Full

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19

If you’ve ever stuffed yourself at dinner, you know that feeling. You feel full and heavy. But if you’ve ever fasted for a few days, you know the opposite feeling. You feel lighter but not full. What if, spiritually, you could feel both simultaneously?

“Somehow, I feel both lighter and fuller at the same time!“

This is a quote from a person who had just received inner healing and deliverance prayer. Read it again and let those words really sink in. This is what happens when the power of God comes to set people free from the heavy spiritual oppression of demonic spirits and then fills them with the Holy Spirit. When God comes in power to set you free, you feel both lighter and fuller at the same time. Only God can do that!

As we pray for people and these oppressive spirits leave, we always ask the Holy Spirit to fill the places in the person’s life that have just been vacated. We invite the Holy Spirit to fill every place in their heart, soul, mind, and body that had previously been occupied by the enemy.

Paul prayed something similar for the Ephesians when he prayed that they would be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” This is also what he was saying when he told the Ephesians,

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit…
Ephesians 5:18

Instead of being filled with the heaviness of sin and darkness, we are called to be people who walk in the lightness of the Spirit because we are filled with the Spirit.

If you have a heaviness that seems to follow you around, you may discover that you need freedom. You may have some spiritual parasites that have globbed onto your life and are sucking the life out of you. Demonic spirits love to bring a heaviness that feels empty. Instead, the Holy Spirit brings a lightness that feels full. This is the difference between the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of God.

Jesus paid a high price so that we could walk in freedom, lightness, and fullness. His Name is the only Name with the authority to set people free from demonic darkness and usher in the fullness of the Spirit.

All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!”
Luke 4:36

he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth…
Philippians 2:8-10

God’s Familiar Presence in Unfamiliar Places

Come near to God and he will come near to you.
James 4:8

God’s presence is sometimes a tricky thing to talk about. For much of my life, talk of His presence stayed in the realm of theology. I affirmed that His presence was everywhere; He is omnipresent. But then I would have an occasional moment when I felt His presence. I didn’t know much about God’s tangible presence (or sometimes called his “manifest presence”), but I knew it was a different category than just His omnipresence.

Then, in 2014, I began to have increasing encounters with God’s tangible presence, increasing both in frequency and intensity. I began to understand that God’s tangible presence could directly impact not only our emotions but also our physical body. There is something different that happens when a measure of God’s presence steps through the thin veil that separates the natural realm from the spirit realm. This is what the priests experienced when they brought the ark of the covenant into Solomon’s Temple for the first time:

When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.
1 Kings 8:10-11

In my own life this looked like encounters with the Holy Spirit that would completely interrupt my normal functioning. At first, these encounters would simply be me weeping uncontrollably as the presence of God seemed to intensify. These weeping sessions wouldn’t just happen in church services. They would happen when I was alone in prayer or reading a book at Starbucks. This was not emotionalism. These encounters would happen at very unemotional times and in very unemotional places. This was God putting his finger on my heart, and my emotions would respond accordingly.

In 2016, after receiving impartation prayer, I began to have physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit. If you’re not familiar with the term “physical manifestation of the Spirit,” it just means that my body would react involuntarily to the increased presence of God.

These manifestations started with shaking and trembling in the presence of God. Then I started getting side crunches. My oblique muscle on my right side would contract on its own outside of my control. Imagine how your oblique muscles contract when someone pokes you with their finger in your side. But imagine it happening involuntarily in response to the Holy Spirit rather than to a poke. Then a few weeks later, it started happening on my left side.

A few weeks after that the Lord added another manifestation. My right hand started to curl up when the presence of God would intensify. Imagine the muscles in the middle of your palm contracting on their own apart from your control, like your hand was trying to grip something using only the muscles in your palm and not your fingers. Or imagine how your hand would respond if someone drove a spike through the center of your palm. That muscle contraction (minus the pain) is what it feels like when it happens. Then, a few weeks later, this started happening on my left hand.

A few months after that I was given another one. I was at Starbucks, and my right hip flexor contracted on its own while I was in the middle of reading a book on the miraculous. This one has even happened to me a few times while I was driving and singing worship songs. The presence of God would increase as I worshiped and my leg would get pulled off the accelerator as my hip flexor pulled up on its own. It’s a wild experience to have your body react to the Holy Spirit in such a way that your foot gets pulled off the gas pedal while you’re driving down the highway.

All of these physical manifestations of the Spirit continue to this day, and I experience them daily. The only reason I describe these in detail is because they have become a sort of “array of sensors” that can pick up on the increased presence of God or move of the Holy Spirit. They often act like a Geiger counter picking up on the radioactivity of the Spirit. The more tangible God’s presence, the more they go off.

We usually assume when someone picks up on the presence of God, they are having a subjective experience that is not quantifiable. And while that is mostly true, these physical manifestations of the Spirit have made picking up on the increase of God’s presence a more objective, measurable experience for me. The unexpected result of all of of this is that God has given me the ability to sense His increased presence anywhere that I am, and it’s not always in a church service.

