A Face To Face Encounter

I hope today's post will make up for the lack of posts in the last few weeks.

In Part One of this two-part teaching entitled: A Face to Face Encounter, Todd Bentley defines supernatural encounters and experiences based on specific biblical evidence. Then, as he shares his face to face encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul, your belief-grid concerning heavenly experiences is sure to be both broadened and challenged.

In Part Two, as Todd releases meaty portions of what the apostle Paul taught him, (in the context that Jesus Christ is the door to every heavenly encounter) you’ll be inspired to press in for your own face to face encounter with the Lord.

A FACE TO FACE ENCOUNTER

by Revivalist Todd Bentley - [as edited by Kathy Thorne]Part 1 of 2

To come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ is to come face to face with the goodness and glory of God! Oh to be a friend of God like Abraham and Moses were; for out of their intimate friendship with the Lord they had a face to face encounter with Him (Gen. 17:1; Ex. 33:11).

Listen. Today, for a deeper understanding of the apostolic, we need to note that every apostle in the Bible had been with the Lord. Not only were they friends of God who had face to face encounters with Him, they also had supernatural encounters and prophetic experiences. In fact, what made Paul an apostle was that he was taken up into the third heaven where he saw the Lord (1 Cor. 9:1; 2 Cor. 12: 2-4). That’s where his apostleship came from because he wasn't yet a disciple or an apostle when Jesus was physically on earth.

JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER

Now I want to ask an important question. Can Paul's experience also be ours today? The answer is "yes" and I say this because Jesus Christ is the same today as He was yesterday when Paul was on earth, and He's the same forever (Heb. 13:8).

Now consider this: Jesus' healing virtue is still released through His trusted servants today and that means that He heals people today just like He did two thousand years ago.

What a great promise when it comes to healing, but why not for the supernatural? If He's the same today, then why can't He visit me like He visited Abraham? If He's the same today, why can't He visit me like He visited Daniel? Why can't He visit me like He visited John? Why can't He visit me like He visited Isaiah? How about Ezekiel?

Yes, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that makes what's available in "Bible days" available today. It's not just about healing and laying hands on the sick and seeing miracles, as great as these are, but it's also about supernatural encounters with God.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead and over five hundred people saw Him for forty days in His resurrected body (1 Cor. 15:6)? Do you believe supernatural things can take place today?

I'm asking this because we're okay with angels showing up and speaking to Mary and Joseph, but we're not okay with angels showing up and speaking to us. We're okay with Paul being taken into heaven, or what he called the third heaven - caught up into a place called paradise. We're okay with that. It's good for Paul, or it's good for Elijah. Yet both Paul and Elijah were men just like we are, and as you know, they're both in heaven today. So are Abraham and Isaiah.

They aren't on earth anymore for God to interact with. But God, by His very nature, wants to interact with somebody supernaturally. My question is: Why not you? Why should anyon's experience in Christianity today be any different from what people experienced in Bible days?

Take Peter. He was in prison (See Acts 12:1–17). While an all night prayer meeting took place (on his behalf in someone’s house) an angel of the Lord came to Peter in his cell and his chains miraculously fell off his hands. Then he was led by the angel out of jail into the city. Peter made his way to the prayer meeting and when he arrived and knocked on the door they didn't really believe that he was at the door! They said (paraphrased): "Ah, it's not Peter, it's his angel."

My point is this. As God pours out His greater glory, we're going to hear about supernatural encounters and prophetic experiences, and they're going to be based on the way God moved supernaturally, in ancient times, for people in the Bible.

ENCOUNTERS AND PROPHETIC EXPERIENCES ARE INTENTIONAL

What's the purpose for supernatural encounters and prophetic experiences? You might be thinking: We've got the Bible and that's enough! For me, it's about intimacy, but not just that. It's: Why wait for your inheritance? When you get to heaven what do you think you're going to see? What do you expect it to be like in heaven? After all, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the kingdom of God is within you, so why wait?

I'm hungry now. I've got an inheritance, I'm a joint heir, I don't have to wait for: One day I'm going to be in heaven. Thank God that'll be fullness. I'll be in eternity. What's more, we don't only need greater faith, we also need a greater expectation that God wants to impart something to us. We need an expectation that He is going to touch us; He is going to speak to us; He is going to visit us.

Look. Heaven is real; it's tangible, and the glory of heaven is real. It changes everything it touches. Furthermore, God wants the reality of heaven to be made known to His friends. For Jesus told His disciples - after He established the fact they were His friends if they did what He commanded - "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15).

