| Author |
Message |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 90
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 6:52 am: |     |
River,
Thank You. It means a lot. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6105
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 10:37 am: | |
River, thank you for explaining your concept of holding matters in tension. That is a wonderful way to explain it.
One of the great "reliefs" of knowing Jesus and being out of Adventism is that I can now hold certain things in tension. It's OK—I don't have to have a formula for all things. I do have to have a bottom line, but I don't have to explain everything that happens around me.
This new freedom reminds me of Aslan in the Narnia series telling one of the children, when she asked Aslan His plans for her brother, "I only tell you your own story." Or Jesus who, when He told Peter he would suffer for His sake and Peter pointed to John and asked, 'What about him?", said to Peter, if John is to live until I return, what is that to you?
Holding things in tension, trusting in the Lord Jesus for His saving power, is a great gift from God—as is KNOWING that I can trust the Bible as my bottom line!
Colleen |
Jwd
Registered user
Username: Jwd
Post Number: 274
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 11:30 am: | |
River,
I fully understand your phrase "to hold in tension." It's a good one.
Well, I've already regretted my post. It was the first time I've shared this ever in such a public fashion. Unless I would ever publish my story, I doubt I shall ever share the details of "The Vision" as we refer to it. We feel it saved my life.
My wife and I are studying through Colossians now and in 2:18,19 Paul deals with the subject of angels as it evidently had been introduced to the new coverts by others claiming to be advanced in the Christian walk, so as to begin telling them they needed more than they had received by faith in their union with Christ, in order to "fully" be united with Christ. Paul, insists that Christ is all you need, no other 'experience.'
This is absolutely true.
The Word of God is our only sure, true Rock for faith and practice. My experiences combined to lead me into the deeper waters of His authentic Gospel, and to a more intimate conscious connection to His Majesty; no doubt custom fitted to my own individual unique temperament.
I am simply grateful beyond words for this manifestation of His love and caring, at a time when I was dangerously on the precipice of total despair and hoplessness.
Let us keep "fixing our eyes on Jesus" our "author and perfecter" of our faith. Heb 12:2
Jess |
Sara
Registered user
Username: Sara
Post Number: 12
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 11:57 am: | |
Jess, I want to respond in more depth, just havent had the time to put into words what I want to say. Thank you for sharing.
If you are like me, you pray before you post. Sometimes I 2nd guess myself, but I also know I have erased posts, or lost them. This one stood. I was blessed. Praise God for what He did for you! I will write more later
Sara |
Jwd
Registered user
Username: Jwd
Post Number: 275
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 12:04 pm: | |
I just re-read some of the above posts and note an emphasis upon "seeking Angels" or seeking angel communication(s). I want to clearly make plain here, not in any way as a defense, for I have nothing to defend, but to state a true fact.
I never sought any contact with or communication with angels! PERIOD!
My mother was beside me the first time these same seven angels showed themselves to me - - seeing an invisible form - - is all I can say to describe it. We were returning home from shopping both holding sacks of groceries, while unlocking our door. I think I was thirteen. I heard the music, turned to look at a row of large bushes beside the house some 25 feet away; swaying back and forth from left to right in a graceful movement with the music were these beings. The Pepper tree in our back yard began to sway, it's branches dancing wildly. Tears gushed from my eyes as I was overcome with emotion. "Look mother!" I cried, "Angels!" My
mother looked and said, "Where, honey?" She did not see them nor the swaying Pepper tree nor the swaying bushes. I kept repeating with tears streaming down my cheeks, "Angels! Oh the Angels!" They said nothing. Only the music like I had never heard before. We both went inside and putting the groceries on a counter, we both knelt down in prayer, punctuated with many tears.
This lasted, I'm guessing perhaps seven seconds.
They faded from my vision and the bushes and the Pepper tree stopped swaying, as they naturally act after a sudden breeze had passed through. There was NO breeze! It was a hot, dry day in Montrose, California.
My dad was killed ten days before I was born, so it was just my mom and I. At that time we were renting the back two rooms in the home of an elderly woman, whose house we cleaned, and I maintained the yard to help pay our rent. There was one bed in the small bed room. I slept on the floor at the foot of mom's bed. Each night I would lay out several quilts as a mattress. In the morning, upon waking, I would read from my Bible. I often shed tears as I felt the presence of Jesus and the power of the words of the Bible working themselves into my consciousness. It was a time of heightened spiritual focus, but I have sought to walk with Jesus all my life.
