Well for those of you who are visitors you have come into part 12 of a series so I hope you can join in and we are looking to engage God in an experiential way and my personal testimony is having engaged God in the heavens and experienced heaven and different things , we are on a journey to discover how we can engage in the realm of the spirit and that realm is within us the kingdom is in us it is also in the realms of heaven there are two pathways that we going to follow pathway of relationship which leads to deeper intimacy with God but also a pathway of responsibility which enables us to rule and bring God’s kingdom in a fuller way we been at base camp before we start this journey and at base camp we looked at how to build our spirit so that our spirit can engage with God because we are a spirit we have a soul and we live in a body but our spirit is what enables us to engage in those spiritual realms and so we looked at praying in tongues different ways so that we can build our spirit and engage in the realm of the spirit we looked at how to meditate in the word of God to hear the thoughts of God and to get God’s thoughts in conversations so we can talk to him and have a conversation with him and last week we looked at opening the eyes of our heart which is our imagination to engage God on the screen in which he projects things to us and we going to continue with that today so we looked at the visual part of that what the technical side of it is how we see with the eyes of our heart and we are going to look at how we look into the word of God today Habakkuk 2:1 I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the rampart I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me then the Lord answered me and said record the vision so there is four things that recognizing God’s voice as spontaneous thoughts in our minds being quiet so we can hear looking for vision and then writing down the flow of thoughts of the vision that we receive so that we can then revisit it and use that doorway to engage further into the experience of it. so this third point there fix your eyes on of your heart on Jesus so we can look into the realm of the spirit for dreams and visions of God Habakkuk basically said I will keep watch to see. So were unlikely to be able to see anything unless as we look for it and God wants us to look for vision he wants us to look into the things he wants to show us Jesus only did what he saw the father doing now that may have been visual in that he saw it as a vision or perception that he perceived what the father was doing but he was able to see. so Habakkuk there opened the eyes of his heart to look into that spirit world and people have a problem with looking into the spiritual world well that’s the spiritual world where God lives he he is a spirit and he dwells in the spiritual realm and of course we are spirit and we got access to that spiritual realm so vision either seeing or perceiving now we open our eyes to see physically if your eyes are closed it is pretty much black until you learn to open that blackness to see something else which will We will look at next week. but if we want to see into the realm of the spirit then we need to open the eyes of our heart for that spiritual vision. visions dreams prophetic pictures is some of the ways God communicates with us but we have to activate our imagination to see into that realm the imagination is the screen on which we see everything in our mind and God has given us that imagination and it is a very very powerful thing that he has given us because God used his imagination to create the whole universe he said what he saw and he saw what was in his heart as he pictured it and we can see in the realm of the spirit around us there are angels in this room, there is a spiritual realm here which is not visible to our natural eyes because it operates with a different electromagnetic wave length but our spirit can pick it up and our spirit can pick up lots of things so can our soul sometimes we walk into a room and it feels an atmosphere in the room when we get that sense from we just need to learn to atune that sense so that we can actually deliberately choose to see what’s going on around us in this spiritual realms. but in order to see we have got to look. Daniel 7:2 says I was looking in my vision so he was having a vision but he was looking in it verse nine says I kept looking verse 13 I kept looking in the night visions and behold so he saw something and God wants us to see so we need to look, if we are going to see. he saw that vision in his mind because that is where visions come from. even if you have an open eyed vision it still pictured in your mind as you are right now in natural eyesight, I’m seeing you in my mind even though you’re there the light is coming into my eye and the actual image is been interpreted in my mind, it is exactly the same with the things of the spirit so we need to look for Jesus and then when we see him we can then watch and see what he shows us because we need a personal relationship, it is not just Jesus died 2000 years ago on the cross to set us free. Jesus is alive and with us today. So if I sit in the car and I’m driving somewhere on my own, what’s wrong in thinking about Jesus sat next to me so I can have a conversation with him. now we know that he is in us, he’s with us ,he’s around us and he wants us to actually personally experience him in that way. having a real relationship with him so it’s not that God is a million miles away somewhere in some spiritual realm in heaven, he is right in front of us and we can engage in that realm. So there are many different ways God speaks and there is a list of them here. I am not going to go into the Scriptures they are there for reference. audible voice sometimes God speaks out loud sometimes he speaks in an invoice in our heart visions and revelations of Jesus.
