Posted: 08/20/2015 at 9:14am | IP Logged

OpenHeaven.com Digest Publication


In This Issue
1. The Love of Home
2. What About the Church
3. News Headlines

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1. The Love of Home

By Ron McGatlin

I’ve always somewhat felt like I missed something when around people who had grown up and spent their lives in one place that was a true home to them. Some people actually were born and died in one house in one town in one place. Some others may have lived in different dwellings but always is the same town among the same people all their lives.

They had school friends that were friends all their lives. They played sports together and made many memories of fun times, romances, and eventually marriages and families all in the same area amongst the same people. No matter where they might travel, they always knew that they had a home town and life-long friends to come home to. Truly, for them the old saying of there is no place like home has strong meaning.

For me it seems the old saying of “wherever I hang my hat is my home” is truer as far as this life on earth is concerned. Perhaps some of you know what I am talking about when I say that my life became a journey of great change and transition.

When I became a born again Christian, suddenly my whole world changed; all of my friends and family changed toward me. There became a distance with my friends and family. I found a home in a church with real feelings of home and family. It was somewhat of a shock when I could no longer be at home there. The Holy Spirit had sovereignly came upon me, and I was baptized with the Holy Spirit while sitting on a creek bank alone one day. Though I told no one at the time, soon I was separated from my home at church.

This journey has continued as God has taken me to higher places and greater things in His presence. As each new layer of restored truth and life came to me I again and again lost close friendships with different sets of friends, family, and associates. The continuing decision was always there to either settle to keep closeness with friends and family or to go on with God into heavenly places and lose again close relationships with the current set of friends, family, and associates. It always has been a “no contest” for me. I’ve always desired more of God and growing in heavenly things above anything else in this life. God has greatly blessed me with His life and fresh revelation in layers of the restoration of the kingdom of God on earth.

I have come to realize that by far, I have gotten the best deal with God. At the same time I have come to so greatly value the real fellowship and oneness with others who are also making this journey into the heavenly life on earth now as well as the soon coming life in heaven.

My Earthly Homes Have Disappeared

The quaint places of home where I grew up have all become big cities with tall buildings and thousands of people rushing about and for the most part ignoring God and His great love and plans for them and His world.

The last general identity of home that I had was the nation of the United States of America. I no longer can truly feel the sense of being at home in the USA. It has become somewhat like a foreign land. The overall general acceptance of life in God and His ways has become so dull and ungodliness has become so ingrained in society that it cannot feel like home anymore.

My American homeland was a good land. A land where freedom reigned and babies were born to a home with a mother and a father. Abortion was basically unknown, and life was greatly valued. If a child was born out of wedlock that was an abnormal thing. People did not always do right, but they did know right from wrong and knew when they were doing wrong.

Patriotism was a very good thing, and men and women loved their country and were willing to fight to preserve their families and the way of life in freedom. Most people went to a church and almost everyone at least believed that they were Christians. Even the criminals and bad guys had some respect for the church and its leaders.

Business was often done with just an agreement and a handshake. Children could play outside all around the neighborhood without fear. Many homes were never locked. If a neighbor family got in trouble with sickness or whatever, all the neighbors pitched in to help them get back on their feet.

Policemen were your friends, and the military was greatly respected. Illegal drugs were nonexistent in most of the country except in some rough parts of big cities. Even in much of the nation you could not buy alcohol. Like many others across the country, Denton County in Texas where I did a lot of my growing up was a “dry county” where alcohol was not for sale.

A double feature western movie cost a quarter (25 cents) and was the wildest thing available. In the western movies the hero was a good guy and wore a big white hat while the bad guys were mean and always wore black hats. In other words you could always tell the difference between good and bad back then.

God truly blessed the nation. Many devout missionaries sacrificed their comfortable lives to go into all the world to tell the people about Christ Jesus the savior.

I could go on but you get the idea that for all its imperfections, the United States of America stood for what was right and always stood ready to help the oppressed and put down tyranny. Many people around the world wanted to come to the USA to live in freedom and to prosper.

This nation was my last semblance of a natural earthly home that no longer exists. I guess that I just do not feel fully at home in this world any more.

HOWEVER, AT THE SAME TIME I HAVE A GREATER SENSE OF HOME THAN EVER BEFORE IN MY LIFE.

Yes, I have discovered that heaven is my only real home. However, I do not have to die and go to heaven to experience it, as most of us have been trained to believe.

GOD’S PLAN IS NOW AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN TO BRING HEAVEN TO EARTH. Planet Earth is to be a colony of Heaven with all the benefits of the perfect rule of God on earth as it is in heaven. A land ruled by the love, righteousness, peace, and joy of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.

I am at home in His presence wherever I am, especially gathered in our “living room” with others on this same journey that love God with all their hearts.

