John the Apostle explained the supernatural encounter which led him into the Throne Room of Heaven with these words, when he said:
“Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I had heard before spoke to me like a trumpet blast. The voice said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.” And instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it.”
Revelation 4:1-2 NLT
John was in this natural world on the Island of Patmos, where he had been sent by the Romans to die. But one day while he was looking up to the sky on the Island, he saw the vision of “a door standing open in Heaven”.
It is good news for us on the earth to know that Heaven’s door is always standing open. Our world needs Heaven’s door to be constantly open. We need Heaven’s help always on the earth. If Heaven’s door is to have been closed at all, there will be no survivor left on the earth. We need God’s mercy and compassion, especially with the increase of the iniquities that are plaguing the earth right now (Revelation 18:4-5).
But as John stood still in amazement about the open door, he could hear a voice inviting him to come up to Heaven. He was being invited to see many things which he had never known or seen before.
An invitation from Heaven always requires a prompt response of faith from us at all times. Immediately John was invited to come up he was instantly repositioned into the realm of the spirit, from the very spot where he had heard the voice of Heaven. He didn’t have to do anything to be repositioned. All that he needed to do was to just believe the voice that he had heard.
It’s just one step of faith that will take us away from the natural realm, through the narrow gate of prayer and intercession into the realm of the spirit. That’s why it’s so important to be prepared at all times, while pressing in through the gate into God’s presence.
Anything can happen at any time and in any way. Our God is the God of all possibilities, and with Him nothing is ever impossible.
It’s however our willingness and ability to keep on pressing into His presence, that helps us in our pursuit of knowing Him more intimately. Our goal of knowing Him intimately has to be:
“To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:19 NKJV
The fullness of God is available to us as His children, while we are pressing in through the narrow gate into His presence. Our ability to keep on pressing in through prayer and intercession, leaves the door of Heaven open to us.
The door of Heaven is open continually for us on the earth, as a result of the prayers of the saints that are constantly ascending before God (Revelation 8:3-4).
The Greek word for “to know” is “Ginosko”, which literally means to know someone intimately, or to have a carnal (sexual relationship) knowledge of someone. It is a word that comes with very deep meaning.
There are a lot of Christians who don’t want to know God intimately. They therefore can’t know the love of Christ which is beyond human understanding or comprehension.
As the Apostle Paul said here, they cannot have an understanding of the love of Christ for them, that’s beyond human comprehension. They only want to know Christ in the understanding of their natural world, which they can naturally relate with.
Therefore, they can’t be filled with the fullness of God, because God Who is Love is also Spirit. No one on the earth can ever understand His love for us, by trying to understand it in the context of this natural world.
In order to “ginosko” (know) God the Apostle Paul said:
“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,”
Philippians 3:10 NKJV
You can’t really “ginosko” someone without having intimate fellowship with the person. You have to be able to know him more intimately by sharing in his sufferings and hardships with him.
You can’t know someone by only sharing the good things of life with him, but you have to be ready to share in his sufferings and in his hardships with him as well.
Many do have a corrupt understanding of intimacy with one another. They only want to know about the good things in other people’s lives. They don’t want to share or fellowship with them in their sufferings. There is always a limit about what people can share or want to share in identifying with you, concerning the hardships and sufferings of your life.
In knowing Christ so as to be able to understand the depth, the width, the length and the height of His love for us, we must be prepared to go through the narrow gate of prayer and intercession with Him.
Such love of the Man (Jesus) for us, is indescribable in a language which human beings can ever understand. His love for us has to be experienced for us to be able to understand it.
You can say that you know Jesus, because of what the scriptures says that He had done for you. But have you ever experienced the joy of His salvation? Have you ever experienced His power to heal and to deliver? What has Jesus done personally for you?
That’s why the use of the Greek word for knowing Him is so appropriate in this context. It brings out the true meaning of what it means “to know Him” down to our level, so that we can be able to catch a glimpse, of what the scriptures means when it says anything about knowing Him.
By knowing the love of God in this way we are able to fellowship with Him in His suffering, until we are able to identify ourselves with Him in His death; so as to be able to experience His resurrection power also in our own lives. This is how God’s love brings His power to rest upon us.
A Christian who is going through the wide gate of the multitude so as to know God, doesn’t have this understanding of the love of God. In many ways such a person can only associate His love for God with the understanding of the world.
Paul told Timothy:
“This is a trustworthy saying: If we die with him, we will also live with him. If we endure hardship, we will reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us.”
2 Timothy 2:11-12 NLT
This is the essence of the biblical Christian suffering. We are not a people without hope. We are dead to this world of evil and sin, so that we can be able to live with Him eternally, because by living with Him on a daily basis in this way is the Christian life real to us. Living with Him on this earth helps us to understand what eternal life with Him all is about.
