God met me today during corporate worship at church in a very powerful way. In order to explain what He did, I will need to give a little background first.

On Dec 2, the Sci-Fi (Cable TV) channel started a 2 week mini-series called Taken, which was about the reports of UFOs, alien abductions and Area 51 from the 1950s through today. It consisted of 10 episodes, each 2 hours long, shown one a night for weeknights for two weeks. It was a mega production, directed by Steven Spielberg, and it had good acting, an interesting plot and a lot of incredible special effects. Unfortunately, the movie also had a dark side. It tried to portray several people as evil and it sometimes went into graphic details to demonstrate how evil they were. For instance, an evil geneticist exploded a hamster in a microwave, and this was filmed in graphic detail. Several people betrayed trust and murdered family members, often in a gruesome manner. Things like that.

I started watching the series on the first two nights, but I had a busy week and missed the next two episodes. I did pick it up again on Friday of the first week and tried to watch all of the episodes the second week. On Monday of this week, I began to notice that it was a real struggle to get intimacy time with God. I felt sort of hypocritical because I was teaching an internet class on serious discipleship, emphasizing how to develop deep intimacy with God and I was beginning to struggle in that very area.

On Tuesday morning, God invited me back into incredible depths of intimacy with Him. It started at the 6 AM prayer meeting for the city of Hayward. Rodney was just back from a ministry trip to Mozambique, and he shared several stories of divine guidance and divine intervention and it made me really hungry for God to be doing more of that in my life. There was a real increase of intimacy with God and an awareness of Him. I was able to have a fairly good intimacy time with Him in the afternoon. We had our class that evening, starting at 6 PM California time. After class, God wanted me to spend some more time with Him. But I wanted to watch Taken. And He told me, "Teresa, you should not put that into you, it is not good for you and your walk with Me. I don't want you to watch that."

Well, He did not "point blank" forbid me to watch it. I wanted to see it really bad because the episode the night before ended in a very suspenseful place. I knew what God wanted me to do, but I elected to do what I wanted instead. After the movie was over, I tried to approach God. He did not push me away, but I was not able to go very deep or to sense His presence very strongly. I would remember some of the gruesome scenes from the movie while I was trying to pray, then shake off the distraction and try to press into God again. I tried to discuss it with God and He told me that what I had put into myself interfered with my ability to hear from Him and sense His presence. I was disappointed that I'd made a bad choice and not taken God up on His offer for deeper intimacy.

You would think that after that I would have avoided the TV mini-series like the plague. But not so. The Tues night episode also ended at a very suspenseful place, and I watched it again on Wednesday. In fact, I also watched it on Thursday and Friday. This is probably no surprise, but it was not a very good week for me spiritually. I was able to hear God with a clarity and keenness when I ministered ... I had a whole bunch of one-on- one appointments with students from my class.. most of those by phone. God showed up in almost every one in wonderful ways and He empowered me to do some quality ministry in those appointments. But my personal prayer times and intimacy with God were a struggle that week. Also, from time to time some really strange stuff would happen. For instance, I walked in the bedroom and closed the door and thought "I hate my dogs." I immediately shook my head and rebuked that thought because I love my dogs very much. I could not imagine how a thought like that could run through my mind. Later that day, the thought "I hate God and wish I wasn't His servant" ran through my mind. I was horrified at having had such a thought and immediately repented and told God how much I love Him and how glad I am to be His servant. I had about six or seven of those uncharacteristic thoughts during the latter part of the week.

By Saturday, I really regretted my decision to ignore God's advice and participate in something that hindered my ability to walk in intimacy with Him. I really missed His nearness. I spent a lot of my Sat night prayer time calling out to God to help me get back into that deep and intimate relationship with God.

I came to church on Sunday morning with only one item on my agenda... to have an encounter with God. I wanted to be right with Him and back in intimacy with Him no matter what He required of me to get there. I was feeling desperate for Him.

When the worship began, I could sense His nearness again and it felt so good to be aware of His presence. He spoke to me about various things during the first part of worship. That is not uncommon. When I go deep into worship, God often begins to speak to me about various things. It felt so good to be worshipping Him again... I had not been able to do it successfully since last Tuesday.. and that felt like a long time ago. I really got into worship and my spirit seemed to be coming alive as I did so.