Paul saw Jesus. spiritual perception, panoramic vision sometimes is just like a full Technicolor vision6.43
open eyed vision- where your eyes are open but actually something is superimposed over the natural vision, so that you can’t see the natural world around you. Closed eye vision- you close your eyes and God can give you a vision. Sometimes you just get a snap shot, a picture and we often start with pictures, that is usually where God begins to engage with us and we get little glimpses or little snapshots of things that we have to learn to look into and then step into. Quite often we miss those little glimpses because we don’t value them or we didn’t really understand what they were. i encourage you when you get a snapshot or a impression or a picture in your mind then don’t just dismiss it look to engage and step into it. and actually start to think about it and start to picture it and engage it. because that’s what he’s given it for, so we can find out what is it he’s trying to say to us. if there’s a picture of something, what does that picture mean? What does it mean to me, is it for me ,is it for somebody else. Words of knowledge words of wisdom sometimes they come in a pictorial form. but you have to interpret that. so looking into it is important. sometimes we can have an open eyed spiritual vision and that’s what you learn to do when you see in the realm of the spirit around with your spiritual eyes and we will look at that next week. so right now ,if I choose to engage that vision, then I can see the angels and i can see in the spiritual realm and i can see what’s going on. you just have to learn to tune into it. there are dreams, God speaks to us in dreams. actually appearances, he turns up. Like in the transfiguration, Elijah and Moses turned up. angelic visitations- there are angels that come and visit us, they are all ways that God can speak. trances you know that the whole trance that Peter entered into on the roof changed the whole course of Christianity. Because it opened up the way for Gentiles to come into one man with God. being translated in the spirit, like being taken into another spiritual realm. Paul didn’t know if he was in the body or out of the body .so he wasn’t sure- was this a total body translation or was it just his spirit taken. ezekial was taken it says by lock of his hair and pulled and shown Jerusalem. now I guess his body stayed with the elders by the river and his spirit was somewhere else. i always wondered what they thought. Did he carry on speaking to them . or was he just there and they didn’t know where he was. Some of these things , they happened in the Bible, we just need to learn to engage them. philip was transported physically from one place to another- trance relocation. all these things are things that we can begin to experience today. I got a list of Scriptures there, which are for meditation. Where do I start? What sort of Scriptures do I use to think about and meditate on so I can experience them? There is a lot of them there.9:55
Ephesians 1 about the eyes of our heart. Start Thinking about the eyes of your heart being open. What does it mean to have it enlightened so you can see. Psalm 23 – if there is one Scripture I would encourage everyone to meditate is paslm23. you can get virtually everything you need from Psalm 23 in terms relationship with God. It is so deep so much there and just levels upon levels of revelation. but Scriptures like John four drinking living water John seven rivers of living water flowing Matthew 11 coming to Jesus when we are burdened and heavy laden and finding rest Galatians 220 about Christ living in us and the relationship we have. Hebrews 416 going to the throne of grace. So often these Scriptures are used as analogies or pictures of something which is actually real .there is a throne of grace and we can go to it. now that has been a euphemism for praying and hoping God hears our prayers. the reality is there is a literal throne of grace and we can actually literally come boldly to it with confidence because God’s invited us. Revelation 320 Jesus knocking on the door in our spirit wanting to come in. revelation 4:1,2 heaven’s door open, so we can step into heaven through that open door. and those are all just some Scriptures. if you want to know where to start, just start with some of those. and just begin to meditate in them think about them as we learned when we talked about meditation. 1 Corinthians 2:16 for who has known or understood the mind, the councils, and purposes of the Lord so as to guide and instruct him and give him knowledge. Now when we are talking about knowledge we don’t mean intellectual knowledge we mean personal experience, the biblical understanding of knowledge was always experience. but we have the mind of Christ, the Messiah who and do hold the thoughts feelings and purposes of his heart. so when we’re engaging with Jesus personally it’s a real experience where he reveals himself. he gives us revelation of his heart for us and for his purposes for us. so that is really why Paul prayed- I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened- opened so you will know .know what? know Jesus know God know the father know our destiny know the feelings and the purposes of God’s heart for us .know his