Like a nation’s embassy in a foreign land actually is a part of the nation that it represents, so it is that our homes can become an embassy of heaven. Eventually the whole nation can become a colony of heaven. Our homes can actually become an embassy of heaven and the beginnings of a colony of heaven on earth.

THIS IS THE REAL HOPE FOR THE USA AND THIS WORLD.

GOD’S LOVE HAS NEVER LEFT US, AND HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER.

Much more than longing to go to heaven, there is an all-consuming desire for the manifest presence of God to fill our hearts and lives in our gatherings and in our daily lives. This is heaven come to earth, experiencing the ecstasy of His presence within and among us. To walk in the presence of God by His Spirit until it becomes our life breath filling our every moment from heartbeat to heartbeat with life from heaven on earth.

LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! FILLING OUR LIVES WITH POWER AND WISDOM TO BECOME THE PURE SEED OF GOD TO CHANGE THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD.

This is that for which we have left our homes and homelands, laid aside life in the world systems of the past, and as Paul said, counted them as valueless in comparison with knowing Christ Jesus.

Whatever was great about our lives of the past is becoming of little or no value in comparison to what God has for us in His manifest presence now and forever.

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. ⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowing of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:7-8).   

God does not desire to restore our nations to what they were in the past. God desires a whole new world of new nations functioning as colonies of heaven on earth, bearing all the ways of heaven on earth, much as He designed for man in the Garden of Eden.

Literally the plan and work of God in Christ Jesus is the kingdom of heaven on earth fully ruling and operating in the manifest presence of God within and among His people on earth, literally the glory of God filling all the earth.

Now in this day God desires to establish your life and your place of abode into His sanctuary in the order of the Garden of Eden. Gather with those of like precious faith in your homes. Make your space a place where God and His people want to be, and pray for the kingdom of heaven to bring forth the New Jerusalem, Garden of Eden life experience. Let His Spirit and His love fill your hearts, and simply follow the leading of the Spirit of God. In this life and presence of God and with His people, we truly find our true home on earth, the living embassy of heaven on earth.

John 14:18-20: I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. ²⁰ At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

Christ in you the hope of glory.

Ron McGatlin
archive.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net





2. What About the Church

By Ron McGatlin

Will the church be saved? The short answer is yes and no.

In 2010 there was an estimated 2,180,000,000 (2 billion, 180 million) Christians in the world, 247,000,000 (247 million) of those are in the USA. Estimates of 584,000,000 (584 million) Spirit-filled Christians are in the world.

Dream with me for a moment. What do you think might happen in the USA if all 247 million Christians or even a large portion of them would consecrate themselves wholly unto God? What if we all turned from our mixtures of allegiances to fallen world desires and ways? What if every Christian truly obeyed the words of Jesus to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first? What if every one of them became a holy temple of the living God? What if every Christian family and home became an embassy of Heaven on earth? What if their homes became the center of spiritual life, biblical instruction, prayer, and worship? WHAT IF THEY ALL KNEW HOW MUCH GOD REALLY LOVES THEM? WOULD THEY NOT LOVE HIM BACK WITH THEIR WHOLE HEARTS?

Do you think for a moment if two hundred million believers were truly experiencing the presence of God in their lives that the USA would not be a very different place? All systems of life would change and become God honoring. Everything would change in the USA. Is this what God desires for America and His world?

What if the two billion Christians in the world were to do the same? Would not the whole world be different and literally become the kingdom of God on earth?

God’s plan is that the entire world be under the loving glorious rule of the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God on earth. This is not an impossible dream. This is the plan of God and why Christ came to earth and became a man.

The existing religious church systems cannot ever accomplish this plan of God. A “corporate meeting centric” spiritual lifestyle cannot do what a “home centric” spiritual lifestyle will do. The home, where life is lived, must become the spiritual center of life in the kingdom of God. Everyday life must be lived in the Spirit, beginning in the home.

Meetings with other families also adds to the sharing of Spirit-led life and affords opportunities for increased worship, prayer, and strengthening one another in spiritual fellowship. Natural organic type groups of families gathering in homes can be highly productive in spiritual growth and personal kingdom instruction.

Larger corporate gatherings of many family home centric groups together in a larger facility will be truly heavenly especially in worship and being encouraged and edified by God-sent apostolic and prophetic gifted speakers.

THE EXISTING RELIGIOUS CHURCH SYSTEMS AS THEY ARE CANNOT SURVIVE. The religious systems as they are must give way to true headship of Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit in the newly restored kingdom of God way of life.

Therefore, considering the “religious systems” as the church, that church and lifestyle will not be saved but will pass away in the fires of persecution. That is not saying the people will not be saved. That is another issue.

Yes, the true body and bride of Christ Jesus, the pure holy people who love God with their whole hearts, those who are truly seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, the New Jerusalem of God, as a remnant will survive to become seeds of the kingdom sowed into the cleansed world beyond the cleansing world judgments.