There have been a few places that I picked up on the increased, tangible presence of God at moments and in places that I wouldn’t have expected. I’ll just mention two here:

Middle school choral performance: Last year, as a family, we went to watch my oldest son’s band performance. I wasn’t particularly interested in listening to the middle school chorus perform, but they were a part of the concert. As the kids sang, they did fine for a middle school, but my son wasn’t in the chorus so I was only mildly engaged.

But then I began to feel that familiar feeling of God’s increased presence. It totally caught me off guard. Multiple manifestations of the Spirit began to happen to me, and as they did, I took notice. I began to ask the Lord what was happening. He began to give me mental pictures of angels singing along with the kids and a sense of His pleasure when children sing. They weren’t singing worship songs. This was a public middle school performance. It was just the fact that children were singing, and angels with them, that drew in the increased presence of God.

This wasn’t me feeling proud of my kid as a dad. My son wasn’t up there. I didn’t know any of these kids. This was the increased presence of God descending right in the middle of that auditorium. The Lord began to show me how much He loved each of these kids, regardless of whether they knew anything about Him.

Children’s ballet dance performance at an outdoor festival: This one just happened the other day, and it really caught me by surprise. As a family we attended a local outdoor festival so that we could watch my middle son do a taekwondo demonstration with the Demo Team that he is a part of.

Before the taekwondo demonstration, a local ballet studio performed a dance routine for the audience of mostly parents. There was no stage. They had to perform their routine in a grass field. The girls ranged in age from what looked like 6 to 14 years old. They did great, but they were only kids in tennis shoes and tutus. This wasn’t a professional artistic masterpiece. These were little girls doing their best, which is why it surprised me to have the presence of God come like a freight train in the middle of their dance routine.

I was just standing there, again only half interested, when tears began welling up in my eyes. My side started crunching and my hand started to curl up. I began to feel the intense presence of God as they danced. I couldn’t believe it! They were dancing to the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman, which I love, but could hardly be mistaken for worship music.

I asked God about it as it was happening. Again, like the middle school chorus moment, I got the impression that angels were joining these girls in their dance movements. I could feel God’s pleasure. I could sense His smile. He loves it when children dance. Any children. Any kind of dancing. But especially the beauty of ballet. I’m not really a “dance” kinda guy, so it was really eye-opening to sense that God absolutely loves it when children dance. God was like one of the proud parents looking on, maybe the proudest of parents, and His presence was palpable.

If I hadn’t been given this “array of Holy Spirit sensors” in the form of physical manifestations of the Spirit, I’m not sure I would have picked up on the increase of God’s presence in these unassuming places. In fact, I’m fairly confident I wouldn’t have. I’m too oblivious. But with these tools, these sensors, I find that God’s increased presence happens in some unlikely places.

Conversely, I’ve been a part of quite a few worship services where His tangible presence doesn’t increase at all. Maybe it’s the distracted, disinterested congregation, or the unyielded worship leaders, or the pastor’s need to control the service. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, many church services often leave the Holy Spirit unwelcome and uninvited.

All of this is a good reminder to me that God delights in drawing near to people. He loves it. He’ll draw near at unlikely times and in unlikely places. But He’s not always welcome to do so in church. The Holy Spirit’s tangible presence is not always invited. And in those times, He will not increase His tangible presence. Unfortunately, He is often willing to do exactly what we’ve asked Him to do. And too often (with our actions, words, or heart-posture) we’ve asked Him to stay quiet, stay on the sidelines, and let us manage on our own.

5 Types of Impartation

Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.
Deuteronomy 34:9

Impartation isn’t a word that every Christian tradition uses, but every Christian tradition does it in one form or another. To “impart” means “to give, convey, bestow, release, transmit, or confer.” For example, “The teacher imparted knowledge to her students.” Or, “The spices imparted flavor to the dish.”

Impartation carries with it the idea that something of value is being released or transmitted from one thing and given to another thing, or from one person to other people. Within the Body of Christ, there are at least five different kinds of impartation that exist for different purposes. With each of these five we’ll examine the primary mechanism used for impartation, the purpose of that type of impartation, and identify those who do the imparting.

1. Impartation of Truth

Primary mechanism: teaching

Purpose: Upgrade for our mind/thinking

Who does it? Anyone can impart truth, but some are particularly gifted who have the gift of teaching.

The impartation of truth can be seen in nearly every Christian tradition. Teaching and preaching are the primary ways that truth gets imparted either through a sermon, seminar, or bible study setting. The apostle Paul charges his protege Timothy to do just that:

Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
2 Timothy 4:2-4

2. Impartation of Wisdom/Character

Primary mechanism: modeling

Purpose: Upgrade for our actions/decisions

Who does it? Anyone can impart wisdom, but some are particularly gifted with wisdom and are more seasoned with life experience.

