Heaven Now!

Sometime around 2008, I felt that the Lord was telling me to write about truths I’d learned which had brought manifestation of God’s power in my life and a great awareness of God’s presence. At times I physically began to feel the place around me vibrating with God’s goodness. I remember reaching out my hand and feeling currents of love flowing out of my fingers, and at one time it was God’s love was flowing through my whole body from head to foot and I could feel physically as a current going through me.

Some years later I wrote the Heaven Now Trilogy in order to help people experience heaven’s reality now and see everything around them become like heaven. I encouraged people to get a vision of all that’s possible in Christ and not settle for experiencing anything less. I talked about beholding the Lord, getting rid of the veils that keep us from seeing Him as he is, and understanding the implications of Jesus’s death, resurrection, and incarnation. I also shared the testimonies of what these truths did in my life.

The trilogy is full of powerful truths and I often tangibly felt the Lord’s presence as a weight and wept as I wrote. However, I know feel that there is one really helpful thing I didn’t talk much about in the trilogy and didn’t understand so well at that time. I’m still learning!

Jeff Randle and Unveiled Life

Two or three years ago, I got connected with Jeff Randle. As you guys know, one of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit that Corinthians talks about is Power, and Jeff had some of the most extreme testimonies of power manifestations that I’d ever heard. His heart was to teach other Christians to walk in extreme power like Elijah, using the same faith that we exercise in ministering healing to change the course of world events, praying such prayers that we see the results in the news the next day!

In fact, Jeff prayed like I had begun to pray as a teenager. I would be praying for a country and all the sudden I would feel this power come on me as I imagined societies transformed and communities filled with a holy awareness of God. The testimonies of past revival that I had read and heard planted something in me, and I had to see it in my time! I began loudly declaring that the people’s eyes would be open to see Jesus and declaring what was going to change, tears pouring out. One time I was praying for Russia and in a moment it was like my whole van was filled with power and I was screaming, weeping, and declaring that Russia would be filled with the knowledge of Jesus as the waters cover the seas.

I’m not one to quickly jump on the latest bandwagon in the Charismatic Movement (as long-time blog readers probably know), and having crazy stories to tell doesn’t impress me in and of itself. But as I got to hear Jeff and what he was teaching, I felt that what he was saying was really rooted in truth and in the gospel. As much as what Jeff was saying was a big stretch for many Christians, I actually felt that his teaching avoided errors and pitfuls that I’d seen in some of the current Charismatic fads.

Jeff taught a lot of the things I’d written about in my Heaven Now Trilogy. In fact, he often said things about the way God’s power manifests that I could relate to so closely and I thought “Only a person who has experienced this would understand what Jeff is saying.” Especially around 2008/2009 things had begun to get a bit crazy for me with the manifestation of God’s glory, so that people saw were talking about angels in my house, supernatural winds blowing, manifestation of scent from heaven, and even a manifestation of supernatural rain in my house. I had seen what triggered many such events, and I could tell that Jeff knew what he was talking about.

You can click here to check out the Unveiled Life website, the Unveiled Life facebook page, and the Unveiled Life YouTube channel.

Stillness

One thing Jeff was talking about that I hadn’t was “stillness” and waiting on God. Even so, it tied in closely with what I’d written about beholding the Lord until our countenances glow with his goodness. It was a way of exercising and growing strong in faith and learning to rest in the Lord. It was shutting out the distractions in order to behold the Lord’s glory and  What he was saying was Biblical, and I realized how much it would have helped me if I had practiced it more earlier.

In fact, when I thought about it, I had experienced the “stillness” that Jeff was talking about. As I watched Jesus heal people, I often held my hand on someone’s shoulder without saying much until their pain was gone. When I met someone who needed to be healed it felt like time stopped and the person in front of me was the most important thing in the world. There was such a peace that sometimes both I and the person receiving ministry wept.

Michael Van Vlymen is another Facebook friend whom I’ve interacted with at times, as well as reading several of his books. Michael is a really solid guy who has a lot of wild testimonies and is well-grounded in truth. I recently read Michael’s book Waiting on God: Spending Time In His Presence in Silence, Stillness, and Expectation.

As Michael went from prayer and worship into waiting silently on the Lord, angels began to visit him and heaven broke loose in his life! As I’ve learned about other people who have walked in God’s power and led revival, I’m realizing that many of them practiced silence in God’s presence. In fact, I just heard Bill Johnson talking about how he takes 5 minutes to just sit and know “God loves me.” 

I Would Have Avoided A Lot Of Trouble By Waiting On The Lord!

So guys, I have to be honest: This is hard for me sometimes, and I have a lot to grow!

I love watching Mark Hemans‘ videos of healing and deliverance, and I’ve mentioned him to you guys before. I just listened to this sermon of his and I felt like it was correction to me from the Lord. For me that’s not a heavy thing. It’s encouraging! I’ve happy to see where I’ve gone wrong because I can avoid the same mistakes next time!

In this message Mark talks about how Saul was moved by his circumstances and so he failed to wait on the Lord. I realized that I would have avoided a lot of painful mistakes and things that sidetracked me if I had learned to wait on the Lord. It would have helped me to keep continuing more consistently in the reality I talk about in the Heaven Now Trilogy.

After listening to Mark’s sermon, I took about two and a half hours to just be silent and wait in expectation on God. It was difficult! But my experience made me realize how important this is for me and how it builds faith. Faith is rooted in rest and quiet trust, and anxiety takes us right out of faith if we yield to it. Waiting in silence teaches us to say “no” to anxiety! It also really teaches us to say “no” to being moved by feelings or natural senses. Waiting in silence requires us to choose to trust God. This is how it can be a part of building extreme faith.

As I’ve taught about incarnation, I’ve often emphasized our part in partnering with God. It’s true. This is a partnership, and that’s how God’s power manifests. And if you want to see people healed and delivered you should learn to be aggressive against sickness and oppression. Yet at times, in practice, I’ve fallen into the trap of overemphasizing my part in this partnership and losing the quiet trust. It’s one way to get out of a position of faith. And remember Jesus’s words about not using vain repetition when we pray, thinking we will be heard because of many words? What if we pray by making our requests known to God, then waiting in silence and eager expectation as the peace of God, which passes all understanding, fills us?

Scriptures About Waiting On God And Stillness

Guys, my passion is to see Christians experiencing heaven now and doing their part in seeing the earth filled with the knowledge of God’s glory as the waters have covered the seas. I try to share what works and what has helped me. I’ve shared much of that in the three Heaven Now books. I also encourage you to get Michael Van Vlyman’s book or check out Jeff Randle’s Unveiled Life power school to learn more about stillness. But for now, here are a few scriptures about quieting our souls and waiting expectantly on the Lord:

Psalm 27:14 (NIV) Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Psalm 130:5 (NIV) I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

Psalm 37:7 (NIV) Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Psalm 40:1 (NIV) I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

Micah 7:7 (NIV) But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.

Psalm 62:5 (NIV) Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.

Isaiah 40:31 (NRSV) but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Lamentations 3:25-26 (NRSV)The Lord is good to those who wait for him,to the soul that seeks him.It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

I just shared a sample above, but click here for a list of 39 Bible verses about waiting for the Lord.

Why don’t you try it? Present your requests to God, and then take some time to just sit quietly in expectation. Or go from praise and worship into silent reverence. Stay in the moment, and be still and know that He is God!