After a few songs, an angel came and stood in front of me. That did not startle me because recently I have been seeing angels from time to time. At first I thought it was a "worship angel" who was moving through the service and touching people as they worshipped so that they could move into even greater depths of worship with God. Angels have been showing up in our services a lot these past 2 or 3 months during worship.. various ones of us have been seeing them or sensing their presence. So I thought that was what was going on. I expected that the angel would help me to move into a greater depth of worship and that I would be able to sense more of the Lord's presence as a result.

But this was not God's agenda with this particular angel. Instead, the angel took me before Christ's throne. It was a vision. In real life I was face down on the floor of the sanctuary, prostrate before the Lord. And that is precisely where my physical body stayed for the duration of the vision. But in my senses and awareness, I found myself standing before Christ's throne.

I should explain that the past several months I have had these experiences with God which I describe as 'coming before the judgment seat of Christ.' It is not the final evaluation that all believers will some day go through, where we stand before Christ where He looks at our works and words and actions and evaluates them to see if they are wood, hay and stubble or gold. My "judgment seat" experiences are more like a performance appraisal or annual review that an employer might give his employee. The Lord helps me evaluate areas in my walk with Him that are not where they should be. And then He helps me to make changes in these areas so that I can better line up with what God wants from me. But it "feels" like I am being judged. And there are an amazing number of areas in my life where I fall short of God's standards.

At first these "judgment seat" experiences used to terrify me... I think I was afraid of "flunking." But I have been learning that Jesus' judgments are good.. they are always truthful but there is always a lot of mercy and restoration mixed in with His judgments. When I let Him finger an area, then good things always seem to start happening to me. It is almost like He fixes a problem and once that problem is fixed, I am able to experience more of His joy and peace and fulfillment and anointing. They are scary, but they are also very good, and I have actually (to my utter amazement) started to look forward to these times when the Lord evaluates me in some area of my life or ministry.

As I said earlier in this write-up, the Lord took me into a vision during worship. I was before His throne, before His judgment seat. And guess what? He wanted to talk to me about my decision to put the TV show Taken above His will. The Lord is always very matter of fact and truthful when He "judges" me. He never puts me down or condemns me. But His truth radiates through my being. It reverberates through every part of me and I have a deep witness in my spirit that what He is saying is right and true. It is not possible to feel condemned when He does this... because there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. But there is a deep knowing that He is right and I am wrong and that there is no valid justification for my choice or actions. And there is a great desire to change in this area ... a knowing that I cannot change myself but a confidence that the indwelling Holy Spirit will change and transform me as I yield to Him.

There was a strong sense of His holiness (which is scary) and of His love (which is comforting). He asked me why I had chosen to fill myself with Taken instead of filing myself with Him. Of course, I had no answer to offer Him. It was rebellion, choosing my will over His, and we both knew it. I did not even try to offer Him a reason, I knew there wasn't one that He would find acceptable. Instead I told Him that I had been wrong and disobedient. He explained it to me from His perspective and I knew that I was really "in trouble" for this because He viewed my watching the TV show as willful disobedience. I have been held accountable for willful disobedience in the past, so I was pretty sure He would hold me accountable this time as well.

I began to realize that I was in more trouble with God than I originally thought. The sin was not just in choosing to watch a TV show. The sin was in choosing to ignore God's wishes after I understood them in order to do what I wanted instead. The sin was also in opening myself up to an area (fantasy) where the enemy used to have a stronghold over me. I had received deliverance from a spirit of fantasy about 12 years ago. At that time, God had explained to me that there were certain activities I could not participate in, like reading my science fiction and fantasy books, because that would give the spirits of fantasy something to hold on to in me and get control over some areas of my thinking and life. (This is not to say that reading science fiction or fantasy books is a sin for everyone. But it was something that I needed to stay away from so that I did not give ground back to that spirit of fantasy that had control over me for many years.)

My choice was sort of like a dog returning to it's vomit. God explained it in detail to assure that I understood what I had done. I had told Him that I did not care what He wanted, that I did not value intimacy with Him as much as I valued this TV show. He also showed me that I had willingly given a demonic spirit some ground in my life. The kicker is that I know better than doing that... but I just did not care because I really wanted to watch this TV show.

