Why Dreams and Visions? By Barbie Breathitt

By Barbie Breathitt

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God did, still does and always will appear to men, women and children. We are successful in our pursuit of God because He desires to make Himself known to man. Paul, the Apostle, like John the Revelator, discovered spiritual gateways that translated him into the heavenly realms. Paul entered heavenly places; so it is also possible for us. An expectant faith, activated through the avenues of prayer, praise and worship, open heavenly doors.

 

In 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, Paul spoke of receiving revelatory visions from the Lord. God is incomprehensible. Yet if we do not lift our voices in praise and adoration the very stones will cry out to declare His greatness. But how do we describe the visions we behold in another dimension that we only visit for moments at a time? When we are in the presence of a holy God we are overwhelmed with His love, yet silence prevails. How can man describe the majesty of our God? What man knows the things of God? Paul assured the Athenians "God is not far from each one of us; it is through Him that we are able to live, move, be who we are and exist, as some of your own poets have stated, 'For we also are His children, we come from Him.'" Acts 17:27-28 (Authors' paraphrase)

 

Prophets encourage us to press past our natural limitations to pursue the indescribable majesty of our unspeakable God. Paul did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body when he was caught up into the "third heaven." He experienced "inexpressible things that man is not permitted to speak." Things that take place in heaven are too wonderful for man and past our ability to bring a total comprehension into the earthly realms of existence. It was impossible to accurately communicate what he heard, saw and experienced in the heavenly realms because man's understanding and vocabulary are childlike and insufficient to grasp and communicate the wonders of heaven.

 

God is Complete

 

How can our spirit conceive eternity and contemplate the greatness of an infinite God? The most eloquent human speech does not have the ability to give expressions that equal His boundless grandeur. God is complete within Himself. God spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast, the moment He speaks things happen. The living breath of His creative Words brought life into a clay existence; His powerful voice brought chaos into order, framed the world and formed the whole universe commanding darkness into light. His presence brings peace beyond our understanding. That is why Paul cried out, "That I might know Him!"

 

Our temporal minds sink into silence, they are overwhelmed when we attempt to place articulate meaning to the heavenly visions we encounter. We struggle to know the splendor of God in spiritual reality and interpretations of truth when previously we had only known of Him by the hearing of the Word or legends communicated to us by those who have gone before. Our heart bows in awe and radiant wonder of His majestic, expansive being, when we are finally acquainted to Him. We are consumed with fearful wonder gasping, "Oh! How great is our God!" How can words describe something so glorious or someone so brilliant when we have never previously beheld the glorious presence of this magnitude? Our imaginations are creative but without an accurate knowledge of God how do we define what or Who we are seeing? A. W. Tozer said, "The effort of inspired men to express the ineffable has placed a great strain upon both thought and language in the Holy Scriptures. These being often a revelation of a world above nature, and the minds for which they were written being a part of nature, the writers are compelled to use a great many "like" words to make themselves understood."

 

Search for the Face of God

 

In times of trouble King David's heart whispered for him to, "Search for the face of God!" David's whole being responded in pursuit of God in humble prayer, "God Your sovereign presence has always been here for me, do not hide or turn Your back from me now, 'My heart is Seeking Your Face!' "Your Spirit is current everywhere I go. I am always in Your affectionate watch. Even if I flew on the golden wings of the dawn to the farthest horizon, there I will find Your adoring gaze." David's pursuit of God was successful because God desired to be found of him. God also desires to be found of us. We will find God when we search for Him with all our heart.

 

Religion is complacent, stiff-necked and rebellious. Complacency is the enemy of spiritual hunger for it robs us of all desire. Without a desperate desire to know God, there will be no manifestation of God. We learn to love because God first loved us. When we love God passionately with our whole heart, barriers are removed and the distance of eternity fades away. As a true lady must wait for romantic pursuit; so the Holy Spirit waits for our desire for Him to grow until we pursue His face with our whole heart.

 

We behold the invisible God face to face in perfect consciousness when we live and breathe in holy desperation of His undying presence. Each morning our soul thirst for God, we gaze up into His beholding face as our thankful prayers ascend into His presence. Once we see the beauty of the Lord, we will reveal Him to the masses instead of offering a seeker friendly gospel that is absent of His presence. People will run to God when we present His grandeur properly instead of running from Him.
 

God stood and revealed Himself to Moses in a cloud of glory proclaiming His names, character and nature until Moses' face shone with God's transcendent light. When Moses caught a small glimpse of God's favor he asked to see His glory. When Moses experienced a touch of the glory he prayed for God's continual presence. Moses did not want to move from the presence of God but cried out to know Him from glory to glory. We should immolate Moses' unsatisfied hunger for more of God.

 

Elijah stood before the Lord of host with a spiritual receptivity that was profound. He mentored and passed that spiritual receptivity and awareness onto Elisha who cultivated it until he was able to receive twice the spirit of Elijah. Elisha's prayer urged his spiritually blind servant to look towards God. When he lifted his fearful gazed heavenward his natural eyes were opened to see the angelic host encamped about.
 
Samuel ushered in a new order that both heard the Word of God and saw the Lord appear in vision form. Enoch's walk was engrossed in maintaining a perpetual quest where he explored the rich depths of the new manifestations of God's infinite being.
 

Stephen was full of faith, grace and power to perform miracles. As the religious leaders who were void of power threw stones that crushed his bones and tore his flesh, Stephen fixed his gaze on an open heaven and saw Jesus proudly stand to usher him into eternity.

 

Encountering God Daily

 

The Spirit of the Lord snatched Phillip away in a transportation experience. All of these men of God knew how to go in and out of the heavenly presence of the Lord. We were created to daily encounter the God who created the universe and still holds it in His loving hands. We are designed to walk and talk with the Divine, to feel the breath of the Holy Spirit and the brush of angels wings upon our faces. Why then are we content to settle for the visible, material realm of decay when we were created to navigate the corridors of glory?

 

Solomon received God's gift of wisdom in a dream. He exclaimed, "O God of glory who dwells above the heavens; will You really dwell on the earth? Why the whole sky, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, so how much less this house which I have built!" (1 Kings 8:27-28 Authors' Paraphrase) Solomon's words were the calculations of sound wisdom and ardent study. God's Words are the blessed essence of truth. When God whispers the whole world listens to gain wisdom.

 

Jesus, God's only Son, is our moral compass. He directs us into spiritual places where everything depends upon us yielding to the Holy Spirit's will and being in a harmonious relationship with God. God's greatest desire is for us to know and experience Him. He wants to be our inheritance and supreme part in life. In times of visitation God teaches us what we do not know; so we can adjust our positional gaze to recognize the presence of God. If God is here among us, living in us and everywhere around us, we are dislocated like Jacob, who after gazing upon Jesus in a vision cried out, "Surely God is in this place; and I knew it not!" We must use our limited knowledge to transport us past the mundane and recognizable into the vast spiritual dimensions of the unknown.

 

Barbie Breathitt

 
 
 
 
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