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msch2 · 2 years ago

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I believe that God still speaks through dreams and visions today. I'm learning to build a habit doing a certain Christian practice called "Waiting on God in Stillness"

You can use this method to listen to God's voice or wait to see what he wants to show you.

In this practice you get comfortable such as in a chair or lying down. You quiet your mind, when a thought or worry pops up you observe it and let it pass. Usually my mind starts out very active when I begin and I'm restless, but as time goes on I dial down into peace with an expectation that God will show me something.

Once I've dialed down into a peaceful state I choose to keep a calm alertness. As I keep this calm alertness I'm expecting to recieve visions from God. Usually at this point visions tend to appear. It reminds me of hypnogogic visions you get between wake and sleep except that I seem to usually be aware of the fact this is a vision. (I'm still a beginner at this practice by the way)

Here are some examples.

One time while waiting on God I saw a faint vision suddenly appear. I saw a Church building, there was a slightly out of focus green forest in the background and rain was falling on the building. There was also a puddle growing at the entrance.

Interpretation: Usually in the Bible water usually represents the living water, the Holy Spirit. The Church is the people of God. I believe God is saying that his presence is intensifying in the Church as the puddle at the door is growing.

Another vision I had was when I was lying in bed on July 14th 2020. I had this idea pop in my mind to imagine the prrsense of God appear as a storm cloud flashing with lightning. Suddenly this vision came to life. It no longer had the appearance of "make believe". I saw the colorful cloud zoom in and a bright light appear in the center. I think I saw the shape of a Throne but I'm not sure. Then I suddenly opened my eyes in amazement. And then sat down for about two hours contemplating about this in awe.

One of my desires is to See in the Spirit clearly. Some people are born with the ability strongly developed. But people can train the ability and Waiting on God is a great way to do that.

I learned this practice from the book authors Michael Van Vlymen, Jamie Galloway, and Bruce Allen, and Praying Medic.

#waiting on god #sidroth #Naturallysupernatural #christian faith

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openheavenchurch-blog · 7 years ago

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‘Naturally Supernatural’ by Phil Lee

In the month leading up to Naturally Supernatural I was at a real low. I’d been prioritising my relationship with God less and less, and started to believe the enemy’s lies that that was okay - I could always go back later so what does it matter how I live now?

That led me down a path of drinking more than I knew was good for me, old habits of lust and porn-use reemerging and I’d spend all of my days filling my time with “stuff”. Nothing of substance, just distractions from dealing with my problems. When I wasn’t at work I’d just be flooding my mind with input from random YouTube videos, secular music and pointless podcasts.

I’m not saying those things are bad in themselves but when they are what’s keeping you from engaging with God that’s a pretty good sign you’re not using them in a healthy way. And even work itself became just about completing tasks rather than the people the work affected.

The last week before Naturally Supernatural I was thinking of dropping out. “It’s camping, it’s cold, it’s a lot of effort, and surely I’ve progressed past the point of needing a summer camp to boost my relationship with God”. The enemy’s last ditch attempt to keep my away from the Truth.

See, the devil knows that when you spend time in God’s presence your life changes. It’s like being near the sun, you can’t help but be warmed by it. And it also changes the world around you when you live in the power and authority you have as a child of God. As was pointed out at Natural Supernatural, the devil believes you can change the world more than you do! So he wants to stop you from realising your potential.

It still amazes me that God welcomes us back so readily when we turn and choose him over our own way of living. His mercy is mind blowing. If anyone had asked, I’d have said ‘of course God welcomes people back like that - check the prodigal son’. But I’d started to believe that yeah God might do that for everyone else, but for me? No.

- See when the enemy attacks he always tries to strip us of our security, our self-worth and our significance. He gets us looking for these things in places other than God which will inevitably let us down. But God designed us to find these things in him.

- I’d fallen for the lie that “God doesn’t want to meet with me. He doesn’t want to manifest his power in my life.” But as was pointed out at the conference, if you want reassurance that God wants you just look at all he did to be with you in the first place. Jesus didn’t go through all that to finally have a relationship with you, have the Holy Spirit living in you and then say, “Nah I’m not really interested in giving you life to the full”.

God re-taught me so much truth about my identity in him at Naturally Supernatural, which is why if you’ve already talked to me you’ll have heard me say the week was life-changing. The fact is, how you define yourself is how you will live. So I had to let God redefine me. And now I can live for what lasts, with eternal significance. Again, the enemy is going to try and tell you that you can’t make a difference, but that’s because he knows just how big a difference to the world you could make if you knew the truth of who you are!

Looking at my life I can see that from about 9 months ago I’d become much more apathetic about my relationship with God in my day-to-day life. I’d hardly put up any consistent fight to maintain, let alone push into my relationship with God. God challenged me to my core on this.

