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This is unfortunate. But unfortunate experiences help to make us who we are...they form character.
As to the subject of spiritual experiences...of course there are real and deep things happening all over the world. But the mistake is to look for outward things. Outward miracles affect the outward man. Inward miracle affect the inward man. The purpose of the Christian walk is to edify the inward man...not the outward. So then outward miracles are for a sign to unbelievers mainly.
When I speak of very normal biblical miracles...of the inner kind...the kind that allows us to walk in the Spirit, or have a visitation of God....many are incredulous to these. THAT is true poverty and blindness. The things that pertain to life are inward and spiritual. The eternal kind of life is inward and spiritual.
Without a miraculous grace that takes us from being as weak as any other man...to walking in resurrection life by the Spirit...we cannot fulfill the task of being witnesses for Christ. The church today is based on theory...not experience. And the seeking of experience in the outward forms are instead of seeking God and His life in the inward man.
I have to agree with Dave L on this one.
Jesus does not appear to people anymore than Mary appears to Catholics.
When I was healed after prayer I was just healed. No appearance.
When God feels the need for people to see something he shall assume a vision of what they see or sends an Angel to appear to them.
This is a pattern associated with Pentecostalism, which is founded on supernatural happenings that do not exist in the Bible.
Am I saying there are no saved Pentecostals? Absolutely not. I am saying that this is a distraction that impedes sanctification.
Remember, Satan can appear as an angel of light, so can demons. They can do miracles, give visions, etc, even heal.
So I'm saying be careful what you assume comes from God. If it cannot pass a biblical test it is not from God.
Excellent example! You are so right!The only time you see a counterfeit is when it is copying something real. You don't see a 23 dollar bill because there are no real 23 dollar bills.
There will be those on this site who will ignore me because of my time with the Vineyard church. That's nothing new. I've learned that whenever a new move of God comes along, there will be those in the body who will oppose it. Basically cursing what God is doing. I spent 3 1/2 years there and I left in January 1998.
Most of my stories about God come from a time during March 2000. To those who say the Vineyard movement is not of God, I haven't been there for 22 years. But while I was there, God moved powerfully in and through me. So when someone tells me either God doesn't do that anymore or that was the devil, I say we can agree to disagree or I can ask you what your damage is. Either way, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Shalom.
Wow! I love it!(13) Today I had lunch with my friend Mike, a retired Boeing engineer. He shared this testimony experienced by a leader in his church. This man was driving in the country with 2 other people when he lost control of his large car and it overturned on its side. Thankfully, none of the 3 was seriously injured. The 3 of them pushed as hard as they could to turn the car rightside up, but to no avail. As they rested in great frustration, a man suddenly showed up and asked, "Do you need some help?" Mike's friend explained that the 3 of them just weren't strong enough to push their car back to its upright position. The visitor replied, "Well, let's see what the 4 of us can do." Just as the 4 of them began to push, Mike's friend exclaimed, "The car just flew back into an upright position with no appreciable help from us! When he turned to thank the stranger, the stranger had suddenly dematerialized. That's when Mike's friend knew he had just been visited by "an angel in disguise (Hebrews 13:1)."
Hi @Berserk,ANOTHER GUARDIAN ANGEL EXPERIENCE:
I have one to share but this is your thread and I would rather read yours.(15) THE DEAD TRUCK DRIVER:
Now I'll share the most spectacularly supernatural experience I've ever encountered. Leonard, a member of my UMC church, was a wealth retired real estate baron. As his pastor, I got to know him very well and visited his sick brother in a hospital. Leonard was very anxious about sick family member, especially his cousin across the highway, a non-Christian who was dying of cancer and refused all offers of visitation. Leonard invited me over to discuss strategy for visiting this cousin, but wasn't home when I arrived. When his wife Helen answered the door, I was struck by an apparent incongruity: Leonard was very anxious about sick family members, but didn't seem to grieve at all over the death of his son Jeff and Jeff's family in a small plane crash. I casually made that observation to Helen and her cryptic reply made me curious. She replied, "O Leonard was contacted by his deceased son, but he doesn't like to talk about that." Overcome by curiosity, I asked Leonard about this the next time I saw him.
Leonard said that, after the funeral, he started to drive his son Jeff's pick-up truck to do some errands. Suddenly, Leonard saw a figure looming from the ditch at the end of his driveway. It was his son Jeff! Jeff asked if he could drive his old pick-up for old times sake. Stunned, Leonard moved over and his son started driving down route 36 to Rochester, NY. Jeff told his Dad that he, his wife Karen, and their 2 children were OK and were together. Jeff then revealed his investments, so that his Dad could tie up loose financial ends. After a few miles, Jeff turned right on a less traveled road, but stopped next to a clump of trees. He turned to Leonard and said, "I'm sorry, Dad, but I'm not permitted to drive any further." Who ordered the drive to stop? Then Jeff got out of the pick-up, walked towards the clump of trees, and dematerialized!
