No More Window Shopping
There’s a certain theme to my life these days. The theme of God as my Father. I’ve always known He was my Father in here (pointing to my head), but these days, thru the things I read, and listen to, and thru the experiences, both good and bad going on in my life, I see Him as my Father in here (pointing to my heart) and I relate to Him as a daughter. He’s more real to me now as Abba, than He has ever been before. I know now that I am no longer just one of His billions of kids. I’m “K”, His daughter. He has been asking me the questions, “Am I not your Father?” And I’ve been able to not just say yes out of duty or obligation or head knowledge, but the part of my heart that was so polluted it could not accept Him as Daddy, is being cleaned. Every day in His presence, it gets cleaner. As I get into the message, I will explain just how important it is to have this type of heart toward God. So, that’s one of the things I want you to keep in your heart as I speak. He wants us all to answer with our hearts, not our heads, “yes, Abba, You are my Father.”
Another repeating theme is the phrase, “No More Window Shopping.” Corey Russell made that statement at a Onething Conference at the International House of Prayer, and it stuck with me. Corey said, “no more window shopping, I’m going to go in and pay the price.” That’s good, but what’s better, what the Lord spoke to me after the conference was “no more window shopping, go in and buy, the price has already been paid.”
Don’t get me wrong, there is a price to pay for walking with the Lord, and that is what Corey meant, but there is also NO price to pay for walking with the Lord. How is it both? Well, it’s an upside-down kingdom; you’ve all heard that expression before. It makes no sense to the natural mind that it can be both: “no price to pay” and “a price to pay”. But, as believers in Christ, what we receive in the natural mind is usually the opposite of what is true in the spirit realm where we exist. That’s the 2nd thing I want you to keep in mind: “No more window shopping, go in and buy, the price has already been paid.”
So, let’s begin with a scripture that seems completely unrelated. John 5:2-9
Do you want to be “made whole”? The answer seems obvious, right? The man had been in that condition for 38 years. So, the answer seems obvious, but Jesus asks the question anyway. When He asked Him this 1 question, He was really asking 2. The first had to do with the man’s physical body which was broken. Jesus wanted to heal his body. To be “made whole” however, also meant something deeper. Metaphorically speaking, it means “a teaching that does not deviate from the truth.” Jesus didn’t just want to heal his body. He wanted to know if this man wanted the truth. And what is truth?
John 8:32 says, “and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Jesus was offering him, not just healing, but freedom.
John 1:17 says, “for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Jesus was offering this man relationship with Him and reconciliation to God.
Truth, is Jesus.
For 38 years, this man was in a condition he could do nothing about. By his own admission, he had no one to help him into the waters when the opportunity for healing would come. Then Jesus showed up. Here we have this hopeless situation, and then Jesus comes.
The man by the pool had no one to help him get to the place of healing Jesus made it so he didn’t need anyone to do that
Jesus spoke, and he was made whole; he was finally free
He had been window shopping the gift of healing his whole life, and finally, he could buy, without any cost, because the price was already paid
For those of you who don’t know Jesus as your Savior, your Way to God, and you think you are waiting on luck, or chance, or the help of others to be made whole, I hope the story of this man speaks to you.
What that man had really been waiting for all this time was Jesus.
Let’s look at window shopping from a more female, modern day perspective. You are on Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills, CA. You are window shopping, because you don’t have the financial means to do anything else. All the name brands you could never afford are represented beyond that window, and you are salivating. This is the one moment when your husband is glad you are making him hold your purse, because he doesn’t’ want you to be tempted to spend all of your hard-earned money on a designer bag. He doesn’t tell you, but he is also salivating at the selection of power tools next to the designer bag display. An A-list celebrity pulls up in an Astin Martin. Walks in boldly and arrogantly and walks out angry and defeated. The prices are just too high; even for him. A long stretch limo pulls up to the store, and Oprah and Gail get out and walk into the boutique. Your heart races, so does your husband’s. You both remember the episode of Oprah where she gave everyone a car. “Surely she’s here to bless us all with a shopping spree” you both hope. Oprah and Gail come out disappointed. Even the richest people can’t afford the prices in this store.