- The fact is that my relationship with God is the centre of my life. Everything hinges on it. He is the purpose of my life. So how can I sit there and let the enemy walk all over me? No, it’s time to get up, dust off, armour up and wage war. Wage war against the sin in my own life, wage war against the work of the enemy in the world around me, to claim territory and to change the norms of our society.

I now see that a key part of how the enemy has got a hold of my mind over and over again is letting me focus on myself. To miss the big picture of what God’s doing in the world - of the spiritual war going on around us. But at Naturally Supernatural my eyes were reopened to the strongholds of the enemy in our world: the desperate spiritual poverty, the rampant homelessness around our nation, the 10% of the world that still doesn’t have access to clean water, the breadth and pace of the slave trade still thriving under the surface of our society, the millions of women and children forced into a life of prostitution and the millions more men crippled by lust, pride and fatherlessness.

- And what I’ve found is that when I take my eyes off of me and instead see the big picture, my petty issues pale in comparison and it breaks the enemy’s lies about my struggles counting me out of God’s plan for the world.

See, God doesn’t come to make the bad good, he comes to make the dead alive. He calls his whole Church to fight for justice in this world. It’s not an optional extra to the Christian life, it is essential. As Tim Ross said, “in the last few decades Christians have become known for what we’re against, but it’s time we’re known for what we’re for.”

We need God to give us boldness. Boldness to fight in these areas, boldness to use the spiritual gifts he’s given us to step out and to act. It’s what the Holy Spirit empowers us for and it’s what the Bible equips us for:

Joshua 1:8 “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.”

When God was saying this to Joshua the “Book of Instruction” he had was the book of Deuteronomy! So with just Deuteronomy, Joshua went on to conquer the whole of the promised land. We have 66 books of the Bible. How can we live a defeated life!? What’s our excuse?

Now, I know a thing or two about being resistant to going for it when you think God is calling you to something. Whether that’s to go to a new country or to go pray for someone to be healed. But being in God’s presence for a week and getting my daily bread in his Word, God broke through that fear. Perfect love cast it out. And for the first time in 9 months I willingly went to pray with someone for them to be healed, and for the first time in my life I got to be a part of someone getting fully healed! And again I realised, this is what God does in you when you take your eyes off yourself and turn them to loving him and loving others.

If you’ve been to a Soul Survivor camp before you’ll have heard some of the awesome testimonies of God healing hearts, healing bodies and changing lives through the obedience of someone who received an instruction from him. And as Mike Pilavachi put it, “isn’t that one soul saved, that one relationship with God restored or that one person’s ability to walk again worth so many failures? So many times getting the word wrong? So go for it! And if you get it wrong, nobody died.”

- So I’m choosing to say “God, I’m willing to get it wrong and look weird, but use me to change lives. I want my life to be for you and with you.” And you know what, part of God’s purpose for the church gathering each week is for it to be a place to learn to love people in the safety of family. So I’d encourage all of you who have reservations about stepping out in praying for healing, the prophetic, or anything like that, that OH is one of the best communities for giving it a go and practicing being obedient to God’s directions.

I’ll end with this: I had a vision in one of the Naturally Supernatural ‘Inner Healing’ seminars. I was myself but as a child sat on top of a mountain overlooking a beautiful lake below when Jesus met me there, all smiles. But then he took me down the mountain, down a steep muddy path towards a dark valley. I was confused and worried that I wouldn’t get to be in the light again, but Jesus said he was leading me up to a different mountain. As we started up the next hill I complained that I was tired, he chuckled and said “don’t worry I’ll make sure you get there” and gave me a piggyback ride the rest of the way up (remember I was a child). We got to the top of the mountain and I looked out and saw an astonishingly breathtaking view, a good 10 times better than the last mountaintop view. After a few moments of me sat there awestruck Jesus whispered, “do you want to know a secret? I’ve got dozens of mountain tops even better than this, and each better than the last. Don’t be afraid when you start to head down from the mountaintops towards the valley, because it’s me leading you to an even better place, and I’ll make sure you get there.”

God touched on so many areas of my life over Naturally Supernatural. He broke through all the lies and fears I came with and reestablished his relationship with me and his purpose for my life. And that’s not to say I no longer have any struggles. But I now know that that’s not because I am a weak useless Christian. It’s because God wants to teach me to rely on his grace and power like Paul with his thorn (2 Cor 12:8-10), and because he wants to toughen me up for the fights ahead (Hebrews 12:1-13). God disciplines those he loves. And now I choose to live for him. Not as a victim but as a victor, not as a slave but as a son - perfectly loved, purposefully made, heading down the mountain on the way to an even more beautiful place.

Phil.

#blog #church #prayer #naturallysupernatural #openheaven #testimony

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