We also suffer and endure hardship in life with Him, so that we can eventually be able to reign with Him on the earth. A Christian doesn’t suffer hardship in life without any hope of Christ being glorified through it. Jesus has to take the glory in all of our hardships in life with persecution and other sufferings; so that His resurrection power can be able to rest upon us.
This is how we can become One with Him through the narrow gate. This is how we are able to identify ourselves with Him as Christians. This is what it really means to know Him, and this was why Jesus had forewarned us that, the journey through the narrow gate comes with difficulties!
Every step of faith makes a difference.
Those who are trying to know God through the wide gate that the devil is using to take them into hell, do not understand the essence of the Christian suffering and hardship.
We don’t suffer like the people of the world; but we do suffer in order for us to be able to identify ourselves with Him, and in order for us to be able to share with Him in our fellowship through that suffering.
Jesus said:
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NKJV
The Christian suffering is never meant to be forever, but we are supposed to be going through it cheerfully and joyfully, so as to be empowered through that inner joy with His power in overcoming.
Don’t ever allow the devil to take your joy away from you. Be joyful through the Christian hardship, so that the quality and character of your faith with patience can make you perfect, in everything that you’re doing within His Kingdom (James 1:1-4).
In another place the scripture says according to the Passion Translation that:
“We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.”
1 Corinthians 10:13 TPT
The goal of every Christian hardship, suffering, trial, testing or temptation is for Christ’s resurrection power to be able to rest upon us. It is not meant to be forever, because God has a way of bringing His Own children out of them triumphantly.
That’s why we were never created in His image to be shunning our fellowship with Him during hardship, suffering, trial, test and tribulation. We go through these things for us to be able identify with Him in His Own suffering and His death on the cross for us.
In this way we can be found qualified to live and to reign with Him on the earth. You will not only come to know Him from the scriptures, but you will also be able to know Him through these things; so that as God raised Him from the dead, you can also experience His resurrection power.
A Christian who is not prepared to go through the narrow gate with this understanding at heart, while praying and interceding cannot experience Christ’s glory. He does not have the faith that Christ will be glorified in his life though them.
Jesus had told us that the journey through the narrow gate will not be easy. He had said that we will encounter difficulties through that gate. But it is the only way into the Father’s presence. There is no other way or shortcut into His presence:
“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Matthew 7:14 NKJV
There is no easy ride to Heaven. It’s not the place for those who are spiritually lazy. It’s for those who are able to be making the concrete and deliberate efforts to get into it, through the narrow gate. They will eventually make it there.
That’s why every step of faith into the realm of the spirit while praying in the spirit makes a lot of difference. It’s the lifestyle of faith that eventually brings us face to face with Jesus. You will get to know Him just as He is.
A Christian who is not making any effort to get to know Him in this way, will struggle to stand clear out of the evil of this world. He is still obviously struggling in the flesh.
And as long as he is still struggling in the flesh, he will struggle to die to sin. He therefore cannot be quickened to come alive with Christ. The flesh is still taking preeminence in the life of such a Christian, instead of his reborn spirit man dictating and directing the course of his life by faith in God.
A backslidden Christian may had taken one step through the wide gate of the multitude, to become lost for all eternity in the destruction of the devil. His uncrucified flesh had taken him through the wide gate, instead of him to have yielded to the Spirit within him in going through the narrow gate.
It is so easy to say: “I don’t want to go through hardship and the Christian suffering”. That’s how easy it is for anyone to fall into the destruction of the devil, and to be lost in it for ever.
When a Christian is rejecting the narrow path that Christ has set forth before him, he is rejecting Christ and His glorification in his life.
And there are many who are being deceived and manipulated by the devil to fall for his lies and deception, until there is no other way out to them from their rebellion against the Lord.
A step of faith can take you into the supernatural realm with God. And in the same way a step away from God can lead into eternal damnation with the devil.
It’s time to get spiritually aggressive!
But either way you may look at it, things are very real, fluid and fast in both realms of the spirit. Both realms of the spirit world have God (Who is Spirit), as the Supreme One within them. If you are either going through the narrow gate or the wide gate; God is able to intervene in both realms, so as to bring His correction and direction across your pathway. That’s if only you will allow Him to correct and direct you.
The devil is moving very fast on the earth, because he knows that his time is very short. He knows that the final judgment of the Lord is coming very soon upon him and his cohorts:
“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.”
Revelation 12:12 NKJV
This is why we are seeing an unprecedented move of the devil upon the earth these days. He is really working hard to get as many people as possible from the earth to be in hell with him.
That’s why we are to be praying more aggressively to take the kingdom of this world for our God, because it is our spiritual aggressiveness through prayer and intercession, that takes it by force (Matthew 11:12).
