Seeking the Lord and His presence
is important to any Christian. God longs for us and He said in His word that He
will draw near to us when we draw near to Him. We can experience God and His
power in so many different ways. As we grow spiritually, God would entrust more of His glory, more of His wisdom, more of His gifts and eventually God
will do things we've never experienced before. Recently, I've been
experiencing a 'touch of heaven' some would say. A supernatural move of God
which I cannot explain but I know it is His.
We all have different trials and
we certainly cannot compare our lives and complain why our lives seem harder.
After all, walking with the Lord is personal. Even the characters in the bible
like Job or John the Baptist, the trials they faced and how the Lord planned
their lives are different. We should see our lives like that. See your life as
a clean sheet of paper and there are two authors writing on it. One is God the
Holy Spirit, the other is you. By the end of our lives, our papers would look
different from each other. What's written on it would depend on which author
had the most authority in writing on that paper. I believe in God's sovereignty
but I also believe in man's will which God freely gave to us since the
beginning of time.
So what's the point of what I
said above? I believe all the supernatural things I experienced are something
out of my control. If God wants to do something, He will do it regardless of
what you feel at that moment or what you are doing or even if you are not
prepared for it. It was a moment wherein it felt like God took the pen on my
hand, grabbed a permanent marker and wrote something with great emphasis. When
God does something, it is certainly unforgettable...
Dreams
And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;
We are in the last days and God
said He will pour out His Spirit to us in different ways, one of which is
through dreams. Have you ever dreamed a dream wherein God spoke to you or God
impressed you something. I watched More Than Dreams before, five testimonies of
five people who met God in their dreams. I thought to myself if God would
appear to people who doesn't even know Him, why not to people who already knew
Him right? It takes a lot of seeking the Lord before He does something
supernatural, to my case that is. A revival conference took place at my church
and the theme was about purity and passion. After attending, I really desired
both in my life and it wasn't soon when God did something about it.
There's a lot of scriptures that
talks about desires. In general, there are two kinds of it, desires that
glorifies God and the other are those that doesn't. Desires can be very
controlling particularly those that are not for Him. Hence, I believe all
Christians must have the desire for purity, a desire to kill and purge fleshly
desires. It's one of the hardest desires to ask for because let's face it, our
flesh hates purity. Purity is about being right with God at all times even when
you are all alone and nobody is watching. It might be easy to act like a
Christian, but do you think as one as well? In Matthew Chapter 5, Jesus
reminded us of God's standards which is perfect. One can sin in thoughts. We
must acknowledge the gravity of that and this is something we deal with in a
regular basis.
Purity in thoughts is not
impossible to achieve. On your own it will be impossible but through Christ
Jesus we can. In 1 John 5:4, For everyone who has been born of God overcomes
the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. It is
a matter of faith. So desire it and have faith! Which is what I did.
One night, God rebuked me through
a dream. He rebuked me regarding adultery and sexual immorality. In that dream,
I saw a woman getting sexually assaulted. All of the characters in my dream are
people I don't know and I haven't seen them until this writing, thank God! I
got so angry in my dream that it woke me up. Awake and still angry, I stood up
from my bed and was seemingly looking for somebody pour all that anger. It was
a vivid dream and all I can think of after that was why the Lord gave me such a
dream. Then I realized it was a rebuke. Earlier before going to sleep, some
random Facebook post of a sexy woman caught my eye and my thoughts played
around with it with lustful intent. I wasn't angry during that time or even
upset of what I saw. Little did I know, God wants me to deal with it. If we want
to be pure in the sight of God, even our thoughts must be clean. I remember
talking with my Italian friend about man's weakness over women. We both agreed
it is possible for a man to see a naked woman without sinning. If we are so
full of the Holy Spirit and our hearts only desire God and nothing else, there
would be no room for temptations to sink in. In Him, nothing is impossible.
I've been getting a lot of dreams
recently. Some of people I know, some just random dreams that doesn't seem to
make sense. The dream I mentioned above wasn't the only one wherein God rebuked
me about something. One day, was talking to my friend about my co-workers. To
make the long story short, there was no desire to witness and reach out to
them. I lack the boldness as well, I feel outnumbered. After the conversation,
I took a nap and right there God gave me a dream. In the dream I followed a boy
into a village. It started to rain and I was looking for shelter. A cathedral
was open so I went there. Saw a priest and a few nuns who welcomed me inside.
At the back of my head, all I was thinking was to share the gospel to them and
there's an overwhelming feeling of boldness. There's this weird feeling inside
dreams wherein you feel like you can do anything like nothing is impossible. It
was exactly that. I woke up happy and excited. Told my friend about it and we
both got excited. Later that week, I was able to talk to my co-worker about
God.