heart. so many things he wants us to know. Psalm 139 know the vast sum of thoughts that he has for us about us. those thoughts are what he shaped us in eternity and created our spirits to engage. so the eyes of our heart is our imagination and we must not be afraid of using our imagination. two Corinthians 418 so we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what on what is unseen that’s what we do with our imagination we fix our eyes on what isn’t seen so were not looking around for natural things and looking at that. that can be a an entrance point into it. We are looking into the things that aren’t seen. now this room is filled with things that are not seen. there are a lot of spiritual things here that are not seen with our natural eyes, there is also lots of other things that are not seen. you can’t see the atoms of the air , but we know that they are there otherwise we would be dead. so there are things here that you can’t see but you experience all the same. There are radio waves, we are picking up a Wi-Fi signal which is broadcasting this thing on the Internet. we can’t see that, but other people can experience that in other parts of the world , they are picking it up through a receiver . our spirit, our soul needs to engage as a receiver. so we need to be able to look at the unseen with the eyes of our heart, our imagination . because that pictures it and openings it up for us to engage in it. now we have to be careful what we imagine because that imagination is a link to the realm of the spirit, it is a bridge between the soul and the spirit. so what we picture and what we imagine is important. there is not an another way to focus without using your imagination, that’s what God has given us, if we try and use something else then we are using something that is illegitimate. we got to be careful, because it does connect us to the realm of the spirit. so what you focus on will connect you. so let’s focus on Jesus. let’s focus on him and if we focus on him we will become more like him and that’s the point of this. the beholding and becoming. the more we look at the things of the spirit the more we become transformed into those things. two Corinthians 318 but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the spirit. so if we look into these things we become like them. so if we want to know how we can become more like Jesus then look at him. look at the words about his life. enter into those truths and experience him in actual real knowledge not just intellectual understanding. We sang a song last week and I don’t want to sing like your not in the room. It is like he is in the room. so I don’t want to talk to him like he’s not here, like he is somewhere else. so I need to engage the fact that he is with me he is around us and we can speak to him and when we begin to look at him that way then we will begin to be transformed from 1° of glory to another it says .but we have to look. you can’t just look in a fleeting glance it has to be intimacy looking into his eyes into his face. Hebrews 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith so that is where we fix our eyes. that’s where we look into, in Jesus. Isaiah 26:3 I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed on him. so if you want to live in perfect peace wholeness and completeness, shalom- that word has a huge depth of understanding. if you want to live in that perfect peace then fix your eyes on him. activate the eyes of your heart, experience him, that’s the right use of our imagination. once you actually learn to focus that way you can begin to see the things, where he talks about where he is. where he is in heaven, where the throne of grace is, where the tree of life is where the river of life is, where the different things are in the realms of heaven. you can begin to engage him where he is rather than just him being here, which is great. him being on the inside of us which is wonderful. but actually we can also go where he is in the realms of heaven. So we can cross that bridge from our imagination into that dimension of the spirit and begin to live there. Because that’s what Jesus did, he was there and here at the same time. his spirit was continually connected to that realm, we read that in John 3:13. Now it may be difficult to start with. 17:42
sometimes we have to practice. but if you persevere everyone will be up to do it. there’s no one you could have been more left brain than me. logical analytical nonvisual, but when God got hold of my heart to meditate in the word of God and to see the word of God and to hear him speaking to me and then to develop that into seeing into the realm of the spirit and then going into the realm of the spirit into heaven. it all started with practice. It has taken me years to practice but I can teach you to do it in weeks and months if you persevere. just don’t give up. keep practicing Hebrews 5:14 we become mature because we train our senses through practice to discern. and we have to continue with it. so look at gaze upon fix your eyes on. so we meditate in the word to engage the word of God to experience the word and then enter into the word . there is a process .so we can look at objects in the word of God. and that’s why I’ve been using certain objects because they help us engage. we can look at people ,doors rivers waterfalls Jesus the father . they are all in the word of God and when we begin to look at them there with the eyes of our heart, then we can begin to enter into it.19:06
