Glory & Visions: How to See Manifestations of the Spirit
Light is one attribute of God, but what about the Person inside the light?
Is it possible to see or even talk to the resurrected Christ Himself?
When I was in college, I read many books on church history and revival. I was fascinated especially by the array of supernatural encounters that followed the lives of men and women such as Smith Wigglesworth, John G. Lake, Maria Woodworth-Etter, Kathryn Kuhlman, and more. These generals of the Holy Spirit stirred my faith and hunger for God like few others. I distinctly remember one night having a conversation with the Lord about some of the accounts I’d been reading.
“Jesus,” I began, “I deeply desire to host Your Presence in these ways. If you will trust me to walk in Your Presence, I promise (as far as I’m able by Your grace) to not pull back or quench even the stranger things You might do—so long as they’re truly from You.”
I’d almost forgotten about that prayer until years later at Loft Church, when we began frequently experiencing one of the more unique yet powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
And your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on My bond-slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy (Acts 2:17-18).
I grew up believing that supernatural visions were an extremely rare event. What I didn’t understand was, the greater the measure of God’s glory manifesting near our lives, the greater propensity for supernatural visitation. From the moment the Holy Spirit’s Presence increased in my life, people in and around our meetings began to have unique encounters in the realm of visions and trances.
Now, you might not initially associate the word trance with vision, but it turns out the two are closely interlinked in Scripture. In Acts 2, the word vision in the original Greek is the word horasis and is defined as “an appearance divinely granted in an ecstasy.” Interestingly, the word ecstasy in Greek is ekstasis and is found at least twice in the New Testament. Its English translation? “Trance!” Strong’s Concordance more fully defines a trance as “a displacement (of the mind), bewilderment, ecstasy.” In other words, when you have a true, open vision, you almost always do so by way of a trance.
Many cultures are rich with histories of people falling into trances, though not all related to Christ. In fact, for thousands of years people have been known to seek visions by inducing trance-like states through use of extreme fasting, drugs, herbs, etc. The reason these practices have lasted for millennia anthropologically is because they often do produce compelling spiritual experiences.
Of course, from a biblical paradigm, purposely inducing such states of our own volition is forbidden (see Deut. 18:10). The Scripture is explicit that in doing so, we can open doors to the demonic realm. I’ve personally seen demons cast out of people who’ve participated in hypnosis, for example, which produces an altered state of consciousness. Obviously then, those attempting to directly commune with other types of spirits or entities are in particular danger of colluding with agents of darkness, even if they masquerade as “angels of light” (see 2 Cor. 11:14).
The things which the Gentiles sacrifice [to idols], they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons (1 Corinthians 10:20).
That said, visions and trances originally belong to Jesus! They are first His creation and idea, and in communing with the Holy Spirit, they are one way we encounter the glory of God today. The fine line between pure and impure, divine and divination is the source of initiation. When initiated by the Spirit of Christ, visions and trances are quite scriptural, legal for believers to experience, and oftentimes result in fruit of the gospel being advanced. (I speak about the criteria of “discerning good from evil spirits” more in my book, Heaven Here.)
The Bible records in Acts 10 that Peter fell into a trance while praying on the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house in Joppa. This resulted in a heavenly vision, communicating to him through symbols that God had made a way for the Gentiles to receive the gospel. In Acts 22, Paul falls into a trance while praying in Jerusalem’s temple. His trance, too, produced a vision, whereby the Lord Jesus Himself spoke and gave Paul specific instructions for his next mission.
During our regular services, it is now not uncommon to find someone freezing in place for long periods of time during worship. One man, Faron Jourdan, was once recorded as being in a suspended state to such a degree, his eyes didn’t blink for over half an hour. Faron’s wife, Cathy, has often been seen worshiping before falling into a suspended state with eyes rapidly flickering. Another woman, Julia Waddell, has a handful of times had her body frozen in unusual positions. When she’d “come to,” she’d have prophetic instructions for individuals or the direction of the meeting at large.
I believe it’s important to note that when these encounters began occurring in our meetings, our leadership chose to honor them as holy. I’m convinced this is one reason why they’ve not only continued, but to my pleasant surprise, increased in frequency and intensity. The Lord seems pleased to multiply that which we honor, and I am abundantly grateful for His doing so.
I See the Lord
Most awe inspiring to me are those trances which have produced direct encounters with our Jesus Himself.
On one occasion, a small ministry team of our leaders was praying for a woman named Tori. In prior years, Tori had walked with the Lord and had a robust relationship with Him. However, she’d recently grown discouraged about the season of life she was in. This resulted in her falling back into a life of sin, especially in relationships with men. She was now truly repentant, though, and wanted to reestablish an authentic walk with Christ.
After listening to Tori share her shortcomings with godly sorrow, we led her through a few simple prayers of repentance. Then, we began to speak words of forgiveness, life, and self-worth over her. Now, often in these moments, the Holy Spirit begins to work alongside our Word-based declarations and “laying on of hands” prayer. We’ve seen many powerful encounters with God’s love, healing, and even deliverance over the years while doing this very thing. This time, however, nothing seemed to be happening.
For a few minutes, we pressed in a little further. Still, the room felt empty of His familiar Presence and resulting fruit. Suddenly, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper distinctly, “These have all been nice prayers, son. Are you ready to do what I want now?”
In that moment, I realized we’d made the classic mistake of allowing even our normally Spirit-filled ministry to become formulaic, based on successes of the past. After inwardly acknowledging the Lord’s correction, I gently instructed our team to step back. I said, “Guys, let’s give the Lord some room to minister to Tori however He chooses. I think He may want to do something special here.”
Tori remained in the middle, her head bowed and eyes closed, while each of our team backed away several feet to quietly wait on the Holy Spirit. Only a few seconds later, Tori collapsed to the floor as if dead. I took a step in to check and make sure she was okay, when I heard the Lord once more. He lovingly but sternly said, “This one is Mine, son. Don’t touch her.” Like an outranked soldier before a commanding officer, I humbly responded, “Yes, Sir,” and backed off again.
We waited in silence for several minutes before Tori suddenly seemed to come to a state of consciousness. When she did, she began weeping, yet with bouts of laughter in the middle. With dry remnants of streaming mascara upon her cheeks, she cried out, “Oh, Jesus! Thank You! Thank You!”
Finally, Tori stood up, looked at us, and shouted. “I saw Jesus! I literally saw Him! He talked to me about my life. He even told me if I’d wait patiently for a short time more, He’d bring the man I was to marry!”
We all stood in awe. Tori left that day a renewed woman, cleansed, as if she’d never sinned. The Lord had explained His forgiveness to her in a way that removed all doubt from her heart. She was free once more and filled with hope for her future. No more than a year later, she did meet that man of her dreams!
Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate (Joel 2:13).
