By Rick A. Hughes
When you need to go to the next level or floor in a home or building, you must either take the stairs or if one is available take the elevator. The process is simple: walk to the elevator door, push the UP button, and wait for the door to open, at which time you enter the elevator, and press the button of the particular floor you wish to visit, the door will close and you just enjoy the ride to your intended destination. The elevator transports you to another level, a higher level, and raises you up above your current elevation.
Elevate is defined as: to move (something) to a higher position: boost, heave, hoist, lift, pick up, raise, take up, uphold, uplift, upraise, uprear. Our spiritual aspirations in the Kingdom of God must be to continually move to a higher level, in other words elevate. We must go higher, take the next step, reach the next plateau, or move into a higher dimension. Every saint of God must set his or her sights on elevating in the Kingdom of God. As my favorite cliché so eloquently expresses: Good better best, never let it rest, until your good is better, and your better is best! Better get better.
The Bible specifically speaks of three areas we must elevate in order to be pleasing to God.
First, we must look up to Jesus for our help, we must elevate our eyes. “1 will lift up (elevate) mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” (Psalm 121:1). We need to keep our d focus on Jesus and look up! As the old story of two men looking through bars, one saw mud, the other saw stars, describes, we see what we are looking for. We must look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith! Jesus is the source for our victory, He is the reason, He is our power supply.
Second, we must lift up Jesus before the people, we must elevate our Saviour. “And I, if be lifted up (elevated) from the earth, will draw 1r all men unto me” (John 12:32). While this verse speaks specifically of Jesus’ death on the cross, it also speaks figuratively about lifting up our Jesus by our lives and our witness. We must elevate the God-consciousness of the those around us. We lift him up by our worship, by our praise, and by our standards.
Finally we must lift up our eyes to the harvest, we must elevate our vision. “Say not ye, There are yet four lee.* months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up (elevate) your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 100 4:35). Elevate your eyes and you will see it’s harvestime. The harvest is here!
The end result of elevating in these three areas is the great hope of the Church, an elevation by the Holy Spirit. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise (elevate) first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be (elevated) caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
