All About Visions: Walking into the Vision

**For the previous posts in this series on visions, see these links:

All About Visions: Discerning the Meanings
All About Visions: Sharing the Message



Visions come in all sorts or different ways.  Many of them are interactive!  This was the case in Bible times, and this is still the case today.

Then He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, "Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you." Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

Ezekiel 3:1-3

Here we have Ezekiel in a vision that transcended his current reality.  It was much more real than 'real' life!  I would call this sort of experience a trance vision.  In it, one may move, touch, taste, smell, etc. the things being seen.  They may talk to other people or to angels.  I would consider this kind of thing to be an out-of-body experience.

And it all started for Ezekiel when "the heavens were opened" (Ezekiel 1:1).  That's when it starts for all of us!  God comes down and sets up habitation with us.  And that's when the supernatural things of God start to happen.  That's when we can 'walk into' a vision and really experience it--earthly senses included.

Interactive visions may come for many reasons--but one of the main reasons is so that we know how to intercede.   Visions are a wonderful way to conceptualize God's will, and if we know His will, then we'll also know how to pray for others.  We'll know how to intercede and pray into God's target. (More on this in a future post).  So, how do we have an interactive vision?  Let's look to the Word:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."
Matthew 7:7-8

"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?"
Luke 11:11

So, we can ask in faith, not doubting, and then receive!  Now, seeking may be a process, even a long one, of drawing closer and closer to the Lord.  But He gave us a wonderful promise there!  We ask, we believe, we receive--and we do so by living within the Holy Spirit.  While we're there, God will decide exactly what to give us, but we can trust that He is gracious an faithful to give.

If God is willing to give of Himself, then the question is, how do we position ourselves?  How do we get into the Spirit?  Music can be a major way.  Praise and worship can intensify the work of the Holy Spirit, who is already alive and active within us.  Music can activate the prophetic, it can activate visions ...it can activate our understanding of a parable that the Lord has already spoken.  Music can bring us into the Spirit.  Let's take a look at the Word, again:

But now bring me a minstrel." And it came about, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him. He said, "Thus says the LORD....
2 Kings 3:15

"I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre."
Psalm 49:4

John was in the Spirit when God gave him revelation (Revelation 1:10).  He was told to "Come up here" (Revelation 4:1)!  And it can be just the same today. We get into the Spirit and the Lord extends His arm and takes us into a vision.  He allows us to walk into it, to interact with it, and to change it, all for His purposes and all for His glory.  We may see the resurrected Jesus.  We may see angels. We may see family members that we need to pray for.  Or we may see things that are mostly symbolic.  It's God who gives the vision, and it's God who decides what He will.

We should all be seeking the Lord for a full portion.  He wants to give us all our daily bread.  He wants to give us all something powerful enough to radically change us!  God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things (Psalms 107:9).  He fills them!

Snapshot: Seeing the Words

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God"                Romans 10:17

This verse essentially describes in reverse order the way that God progressively and tangibly guides us.  So, we read the Word, which is the bible, God's written word.  That's the first step--the step mentioned last in Romans 10:17, from which the other ones flow from.  God's word is an open door, and we need to read it to know Him better.  Then we hear from Him.  Usually hearing is a three part process--and these parts usually come in the following order:

1) The Word, the Bible, comes alive to us in a new way that relates more specifically to us.  A certain verse may jump out.  For example, I may pray for my family and right after read Luke 1:50.  The Word first begins to come alive in this way.

2) We receive from the Lord a vision that comes from, or by, the Word of God.  The Word of the Lord is often characterized in a vision.  This can be seen in Jeremiah 1:11 and Samuel 3:1.

3) The most evident form of hearing is just that--hearing the audible voice of God.  His audible voice differs from that still, small one.  It comes externally, from heaven itself.  It is like the sounds of roaring thunder or many rushing waters (Revelation 14:2)--majestic!!  This is a rarity, or at least it has been for me.  But that doesn't mean that it will be for you!  Whoever asks with purity receives...

So, these are three ways that God speaks to us--three ways that we hear.  They all flow from the words that are in the Bible, the Word of God.  The Holy Spirit makes that book so real!  And He wants to speak to us in all the ways above, and more.  Why does He speak to us?  And consequently, why do we hear His voice?

Because we are sheep that need to stay in touch with our Shepherd.  Because we need to know Him more.  Because we need the faith, the knowing, that cometh by hearing.  

How can we listen to God on a moment by moment basis if we don't hear Him accordingly? We need a revelation from the Word.  We need a vision.  We need a voice.  We need to have the Word made real and dynamic to us--made alive and active (Hebrews 4:12).

After we have faith from the hearing, that's when we can act.  That's when we can really live abiding in God.  That's when we can have success--our joy--guaranteed.  If God tells me to pray for someone who is sick, then I know He will do the work--which is usually a total healing.  If God tells me to smile at someone, then I know that it blessed someone, regardless if I see any results or not.  If I see in a vision while praying that someone I am not with is being healed, then I need to believe that!

I need faith because I heard God, and I need to hear God, in whatever way works, because I read His Word first.  Wigglesworth said, "consume the Word of God until it consumes you".  This is a place where you have heard and believed.

We need to see God's Word for what it is.  We need to see just what He's telling this.  He has given us so many gifts, and we need to step into the fullness of them all.  

Snapshot: Seeing God

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"    Matthew 5:8

When I began reading and meditating on the Word, I used to think that verses like the one above were more figurative than literal.  Then, I began thinking that such descriptions only described what we'll experience in Heaven.  But now, I believe that God wants us to know that these promised can be applicable to our every day.  They can be lived out and enjoyed in this life, and even more so in the life to come.  If we meet the conditions, we realize God's pleasure in us based on how He treats us.  If we are pure in His sight, we'll discover that He's worth it.  We will become unable to forget all His benefits:

We really can taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalms 34:8).

We can see God's Glory (John 11:40).

We can ascend to the mountaintop with the Lord.  We can live in a Holy place, and God's holiness can go before us and after us.  We can be hemmed in by Him and His grace.   (Psalms 24:4 and context).

We can enter into God's presence in a new way.  There is always more of God that we have not yet seen, heard, or even imagined (1 Corinthians 2:9 and context).

There is always a new revelation, a new promise, a new understanding of His Love.  God is so far beyond searching out--we only experience tastes of Him because He let's us (Romans 11:33).

There is always so much knowledge stored up in God's Word.  Enough to keep us learning, both day and night (Psalm 119:96).

These are His benefits (Psalms 103:2).  These are our earthly foretastes of Heaven. These are results of our inheritance in the Lord--residence in His Kingdom.  And these things are worth counting the cost.  They are worth any cost!  God makes life fun, but more than that, He makes it count.  Let's commit our ways to Him.  Let's allow Him to make us pure, from the inside out.  Let's seek Him so we can see Him, and let's see Him and become more like Him.