The Practicalities Of The Prophetic

People seem to have a set of expectations of what a divine visitation (God appearing directly to you) is like. Often our expectations do not line up with God's reality. My goal in this lesson is to share a little bit about what a divine visitation may be like. This will not be a comprehensive coverage of the topic, it will simply wet your appetite.

First, it is important to understand that not all prophetic people receive divine visitations. Some denominations teach that a prophet will always have some type of commissioning vision like Jeremiah or Ezekiel did, where God comes and visits them personally to commissions them to the office of prophet. It is true that some prophets experience this, but not all of them do. For instance, Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest prophet that every lived .. yet we have not record of John having any sort of Divine visitation (though the Holy Spirit came on him while he was still in the womb). The truth is that person can have a mantle of prophet and be very powerfully used of God and still never have one of these experiences.

There are times when God sovereignly decides to manifest His presence to one of His children in a very tangible way. When this occurs, the person is not simply having a vision "in the spirit," they are having a direct encounter with Almighty God. God comes to where you are physically and He manifests Himself to you and interacts with you. We call this a "divine visitation." When the Lord visits us in this manner, we often see a greater aspect of His glory or His holiness. It is usually overwhelming. Even so, the Lord is still veiling His full glory and presence from us, as we simply would not be able to handle it. A divine visitation is can be a frightening experience. We are often overwhelmed by His holiness and keenly aware of our own lack thereof (by comparison). However, there are also times when God masks His presence and we do not realize it is Him appearing to us. Let's look at a few scriptural examples of visitations:

Being Unaware of a Divine Visitation

It may sound startling to think that Jesus Himself might appear to you and you might not realize it was Him. But this happened more than once in scripture. Let me share two examples. In John 21:4, the resurrected Jesus appeared Peter and some of the disciples while they were fishing and they did not know it was Jesus. The bible says, "Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus."

And in Luke 24:13-32, the resurrected Jesus appeared to two disciples as they were walking to Emmaus. Jesus walked with them, dialogued with them and expounded scripture with them. And they had no idea it was Jesus. Verse 16 says, "But they were kept from recognizing Him." In other words, God purposely kept His identity secret on this visitation. God finally revealed Jesus to them in verse 31, which says, "Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight."

Scripture Examples of Divine Visitations

A divine visitation is when God Himself appears to a person or to a group of people. When I ask people to give me a scripture example of a divine visitation, most people cite God appearing to Moses in the burning bush. That was certainly a spectacular supernatural encounter, but that visitation was an angel and not God Himself. Steven expounded on this in Acts 7:30, where he said, "After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai."

However, Moses really did have a divine visitation from God. It occurred after He had been serving Him and had delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt. In Exodus 33, Moses asked God to show him His glory. God agreed to do so, but placed certain restrictions on it, saying that "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live." Instead, God put Moses in the cleft of the rock and covered him with His hand while He passed by and then He removed His hand and allowed Moses to see his back. (This story is told in Exodus 33:18-23). What an awesome experience that must have been for Moses!

There are many other stories of Divine visitations, where God Himself visited human beings and revealed Himself to them. God masks the full extend of His glory in most of them, and each visitation seems to mask His glory to a different degree. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit manifest His presence in the form of a dove and the Father's voice spoke audibly to the crowds and said, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). Peter, James and John were present when Jesus was transfigured before them and spoke to Moses and Elijah. Again God the Father was present (as a voice but not visible). He said, in Matt 17:5, "this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!"

So far, all of our examples have been visitations of God to His people before Jesus ascended into heaven. You might ask, does God still visit His children after Jesus ascended and the Holy Spirit was released on the Church? Or you may wonder, does Jesus sometimes appear to one of His followers after His ascension? The answer to this is yes.

And we have a scriptural precedence to fall back on. Jesus ascended into Heaven long before Saul began to pursue and persecute believers. Saul was a real threat to the early Church and many believers were terrified of him (see Acts 9:1-2). Paul had a divine visitation from the Ascended Jesus in Acts 9:3-8.

Paul was not alone when Jesus appeared to him. Everyone present knew something had happened, but Paul's experience was different than the others. The others heard the sound of Jesus' voice, but they did not see anyone (verse 7). Saul did not see Jesus directly, but he did see a blinding light (verse 3). It is clear that Paul experienced the presence and majesty of the Lord for two reasons. First, God's presence knocked Paul to the ground. In other words, he was overcome with the power and presence of God. Second, we see that Paul recognized it was Someone important who appeared to him, since he addressed this person as "Lord" in verse 5. Finally, we know that it was Jesus Himself who appeared to Saul on that Damascus road because in verse 5, Jesus identified who He was.

Scripture tells us that Paul had a divine visitation from Jesus that occurred some time after Jesus had already ascended into Heaven. We also know that the result of that visitation was life-changing. Saul's life was so revolutionized by his encounter with Jesus that he changed his whole lifestyle and began promoting the gospel instead of trying to squelch it. In fact, he even changed his name from Saul to Paul.