Even at this late date, if the hundreds of millions of people involved in the existing religious systems were awakened through a great outpouring or revival to see their true condition and turn from their current ways to seek the kingdom of God with their whole hearts, much pain of difficult and perilous times could be avoided by the everlasting mercy of God.

Sifting of the Church

The billions of Christians of the world are being poured into a big sieve of refinement, and the sieve is being violently shaken.

Amos 9:9: “For surely I will command,
And will sift the house of Israel among all nations,
As grain is sifted in a sieve;
Yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.
¹⁰ All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword,
Who say, ‘The calamity shall not overtake nor confront us.’

Proverbs 20:26: A wise king sifts out the wicked, And brings the threshing wheel over them.

Luke 22:31-34: And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. ³² But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” ³³ But he said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.” ³⁴ Then He said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.”

“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Ron McGatlin
archive.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net





3. News Headlines


Iran's 'Clandestine Pathway' to a Nuclear Bomb - 8/14/2015
Iran denies it is hiding evidence of nuclear weapons activity even after satellite photos show work being done at its Parchin military complex, a site suspected of building a nuclear warhead. Iran has a dual nuclear strategy: one hidden and one for the world to see. "The entire program has always had a clandestine pathway to the bomb to it. It will be only a few years."


Abbas Turns to Iran for Help in Destroying Israel - 8/20/2015
The military wing of Fatah in Gaza has publicly asked Iran for funding in order to help carry out attacks against Israel, according to Iranian Al-Alam TV. Fatah’s military branch, known as the Al-Aqsa Brigade, is closely associated with the Fatah movement, which controls the (PA) in the West Bank. The PA announced that the Palestinian President would be traveling to Iran.


Fleeing Death: Can Europe Survive Migrant Crisis? - 8/19/2015
It is the largest refugee crisis since World War II: millions of men, women, and children running from war, from ISIS, from religious persecution, and from hostile governments in Africa and the Middle East. But this is more than a humanitarian crisis. For Italy, and all Europe it is also a security nightmare because, reportedly, among the refugees are soldiers of the ISIS.


Rescuing Sex Slaves: Modern Day Schindler - 3 Short Videos - , Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq - 8/20/2015
One of them was only 9 years old. She had been raped so brutally, reconstructive surgery was required on her internal organs. Why is ISIS doing this? Watch as he explains their motivation. He has freed at least 128 females from the clutches of the Islamic State. The going rate for purchasing a Yazidi or Christian sex slave ranges from $50-$500 depending on age and beauty.


Mali's Islamist conflict spreads as new militant group emerges - 8/20/2015
Imam Elhadji Sekou Ba was one of the few people in his village who dared to speak out against the rise of Islamist in central Mali, denouncing in his sermons the young men taking up arms in the name of religion. Last Thursday, shortly after dinner, he was gunned down on his doorstep. Locals suspect the killing was carried out by a new group blamed for a wave of attacks.


Smuggled Bibles result in great spiritual harvest - 8/20/2015
Smuggled Bibles are resulting in lots of new believers in closed countries. Yesterday, I met with one of our major contacts. She reported there are now 700,000 believers among a tribal group that VBB has focused on getting Bibles to for the past twenty years! In another country nearby, there are over 25,000 believers from this tribe. God is definitely on the move.


Shekau claims he’s ‘still in charge’ of Nigeria’s Boko Haram - 8/20/2015
The mystery of the fate of the Nigerian-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram's brutal leader, Abubakar Shekau, has deepened after an audio message has emerged in which he denies he has been replaced. In the message, addressed to the leader of the Islamic State militant group to whom Boko Haram has pledged allegiance, Mr. Shekau said he was still in command.


Cuban Rule Change Allows More Business, Ministry - 8/19/2015
Senator Marco Rubio, (R) Florida, is blasting President Obama for his handling of Cuba, saying he has made no efforts "to stand on the side of freedom." The criticism comes as the U.S. embassy opens in Havana for the first time in five decades. A change in Cuban government rules has allowed a small number of residents to become private business owners.


Flooding Devastates Myanmar, Creates Food Shortages - 8/19/2015
The nation was devastated by massive flooding responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people - and displacing at least 300,000. People are suffering from food shortages, in hard to reach villages. Aye Aye Aung and her children were stranded for two weeks. "My children were crying. We sat on the bed waiting for people to come and give us food."


Seven Assyrian Villages in Northern Iraq Hit by Turkish Air Strikes - 8/19/2015
Assyrian villages in the Qandil mountains were hit by the recent Turkish air strikes against the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Christians reclaim the village of Bakufa in Northern Iraq According to the Assyrian International News Agency. One Assyrian village near the Turkish border has hosted 60 Assyrian families driven out by ISIS.


MORE NEWS HEADLINES

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