The impartation of wisdom and character happens primarily through modeling wise living and wise decisions. It happens by spending time with people who have learned important lessons from life experience. It happens less by instruction and more through conversation and life together. It’s about watching someone live well and imitating what they do. Paul said it this way to the Corinthians:

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1

3. Impartation of Life/Courage

Primary mechanism: encouragement/affirmation

Purpose: Upgrade for our heart/confidence

Who does it? Anyone can impart life with their words, but some are particularly good at it who have the gift of encouragement.

The impartation of life and courage happens through the spoken word, specifically, words of affirmation and encouragement. Words are often more powerful than we realize. James 3 reminds us that words can build up and tear down. The proverbs remind us that words can impart life or death:

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Proverbs 18:21

4. Impartation of Authority

Primary mechanism: impartation prayer/laying on of hands

Purpose: Upgrade for our responsibility/authority

Who does it? Anyone can impart authority, but it most often has to come from those already in authority who are raising someone else up.

In most Christian traditions this kind of impartation is most clearly seen in the ordination ceremony of new pastors. Often, a group of elders will lay their hands on a young pastor who is being ordained into vocational ministry and will impart or confer their blessing and authority onto the young minister. While most people assume this is just a ceremonial rite of passage, throughout scripture we see the laying on of hands confer a real transference of authority. In other words, this isn’t just for show. Something is really being transferred in the spirit realm. We not only see Moses do this with Joshua (Numbers 27:18-20) but we also see this happen with the deacons in the early church.

“…choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
Acts 6:3-6

5. Impartation of Anointing/Spiritual Gifts

Primary mechanism: impartation prayer/laying on of hands

Purpose: Upgrade for our spiritual gifting/anointing

Who does it? Anyone can pray to impart increased anointing and spiritual gifts because, ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit doing it, but some are particularly gifted who have the gift of impartation.

While most Christian traditions understand the reality and importance of the first four types of impartation, only a few actually understand and practice this kind of impartation. I have personally been on the giving and receiving end of this kind of impartation (mostly the receiving end) and it is very real and very powerful. With this kind of impartation, there is a transference of anointing, power, or spiritual gifts when one person lays hands on another (sometimes a transference of all three!). We see this kind of impartation happen both in the Old and New Testaments and we need more of it in the Church today. Here are some samples of it happening in scripture:

Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him.
Deuteronomy 34:9

The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.”

So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.
Numbers 11:16-17, 24-25

Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.
1 Timothy 4:14

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
2 Timothy 1:6

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. These two went down and prayed for them so that they would receive the Holy Spirit. (For the Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then Peter and John placed their hands on the Samaritans, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Acts 8:14-17

Just as some people are particularly gifted with teaching or wisdom or encouragement, the same applies here. Some people in the Body of Christ are particularly gifted with impartation. What it means to operate in any spiritual gift is that the Spirit seems to move more powerfully when a person is operating in a gift than when they are not. Again, we see this truth play out with teaching and leadership and other spiritual gifts.

But the same applies to those who are gifted with impartation gifts. When a person who is gifted in this way prays for the impartation of anointing to happen or the impartation of gifts to happen, the sheer volume of impartation that happens in the room is more. This is why, if we want powerful teaching, we need to sit under a person gifted with teaching gifts. And if we want wisdom, we need to be around people gifted with spiritual wisdom. Likewise, if we want to receive an upgrade in our spiritual gifts, power, or anointing, it is helpful to receive prayer from a person gifted with impartation.

There may be more than these five types of impartation, but these five are extremely important for the Church today. If we want to raise up the next generation to live like Jesus, it’s going to take a Church that is able to impart all of these things in all of these ways.

Other People’s Gifts

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good…All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
1 Corinthians 12:7, 11

Sometimes when a conversation comes up about spiritual gifts, I hear someone say something like, “I don’t want that gift,” or “I’m not interested in that.” This is especially true if we’re talking about gifts like tongues or prophecy or healing, etc.

But all the gifts, including these kinds of gifts, are good gifts from a good Father distributed by the Holy Spirit. Is that how we’d want our child to respond if we gave them a bike or a gaming console?

Usually, this defensive response comes from a place of hearing of others who have those gifts and not wanting to feel like a second class Christian if we don’t have them. These kinds of statements really come from a deeper question which is asking something like, “Am I still okay if I don’t have that gift?”

Imagine if you had a son who was watching the neighbor kid get a bike and your son was trying to fight off insecurity or jealousy. He might be asking himself, “Why didn’t I get that?” Or, “Does he think he’s better because he has that?” He might ultimately resign himself to thinking, “I didn’t want that anyway.” But we wouldn’t want our son to feel that way or think those thoughts. It’s not the right response to seeing others get a gift that we don’t have. And it’s not the right heart posture.

Instead, we would want our son to celebrate other people getting gifts even when (and maybe especially when) he doesn’t get that gift. We would also want him to ask for those gifts if he wants them. And we would want him to be secure in the gifts he’s already been given.

