If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the latest episode of the podcast (Azusa Now or Azusa Already) or the last interview show I did with Carlos Rodriguez (Happy Sonship), you really ought to. Both have been getting me some awesome feedback on similar themes.
Like this post long-time internet buddy and podcast listener Benjamin Nelson, author of the blog Another Red Letter Day:
When He was baptized, God tore open the heavens. I love what Carlos A. Rodriguez says about this. When you tear something, it’s not because you are planning to sew it back together. It is a destruction. God tore the heavens open and Jesus walked under an open heaven every day of His life.
Bingo.
I touched on this in various ways in both of the aforementioned podcast episodes. But not only that, I had recently heard a worship leader exhort the audience that worship [obviously in his context this would refer to music/singing] unlocks the heavens.
I couldn’t help but think of how silly such a notion is.
Not because I’m an uptight curmudgeon and I need to disagree with everything I hear charismatics say, because that’s not the case. But something makes me twitch when I listen to well-meaning people make statements as though we weren’t given the Holy Spirit and still live under the Old Covenant.
When I hear people pray intensely and earnestly for something God has already provided and it’s now up to us to just walk in it…
Think about it for a moment.
If music and singing is somehow what “unlocks” the heavens, then when does God shut those heavens back up again? How many songs does it take to open those doors?
And just how much time does it take until they’re closed again? Do these doors (or is it gates?) of heaven gradually shut at a slow pace or a rapid one, being completely sealed up again by Monday morning when most of us go back to our normal lives?
I hope you realize I’m being facetious.
Ben goes on to say
At the crucifixion of Jesus, God tore the veil in the temple open, once and for all. It was not for the priests to sew back together. It demonstrates that like Jesus, all who are in Christ now walk under an open heaven. No longer do we need to sacrifice yearly for our sins to make atonement to the Lord, so that He will hear our prayers. Now the veil is torn—the heaven open—and we are free to commune with God the way Jesus did. We have the same access to heaven as Jesus did. The store house of heaven is open to us. God’s rich supply is as available to us as it was to Jesus. Need direction for your life? Need healing? Need provision? Need comfort? Heaven is open and God is talking.
Not to mention, in the same way as the Father did at Jesus baptism, He poured out the Holy Spirit on us so that we can walk in newness of life. We are new creations—a new species—no longer sin-natured. We are now God-natured. We are not living with dead spirits, suffering from the curse of Adam’s sin. We have living spirits—having been breathed on by the breath of God—inhabited by the Holy Spirit—and benefitting from Jesus’ own righteousness.
Like Paul tell us in Romans 6 when he’s talking about our baptism as a demonstration of the fact that we now walk in newness of life—life with an open heaven—with a torn veil and a new spirit.
Read the entire article: Torn, Never to be Mended – Another Red Letter Day
I would also add that not a hearty amen to everything Ben mentions in his post, but like I mentioned in the Azusa podcast, WE are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are carriers of the Presence of God, whether we realize it or not. We take revival with us. We, by being seated in Christ automatically have an open heaven over us where ever we go.
No amount of Worship singing of 2 Chronicles 7:14 fasting and praying can pry those heavens open with a crowbar because… they are already open over you, beloved child of the King!