and they become doorways then to encountering it- which I mean experiencing it. and so we can engage the picture and then enter into the experience of the picture. and so that’s why I have used natural images to stimulate our imagination. when we practice this we use the door. now the reason we use a door is because doorways will be on this journey, really really important. there are many doorways we will have to enter into. Their are doorways in our spirit and soul which we will need to engage in. there are doorways or portals into the realms of heaven which we will need to engage in, same doorways that Jacob engage with at the top of the latter. that John engaged with, in the realms of heaven. there are many doorway. so activating our imagination around a picture of a door is a really helpful thing, because when you need to step in through a door, then it will already be there for you to step into. the same with rivers. the river of life was flowing out of heaven and flowing into our spirit and it’s supposed to flow through our soul and out through our body around us to create an atmosphere of the glory of God and the presence of God around our lives. rivers of living water flowing from our innermost being. so picturing a river being able to engage in the river of life is really important. so we then use those doorways in the word of God to experience those things. so we enter into the picture and then the story becomes personal to us. when I first started to engage these things, I started to think about what Jesus was doing, like sitting down with his disciples and talking to them. and as I began to sit down with his disciples and talk with him. He then talked to me. I pictured the scene and began to imagine myself sitting down with Jesus talking to him and then I was surprised one day when he looked at me, and he could see me in this picture, which was really a precious thing because it opened up that realm. so I practiced it. so look into the word of God to see it, experience the word, enter into the word, go through the word as a doorway to the reality that the word reveals ,experience and live in the reality of those realms of the spiritual world. the imagination is the screen and the gateway to that. and just looking at this as a picture. if you see a screen you need something projected onto it.21:47
Now some screens you can project on the front of the screen and sometimes you can project on the rear of the screen and you can see, depending upon what sort of screen it is. so our screen, our imagination is designed to have projections from the front and the rear of it you like. but it’s also a curtain or a portal to look into it with the eyes of our spirit. next week we are going to look at how we pull back that curtain which is black (because we’ve not been taught how to see) so we can actually look into that realm. now Romans 85 says this- for those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But for those who are according to the spirit the things of the spirit, so the mind set on the flesh is death. the mindset on the spirit is life and peace. so the imagination- that which we set our mind on is a portal to death or life and peace. Now some of you guys who have been battling addictions, you know the power of the thoughts and the memories of your past. that can trigger a reaction and a euphoric reaction that will cause you to enter back into it. it’s a dangerous thing to begin to think about some of your past experiences. Because it can lead you into a death trap. but if you think about the positive experiences that can lead you into life and peace because that’s where we fix our eyes. So it is really important to learn how we engage our imagination and focus on the right thing, set our minds on the right things not the wrong things. and learn to take captive the wrong thoughts and don’t fix your eyes on them. A proverb thing-you can’t stop birds flying around you head, but you can stop them nesting in your head. so you don’t have to let a thought to become an imagination and then an experience you can stop it by taking captive- is this thought coming from God and is this thought going to lead me into life. or is this thought going to lead me down the wrong path. and use that, because imagination is such a powerful thing. what we look at becomes light to us, in other words revelation. those positive and negative. so let’s focus on the positive. light contains so much. it says God is light, now I don’t have time to go into the quantum mechanics of light but it contains encoded information. you can have fiber optics that carry huge amounts of data. so light contains information that when we tune into that information, it can bring revelation to our souls and spirits. Psalm 119:105 your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. so if we want to know where we are and where we are going then we can use the truth that is contained within the word of God that we experience to lead us into it. so we can look and see the path and we can find the way by opening up the eyes of our heart to experience these things. John 10 :14 says I am the good shepherd I know my own and my own know me . and that’s so important, we need to know him. Psalm 103:7 he made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the sons of Israel. There is a huge difference between knowing what God does and knowing him and his ways.25:30