The really odd part was that even as the Lord was speaking to me about areas where I fell short, it was not possible for me to feel defensive or condemned. I knew that He did not condemn me, that He would forgive and restore me, but that He wanted me to understand what I had done wrong and repent. I knew I had to change my behavior and I was sorry. I was a bit ashamed, but He would not allow me to feel ashamed very long. He is the restorer of my soul.

He told me something interesting. He reminded me of those odd thoughts I'd had, like hearing myself think that I hated my dogs or hated God and then being horrified at having had that thought. And He said that this was the demon speaking those things to my mind. He explained that I had given some control to the demon by my willful disobedience to choose the TV mini-series Taken over God. And the spirit of fantasy had claimed it's legal right to have a hold over me because of my choice. It did not have complete control over me, but I had given it some ground, and now it was actively trying to gain even more ground in me.

I told the Lord that I wanted the demon totally out of me and asked Him to remove it. He told me that right now the demon is "shut down" and not allowed to interfere with my dialog with God. However, if I wanted to get rid of the demon and all of it's influence over me, I would need to go to my pastor and "confess" what I'd done and ask him to pray for me.

It was all so matter of fact, as though we were discussing some technical problem back when I used to be a software engineer. I knew He was speaking truth to me, and I knew I'd fallen way short -- but I never once felt condemned. I felt His nearness and His love even as He spoke to me and brought correction. I knew that He accepted me and that He was not going to push me away for my rebellion. And I was surrounded with His peace throughout the entire encounter. It felt wonderful to be near Him, even though He was explaining what I'd done wrong and correcting me.

Worship began to well up within me. Soon I was worshipping Him before His throne and feeling the warmth of His love on me. It was so wonderful to be in His presence. I was grateful that He'd corrected me because I knew His motivation behind it was restoration and not condemnation. I felt that restoration wash over me and was so close to Him. I am not sure how long I was lost in worship, but after a while I became aware of the church service going on around me.

I was not sure if I was still in a vision or back in service, so I tried to move from flat on my face to a kneeling position. I opened my eyes briefly and glanced quickly around. I was definitely back in service. The worship team was up front and a few of the youth were kneeling. I closed my eyes again and was lost in His presence. I was keenly aware of His nearness, of His goodness, of His love. I wanted to honor and serve Him, I wanted to please Him... just because He was so wonderful. It felt SO GOOD to be consumed with Him, to be so intently aware of Him. I felt so accepted in the beloved.

After a bit I became aware of Rodney (the senior pastor) talking in the background. I did not pay much attention to it at first because my attention was focused on God. He felt so good! I felt so content and so happy just being in His presence. Gradually I became more and more aware of Rodney talking and less aware of God's tangible presence surrounding me. I realized that Rodney was preaching his sermon (which meant worship had ended) and I was kneeling in the front row. So I slid into my seat and began to pay attention to the sermon. Normally I would be very embarrassed to find myself kneeling when everyone else was in their seats listening to the sermon. But it was not possible to feel embarrassed at that moment. I still felt a lingering sense of God's nearness and of His love and acceptance.

When the sermon was over and ministry time had begun, I went up to Rodney to do what Jesus had instructed me to do. I went up to confess my willful disobedience in watching Taken when God asked me not to. I also confessed that I'd yielded ground to the enemy and given him control in an area I'd previously been set free from. I was still a bit "shaken" from my vision, so I was not good at expressing myself. I am not sure if I shared it in a way that Rodney could understand. He prayed to rebuke condemnation (I was not feeling any that morning) but he did not address the demon explicitly.

I remembered that God had told me He would get rid of the demon's hold over me when I confessed to my pastor and asked him to pray for me. I had done what God had asked. I had this really deep confidence in my spirit that God would do what He said He would do regardless of whether or not Rodney explicitly rebuked the demon. Then I felt God's presence come on me really strongly again and I was lost in it for a while.

The Lord has been meeting me in neat ways throughout the day. I have not had any more of those strange thoughts and I have had a sense of His nearness. He is SO GOOD! I love Him so much.

I felt the Lord wanted me to share this testimony publicly for two reasons. First, so that you will know that His judgments are good and not something to be feared. The second is for those of you who the enemy tries to torment with condemnation. When Jesus corrects us, He does not condemn us. He requires us to change our inappropriate and sinful behaviors, but He does not push us away or reject us. Instead He loves us and He restores us and draws us closer to Him.