Suddenly, a man walks thru the crowd and thru the door with a suitcase. You barely look at him, because there is nothing about Him that would attract the attention of anyone. The attendants however, stop what they are doing and bow as He makes His way to the front of the store. He hands the cashier the suitcase, she opens it, nods, and He smiles and walks out. As He walks by you, He says to you, “no more window shopping, I paid the price. Do you want to go in?” He puts a hand on your husband’s shoulder and says, “it’s ok to let go of the purse strings; you will not experience any loss from this shopping spree. I’ve taken the loss. Do you want to go in?” He proceeds to talk to everyone outside of the store. Then the man disappears. You go into the store and you ask the attendants if what the man said was true. They smile and say, “absolutely, take what you want; take enough for yourself and enough to share; when you run out, feel free to come back and bring friends; there is enough for everyone who wants to shop; none of you will ever be charged; no more window shopping; that man you saw, paid the price for all of it and it will never run out; his kindness will never end; I assure you, everything He has now belongs to you, and everyone you bring with you.” Suddenly, the back and side walls of this exclusive little shop disappear, and it becomes a space without limits. Full of everything you could ever want and even some things you didn’t know existed.
Walking into the store, believing what the man said, is a picture of salvation, and when we walked into the store, we gained access to EVERYTHING.
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:” AND Ephesians 2:6 says, “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:”
As believers, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, now
As believers, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, now
You might say, that sounds great for my spirit man, but my natural man is still here on earth struggling with the things of this world, powerless. But the truth is, you are here in this world, AND there with God. Remember, the upside-down kingdom. What is impossible in the natural realm is perfectly natural and possible in the spirit realm where we now exist. We serve a God who exists outside of space and time, and salvation means that we are in Christ, who is with God now, existing outside of space and time, and since, like the Bible says, we are In Christ, and we are seated with Him now, we too exist there, outside of space and time. While still being here with you in this room, I am also there with them, seated, powerful, and relevant to the life I live here. Two truths. I’m here and I’m also there. Reality is not what we say it is, but what He says it is. The gift of salvation gives us the ability to exist on two realms, that’s our reality, two dimensions, at the same time. Not only that, but Jesus told us to pray, “let your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” So, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places which means, the same can be true of us on earth, here. Being blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places is not just for the heavenly dimension. We are not supposed to be window shopping the spirit realm. The price has been paid. The way has been made clear for things to be “on earth as they are in heaven.”
I want to describe what it means when the Bible says that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.
What are heavenly places? The abode of God and the angels. So, in the place where God lives, is where our blessings come from.
What does it mean to be blessed? Blessed is the Greek word Eulogeo. It means to cause to prosper, to make happy, to bestow blessings on, favored of God. The word Eulogeo is a verb. A verb implies action. It comes from the word Logos which is speech, a word, the sayings of God, a decree, or a mandate. In Ephesians 1:3, when it says that God blessed us, it goes beyond having His favor and Him making us happy, although it includes that. It means that He spoke over us, and when God speaks, life happens, darkness flees, creation occurs. When He speaks, nothing can cancel out His voice. So, when this verse says we have been blessed, we have been given something that cannot be taken away from us.
What does the word spiritual mean in this verse? It means belonging to God the Holy Spirit. It comes from the Greek word Pneuma which is the Greek word for Holy Spirit. We have been irrevocably blessed with what belongs to God the Holy Spirit. Those things that belong to Holy Spirit, that come from Holy Spirit are our blessings.
What are blessings? It’s the same word, Eulogeo. Blessings are Logos. They are whatever He says they are. We can look thru scripture and see what He spoke over us, as those raised with Christ, and know that what He spoke still applies. Those blessings are also whatever He speaks now, those now words that He speaks over us. Because He says them, they must come to pass.
Because our lives, the disappointments, the failures, the sin, point to a different picture, than what our true reality is in Christ, we window shop. We stand in life salivating over what already belongs to us, what has already been paid for. Think about the garden, when Adam and Eve fell. Satan promised them that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that they would be like God. The truth was, they were already like God. He made them in His image and after His likeness. They were complete. They weren’t missing anything. They were deceived into thinking that what they had was not enough, when it was EVERYTHING they could ever want or need. Today, satan is still trying to trick us unto eating the fruit of this world to gain what we already have in Christ. We are window shopping when the blessings are ours.
I’ve been reading a book by Ted Dekker called “The Forgotten Way”, and in that book, he pointed out some scriptures that I’ve read multiple times, but they never took root in me until now, in this current season I’m in of seeing God as my Father and relating to Him as a daughter. These scriptures deal with how Jesus related to Father God, and how thru that relationship we can see how we are to relate to Father God. If we follow the relationship example of Jesus to Our Father, we discover the place where our power lies; we discover the ability and courage to go into the store and buy, without price. We learn to access those spiritual gifts with confidence and outrageous faith.
