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To The Other Side

Writer's picture: TUP TeamTUP Team

In 1967 a little known LA band made their debut into the music world and claimed their place as one of the most legendary on the planet. The very first song on their very first record was a little ditty called “Break on Through To The Other Side” and if you haven’t been able to piece it together quite yet, the band was called The Doors. At the right time and the right place The Doors ‘happened’ upon a moment when people were looking for something to free them from the past oppressions of their fathers and mothers. Experimental drugs were coming into their own as a way to connect people to a place beyond the natural realm, and as lead singer Jim Morrison so aptly phrased it “the other side.” Of course the psychedelics of the 60’s and 70’s were a fast and seemingly friendly way to enter a realm that one can only describe as being unlike anything they’ve ever experienced. As we all either remember or have learned about, these drugs and these realms that people were experiencing at every chance they could get, came with a price. Many people died from overdoses, others were admitted into mental institutions, while others suffered years of addiction and decay, and those who were ‘lucky’ to get out while they still could, in one way or another paid a price they didn’t expect, they didn’t see coming or never fully understood that it was related to those ‘doors’ that were opened long ago when they were young. In fact, there really aren’t many unfavorable documentaries that speak of this era of drug use and all other hedonistic debauchery that transpired as a result of breaking into the other side, in an almost reverent manner, those who were in the middle of it all look back fondly and with a badge of honor, while those who were not alive then, wish they would have been, as if these days are some sort of mystical godlike experience. But here’s the thing, Jim and everyone else back then had the wrong understanding of the other side; they didn’t know that WE (in the Kingdom of God) are already there.


We must see clearly that there are two realities that we navigate daily: the natural and the supernatural realms. Positionally, we are known by God to be seated right now in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭10:3‬ (‭NIV)‬‬ “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.” Actually, we are right in the middle of this fallen world of chaos at the same time as we are able to be with Him in a realm that gives us direct access to our Father God. Ephesians‬ ‭2:6-10‬ (‭MEV) “and He raised us up and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we should walk in them.”


Time and again God reveals to us what we are able to overcome, what we are able to do even when there is seemingly no way around what is seen, how we are to view the world in which we live and what things are of actual importance and those things which are not. The clues that He continually drops throughout the Bible point us to the TRUTH that as followers of Jesus, people who accepted salvation and the ones which He now calls His heirs within His Kingdom; we are not OF this world, merely in it. Yet, as humans who have been born and raised in the world, we continue to accept a lifestyle that is below our new spiritual nature. In doing this we reduce the purpose of our faith to the way in which we connect to God or see miracles happen. 1 Peter 2 explains this beautifully for us by placing a name to this in verses 9-10 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”


The faith that we have been blessed with is a faith that we not only need (mostly at first) to talk to God and hear the voice of God through many different ways; but this faith over time grows into a force that we are able to use to silence the lies and deception of the many voices of one dimensional conformity. See, these rules don’t apply to the Kingdom of God. Simply put, God doesn’t acquiesce to humans - all things acquiesce to God. So when we place anything into His hands, when we give anything over to Him, He not only takes care of it and comes through every time (even though we don’t quite see it yet) but this also ensures that the way in which He WILL come through isn’t going to be standard - it is always so much better and so much bigger than we can see through our limitations. It takes great faith to give something over to God, asking Him to take over; it takes the most of our faith energy to shut down the thoughts, the logic, the reasoning, the senses. We say faith energy because the more involved we think we need to be, the more tired we become. If we have given it over to God and we try to step in once again to help out, we find that we are instantly out of our depth. What God sets in motion, no one can stop. Not even us with our bright idea to speed this thing along! We will quickly find out just how enormous God and His ways and means truly are.

Jim Morrison, and just about everyone else who has tapped into another realm through the use of drugs or through hypnosis or through other occult methods, are doing so without permission, they are breaking into the forbidden parts of the other side. For them there will always be this longing for these unauthorized spiritual encounters that looms in the background of their subconscious, ultimately calling them back to it’s mystique. For TRUE followers of Jesus, however, we are meant to LIVE and MOVE and HAVE OUR BEING in the divine atmosphere of our heavenly origin. We experience little slivers of this when we find ourselves in a worship service that creates a perfect resting place for the presence of God to interact with His people; we have even experienced small moments of this other realm when we have applied the TRUTH to situations where we needed God to show up and get us out of a bad time and He does. As we live through these anointed interactions with God we tend to realize how easily accessible His presence truly is for us, and without a single drug in sight. And then we discover that this was His intention all along:


John 10:9 (NASB)

"I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."


Jesus carved out a clear path, not for Himself to get to the other side, but in order for us to access the other side here and now in our lives as needed (aka always).

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 (NASB)

“Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord - for we walk by faith, not by sight - we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body to be at home with the Lord.”

God has given us one of the most powerful tools that we have the ability to use in order to be present with the Lord even while we are stuck physically on this side of heaven. Faith then becomes our door to get in, of course we all know this as we should, but we mustn’t forget the second part of this tool: NOT walking by sight. This part is one of the most overlooked aspects of this verse because we have an understanding of faith as being a way in which we are to walk and this is TRUTH, but also and equally this same faith must be used as the way in which we are NOT to walk, by sight. We start to see just how much we need faith to resist the things that are NOT God’s word (the TRUTH). We find that the farther in faith that we go, the louder the natural alarms of caution become and the crazier we look to not only ourselves (on a natural level) but also to those around us. And we begin to understand why Jesus made such a drastic comment to Peter when calling him “satan” during a moment when Peter was just trying to help, naturally (Matthew 16:23).


We know we are in residence spiritually in Heaven with the Father and the Son, and at the same time we are confronted with the troubles that Jesus said would happen in this fallen world, the good news however, is that Jesus has overcome ALL THINGS. We cannot allow ourselves to be distracted and lose focus of the spiritual TRUTH that we are not subjected to the lies of this lower realm, but rather we confront and conquer wherever we find that it doesn’t match up with the TRUTH. In the end we are to be people who have already broken through to the other side (through salvation) and living by faith we are realizing that to be absent (unshackled) from the body, we are actively present (spiritually aware) with Jesus at all times. Our moment is NOW for all of us to become more actively communing with Him, following Him, obeying Him, drawing closer to Him and using our God given unending round trip ticket to the other side.


1 Corinthians‬ ‭7:31‬ (‭TPT‬‬)

“We are to live as those who live in the world system but are not absorbed by it, for the world as we know it is quickly passing away.”

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