and God wants us to go from being good stewards of the things that he does into being friends to engage. because Jesus said to his disciples I am no longer going to call you servants your my friends you need to go deeper into relationship to be a friends. We need to go deeper into relationship to be a friend than just being a servant who does what he is told. because God can tell us what to do but he wants us to know his heart and know his character and know him so that we are entering into relationship. John 1027 my sheep hear my voice I know them and they follow me. so if were to follow him ,where is he? how can we follow him and as we know where he is . this is the Scripture that talks about where he is in one sense. Ephesians 1:20 which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places. so Jesus is seated at the right hand of the father in heavenly places far above all rule authority power dominion and every name that is named. so this is a actual place of position of authority as well as a place in the realms of heaven. and he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church which is his body. so Jesus is looking for a church that looks like him. That is his body, he is not looking for a week miserable, horible church that doesn’t look like him. so he is looking for something that’s a reflection of him on earth as it is in heaven where he is. then it says this the fullness of him who fills all in all. God’s fullness, Jesus’ fullness, he has a desire to fill us and to fill his church with him. to fill his church with his glory, in a totally different dimension that we are experiencing right now. it is coming, but we have to learn how to engage him so that we are a reflection or a pattern or a shadow on earth of what it looks like in heaven. so we need to follow him into heaven. Ephesians 2:6 he is raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ. this is not just a theoretical verse. it is a true verse and we can experience it, as we follow him. Jesus goes on in John 10 to say he leads us in and out, so he takes us into heaven and he takes us out of heaven. we can step in and we can step out of heaven because were seated in that place we have authority in the heavenly realms. and he wants us to follow him there and to follow him out of there. so where he is we can be. How? having the eyes of our heart opened so we can look and see that realm and step into it. this follows on that verse and passage of where Jesus is- follows on from this really important passage in Ephesians 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so you will know what is the hope of his calling what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints what is his passing greatness of his power towards us who believe. these are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might. Paul saw how important it was that the eyes of our heart, the eyes of our imagination is open, if we’re going to know our inheritance, if were going to know our calling, if we are going to know where we are seated in the realms of heaven .it’s absolutely vital that we engage in our imagination, so we know him, we can be like him we can do the things he does. Romans 816 the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit. the spirit of God is in us and it wants to testify, it wants to come into agreement about something- that we children of God. and his children heirs also of God and fellow heirs with Christ. so where Christ is seated above all authority we are a fellow heir or a joint heir with him, with that authority. It is really important to know that. if we going to rule and bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven we need to know our authority as children of God .were not servants, we have an attitude as a servant as Jesus did as the servant King. But we are Kings we are royal priests. we been given authority in the realms of heaven. now God is opening up those realms so that we can experience and have authority in reality and engage it and manifested here on earth. the key is to keep our eyes fixed on him. you cannot separate knowing, hearing God’s voice from knowing him who is speaking. he wants us to have a relationship. so knowing by experience isn’t intellectual or just by reason or study. it is by personal encounter. knowing and hearing has to lead to following in obedience. It is absolutely pointless in hearing what God says, if were not willing to do what he says. because his will is the perfect will for our lives. his calling and his destiny in our lives are the perfect thing for us to live out, both here in this realm and into the realms of eternity we have a purpose and calling in God we need to know it. so we must become like him and we know there are deeper levels of becoming like him that we’ve gone into in the past. so that we can do the works that he did and do greater works than these. now I want to just finished there but we are going to now do some practicing of engaging and opening the eyes of our heart.31:37