Shell-shocked, Leonard drove the truck to do his planned errands. When he got home, this whole adventure seemed so much like a dream that he was not very comforted. The next day, his grief prompted him to go for a walk in the forest trail behind his house. Quickly overcome by grief, he sat down on a log and began to sob. Just then, he heard a branch crack and saw a young woman approaching. It was Jeff's deceased wife Karen! She chided him: "Didn't we just tell you that we were all together and OK? Why are you weeping? You get back in the house and comfort Mom!" Leonard said that it was this 2nd visitation that killed his grief.
Leonard was upset by the skeptical expression on my face. I apologized because it was me who had pressed him to share this experience. I was just having a hard time processing what I had just heard. I asked him if he had shared these experiences with his daughter. He replied, "No, because I don't want her to think I'm crazy!" A few years later, Leonard passed away and I was told that his daughter shared this awesome experience at his funeral. I took comfort in the fact that my prodding had apparently encouraged him to share the experience with his daughter. Leonard's experience seems as evidential of postmortem survival as Jesus' resurrection appearances.
Are you still alive my friend . You have not be seen in a while .I have one to share but this is your thread and I would rather read yours.
Enoch you have been missed . where are you .Berserk,
That is a tremendous testimony. It is similar to the Lord appearing to Stephen in his predicament.
That verse is NOT saying that all visions are false. Careful of reading things into scripture which aren't there. Yes, there are showmen and charlatans around, but that doesn't nullify that there are true visions and gifts of God. There is good reason why we are told to test all things. Some things are from God and some are not.“Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind.” (Colossians 2:18)
Wonderful testimony, God is good!(4) THE SPIRITUAL HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE: MY SPIRIT BAPTISM
At age 16 I was so nagged by doubts about the reliability of Scripture and the authenticity of charismatic manifestations in church that my faith crisis prompted me to spend a week at Manhattan Beach Camp near Ninette, Manitoba with the hope that God would meet me in the Pentecostal camp meetings in the huge outdoor amphitheater there. I responded to the encouragement to seek God at the altar after the services. But my heart felt like stone when I did because I felt tempted to succumb to wishful thinking and just speak gibberish in the flesh. So on Tuesday, I went on a long 7 mile country prayer walk, pleading with God to resolve my crippling doubts and pledging my willingness to die in His service, if He would only make Himself real to me. When I returned from my walk, I was famished and went to the camp dining hall to buy dinner. But then it occurred to me that I should instead fast and put the money I would have spent on dinner into the evening offering plate. So I did and then attended the evening camp meeting.
At the end of the service, as I had done previously in vain, I walked to the altar up front and knelt in prayer. My heart again felt like stone and I was determined not to succumb to the power of suggestion and wishful thinking by stepping out in faith and speaking in tongues. Soon everyone had left and I lingered in my depressing prayer vigil in the mostly darkened amphitheater. Suddenly I felt a warm breeze, which I assumed had blown in off of the adjacent Pelican Lake. I was shocked when I realized that this breeze was in fact the wind of the Holy Spirit! The Spirit immediately overpowered my resistance and I found myself speaking in tongues at the top of my voice. I was engulfed by wave after wave of liquid love, each wave more intense than the last, until I felt like I might die! At one point, my ego seemed on the verge of collapse into the divine mind. I can only describe this outpouring of divine love as a hundred times more intense and sweeter than I have experienced before or since. This proved to be unquestionably the highlight of my life and, decades later, I continue to draw emotional nourishment from the memory of that epic day.
After several minutes, I noticed a few spectators sitting reverently nearby. I asked one lady why she was staring at me and she replied, "Don't you know? Your face is glowing in the dark!" I returned to my knees to continue feasting on God's presence. Then I was interrupted by a Lutheran minister, who tapped me on the shoulder and said he was there only as an interested spectator of other religious traditions and didn't believe in speaking in tongues. But he could sense that God was doing a special work in my spirit and he asked me to pray for him. I didn't argue wit him, but just touched him gently on the forehead and he exploded in other tongues!
When I returned to my cabin, I realized that God had spoken to me, though not in an audible voice or a message printed on the neon screen of my mind. God told me, "You desperately need answers to your vexing questions. But right now answers are not good for you because answers would lead you to live too much in your head rather than from your heart. I'm calling you to live the big questions until they lead you to the center of my heart." That calling led me to get an MDiv from Princeton and a doctorate in New Testament, Judaism, and Greco-Roman religion from Harvard.
Like many others, I believe that speaking in tongues is like a gateway drug that leads to other gifts of the Spirit. Shortly after the experience, I had my first of many experiences of "the word of knowledge (see 1 Corinthians 12:8-10)." I suddenly knew that I would obtain the highest high school GPA in the province as a gift from God to signify my academic calling. At a funeral a few years ago, my cousin reminded me that I had informed him of this divine message before it was fulfilled. Previously, my academic performance had been nothing special. So I believe that my Baptism in the Holy Spirit had "renewed my mind (as per Romans 12:1-2). Duff Roblin, the Premier of the province, awarded my a scholarship in recognition of this achievement. I believe this recognition supported my earlier attempts to witness to classmates, which had seemed to give me a reputation as a religious fanatic. To God be the glory!
Quite apart from the teaching of Paul and the Book of Acts on this matter, I'm convinced that if any of you had experienced what I did that fateful night, it would by BY FAR the spiritual highlight of your life. It is the reason why I never drifted off into agnosticism.