God is looking for true friends with whom He can reveal His glory. There is a purpose for this desire. For instance, as God has revealed different aspects of His glory to me this year I've gained a deeper friendship with God. This has helped me to keep pressing in for all the fullness of God that I can contain, not just for my satisfaction, but ultimately so that He can work through me and cause others to know Him and be saved.

Now I want to share about an amazing prophetic experience concerning God's glory that I had in a meeting in Redding, California this year. Here we go!

JESUS CHRIST IS THE GATE, THE DOOR, AND THE LADDER

In that meeting, about an hour before I was due to speak, I was suddenly overcome by the Holy Spirit. Feeling somewhat weak, as if I was going to go into a trance (a biblical trance like the apostle Peter had - Acts 10:9, 10), I asked my team to take me to a nearby place called "The Green Room."

Sitting down on the couch I could feel a strong overwhelming sense of the presence of God and I knew I was going to fall into a trance. I was going to have a supernatural encounter. Then, in the chair, with my eyes open, I had an open vision. Jesus appeared right in front of me. It was as though He stepped right out of heaven, the Lord Jesus Himself, and stood before me as a Man.

I saw that behind the Lord, almost like a projection, a vision of heaven shone from the back of His body; a trail of heaven followed Him, it was projected behind him. It was as though a window was open and I could look right into heaven itself. But heaven had come from the Lord. In fact, heaven is the Lord.

Out of the Lord came beams of white and golden light. Such brightness! From out of the white, golden, light came other brilliant colors - blue, purple, green, red and pink were the main ones -like rainbows.

Pink prophetically represents love and emotions. I saw what looked to be ten rainbows coming from the Lord, Himself. It reminded me of the description of the throne room in Ezekiel 1:28 -"Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD." I even saw rivers of oil, rivers of honey, and I saw bridges.

Then the Lord did two things to me. He walked up to me and He put His hand inside my belly and He gave me a supernatural enablement to live through what was about to take place. He was establishing me so I wouldn't die. I say that because when I saw heaven I wanted to pass the Lord and go right in. But the Lord said, "If you pass Me right now, you will die. Todd, you are not just having a vision, you are in heaven and this is real." The Lord said, "I am the gate, I am the door, I am the ladder. There is no heaven without Me."

He said, if you pass Me, you will die. Something sustained me. He put His hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes and said, "Peace I give you, not as the world gives," and a great peace came over me like a vibration and my whole body trembled while I received the peace of God.

Then the vision faded. Yet I was so overcome by the glory of God I just laid on the floor in the Green Room and as I was lying there, unexpectedly I was caught up instantly into the spirit. I was no longer aware that I was in a conference setting. All of a sudden I was standing on a grassy hill and I saw still waters. I saw a river flowing between its banks. It was like Psalm 23, green pastures, and I was looking down.

I thought the (flowing) river was going to be pure, living water but as I looked I saw that it was a river of oil and honey. Next the colors changed from pink and rainbows, white light and the color of gold, to orangey red. Everywhere I looked was the appearance of amber. Everywhere, it was like a sunrise or a sunset, red or ruby or orangey red.

I looked up to my left and there was a bridge, and my first thought was: What a secret place. Still waters, I am in Paradise, this is Psalm 23. Look at that beautiful bridge! I just want to sit up on the bridge. That's what I was thinking. The butterflies were flying by and I felt the peace of God; I was overcome by the shalom. Wow. I thought: Look at that bridge.

Now, when you think something in heaven, you are there, so although I don't actually remember moving, the next thing I knew I was actually sitting on the bridge. While in this heavenly experience sitting up on the bridge I saw someone walking toward me. I knew in my spirit it was Paul the apostle. He walked right onto the bridge and he sat down next to me. He had this blank scroll in his hand and he started writing with a pen (which was more like a feather with ink).

When he started writing it looked like Hebrew and he would say, "Eat this." He continued writing on the scroll, saying "Eat this" again and again. But when I realized I was eating, I noticed that I wasn't eating by my mouth, I was eating by my belly. He was stuffing his writings inside my spirit right past by head, putting some kind of divine revelation right into my spirit.

Then Paul spoke to me about the message of the hour for the Church and much more. Yet, it would be best to hold his inspiring message and the other heavenly adventures in connection with Paul until Part Two next week.

Website: www.freshfire.ca

I encourage you to seek to discover more of our wonderful, supernatural God. There is muich more to our life in God than we already know.