to do that again is to relax and encourage you to close your eyes if you need a visual kickstart to engage in something there will be some pictures on the screen that you can look at the encourage you just to close your eyes when we engage our imagination we begin to think about something and begin to picture it we can use a natural thing use the word of God can use in specific things so first of all we discover prepare our spirit as we like to the past by praying in tongues so encourage you I pray turns out loud pray in tongues in your heart in your mind pray in tongues in your spirit and as you pray in tongues was do that for a few minutes just because still still your mind. So the going on and just begin to focus and fix your eyes on Jesus just begin to think about Jesus as you pray in tongues show to you shall and you shall in the year in and you shall you you yeah she and on the show the should and you will have you and he and shall can in the ocean you should shall in the should know this would encourage you to think about the door just think about the door think about the color the size the shape the handle on the door what’s the door is just start thinking about that door and just thinking about it begin to picture that door in your mind on the screen of your imagination you might thinking about door the front door for just about creating a door just start thinking about door and you picturing that door is what you think about what’s behind the door what’s behind the door is a green pasture it’s the door gateway to a green pasture to start thinking about picturing that green pasture just reach out with you hand in your imagination open the door you can seeing and walk through that door into the green pasture to see yourself walking in that green pasture just lie down in the green pasture Psalm 23 lie down in the green pasture just feel relax and feel the peace of God around you place of rest peace place of love place of joy to sense that your feelings just think about Jesus is the shepherd Jesus is your shepherd just coming and sitting next you in this green pasture just begin to talk to him listen to what he wants to say to you begin a conversation you may want to stay in that place of peace rest talking with Jesus’s fine to stay there is you want to just engage in a another encounter in Matthew 24 three says this he was sitting on the latter bullets disciples came to him privately saying tell us so you just to picture Jesus sitting talking with his disciples just begin to think about that scene Jesus is sat his disciples ran him there asking him things Jesus is explaining things to the past and present in the future is your thinking about that seen as you picturing that scene just enter into that scene just sit down in your imagination that picture just in your spirit just sit down with Jesus and his disciples just ask him something about your past we present we are future will stay there please feel free just stay in that encounter was one engage in something else and the Scripture Matthew 1128 SYSCON to me all who are weary and heavy laden I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me gentle and humble in heart you will find rest for your souls is encourage you just to think about Jesus right in front of you right now where you are you seated just think about any burdens and he waits the expectations and been heavy upon you weighing you down wearing you out just think about those things think about those things where you may you something tied to something change something you’ve not been able to become free of Jesus is just standing before you right now just waiting for you to give him those burdens to give him permission to remove those yokes loose those tethers and to break those chains to see him standing before you right now just cast all those burdens on just feel him lift the heavy burden off your shoulders feel the lightness joy and peace comes to your spirit if you feel the change allow him to bring those chains to set for spirit is your use heart is experiences loves warm’s experience just deep heart he has for you to experience being like him just feel his heart love for you just let him you as his arms just to around you bringing healing to those past memories bringing freedom and your life setting you free from need to perform to earn his love and say 70 free from religious obligation to the joy of relationship just feel the freedom that he brings to our as he just expresses his love to see embraces you just pay our hearts for where you are missing counters just keep that is a testimony you journaling it write it down so you can use that as a doorway to revisit to experience that again to that I would encourage you just to practice those things find of the Scriptures the you relate to person the yourself that are important to you things may be your God is highlighted to you in the past don’t just have the light I use to do us highlighted or underlined verses in my Bible actually enter into and step into those special Scriptures the special versus the special things that God has spoken to about four so you can get the fullness and so you can draw deeply of each truth is contained within its you can experience it just keep practicing