We are living now in the moment when spiritual laziness is never to be condoned among Christians. We have no way of escaping what the Lord is about to do on the earth, except by going through the narrow gate before our Father, as Jesus had advised us to be doing always. He said:
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”
Luke 13:24 NKJV
The use of the phrase “strive” in this translation describes how aggressively; we are to be praying through the narrow gate. The enemy will try to stop you from getting into the presence of the Father through the narrow gate. We are therefore to be vigorously praying for the salvation of souls into the Kingdom of God on the earth. We are to be vigorously praying for His intervention on the earth.
The New Living Translation says it more emphatically that we should “work hard” to enter through the narrow gate. The Christian life is a hard spiritual walk of faith. It’s not for spiritually lazy people.
It’s only by putting your faith in what Jesus had done for us that it becomes easier. Without putting your faith in Jesus through the narrow gate, you will never be able to make it.
To be able to get through the narrow gate, you must be spiritually working hard for it. You will need to make up your mind by initially settling it in your heart, that it’s going to be you and Jesus together in all the way through to the very end.
Eternity with Jesus is what is waiting for you, as you take that one step of faith through the narrow gate. It’s going to be you and Jesus together for ever on the spiritual journey to the end of the earth.
Things are happening so fast in the realm of the spirit right now, as the angels are also intensively and aggressively involved with several activities of Heaven, to carry out the will of the Father in Heaven on the earth.
If all of Heaven is aggressively pursuing the will of the Father on the earth, and Jesus had told us also to be aggressive in the work of the Kingdom of God on the earth. Then you have no excuse for not being aggressive, because your enemy is getting more aggressive also.
The devil knows that his end is just around the corner. He is not ready to go down without a fight.
That’s why we have to be aggressive also, because the Kingdom of this world has been given back to us. We will reign with Jesus on the earth.
Be prepared and ready for the Lord.
Things has to be put in place and in proper perspective for the scriptures to be fulfilled, so that the King of kings and the Lord of lords can be ushered in, to take away His Beautiful and Lovely Bride (the Church). And then the beginning of the end for all things will be set in motion.
Nothing is ever going to change what our Father in Heaven has predetermined to do on the earth. The devil knows it, but he is trying to slow it down. He however has already failed, because Jesus had given us the Kingdom.
Jesus has been looking forward eagerly for the Day of His return. He is yearning and longing to see you ready and prepared for Him. If you’re not prepared to get serious with the Lord now, in the way you are practicing your Christianity, you may soon find yourself on the wrong side of eternity.
The gospel according to Matthew repeats the very words of Jesus once again as written by Luke above:
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”
Matthew 7:13 NKJV
In other words, don’t join the crazy crowd of Christians, who are trying to please the world and Jesus at the same time. They do know that they are compromising their faith for the pleasures of this world, which will eventually pass away, and which is always changing.
The only thing that never changes is Jesus. And He is not going change His love for you, no matter which one of the two gates you choose to go through (Hebrews 13:8).
But whatever your choice may be, you don’t have to go into hell fire with them. That’s exactly where the world is going. The devil will be taking his crazy crowd with him to the place, that has been prepared for him and them.
It’s the things that Christians are compromising with, that is destroying them and weakening their faith in God. God is not sending people to the devil’s hell. They are the ones who are determined to go there. The rebellion of their hearts against God’s word is revealing this.
They’re not going to blame anyone for it, but their own stupidity with the world. It’s either you’re on God’s side or the devil’s side.
You can’t have the option of being a friend of Jesus and the world at the same time. You can’t be pleasing the world, and please God at the same time. It’s not possible (1 John 2:15-17).
Once you’ve taken the decision to be on the side of the world, because you’re afraid of being persecuted; then you’ve made yourself an enemy of Jesus. You are no longer walking by faith because of that fear of persecution.
Persecution will always come whether you like it or not. But your faith in the Lord’s power to deliver you in the midst of it, will keep on getting stronger and stronger. That’s how you will overcome the world and the evil one within it.
No matter how hard you are trying to make the world to like you, they are going to hate you more anyway. They will eventually mark you down for persecution. It’s better for you to get accustomed with their persecution now than later.
Jesus said:
“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:11-12 NKJV
Therefore, get it right that persecution will always come. Get used to it. It’s part of the life that Christians are called of God to live.
We will all be persecuted; but be prepared and ready to face your own persecution with faith in your Savior. He will always be beside you in the midst of it.
Start leaning and inclining your heart to go through the narrow gate. It’s your surest way of making it into the presence of the Father, so that when persecution comes you will be able to listen and hear instructions and directions from Him, to get you out of it quickly and with His speed into the next move of God for your life.
Stay strong in the victory! You are an overcomer.