Why did this happen? You can guess all you like. I don't know. I took it as a special token of God's blessing upon a fatherless boy who was seriously seeking to follow Jesus and whose devotional life was intense and most precious.
I never sought to speak to Angels or prayed to have them communicate with me. I never worshipped them.
Great emotion now prompts me to share these things. Years later, following the dramatic incident that we feel saved my life on 27 Apr 1992, while outside in our yard on my knees working with the flowers I had planted, a group of Angels appeared, surrounded me, and identified themselves as the same seven who had visited me in my youth. I saw them as a mirage, like looking through an image of clear water; seeing forms without seeing solid physical-type bodies. When I fell on the ground with my face to the earth, one touched me on the shoulder. That was when they identified themselves as those who visited me in my youth.
No communication ever was given that did not point to Christ Jesus, and reaffirm the truth and point me to the authentic Gospel.
Demons? These were no demons! I had nothing to do with these visitations. They came to me, unannounced, uninvited. But I look forward to meeting them face to face in glory!
Jess |
Godssonjp
Registered user
Username: Godssonjp
Post Number: 33
Registered: 1-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 12:26 pm: | |
My mother has told the story of seeing a " very bright light" when she was younger. I believe she was about 12 years old at the time. Fom what I remember, she and a couple of her siblings were present. They saw this in their backyard in the middle of a hot sunny day in Alabama. I don't believe there was any communication from this bright light. I'll have to ask her about that incident again and I'll share more details later. |
Jwd
Registered user
Username: Jwd
Post Number: 276
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 1:30 pm: | |
Sara,
Yes, I do pray over what I post on forums. My only motive in sharing this intimate, personal experience, was to address the question of whether heavenly "ministering spirits," or Angels ever visit us? I wanted you all to know, Yes, they do. I am not bragging. This is very sacred to me, that's why I won't debate it's validity beyond my own testimony.
God bless you for praying over what you write.
Jess |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 912
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 2:03 pm: | |
Jess, thank you so much for sharing some detail about this experience, it blessed me just reading it.
In turn I am going to share an experience I had back in about 73’ or so.
My Pastor came to me one Sunday morning and told me to take the evening service as they would be out of town, I suppose I spent all after noon worrying but I called it prayer, I was a young Christian, I hem hawed a little but they said it was the only way I would ever learn, there were more people more qualified than me but I said O.K.
Well sir, when the time that evening came I ask anyone if they needed prayer, no one moved, I thought, well that’s that and I started to move on and about that time a young woman came out of the pews and said she needed prayer.
So I took the anointing oil and reached outward with this anointing oil on the tip of my finger, about the time my finger got two inches from her forehead she was slammed back about a foot as if by an invisible force and fell on the floor sobbing. I didn’t know what to make of it so I am just standing there like a dork trying to figure out what to do.
Then people started coming from the audience wanting me to pray for them and when I reached out my finger toward them, blam, the same thing, at no time did I touch them, I ended up praying for the whole church that night one at a time, no sooner than one would get up off the floor then another was down, people were laying all over the place weeping.
But the strangest thing about the whole thing was that I saw something like a bluish glow that extended out from my body about two inches, nobody else saw it but I saw it. It stayed there until the last one was prayed for and then was gone, it must have taken me a hour or hour and a half to pray for all those people so it wasn’t just a fleeting thing. I didn’t feel “Holy” or any such thing, just felt like me, a sinner saved by grace. In other words I still felt like a dork with a bottle of anointing oil.
Too this day I don’t know what it was I saw, but I know I saw it and it was no demon or demon power, demons cannot heal, bless or set free. Was it an angel? The Holy Spirit? The Lord himself? I have no idea.
God has his purposes for these things, I think one thing was that the Lord showed me he was with me and another thing, showed me it was he who was doing the work and not me so I didn’t get the bighead, on the contrary I was greatly humbled. That and many more unforgettable experiences followed, none instilling in me a sense of false pride or causing me to feel I was above someone else but on the contrary brought me to know his power and his grace.
I am convinced that what happened to you was for God’s own purpose and for your benefit; God always blesses but adds no sorrow.
Anything Satan puts on you will add sorrow somewhere, look at Ellen Whites experience and then look at the sorrow that has followed that experience if you don’t believe me.