All of this applies to us with regards to spiritual gifts. We need to celebrate others who have gifts that are different than ours. We need to pursue and ask for certain gifts if we desire them. And, in the meantime, we need to be secure in the gifts we already have. Fighting off any sense of insecurity, jealousy, or worry that others will think we’re second class Christians will be essential for this. And we need to make sure we don’t denigrate the gifts of the Spirit–any gifts of the Spirit–but especially those we don’t have.

The Supernatural

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
Romans 15:18-19

Inevitably, when you bring up the desire to engage in the supernatural parts of the Kingdom of God or the desire to operate in the power of the Spirit, you’ll have at least one person in the room say something like, “But I believe everything is supernatural,” or “The Holy Spirit is working in all of our interactions and activities.” It’s sort of like when you invite God’s presence and power to fill the room and the guy in the back says, “But God is omnipresent. He’s always here.”

When people say these sorts of things, sometimes it’s just an attempt at a theological “gotcha” moment. But in my experience, more often, it’s an indication of a lack of understanding of the way the Spirit works and the way the Kingdom works.

The reality is that there are things we do as the church that we can absolutely do on our own strength without any help from the Spirit. We can make people feel welcome, create community, engage in relationships, etc. all without ever depending on Jesus. In fact, many businesses do this better than the Church and they don’t give a rip about the Spirit or Jesus. A lot of people feel more connected and loved at their CrossFit gym than at church. You don’t need Jesus for this. In other words, things like this are not what we mean when we use the word “supernatural.” We can choose to have Jesus at the center of these things (which opens the possibility for powerful Holy Spirit moments), or we can do it in our own strength. It’s up to us.

But there are other things that we absolutely cannot do in our own strength. We can’t see people truly surrender their life to Jesus and get saved in our own strength. We can’t heal people in our own strength. We can’t cast out demons in our own strength. We can’t deliver an accurate prophetic word or word of knowledge in our own strength. These things are supernatural precisely because it is impossible to do them without God’s activity and our dependence on Him.

That is what we mean when we talk about “engaging in the supernatural aspects of the Kingdom.” That is what we mean by “operating in the power of God.” It means engaging in ministry where, if God doesn’t move in power, nothing happens. The results make it very obvious whether it was God’s power moving or just our own.

In the same way, those of us who invite the Holy Spirit to come, who invite the increased presence and power of God in the room, already understand that God is omnipresent. What we are inviting is God’s tangible (or manifest) presence. We are inviting God to step a little more through the veil that separates the natural world from the spirit realm so that we can feel His presence and encounter Him holistically–physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Lives are changed when God’s tangible presence fills the room. People are impacted in greater ways when this happens. This is why we invite God to do it. We desire to host His presence and make ourselves available to Him. When His tangible presence fills a room, He does more to transform lives in minutes than we could do in years.

Our society is fascinated with the supernatural but is mostly engaging with the counterfeit forms of it (New Age, mediums, psychics, Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, energy healing, witchcraft, the Occult, etc). But, ultimately, what they are looking for is the real thing, they just don’t know the real thing can only be found in Jesus through the Spirit.

Here’s an unpopular opinion that I believe is true: Any church that doesn’t know how to operate in the power of God or the supernatural aspects of the Kingdom will find themselves very limited in reaching this next generation. The next generation knows that there is more to this world than the natural, but what they don’t know is that the true power and authority to engage in the spirit realm comes only through Jesus. Everything else is a poor counterfeit from the kingdom of darkness. A revival atmosphere where they can actually experience an encounter with God is what they’re longing for.

Are you seeing regular physical healings at your church? Are people regularly finding freedom from demonic oppression at your church? Are the prophetic gifts cultivated at your church so that people hear from the Lord regularly through these gifts? Are people just singing songs and hearing a message or are they having encounters with the living God? These aspects of the Kingdom will be essential for reaching the next generation. If your church isn’t yet engaging in these, it’s time to start now.

Spirit-Son-Father

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
John 1:18

I’ve heard it asked, “Why do ‘those streams’ of the church focus so much on the Holy Spirit? Shouldn’t we be pointing people to Jesus? After all, the Holy Spirit’s main job was to glorify Jesus (John 16:14), right?”

It’s an interesting question. But would we also ask, “Why do ‘those streams’ of the church focus so much on Jesus?” Is that a question that makes sense? Because, after all, one of the main missions of the Son was to reveal the Father (see John 1:18; John 16:9-10; Colossians 1:15). The Holy Spirit points to Jesus and Jesus points to the Father, so should we only focus on, talk about, pray to the Father?

No, of course not.

There is another reality at play that flows in the other direction. The Son reveals the Father and the Holy Spirit reveals the Son. In other words, Jesus makes the Father more accessible, more tangible, more relatable and the Holy Spirit does the same for Jesus. And in this cycle of interdependence we see the beauty of the Trinity.

If you want someone to know the Father, have them get to know Jesus. If you want someone to know Jesus, have them experience the Spirit. This is why so often people encounter the Spirit and experience the love of the Father. Their interwoven connectedness and unity is impossible to separate.

