It was an inspired train of thought which became the four-part blog on this website entitled, “The Deception of Victory Over Sin.” Then I found an article which compared forsaking sin to living in a house with two floors, and I quoted it in the blog entitled, “Life On the Second Floor.”
Then I went to Haiti and this theme was flooding through my mind and spirit, being deepened with further revelation from the Holy Spirit. I preached on this theme over and over again through my last trip to Haiti, with many profound results in the responses of pastors and Christians. So now I want to add a few more insights from the revelation that I’ve been given on this subject.
We who are Christians live in a two-story house. The first floor is where everyone who is not a Christian lives his/her entire life, and many Christians also remain there most if not all the time, simply because they do not know about the second floor, or believe it is a place reserved for them after death.
The first floor is filled with objects and occupations from two related spheres. First we find all the things of this world on this ground floor. Everything visible that is in this world; everything that can be bought or made or owned. Everything that we desire from the world, all material possessions, everything that attracts us through advertising, everything we give and receive as gifts.
Mixed together with the things of the world on this first floor are all the attractions to sin. Dancing girls wearing nearly nothing, mind-altering drugs and alcohol, achievements of others that make us jealous, beautiful men and women who make us feel ugly, temptations to gluttony and covetousness and gossip and anger, desire to murder and hate, right there inseparable from the seemingly neutral material things of this world. That’s why the Bible says, “Love not the world nor the things that are in the world.” The whole Kingdom of the World is a place where we live but we must not dwell; do you know the difference?
Let me put it this way. Our bodies must remain in this world until we die, but there is another place that we must keep our hearts, our minds, and our spirits. We must dwell permanently in another place while walking through this world. People take drugs so that they can experience an alternate reality in order to escape the reality of this world. We do not actually want to escape the world…we want to minister in it and love the people who are totally immersed in it. But we want the place where our heart, spirit, and mind dwells to be the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is only one way to get there: climb the stairs to the second floor!
On the second floor there are no material objects. There is praise and worship but it is entirely in the Spirit; there’s no sound system, instruments or microphones. On the second floor we live in and by the Spirit. It is the world of prayer, communion with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, fellowship with other Christians, and that most wonderful place where sin is completely absent.
Recall the times when you have been totally “lost” in the spirit of worship. Your heart, mind, and spirit are on the “second floor.” You are in love and unity with the people worshipping around you. You are communing with the Lord, receiving revelation from Him. Let me ask you a question: If at that moment a sinful image would cross your mind or a temptation to sin would appear to you, would you get up from your seat and run out the door to fulfill that temptation? Of course not! It can’t even remain in your mind more than a second, you just shrug it off. That same thought might easily lead to some terrible stumble were you not on the “second floor” when it came to you. Understand? Our only defense against sin is when our hearts, minds, and spirits are on the second floor. So it is the goal of our lives to learn, to seek wisdom, to encourage one another, in how we might succeed in spending more and more of our daily lives moment by moment living on the second floor!
Now here is the most difficult thing we must face: while we are on the first floor, enjoying our material possessions and giving more than cursory glances at temptations to sin, it seems like we have feet made of concrete and cannot move them toward the staircase that ascends to the second floor. That’s why the Scripture says, “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin…” (Heb 12:4). Sometimes it seems that walking away from the pleasures of the first floor, getting to the staircase, and beginning the ascent, is impossible, even when we consider that all we really long for awaits us on the second floor!
When you’re living on the earth with all the examples of worldliness, lust, and pleasure-seeking around you, it’s easy to understand how difficult it is for a Christian to leave it and trust that the invisible Kingdom of God offers greater daily pleasures and rewards. But let me give you two visions to help you. First picture Jesus, as he went to the cross. Hebrews 12:1-3 says, “therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes of Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the JOY set before Him endured the cross…For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
As we fix our eyes on Jesus, who ascended the stairs ahead of us because he knew so well what JOY was waiting for Him there, we too can endure the pain of leaving sin and the desire for things of this world only by the certainty of who beckons us from the top of the stairs:
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place…Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold,, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting upon the throne…” (Rev 4:1-2).
