Kingdom Light Has Moved

Thank you to all of you who have been reading my posts.  I have moved my blog over to "Reach Central America" which is my missionary blog.  You can find it at "reachca.blogspot.com"

Hope to see you there!

The Celestial Allotment

This is it, the culmination of all my preaching and writing on consecration.  That is not to say I am not going to talk about it any longer, because I will preach about it for the rest of my life, however God spoke to me during my outreach to Tugri and I am once again transformed and given a new fire and craving for Him.

My mentality is a bit different from most.  To quote one of the people on the team I was just with, "You have an odd sense of things Alan."  That is a great compliment, and I am glad to know I am on my way to being a normal Christian, which the Bible says is peculiar (Deu. 26:18, Psa. 135:4).  

I bring this up to explain that from the time I was a little boy until today heaven has constantly been on my mind.  I don't mean in a symbolic way, I mean literally.  I have always thought of what life will be like after this one.  I do my best to do everything I do with the thought of how it will effect me in the Celestial Land.  That is Scriptural, though I don't have the time or space to explain why, but if you study it yourself you will discover that heaven is not a place where we sit on clouds and play harps.  There are rewards, there are crowns, there are gowns of salvation and robes of righteousness, there are even ranks and levels of society, there are jobs, and so on.  

Most of us know that we will have mansions in heaven, but they won't all be the same.  Each person's house will depend very much on their deeds in life, their walk with God, and things like that.  

Now, here is why I bring all of this up.  All these years I have known this about heaven from my studies, but I always had a myriad of questions on my heart.  One actually came from reading Rick Joyner's book, The Final Quest.  That book certainly isn't Scripture by any means, but it did bring up and interesting question for me, and I often wondered whether or not it was true.  

I don't own the book so I can't give the reference, but basically as he is traveling toward the throne of God in the vision, he finds that some people are closer to the throne than others.  Some people even lament the fact, even though they are very grateful at the Lord's mercy, that they did not invest their lives better in order to be closer to the throne for eternity.

After reading that book, I not only wondered if it was true that some would be closer to the throne than others, I also began to pray, "God, if it is true, teach me how I can be as close to you as possible."

He finally answered me in a tent way up in the mountains.  It came from a series of chapters I have read over and over again, but the revelation never hit me until now.

It comes from Ezekiel chapters 40-48.  Clearly I am not going to paste in all of those chapters onto this post, but I highly recommend you go through and read them, it will make this a lot clearer to you.  

To summarize, Ezekiel has a vision of a future Israel, and God's layout of it.  Some people believe this is the millennial Israel, others that it is symbolic, and different beliefs abound.  The problem with this Israel in Ezekiel's vision, is that it totally disregards the allotment given to Joshua for the tribes, and it ignores the land spacing of the current Israel.  

Because of that and other thoughts I have, I believe this is not based on the Israel of this earth, but I believe it is the layout of heaven itself.

You may have never thought of this, but no matter who you are, if you are a Christian, you belong to one of the twelve tribes of heavenly Israel.  That is clear throughout Scripture.  In Revelation the tribes still exist, and there are still the twelve gates, twelve foundations, and many other proofs.  So whether you believe it or not, when judgement day has passed and we are finally allowed into the fullness of our inheritance, we are all going to be assigned to a tribe, and we will take our place among our group and live in our inheritance.  You will find your mansion in your tribal land.

This may seem like a lot of strange information, and your eyebrows may be raised pretty high right now, but if you study diligently, you will discover that what I am saying it true.  It would take far more than a single blog post to explain each detail, but I will talk today about the land allotment and the tribal groups, and at the same time answer my own question as to whether or not some people will be closer to the throne than others.

So Ezekiel is given this new map of Israel, and here is a drawing made for it by another source:

This is based on earthly Israel, but it is only a guess. 

Despite the assumption that this is based on the earthly land, the actual arrangement is correct, and what I really want to focus on.  You will notice all the tribes are in ribbons, like steps, and in other diagrams not based on current Israel, they are all given the exact same amount of land, which I believe to be the case.

Now take notice of the white space in the center of all the tribes, as well as the fact that there is no land for the tribe of Levi.  If you have read my last posts, you will remember the the Levites have no inheritance, the Lord is their inheritance.  It is the same in heaven.  

Do you see the "P", it says that is the Prince's portion in the book of Ezekiel.  Can you guess who the Prince is?  Of course you can, it's Jesus.  Read Ezekiel 45:7. 

"'The prince will have the land bordering each side of the area formed by the sacred district and the property of the city. It will extend westward from the west side and eastward from the east side, running lengthwise from the western to the eastern border parallel to one of the tribal portions."

This whole district, where Jesus' house will be, where the temple is, where Jerusalem is, are all in this place called the "Holy" or "Sacred District."  There are two kinds of people who live here.  There are the general Levites, as marked by the "L", on the map, and then there are the "Sons of Zadok" which are like the cream of the priest crop.  Read 40:46:  

"And the chamber facing northward is for the priests, the keepers of the charge of the altar. They are the sons of Zadok among the sons of Levi, who come near Jehovah to minister to Him."

These are the ones with the holiest job in all of the heavenly Kingdom, drawing near to God and ministering to Him at the altar.  That sounds like a pretty nice job to be at! 

Now, you are probably thinking what I have also thought of, which is when the Sons of Thunder had their mother ask Jesus if they could sit next to Him in heaven, and He said they didn't know what they were asking, and that only the Father could choose the position people had in heaven.  Well, He never said they shouldn't go for it!  As a matter of fact, in Luke 9 when the disciples were arguing over who would have the greatest position in the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus didn't rebuke them, instead, He gave them advice!  "For he who is least among you all, he shall be great."  If you want to live in the "Sacred District," be the humblest servant on earth.

I know that getting into heaven at all is the most awesome blessing and display of the mercy of God there is.  It is also the greatest miracle to be saved.  But for those of us who are saved, we've got our passports, and God never intended on us stopping at that point, He encourages us over and over again to build up treasure in heaven.

Mat 6:19-20  "Do not lay up treasures on earth for yourselves, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up treasures in Heaven for yourselves, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal."  

Rev 3:18  "I counsel you to buy from Me gold purified by fire, so that you may be rich; and white clothing, so that you may be clothed, and so that the shame of your nakedness does not appear. And anoint your eyes with eye salve, so that you may see." 

Rev. 22:12 "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done."

Rev. 2:7 "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."

It goes on and on.

I don't know where I am going to be in heaven, and we would all be amazed and blessed to live even in the Gad or Dan districts.  But until I know where my allotment is, I will be doing my best to get into the "Holy District," because all that matters is to be as close to Jesus as possible, and I can only imagine what it would be like to be the one whose neighbors are the heroes of faith who have lived and died for their Prince throughout history.