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The Lower and the Upper Rooms!

As I was listening to this tape of our Pastor's message regarding the lower room and the upper room, I was like reminded by God to fully operate in the spirit and forget about the flesh. It's amazing, nobody will ever tell us that we should stop looking onto ourselves that much or think about ourselves first.

The upper and lower room are the two chambers in our hearts. The upper room being described is the part in our heart that is operating through the spiritual realm and the real us. It was actually the one functioning first prior to the fall of men in the garden of Eden. Our spirit died and so flesh is the one ruling in us. When Adam and Eve fell and was trapped by death because of the temptation of satan, God locked the upper room and therefore the lower room, which is the room of the flesh was the one operating for mankind and the generations thereafter. God said in the book of Genesis 2 chapter 17, "...but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." It clearly stated that men will surely die once he will eat the fruit from this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, die in terms of spirit and not die in the flesh. And therefore when this happened, God locked the upper room and so from then on men was operating in the lower room which is the flesh.

The one operating in the lower room is not actually our real selves but the one that is selfish by nature and self centered, which was introduced by the devil. The one in the upper room, that is our true hearts and that's the way it should be, was locked when men sinned and so we had no idea on how to unlock the door in that upper chamber. In the upper room, men commune directly to God and His Spirit, since we are in His image and likeness when we operated in this upper room. Since we were all born as sinners anyway, we have completely no knowledge of our true selves as we do not have the key to unlock the upper room. The only key to this room is through Christ says in John 10:9 that Jesus is the door, " I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture."

We will actually be able to have that access to unlock that upper room by way of repenting and to accept Christ as our saviour. Jesus is the answer and the key to be able to access that upper room and hence commune with God directly, not through religion. Before Christ, there's no way to unlock the upper room if you remained a sinner. And so in the Old Testament, before you may enter in the temple of the Holy place or in the tabernacle to confess your sins to God, you must either first fast, remove your slippers and offer sacrifices or give a burnt offering to God and through the high priests or prophets, you will be able to talk with God but you can't go directly since priests or God's prophets are assigned to do this for you and they are the mediums of men in communicating to God.

There are even some regulations God has set for mankind before Christ as to the forgiveness of sins. You must offer burnt offerings say for example a female sheep or a goat, break its neck and sprinkle some of its blood to the altar through the priest and then your sin will be forgiven. Now we don't even have to do this! Because Jesus was the Lamb of God that was offered and has poured out His blood to cleanse us, His very precious blood. This is such a privilege and such a wonderful gift! That's how God loved us so unconditionally.

I wept as I was listening to the end portion of the message, specially when our Pastor said, stop praying for your needs this week and try it out, just focus yourselves unto God this time. Think of nothing else but GOD. For God said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." I loved this part. Anyway, God knows our needs and the desires of our hearts. I said, "Why not Lord?" This is actually an eye opener for me. God just spoke with me through His spirit. He wants me to just seek for Him first, worship Him, enjoy in His presence and then blessings will follow.

For the past few weeks I was doing nothing except to pray for our family's needs and for my husband's much awaited financial breakthrough and have totally forgotten to just focus on Him and instead focused on our needs. In fact, I even learned from this message that self-pity is actually selfishness. I remember I pitied myself when I passed in a terribly stinky street going to my home. I can't breathe because it stinked that hard it smelled like a public and dirty toilet and I was feeling so terrible because I don't have a car to drive myself home or my husband to pick me up so at least feel better because I have somebody with me while walking. Pampering of one's self  is also operating in the lower room, and so it's selfishness too. Sometimes I find myself so hard to wake up when going to our church and I'll think maybe I could still sleep for another 20 or 30 minutes and then I end up going there late.

Sometimes, when we think that we were so hurt because a friend of ours or a loved one has betrayed us or offended us and refused to forgive or forget just because of how hurt we were, that is actually operating in the flesh also. It is pampering of the flesh. Jesus never pitied Himself when He was scourged to death or was scorned and detested by the people because He knows Himself, He knows that He has to finish His purpose as the will of His Father, our Father. This is the kind of character God wants us to emulate. For us to stop thinking we were hurt and that what our friends or loved ones did to us cannot be forgotten and was painful. Yes indeed it's painful, because humans are of the flesh. But when we are already of Christ's, our spirit thus were re-born and now sensitive to God and we now know the will of God and His purpose for us. God wants us to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking for others and focus our lives on Him instead. This are the furniture's found in the upper room and admittedly, we need God's grace before we can operate it fully and boosted. We can do nothing without Him.

And so, I've decided too to serve my family and my husband without complains. Even for this week and see how the upper room operates with me. I know that I get so pissed when my husband just throws his clothes on the bed and not even bother to fix them well. Then I'll try to fix it myself and complain at the same time because I find it a waste of time and so I'll feel tired. That is actually selfishness too.

Have we ever realized that God never complained even we were sinners and our hearts got hardened because of sin? Can we just imagine if God said to us when we have sinned (all of us are), "I don't care about you, you're all hard headed and so go! Enjoy your eternal damnation with satan in hell! I'm sick and tired of you for keeping on with your sins! It's none of my business anymore!" Can we imagine if God ever just did this to us or perhaps torture us with plagues or sickness because we have sinned? He would've never sent us His Son to pay for our sins. But he loved us and wants to be in us, just like when Adam and Eve hadn't yet sinned. They might have walked with God in the garden, sang with Him, ate with Him and talked for hours in paradise. God loved us so very much says in John 3:16 that He gave His only begotten Son... This is a gift my friends, it is for free anyway, and anyone who wants to receive it, will be with Him in paradise!



By: Maya Guzman Santos
Copyright © 2005
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