So maybe some streams focus on the Holy Spirit because they want people to experience Jesus. And maybe other streams focus on Jesus because they want to reveal the Father. And still other streams focus on the Father because it glorifies the Son and the Spirit. The truth is that all streams should be focusing on Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are inseparable. They are God.

Darkened Understanding

“…you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.”
Ephesians 4:17-19

In the passage above, Paul reveals the connection between insightful thinking, a tender heart, and actions that line up with God’s way of living. He starts by exhorting the Christians in Ephesus to no longer live as the Gentiles do, and he specifically identifies the problem: “the futility of their thinking.” He rewords this same problem a couple more times saying the Gentiles are “darkened in their understanding.” He exposes their “ignorance.”

All of this is a problem in the mind. Their thinking was skewed. They lacked insight and wisdom in the way they thought about things. Their minds were cut off from God’s revelation and truth. What is most interesting is Paul’s diagnosis. How did their minds and their thinking get so warped? How could they become so blind to the truth? Paul says that this happened because of the “hardening of their hearts.”

I find this fascinating!

The reason their thinking was so warped and their ability to embrace truth so damaged was because of a condition in their heart. They had “lost all sensitivity.” What does that mean? It means that, over time, if we don’t actively try to keep a tender heart, our heart will become hardened. If we aren’t actively forgiving those who hurt us, if we aren’t actively being sensitive to the contamination of sin and impurity, we will eventually become desensitized. Bitterness will become normal. We will stop feeling the pangs of conviction when we sin. Instead of feeling the natural guilt that comes from lust and perversion, we’ll feel nothing at all but justification for our actions.

When hearts become hardened to sin, our actions become unrestrained. Selfishness, indulgence, pleasure, and ego become king. Greed becomes normal, along with lust and jealousy, fear and hatred. And it’s not difficult to see how this works its way backward toward darkened understanding and futility in thinking.

When sin abounds in our life, our heart loses its sensitivity to conviction, its sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. And when our heart loses sensitivity over time, it becomes hardened, calloused, desensitized. Inevitably, the hardness of our heart prevents our mind from receiving truth, illumination, and revelation. We are cut off from the profound insights that the Lord wants to plant in our minds, and our thinking becomes darkened and futile.

So often we compartmentalize the wholeness of our being and we miss the deep connections between our actions, our heart, and our mind. Paul makes these connections clear to the Ephesians and to us. We all want to have profound, insightful thoughts, but most people don’t see the connection between how they’re living and how they’re thinking. We want to have illuminating thoughts without obedience. We want insight without self-discipline. But they are connected.

The more willing we are to surrender our actions to the Lord, the more willing we are to be obedient in our self-denial, then the more tender our heart remains. We want a heart that is sensitive to the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit. We want a heart that is quick to embrace conviction of sin and quick to repent. This then keeps the door open and receptive for when God wants to download His thoughts into ours. This then keeps us ready to receive profound, illuminating thoughts that are thick with wisdom and insight.

Our actions change the condition of our hearts. Our hearts then change the receptivity of our minds.

DNA of the Spirit

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Matthew 3:11

Whenever I tell people that the Lord has taken me through a journey of deeper engagement with the Holy Spirit, people often assume something about tongues or becoming charismatic. But this kind of assumption totally misses the point.

In order to give a more holistic picture of what has really happened in my life, I tend to say that I got a download of the “DNA of the Spirit.” This happened at God’s initiation and invitation, not my own. Using language from the charismatic stream, we might call this a filling of the Spirit or “baptism” of the Spirit. But many people are uncomfortable with that language for various reasons.

Using language from the spiritual formation/contemplative stream, we might say that this DNA of the Spirit is often the result of Jesus moving us from mansion 3 to mansion 4 or 5 in our interior life with God (according to the seven mansions laid out by St. Teresa of Avila in her Interior Castle paradigm of spiritual formation [read this if you want to learn more about this paradigm]).

In order to bring greater clarity to what I’ve experienced, I list here some of the common characteristics that I’ve noticed accompany a download of the DNA of the Spirit. This DNA is not just about having the Spirit or interacting with the Spirit. This is something more. I write this as a person who for many years did not operate with this DNA and now does (I was a Christian for 25 years and a pastor for 10 years before experiencing this).

A person who embraces the DNA of the Spirit will often experience:
1. An increase in awareness of and prioritizing of the unseen realm/spirit realm
2. An increase in deep intimacy with the Lord, often accompanied by supernatural encounters with the Lord
3. An increase in two-way conversational dialog with the Lord, often accompanied by a desire to spend more time with Him
4. An increase in the sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s tangible presence and the Holy Spirit’s activity in the room, including a desire to notice and obey spontaneous promptings of the Spirit
5. An increase in the use of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12)
6. An increase in the power of the Spirit and the authority of Christ
7. An increase in the awareness of spiritual warfare as a regular part of the Christian life (including demonization and casting out demons)
8. An increase in the conviction that the gospel is true and that Jesus is the only way (any residue of unbelief gets washed away)
9. An increase in the amount of God’s Kingdom that is believed to be available to us “already,” this side of heaven
10. An increase in prioritizing ministering to the Lord (rather than just to people) and hosting His Presence (rather than just hosting people)
11. An increase in willingness to obey God even when it might seem weird to the people around you and you might be misunderstood [an increase in boldness is often a result of a “filling of the Spirit” (see Acts 4:31)]
12. An increase in a desire for holiness and purity, often accompanied by a reduction in desire for sin
13. An increase in expectancy as it relates to God moving supernaturally
14. An increase in the desire to speak about the above realities so that others may become awakened to them in similar ways

