Lessons I Should Have Learned Sooner

Some of you know I have written about supernatural experiences I had when I was young. I got some new revelation regarding those experiences, so I thought I’d share it.

On two occasions, Jesus manifested himself to me. I did not see him, but I felt his presence, and I knew exactly where he was. I could feel his presence physically, and in my heart and mind. I knew who he was, too.

The first time he showed up, I was driving from Milwaukee to Kentucky after a weekend of drunken partying. The roads were covered with ice, so it was slow going. I believe I was somewhere between Louisville and Lexington.

Without warning, I was struck by the realization that I was going to die that day. I say “realization” because I was completely positive it was going to happen. I pulled over and parked. I knew enough about God to believe a spirit had attacked me, so I told it to leave in the name of Jesus, and I called on Jesus repeatedly.

At first nothing happened, but soon I felt a warm presence enter the car, and the presence hovered over the center of the front seat. It was roughly spherical, and I felt a current of love, peace, joy, and faith pouring out of it. The love hit me like heat from a wood stove, and I knew everything was going to be all right. The strange conviction that I was going to die was gone as though it had never existed. The warm presence didn’t just drive it away. It negated it, the way light negates darkness.

The second time, I was in bed, and a warm beam of love and power shone down on me and moved over my body. Wherever it touched me, I felt the same things I had felt in the car. It didn’t touch all of me at once. The parts of me that were in contact with it felt peace, love, joy, and so on. They felt better than the rest of me. Your foot can feel those things while your elbow doesn’t.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the presence of God, and I believe we are supposed to live in it as much the time as possible.

I’ve also thought a lot about praise. I’ve been praising God as I know him from experience, and that means praising him according to what I sensed when he touched me. I tell him he is my infinite reservoir or bottomless sea of peace, love, joy, protection, faith and victory. If you praise God before you start praying, things work better.

All this has come together into a revelation that God is not just peaceful; he is peace. He isn’t just full of faith; he is faith. He is love. He is victory and protection. He is lie a sea that drowns evil and evil beings. There is no peace, faith, love, joy, victory, or protection except for God.

You may think you have victories without God, but they’re not real. Anything that’s real has permanence and invincibility. Temporary things (and temporary beings like Satan and the damned) aren’t fully real. They will be gone soon. Beings exist in a number of dimensions; that’s what makes them real. For example, a box has width, height, and depth. Time is also a dimension. If the time dimension of a thing isn’t infinite, it’s not as real as something that lasts.

I’m still burrowing through Augustine’s confessions, and it looks like God told him the same thing. Real things are permanent.

When we disobey God, we cut ourselves off from his presence, so things like defeat, unbelief, fear, bitterness, anger, and sexual perversion come in. In other words, things that are contrary to the nature of God’s presence come in. If you’re in God’s presence, you can’t have these things.

We don’t understand this. Instead of seeking God’s presence, we look for a set of rules to follow, and we look for preachers to help us wash ourselves once a week. We see God one of two ways. Either he’s a washing machine that rinses away our filth on a weekly basis, or he’s a diplomatic plate that gives us a license to sin as much as we want.

The hard truth is that we have to belong to him completely. We think that’s crazy, because we’ve been raised in a crazy world where right seems wrong. If you think about it, what’s wrong about wanting to be in complete alignment with the being that created everything and runs the universe? But for the lies we swim in, we would think it obvious that a desire to give ourselves to God completely was normal. To feel otherwise would seem insane.

We don’t understand this, so we live with one foot in heaven and one foot in hell. We don’t get the promises of the Bible with any kind of consistency, because they’re not meant for parasites who serve God’s enemy.

If we don’t belong to God without reservation, we limit his presence, so we limit the power he is willing to exercise on our behalf.

You can’t tell charismatics that. They think God makes no demands on us. They think we just have to give money to preachers and pretend other people’s sins don’t exist. We have to be full of nice thoughts and refrain from judging, while giving as much cash as possible to predators like Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer.

Charismatics are in denial. They don’t want to hear about God’s demands. They think that stuff is only for old dried-out churches that deny the Holy Spirit. They think God is a butler and sugar daddy who wants to give us money so we can continue living pretty much as we please. We think faith is all that matters, and that the need for obedience disappeared with the crucifixion.

If Jesus had had that attitude, the crucifixion wouldn’t have occurred. He would have refused and then asked for forgiveness.

Your lifestyle affects the presence of God in your life. What you watch and listen to matters. What you say matters. Your friendships matter. Your job matters. God doesn’t want to inhabit a filthy toilet.

This information is disturbing in some ways, because it means I have to give up enjoyable things I thought were just fine. I’ve thrown out some music. I’m being more careful about the way I talk, especially about others. I feel a little bit like a dog whose owner won’t let it run off and chase rabbits; it’s not always fun to be restrained. But I want the correction, because there is no other way. There is one path that pleases God, and there is an infinite number of paths that lead to misery and defeat. You can’t have God the way you want him. You have to be molded to conform with his demands.

It’s a little upsetting to give up self-determination, especially if you’re a man. But it has to be done. If you won’t submit, you can’t complain about your defeats. You asked for them over and over.

This is a hard word, but it brings power and victory, so suck it up and be grateful. It serves no purpose to beat your head against the rock. Your head may be pretty hard, but in the end the rock will win.