Word of the Month: June 2011
There I was, eighteen years old, a freshly born again believer sitting in my friend's house talking about revival when all of a sudden a girl to the right of me starts weeping and shaking under the power of God. A wind began to blow through that little house and I found myself lying on the floor because of the sheer weight of His presence. Then at that moment I was taken into an open vision. There I was in the Holy of Holies. The ark of God with the presence of God burning between the cherubs was right in front of me.
Out from the midst of the fire came a man dressed in full armor riding on a horse. The man's eyes where burning like hot coals. A holy fear gripped me as he stopped for a moment to stare into my eyes. He lifted his sword and pointed it straight at me. Then, without a word spoken between us he began to charge full speed toward me. I stood there, not moving, still in shock from what I was seeing. Just when I thought I would be trampled, the horse and the armored burning man who sat upon it entered into me.
Moments later I found myself back in the room with my friends. By that time they were laying all over the room weeping and laughing, inebriated under the power of the Holy Spirit. A heavy cloud of God's presence seemed to rest in that room. I knew from that day on I would never be the same again. The Jesus that I came in contact with that day was a fierce warrior that was looking for an army. I had come in contact with the burning man and in turn I became a burning man. My goal in prayer from that day forward has never been to hand God a list of needs, but rather to experience the person of the Holy Spirit and soak in that heavy glory. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to carry us away into great encounters in the heavens if we want to have a great impact on our generation.
Experiencing the realms of glory is the secret to becoming fully possessed with Christ. Talk is cheap in this day and time. In an age of "show us" and "we will believe," a gospel that lacks the supernatural is no true gospel at all. Some may try to keep Christianity as seeker sensitive as possible, but they will always fail because within every human there is a longing for the supernatural. There is a cry to be close to our maker and to have true spiritual communion with our Father. There is a Spirit that speaks from heaven to us today, that draws us closer to the flame of love.
Flame of Consuming Love
So many times we have thought that the wonder workers of the past were spending hours in prayer to try to move God to bring revival to the earth, but I believe that we have failed to see the greater picture. These lovers of God where not praying to get ahold of God, they were praying because they had been consumed by Him. And their total abandonment to a life of comfort led them on a quest to please and be pleased by the Father that had consumed their life in love.
"Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God himself is Fire!" (Heb. 12:29 the Message)
God is a fire and He consumes all those that come to Him with a flame of love. George Whitefield was quoted as saying, "Whole days and weeks have I spent prostrate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer." This man was stuck between the heavens and the earth unable to find his way out for whole weeks. He wasn't trying to find God. He had Him and wasn't willing to let go. From this man's deep encounter in the realm of the spirit God used him to release an awakening over the world. If the truth was told, much of what he experienced was probably never shared publicly. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about his time in the third heaven saying,
"You've forced me to talk this way, and I do it against my better judgment. But now that we're at it, I may as well bring up the matter of visions and revelations that God gave me. For instance, I know a man who, fourteen years ago, was seized by Christ and swept in ecstasy to the heights of heaven. I really don't know if this took place in the body or out of it; only God knows. I also know that this man was hijacked into paradise—again, whether in or out of the body, I don't know; God knows. There he heard the unspeakable spoken, but was forbidden to tell what he heard." (2 Cor. 12:1-5 the Message)
Divine fellowship: Incendium Amoris
Incendium Amoris or the fire of love which it is often referred to is the manifestation that causes a person's body to supernaturally heat up and the believer feels like he or she is on fire. This is what happened to Evan Roberts before the Welsh revival was unleashed; he was awakened to the burning love. He was awakened every night at one am until five am where his bed would shake violently as he was taken up into divine fellowship. He once preached saying, "I have reached out my hand and touched the flame. I am burning and waiting for a sign. (P.82 God's Generals)
The spirit of burning had captured Even's heart and set it ablaze. He had gazed into the eyes of divine love and was consumed.The Fire of love is a consuming force that draws us beyond our programs and agendas to a place that we become fully undone. This kind of fire brands a man with revival for life. At that point God begins to fill his every thought and action. Sin fails to hold on to him because the man's heart has fully been engulfed by the flame. A spiritual iron is set to the heart and leaves its mark over his soul. The seal is set and the mark is left for life.
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13 NKJV)
Who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. (2 Cor. 1:22 NKJV)
St. Teresa of Avila had an experience with this love that she wrote about and there have been much documentation of several other Saints within the Catholic Church that had this form of branding and seal set on their heart. She wrote of her encounter saying that an angel came and pierced her heart with a fiery spear. "The angel appeared to me to be thrusting the spear of fire into my heart and piercing my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and left me all on fire with great love of God." This is known by the Catholic Church as Ferta (Heart Wound). This is when a person's heart is supernaturally pierced just like Jesus' heart was pierced on the cross. The person does not die, but is left with a great burning fire for the Lord. After the death of many people who claim to have had this encounter upon examination of their heart a large puncture wound is found.
I would like to at this point make something clear. I do not believe that this is a standard by which we judge whether a person is saved or not, but I do believe that we should take note to the fact that there is a deeper habitation in which we can venture into this side of heaven. It is a mystical place of deep union with the spirit. God is calling this generation to the place of encountering a deep burning union with him. It's a place where your life literally gets swallowed up by the flame of His presence a place where He comes into you and you into Him. This goes far beyond mere theology into a place of reality.