Most Christians can relate to one or two (or even a few) of the above characteristics. But imagine if you experienced all of these at once (or in a very short amount of time). That’s what a download of the DNA of the Spirit feels like. For me it was both a process and an event. It was a year and a half process of wading out into deeper waters of the Spirit (like slowly walking out into the ocean) followed by an event of being overwhelmed by the Spirit (like a wave of the Spirit crashing over me). This, then, was followed by a lifestyle of living in the deeper waters and experiencing continual wave after wave of the Spirit crashing upon my life. Once you’ve experienced these things, you want them for everyone you love and everyone around you.

Yet, there is another reality to experiencing the DNA of the Spirit that’s not all rainbows and unicorns. There are some difficult aspects of it as well.

Here are some things that are difficult that also tend to accompany a download of the DNA of the Spirit:
1. An increase in misunderstanding from people: I don’t think I’ve ever been more misunderstood than I have during this time. The amount of misunderstanding that has come from the DNA of the Spirit in my life has been disorienting. When one begins to try to explain this new engagement with the Holy Spirit, it is often met with skepticism, confusion, and false assumptions. When one becomes a Christian, it is difficult to describe to your non-Christian friends what exactly has happened to you. When you’re married with kids, it’s difficult to describe your new life to your single friends. There are certain things in life that will be misunderstood until they are experienced firsthand, and this is one of those things.

2. An increase in attacks from the enemy: The enemy will begin to recognize you as a greater threat to the kingdom of darkness and will respond accordingly. He will launch all manner of attack against your life including illness, grief, loss, betrayal, false accusations, and an increase in temptations. The goal is to ruin your reputation and limit your impact for the Kingdom of God.

3. An increase in testing from the Lord: The strangest thing to experience is that God allows the above things to happen, both misunderstandings and attacks, in order to test your character. He begins to test the clarity of the “well water” of your soul, not at the surface but at the deeper levels. And down in the depths of your soul is where you will find sediment that you didn’t know was there. It’s a painful process as you get As on some tests from the Lord and Fs on others. Your character is pressed and stressed to see where it is weak. The gold of your heart is thrown into the Refiner’s fire in order to clean out the dross and purify your desires. The point of all of this is so that God can trust you with the weight of “more” without crushing you under it. He has to sure up the weak parts of your character so that it won’t break under the weight of His glory.

You may have noticed by now how often I’ve used the word “increase.” And that is the main theme of receiving a download of the DNA of the Spirit. You get “more.” You get more intimacy and connection with God; you get more gifts; you get more passion, conviction, revelation and insight. But you also get more challenges and testing. You get an “increase” and an “upgrade” on all fronts.

So, this is the best I know how to describe what has happened in my life. It still doesn’t do it justice, but it’s a good summary of the experience. What is most amazing to me about it all is that it was initiated by the Lord. It wasn’t something I was interested in or something I was asking for. It was an invitation that He initiated on His own for His own purposes.

The only way I know how to describe this humbling feeling is to imagine being a first century beggar on the side of the road as Jesus and His disciples come into town. I know all too well that Jesus could have passed me by. He could have kept walking (and probably should have). Instead, on His own initiative, He decided to stop just for me. And in doing so He forever changed my life, my family, and my ministry. And he’ll do the same for you if you’re willing.

Words on a Plane

But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort…
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy…
1 Corinthians 14:3, 39

I sat down in my seat for my flight home from Texas. Missy would stay in Texas for a few extra days for a girl’s trip. The kids where already home with my parents awaiting my return. I’m not often by myself on a plane so this was a good chance to stretch my faith a little and see what God would do.

I sat in an aisle seat in a row with one guy already at the window seat. He was a young, African-American guy, maybe in his twenties. He had a durag on with a hoodie pulled over that. He had earbuds in listening to music from his phone and a mask on his face (though masks were optional on this flight). He had sweatpants on and slide-ons on his feet. His socks were some sort of cartoonish design. His posture gave the over all message, “Leave me alone.”

As more and more people filled the cabin, and seats were running low (this was a Southwest flight where you chose your own seat), a young woman decided to claim the center seat in our row. She looked to be in her twenties as well, fashionably dressed, and either Puerto Rican or mixed race. She had a lot of make up on but it was well done. Her nails too. She had one of those looks that could be confused with a number of different ethnicities.

We all settled in and I decided to tilt my head back onto the headrest, close my eyes, and begin to pray. I began with some prayers of gratitude and praise. Then I shifted into asking the Lord what I have asked Him a hundred different times when praying for people, “Lord, how do you see him/her?”