Here are a few of those scriptures:
John 14:19-20 MSG “In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in Me, and I’m in you.” So, if Jesus is in the Father, and we are in Jesus, then that means that we are in the Father. Concentrate on that for a minute. We are in the Uncreated One, the Everlasting Father, the Lofty One on High, the Majesty of Heaven. We live in Him. John 21:25 says that all the books in the world could not record the miracles that Jesus did. He lived that life by living in the Father. And because of Him, we live there and the same is possible for us.
John 17:21-23 MSG “The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind. Just as you, Father, are in Me and I in You, so they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that You, in fact, sent Me. The same glory You gave Me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as We are, I in them and You in Me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that You’ve sent me and loved them in the same way You’ve loved Me.” Did you get that?! Jesus said that He is in us and the Father is in Him, which means that the Father is in us! How can anything be impossible to us when the One who makes all things possible is in us?
Galatians 2:20 ESV “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
1 John 4:17 MSG “... our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s.”
Luke 12:32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
The only way to exist this way is to relate to God as Father, like Jesus did. To relate to him like a very young child, who has not been poisoned with the “truth” as the world tells it, and still believes in the impossible and the improbable. Relate to Him like your kids related to you when you told them there was a santa clause, and they believed you. Relate to Him like your kids related to you when you told them that the tooth fairy was the one who put that quarter under their pillow when they lost their tooth, and they believed you. A childlike faith that believes anything and everything that the Father tells them. We believed them, because we trusted them without question. They were our parents. In wonder, we believed. In absolute faith, we believed. Then, our fallen nature caught up with us and peer pressure and our educational system started speaking things contrary to what our parents said. Television showed us a way that seemed better to our flesh, easier. And so, we stopped believing ANYTHING was possible. We became infected with doubt and skepticism.
And then the Lord touches us and we get saved, and all of a sudden, what is required of us is that childlike faith that has been corrupted by the world. A faith that believes the Father when He says, speak to that mountain and tell it to move, and it will. A faith that believes we can walk on water. A faith that believes we can pray over 2 loaves of bread and 5 fish, feed 5000 men plus women and children, and be left with 12 baskets of leftovers. A faith that believes we can lay hands on the sick and they will recover, simply because our Father said so. We left that faith as we became older and “wiser”, and now it is the exact faith that we need to access those spiritual blessings in heavenly places; to exist in both dimensions full of the power and authority of the One who saved us.
“Am I not your Father?” Because if He is indeed our Father, and He is, and if He is a good Father, and He is, the answer to that question should be “yes”, and the result of that “yes” is us relating to Him like children relate to a Father they love and trust and believe above anything and anyone else. Our Father wants a childlike faith from us, His daughters. We walk thru life knowing that we are His, thru Jesus, loved like He loves Jesus, treated like He treats Jesus, we are with Him now, like Jesus is with Him now, and He is for us now, like He was for Jesus when He was on this earth.
So what is it that is stopping us from accepting this truth and walking in it? What pollution has taken over our heart where we can’t accept what God Himself speaks over us? What in your heart needs to be cleaned off or out so that you can accept truth and walk in it? Ted Dekker says it so much better: “what is distorting your vision of your incredible identity as the daughter of the Father?”
Is it guilt, unforgiveness, shame, pride, fear of man, sin?
We have to examine ourselves and find out what hinders us from accepting Him as our Father and relating to Him as a daughter so that we can go beyond the window and into the store.
Do you want to be made whole? Wholeness can only be found in that relationship. So, take a few minutes and seek the Lord.
If you are having trouble relating to Him as a Father, ask Him what hinders you. Don’t assume that you know. Ask and wait for an answer.
Father, we thank you that you hear us and you answer us. You have showed me the unclean thing in my heart that has stopped me from seeing you as a good Father and relating to you like a daughter. That unclean thing is the lie and today, I will no longer align myself with that lie. The truth is, the way you love and relate to Jesus is the way You love and relate to me. The truth is, I have a good Father, and You are Him. The truth is, You delight in me being Your daughter! You love that I belong to You. The truth is, You are excited about our relationship. And so Father, help me walk in excitement about our relationship. Show me everyday how to relate to you as a daughter and trust You as my Daddy. Help me remember that I have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places because I am seated with You in Christ in heavenly places. Because of this Abba, my life on earth should reflect my life in heaven where I exist with You. Show me everyday how to live on this earth from the perspective of heaven, and when I have learned, help me teach others. I declare that today my heart is clean of all that hinders our love, I declare today that I will no longer window shop for what I can go in and buy, without cost, because the price has already been paid. In Jesus name, I pray, Amen.
Matt 21:22 ESV “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”