Let's look at one more divine visitation. John was in exile on the island of Patmos. On the Lord's day, he pulled away by himself to worship God, and he had a divine visitation from Jesus. (Rev 1:10-18). John saw Jesus in His unveiled glory. He reported it this way in verse 17: "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: 'Do not be afraid...'."

I have my own theory on the falling down "as though dead" that we see John do here and Daniel also experienced. I go back to Ex 33:20, where God said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see Me and live." John fell down at Jesus feet "as though dead." I cannot guarantee this is the way it happened, but I think that maybe John really was struck dead by looking on the presence and glory of God, and then (verse 17) Jesus laid His hand on John and raised him from the dead. Again this is just my own musings. But there is one part that we definitely know from scripture. John was a godly man, an apostle, and yet he was terrified when he had a divine visitation from Jesus. God's presence can be a frightening and overwhelming thing.

Divine Visitations Today

I know people who claim they have had a visitation from Jesus. The details of their stories vary some what, but there are some common elements. In all cases, there was an overwhelming sense of one of the attributes of God.. e.g., His holiness, His love, His power, etc. Also, the visitation from the Lord resulted in a drastic change in each of the person's life. Most of them were commissioned to some form of serving the Lord and often some sort of anointing or gifting was imparted.

Let me share a little from my own experiences. These are very personal and very deep experiences to me, so I will will only share some portions of them. I have had two times where I was physically in the Lord's presence.

The first time, I was a relatively new believer. I was saved in the Jesus Movement and we knew Jesus as the God of love and destiny (e.g. He had a purpose for our lives) and we also saw Him do some physical healings. We did not talk about holiness much in the Jesus movement, at least not in the part I was exposed to in the early 1970s. The emphasis was on God's love and His ability to give purpose to our lives. While we knew that Jesus saved us from our sins, we really had no teaching on holiness. We never spoke of the holiness of God, we did not even understand what the concept meant.

I had been in fervent prayer about something. At the time I had studied the prophecies in Revelation a great deal, and was considered somewhat of a local expert on them. I had some pressing questions for the Lord relating to my concept of the "last days" and had been praying and seeking Him for revelation on this. I got much more than I bargained for. Jesus Himself appeared to me.

I could see the form of a man, only He radiated light, and was so bright it was difficult to look at because it hurt my eyes. I could make out many details, but I could not see His face.. it was like looking at the sun.. just a brilliance of light radiating from where His face was. But the most noticeable thing was this intense awareness of the Holiness of God. His Holiness was a concept that I knew nothing about at that time. But it radiated from Him. I also became painfully aware of my own sin and inadequacies before Him. I literally became like a blubbering idiot. I forget everything I had wanted to ask Him.. it went clean out of my mind. I was so totally overwhelmed with His holiness that I found myself praying over and over for Him to cover me with the blood of Jesus and forgive my sins. Then the Lord began to speak to me about His call and destiny on my life, and I was forever changed. Also, that experience led me to begin studying what the bible had to say about the Holiness of God.

Many years later, I had backslidden and spent about 3 years or so away from God. My lifestyle was not particularly "sinful" but there was no room for God in it. Then I began to have a hunger for God and I desired to come back to Him. I knew I had to approach God on His terms this time. I had once told the Lord that I did not care what He wanted, I was going to do my own thing. I told him that if I were allowed to repent later, maybe I would; if not, oh well... Needless to say, I was horrified at that behavior when I began to approach God again. I wondered if He would ever forgive me for having said that to Him.

I struggled with this for several weeks, then I had a divine visitation from the Lord. It was different than the first visitation. He still emulated holiness, but in this visitation He did not radiate bright light. I could look into His face and see His features. (I am sure that Jesus was still in a form that veiled His full extent of His glory, but what He did allow me to see was pretty overwhelming.) I was afraid to look at His face, and a "Fear of the Lord" was over me. I felt terrified and wanted to run away, but I did not dare do so.

Jesus addressed my earlier rebellion and He asked me to hold out my hands. In my mind's eye, I pictured a naughty school child standing before her teacher, about to rapped on the knuckles with a ruler. I held my hands out in that manner, palms down expecting to get smacked. Jesus was holding a stick at that time, and I fully expected Him to use it on me. And I knew I deserved it. I was unable to look at His face because I felt such guilt and shame. So I stood there with my hands outstretched, looking down at my own feet. I waited for the blow to land, but it never came. Instead I felt a gentle brushing on the back of one of my hands. I was so startled that I looked up. Jesus had bent down and kissed my hand! I was shocked. I deserved punishment, but He had mercy and grace.

Then His gaze met mine and I looked into His eyes. They were filled with love and compassion. For the first time I understood what the forgiveness of Jesus was all about. Right in that instant my rebelliousness melted out of me and I became fully committed to obeying Him. (The Lord did more in that visitation, but I am not going to share it with you just now.) That visitation was about 10 years ago. From the day of that visitation until now, I have been deeply and fully committed to obeying Him because I love Him. I saw Jesus and it changed my attitudes and my behaviors.

When Jesus shows up in a divine visitation, it will have a profound impact on us. It will change our lives. I don't believe it is possible for a child of God to come into His very presence and then to go away unchanged.