In my estimation, if this question works in church environments it should work everywhere. Meaning, if I can practice hearing what the Lord says about fellow Christians that I pray for in church, then I should also be able to hear what He says about the people around me in daily life. For some reason, the latter seems to demand more faith from me than the former.

As I began listening, I started with the African-American guy in the widow seat. The first thing I heard (“heard” meaning: a conversational thought that came to my mind that seemed not to be my own) was, “His IQ is very high, much higher than the people around him.” I don’t know what I was expecting God to say about him, but that definitely wasn’t it. Then I saw a picture in my mind’s eye of him at a computer. It seemed like he was playing video games on his computer but based on the first word, it could have been him doing programing or something. I wasn’t sure.

Feeling bolstered by what I heard for the guy by the window, I asked about the girl next to me in the center seat. I got a picture of her with children. She was helping them in some way. Then I heard, “She is good with kids. She helps kids who are forgotten and on the margins. She’s good with kids because she wasn’t allowed to have much of a childhood.”

This was all going so well, but I wasn’t sure any of it was accurate and I wasn’t sure when or how I would share these words with these people. I prayed for an opportunity to share and the courage to step out in faith.

I also asked about the lady across the center aisle from me who was sitting in the aisle seat directly next to mine. She was a heavyset hispanic lady that looked closer to my age. In my mind’s eye I saw a picture of her cooking tons of food for a big family. Nothing about her necessarily signaled that she was a mother, but it was as if she brought her family joy and connection through her cooking. Maybe a grandmother? I didn’t know.

The final word came for the lady sitting diagonally across the aisle from me in the seat in front of the hispanic lady. She was a well put together white lady in a business suit. I wondered if she had flown somewhere for business. The only thing I heard for her was, “The business deal will go through. It will work.” I had no idea what this meant or even if she was a business person. She could have been a teacher for all I knew. It’s just what I felt like I heard from the Lord.

I held on to these words waiting for opportunities to share them. After an hour, I was still waiting. It wasn’t until the girl next to me needed to get up and go to the bathroom that I felt like there was an opening.

After she left, I mustered up the courage to tap the guy in the window seat on the arm. He looked up surprised and took one of his earbuds out. I greeted him and explained that sometimes I’ll pray for people around me and ask God how He sees them. Then I asked, “Do you want to know what I heard Him say about you?” Still a little confused, he said that he did.

I said, “I heard the Lord say that your IQ is really high and that it is higher than the people around you. Then I saw a picture of you on a computer either programming or playing video games. Are you a computer programer or something?” He said, “No. But I do play a lot of video games.” I nodded, “Oh, okay, I must have mixed that up a little. Can I ask what you do?” He replied, “I’m going to be a doctor. I’m finishing up med school to be a radiologist.” Laughing I said, “Oh wow, that must be the whole thing with your IQ. I just want you to know that God has given you your intelligence as a gift and he wants you to use it for good. And it sounds like you already are!”

He thanked me for praying for him and asked about me. I shared that I was a pastor. He asked a few questions about my church just as the girl from our row returned from the bathroom. That seemed to go well and gave me a little more courage to try out the other words.

The plane landed and parked at the jetway. I stood up to stretch my legs as people prepared to leave the plane. I didn’t want the girl next to me to leave before giving her the word. So I decided just to jump in and explain to her that sometimes I pray and ask God how He sees the people around me. I asked her if she wanted to know what I heard God say about her. She looked very skeptical. And with more than a little attitude she said, “Sure.”

Unexpectedly, the guy next to the window chimed in and said, “He did the same for me. And he was right. Trust me, it will be good.” Now I was the one a little shocked. This guy who I just met was helping me out. So cool. The girl confirmed again that she wanted to hear what I had to say.

I said, “I heard the Lord say that you’re really good with kids. I saw a picture of you helping kids who had been forgotten and on the margins. He said you are good with kids because you weren’t given the chance to have much of a childhood.” Still looking skeptical, she nodded and said, “Okay?” She seemed to be processing it all and not knowing what to do with it.

I asked, “Can I ask you what you do?” She said, “I’m a nurse.” Pointing to the guy next to the window I said, “Oh great, he’s a doctor.” Surprised, she turned and had a short conversation with him about what he was doing in medicine. She then turned back to me and said, “Yeah, I’m a travel nurse but I used to work in pediatrics.”

This was a gracious lifeline to me. She could have left that detail out, but she decided to throw me a bone. I was so encouraged by this little detail because it meant that I wasn’t totally off in hearing the Lord. I said, “Oh wow, so you are good with kids, and probably some of those kids were really struggling.” She nodded in agreement. I said, “Well, maybe God will give you an opportunity to return to pediatrics. Clearly, you are really good with kids and God loves that about you.” She was still reserved in her response and didn’t seem totally convinced, but I considered that conversation a win.