God's Prayer
We are all called to be a house
of prayer. Prayer should be a habit for Christians. We can pray for so many
things. For the salvation of our loved ones, for healing, for His guidance and
will, thank the Lord through prayers and so on. Did you ever get this feeling
that God wants you to pray for something? It is more than just a deep
conviction or a strong urge to pray. It is as if it is not you who's praying
but you can hear yourself praying. It was truly supernatural and till this day
I cannot explain what happened to me that night.
Prayer is not a monologue but a
dialogue with God. We need to pause and listen for God's reply. It may not be
an audible voice like in the old testament, God might just instill to your
heart His desire or a burden, or an emotion or something that will let you know
it is from Him. It could be something you need to pursue for His glory or
something you need to deal with says the Lord. When we make a commitment to the
Lord, expect that He will look for it and ask you about it. It's very easy to
ask for prayer requests from our friends and family but the question is, do we
really pray for these requests wholeheartedly?
I asked for prayer requests from
a few friends, wanting to pray for them and bless them. But after a day's work,
I got tired and went to sleep immediately. I didn't really forgot about the prayer
requests before I went to sleep, I just thought it can wait till morning and
include it in my devotion but I was wrong. That night I woke up and for some
reason I cannot move but I was fully awake and aware of my surroundings. I
didn't feel disturbed but even so I cast out a rebuke to any evil spirit. It's
kind of a habit now when you suddenly wake up and you feel odd for some reason.
Anyhow, I was unable to move or speak after that so I thought I should pray and
my mouth started speaking... I was praying.
While I was praying, it felt
different. It felt like it wasn't me who's praying but I can hear myself
praying. The conscious part of me is thinking and asking what is this happening
to me but my prayer goes on. Hearing myself pray, I remember the prayer
requests I gathered from my friends and it was those that I was praying for at
that moment. I even prayed for Manny Pacquiao after hearing about his injured
shoulder earlier that day, prayed and blessed Israel and others more. What's
different about it is how spontaneous the prayer was, there were no pauses in
between prayer items which is what I do when I pray. It was definitely not me
who's praying. After praying, I had full control of my body. I didn't get up
from bed yet because all I can think of was 'what just happened to me?'.
The experience came in as a
rebuke and a reminder that when you commit something to the Lord, He will look
for it and He will take it from you even by force.
Where To Go From Here
These are just a few of the many
encounters I had recently. One can encounter God is so many different ways. To
my experience, it was through dreams and prayer. Am I at the height of my
spiritual walk with the Lord? I don't think so because I believe there's always
more of God every time we seek Him and get closer to Him. There is no peak to
this mountain, just an endless climb.
These experiences are truly
blessings even the rebukes. Remember, God disciplines the one He loves. It
might be painful but it is for our good. God wants lives that glorify Him and
Him alone. We are a work in progress and God will finish what He started in our
lives and I believe these supernatural encounters with the Lord are parts of
His work in my life to create in me a clean heart, broken and ready to be
filled with a right Spirit. If all of
these are awesome and mind-blowing already, wait until somebody confirms it for
you! and yes that's what just happened soon afterwards.
One Sunday, our pastor preached
about having a 'hearing heart'. Later that day in our homegroup, or a bible
study group some churches would say, we were asked to find a partner, ask the
Lord for any impression for your partner using our 'hearing heart'. After a few
minutes of praying, my partner began to speak about what the Lord impressed to
her about me. And so she told me that she saw a flower about to bloom but
before that will happen, it is undergoing pruning... and there's a desire that
is drawing strong emotions from me in a figure of a woman, my partner said. I
was in shock and speechless for a moment. I confirmed to her those were all
true! She cannot possibly know that since I haven't told her about such desires,
pruning and rebukes. It was truly God that spoke to her about it and made it
known to her. It was truly amazing...
Ecclesiastes 11:5
As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of
a woman with child, so you do not know the work of the Lord who makes
everything.
God works in mysterious ways
indeed. Mysterious in a sense that we don't have the capacity to understand
God's ways. How He does all these encounters are unexplainable but the reason
for it known since it was something I asked for. But friends, remember to seek
God and not supernatural encounters. Seek His face, not His hand. Yes
these encounters are marvelous, awesome, mind-blowing and honestly words aren't
enough to describe such experiences but if a touch of heaven is all that you
are waiting for, you are missing the bigger picture. I believe God will never
give us something that will fully satisfy us. When God said 'My
grace is sufficient for you' I believe it means that He just gives us
enough grace to get us through the day but for the next day we would be hungry
for more of Him. Seeking the Lord must be a daily process. There will be days
where God would open up the floodgates of heaven and really pour it all out on
you and make you experience supernatural things but during the times that grace
is just sufficient, we should continue to seek Him.. deeper each day.
