Alexander a leading neurologist in his own death experience, and subsequent investigations note the evidence of a post-mortem existence of the essence of the person, through information which they themselves communicate if they come back.

Therefore when God speaks about His Plans for us there is no confinement for this earthly existence but rather God speaks from the context of eternity to us, and from this we will live out His Purpose in the context of our position in eternity, in the eternal realms. Therefore we must alter and adjust our perspective regarding death and the purposes of God in it. We all fear it, but we sometimes forget that Jesus in His own Death broke its power and bought the right to be transported in its wake to greater levels of existence. May sound mystical but its logical.

Therefore, we must all prepare to live each day eternally in that whilst our surroundings are temporal, our soul and spirit are living eternally NOW! This means for some of our running round, and rushing we must find the rythmn of eternity. This means that what we measure to be achievement and success changes in God’s realm. The level of activity, and achieving goals, is not important in as much as the Spirit achieving in us, the position of us comprehending more and flowing more with Him.

“Embraced” and “See from afar”

Hebrews 11 speaks of “embracing” and “seeing afar off”. We need to see and embrace the eternal and see things from that standpoint. We will “see” and we will “embrace” even though it appears we don’t. This is because what we embrace and see is not confined to the earth but Heaven.

Therefore concluding, this should be a comfort to all who suffer loss. We lose that company we had, that young person with so much promise. We in faith, negate the tendency that reigns in this world, reflected in the attitudes of people, that death leaves emptiness. It should leave FULLNESS FOR US. 

May we find comfort in this truth!

To Eyshila and family may there be comfort today.