We were all getting off the plane before I could deliver the other two words to the other two ladies. But then I noticed that the heavyset hispanic lady was walking right beside me as we entered the airport terminal. I tried my best to give a quick, 30-second summary of how I listen to the Lord and that, for her, I got a word about her cooking for her family. She looked a little freaked out and nodded in a way that said, “Please leave me alone.” Ha! She quickly darted in the the women’s restroom before any conversation could happen, and I was off to baggage claim. I never caught up with the lady in the business suit.

Two out of four ain’t bad. But it confirmed to me that God has thoughts about every person on the planet (read Psalm 139:17-18). He knows us intimately and in the most detailed ways. His heart posture toward us is love, not condemnation.

As followers of Jesus, not only is God willing to share his thoughts through the Holy Spirit (read 1 Corinthians 2:9-13), but He is willing to share his feelings as well. When God gives me words about people, I find that I can’t help but love them in that moment. It’s like God’s love is so big that the residue of His love sticks to every prophetic word He gives. Each word is just a fragment of all the thoughts He has for that person, and each one carries a tiny fragment of His love with it. As His word for them flows through me, the residue of His love for them rubs off on me and changes my heart for them.

Prophetic words weren’t designed to come as raw data. They were meant to come wrapped in His love. They are a kind of incarnation. The word becomes flesh, even on a plane.

Tremble

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come into his courts.
Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth.
Psalm 96:8-9

Throughout the Psalms, and the Bible in general, we see that a normal response to the tangible Presence of God is to tremble. When theophanies happen in the Old Testament, people often tremble in the presence of God.

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.
Exodus 19:16-17

We get the sense that in a face-to-face encounter with the fullness of the living God, our bodies can’t handle all the power, our sin can’t handle all the holiness, our eyes can’t handle all the light, our hearts can’t handle all the love. The healthy and reverent fear of the Lord hits people and they begin to tremble. We might call this trembling a “physical manifestation of fear” or a “physical manifestation of being emotionally overwhelmed.”

I grew up in a Baptist church where we used to sing a hymn that spoke to this reality. It was called “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord.”

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Stanzas 1 & 2

All of this got me thinking about trembling as a “physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit.” To clarify, this is different from trembling that is a “physical manifestation of being emotionally overwhelmed” (although emotions may accompany it). When the Holy Spirit causes the physical manifestation, it is not showing up in our body because of our emotions. While emotions may be a part of the experience, physical manifestations of the Spirit are when the Holy Spirit himself causes our body to react to an increase of his tangible presence. And while our bodies can react in a number of different ways, trembling is a common one.

Both Jonathan Edwards, in the First Great Awakening (1730s), and John Wesley, in the Second Great Awakening (1790s), recorded the phenomenon of people trembling under the power of the Holy Spirit. In subsequent revivals (Azuza Street in the early 1900s, Charismatic renewal in the 1960s, Toronto and Brownsville in at the 1990s) the experience of people trembling under the power of the Holy Spirit was very common. While this reaction of trembling has been recorded by historians in nearly every revival, it sometimes gets explained away with accusations of some combination of groupthink and mass hysteria.

Yet, these simplistic dismissals can’t account for the wide rage of personal experiences that people have had with the Holy Spirit. How do they account for people continuing to experience these physical manifestations of the Spirit while they are alone in the privacy of their own prayer time with the Lord? How do they account for their regularity? How do they account for people with no prior religious experience experiencing these physical manifestations despite not wanting them and even being skeptical of them? There is too much personal and historical evidence that one of the physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit is the phenomenon of trembling.

What’s fascinating to think about is that while people who experienced trembling were not necessarily experiencing a theophany in the traditional sense–they weren’t face to face with the living God–their bodies were reacting as if they were. It’s as if their bodies were picking up on the reality of the tangible Presence of God in a way that their eyes weren’t. What if their bodies were responding appropriately to God’s tangible Presence even when their mind wasn’t able to?

Have you ever had a moment where your heart was ahead of your mind? Your heart picked up on something and tears began to flow but your head was still unaware of what was going on. You were crying but you weren’t sure what you were crying about yet. Your heart was ahead of your head. Only later, upon further reflection, did your mind begin to understand what your heart already knew. Has that ever happened to you?

I suspect the physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit that happen to our bodies, like trembling, are versions of this. It’s like our spirit and our body picks up on God’s Presence in a way that our mind hasn’t yet. Our body and spirit are ahead of our mind. Only later does our mind make sense of it. And this completely makes sense when we begin to recognize the truth that we have the Spirit of God actually dwelling in us. When the Spirit within us connects with the Spirit falling upon us, our body will react to that powerful connection often before our mind can catch up.

We may begin trembling in a way that is beyond our control. If this happens to us, we shouldn’t fight it as if there is something wrong with our body. Quite the opposite. Maybe our body is actually responding appropriately. Maybe it’s the rest of us that has to catch up. We’re experiencing the profound Presence of God in our midst, and maybe whatever walls may be up in our heart and mind need to come down so that they too can join in on the moment.