What has followed that encounter Jess? Blessing or sorrow? By sorrow I am not talking about burden or heavy heart or sorrowing for the lost, the sick, or undone I am talking about upset, discord, cognitive dissonance, hindrances lack of peace in your life and so forth. Although one might experience all these negative things at some times it won’t spread to other people nor will it rob you of your peace and blessing of that day.
What followed my experience was blessing and great peace and contentment in the Lord Jesus Christ, oh sure I had to go to work on Monday morning and contend with making a living always a day late and a dollar short, but the kind that I am talking about has nothing to do with those things.
I will stick my neck out here and say that nothing has ever robbed you of that blessing you received.
You know Jess, I have shared very little of this experience with anyone because I have felt no need, but basically I really don’t give a hoot if anyone believes me or not and you shouldn’t either. You know and you are satisfied in your own Spirit with it, Jesus is enough. If the Holy Spirit leads you to share it then share it, I’m for him.
River |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 3829
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 3:52 pm: | |
River, that was quite an experience. WOW!!
But then, every time I enter my church it is like I am coming home, like the first time I entered the church.
I love God.
Diana |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6109
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 8:51 pm: | |
Thank you for sharing your experiences, River and Jess.
God is faithful to Himself, and He completes the work He begins in us. We can trust Him, and we, His sheep, know His voice.
Colleen |
Agapetos
Registered user
Username: Agapetos
Post Number: 896
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Friday, June 22, 2007 - 4:32 am: | |
River, what you said reminded me of something someone once heard God say just before God began healing people through him: "My words in your mouth are just as powerful as My words in My mouth."
Thanks for your earlier post. I completely understand. I don't mean to point at anyone in judgment, I just generally notice that many people rush to judgment as soon as they hear of any supernatural experience. It's especially difficult for us as former Adventists since we had so much abuse of the name of supernatural things. It's emotionally difficult for us to hear about these things sometimes, even if they are genuine. Having once been deceived, I think we may be more cautious than most.
But it's not only for us. I read a story once of a Pentecostal pastor who was at a meeting of his church's board. One of the church members had been visited by an angel, and the board was discussing about how to discipline that person or have the person leave the church. The pastor then asked aloud why it was that more people weren't being visted by angels, and why the one person who was visited by one was now being considered for being put out of the fellowship.
Come to think of it, Hebrews 1 says that angels are spirits sent to minister and serve those who will inherit salvation. While we don't seek them, we should by no means consider it strange if someone is visited by one. Instead, we generally we take an attitude of "Guilty until proven innocent."
Hmm. This makes me want to go back to that Revelation study in the members area... |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 98
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Friday, June 22, 2007 - 8:10 am: | |
Hebrews 13:2
Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it |
Jwd
Registered user
Username: Jwd
Post Number: 277
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 22, 2007 - 12:26 pm: | |
River,
Thank you for sharing that dramatic experience.
Agapatos,
I appreciate your comments.
I just want to make one more point as it pertains to what is a balanced, reasonable and logical counsel Paul gave to the new Christians at Colossae in Col 2:18,19.
The contextual evidience suggests that one person or a few individuals were telling the young Colossian converts that they needed more in personal experience, as evidence their faith in Christ was genuine. Being "in Christ" was not enough in thier opinion, so they interjected "self-abasement and worship of angels, visions," etc. as being additional religious acts they insisted upon.
But Paul saw the introduction of these "new ideas" as seeds of a great evil. "He recognized in the new teachers an apparent desire to 'disqualify' all other Christians who did not share their viewpoint."(R.C. Lucas)
Only Christ can say to some spiritual leaders of His day, "I speak of what I have seen with my Father,..." We do see within Christianity today many who often give credence to the words of those who claim to have had unusual visions of heavenly reality in preference to the testimony of Christ. These TV healers are a good example.
Few professed Christians today really study the Word of God for themselves, really, digging with "pick and shovel" to find the truth as it is in the Bible. If someone who has had any super spiritual experience, claims to be full of "inside knowledge on spiritual matters," BEWARE! They are full of wind, or as we say colloquially, HOT AIR! (smile)
We must always follow the great Apostle's advice and counsel to: "HOLD FAST TO CHRIST!" There ONLY is our true Source and Supply of Truth, our solid ROCK of security, our Ground for deeper understanding.
Jess |
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