Some questions have recently arisen about the last two posts that Katie and I talked about receiving vision from the Lord. The two visions that we described began out of something we referred to as Christian Imagination. I realize now that the wording may have been a little confusing. Maybe I should have referred to it as Inspired Prayer.  I hope that with a little explanation that everyone will understand and even take part in listening and hearing The Lord in a creative way!

In the Bible, God speaks many times in dreams and visions.  In fact, large portions of scripture are based almost solely on dreams and/or visions such as Ezekiel, Daniel or Revelation.  The basis for God speaking through vision is important when beginning to speak about Christian imagination. We see in Habakkuk (2:1) and Revelation (4:1) that both of the authors were actually looking for a vision. They were not waiting for God to bring one, but actually were looking and waiting for Him to speak through a vision.  John ended up writing a long portion about the vision he had following this experience. It seems that John actually prepared himself to receive a vision from the Lord and then participated in it as God brought it about.  Mark Virkler speaks about hearing God and uses Habakkuk to help us understand further. (http://www.cwgministries.org/our-message-in-8-minutes)  If we think about it, who made our imaginations? Who gives us our creativity? God is the creator of imagination and He speaks to us through images as we have already investigated.  I believe, as you do I am sure, that when we ask God to speak to us, He does.

This may be the most important thing to remember.  When we ask God to speak to us and look with our spiritual eyes to see what he wants to show us, we must believe that He will speak to us.  In John 5:19, Jesus Himself says that He only does what he sees the Father doing.  This is Him being open to see vision clearly and receive from Him.

I encourage you to take some time and ask the Lord to speak to you.  In tuning to the Spirit, sometimes it is helpful to jump start our creativity by imagining a picture and looking for Jesus in this picture.  I know for some people this may seem spooky or like a New Age type of thing.  However, I just want to remind you that the enemy cannot create anything.  The enemy is only able to pervert what God has created.  God created the prophetic and the enemy came in with psychics and palm readers trying to make himself like God. God made dancing and the enemy came in with sensual dirty dancing and perverted this holy act of worship.  In the same way, the enemy has tried to take our imaginations and creative side and turn it to something evil by hypnotism and trances and the like.  However, we know and have seen how God speaks when we ask Him to, and He has a track record of using dreams and visions.  Anything He speaks and says will build us up, encourage us, and strengthen us.  We test everything we see by the Word of God, and when they agree, we must listen and obey Him.

I encourage you to try an exercise.  Sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and ask God to speak to you.  Ask Him a simple question like “How much do you love me?”.  Then begin to write whatever comes into your mind until you are done.  Aftwerwards, go back and read over it and see if it is something that God would say to you.

This is a different post, but I thought it would be necessary and beneficial to you to explain how we were spoken to in these visions.  I pray that Holy Spirit will speak to you in ever increasing ways and perhaps use this as a tool to draw you into a deeper and closer relationship with Him.

Jeremiah, Man on Fire