by Francis MacNutt
Apr/May/Jun 2013

To me a great mystery of the Lenten–Easter time of year has always been that the experienced joy of the Easter celebration often doesn't measure up to the experienced suffering and penance of Lent. Maybe this paradox isn't as clear these days when Christians aren't required to fast as much or to abstain from entertainment (such as movies) during Lent as they were in the past. But it still seems to be so.

Why is it, for example, that all the fun of the season is concentrated in the popular culture with vacationing in New Orleans to attend Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday — the day before Ash Wednesday) with its big parades and all night parties? The next day our foreheads are smeared with ashes and we are told to remember that our bodies will return to dust. It seems that the "world" (or perhaps Satan) gets credit for all the fun, while we Christians concentrate on sad things like death and dust.

Now, of course it is good to ponder our mortality, as long as we experience a great celebration of new life at Easter. The realization of Christ's resurrection should eclipse the hollow merriment of Mardi Gras, and the sorrowful watch services of Good Friday. Although there are wonderful sunrise services at Easter, somehow the experienced life at Easter doesn't always equal the experienced death of Good Friday.

Rejoicing and sorrowing — Jesus experienced both, didn't he? Why do we concentrate on the sorrowful side, when the Gospels mention Jesus going to at least 17 parties! We soften the impact by calling them "banquets" which makes them sound formal and stuffy. The "banquets" couldn't have been too stuffy. Jesus was criticized for being a drunkard and a glutton, and for hanging out with sinners, like Matthew and Zacchaeus, who both threw parties in Jesus' honor.

It's a great paradox, isn't it, that Jesus promised us life and joy in abundance, but he also said we would meet with suffering and persecution? Intense joy and deep peace such as the world cannot give, but also intense suffering and persecution — we are to expect both in this life too. Yet, it seems more common for many Christians to emphasize bearing the cross than experiencing spiritual joy and peace.

Ask yourself the question: When I receive communion do I truly sense its power? It's not just a bite of food to remind me of Jesus, but the bread represents Jesus' body, broken for me. The wine signifies his blood, poured out for me. If I allow my self–will to be broken for him, and my life spilled out in obedience to his will, then he will feed me with the bread of life itself, and fill me with the joyous wine of the Spirit. Because of Jesus' great Easter victory, when it comes time for us to experience our Good Friday, in place of abandonment we will find Jesus at our side to lead us into the resurrection light where we will see God, life itself, and all our friends who have gone before us into that joyous kingdom.

Easter, the greatest feast of the Christian year, is like a giant exorcism. Jesus took all the evil of the world into himself: physical suffering, abandonment (by friends, as well as seemingly by his Father) and finally death itself, the apparent victory of Satan. Then all this evil, condensed into his spirit and body, was expelled on that first Easter. God transformed it all into life; and now as our risen Lord, he sends us his life, his joy, his peace and his health, even in this life, and fully in the next life.

If we don't see as much life, as much joy, as we would like to see in our churches, it must be that we are not as united to Jesus in his life as we need to be. This in–pouring of life comes through the Holy Spirit, and I believe we need a mighty renewing of prayer for the empowering of the Spirit in order to experience the kind of vibrant lives which are our high privilege. We believe and we walk Jesus' path in part, but not as fully as we could.

I once heard a theologian say to a group of priests: "Regardless of how you figure it out theologically, the question to ask yourself is: has what happened to the disciples at Pentecost happened to you? Are you on fire to share the Gospel? Have you experienced any of the gifts of the Spirit in your own life, such as inspired preaching, healing, tongues or prophecy? We can't just say 'I'm already a Christian,' or even, 'I'm ordained."

Were the apostles believers? Yes, they had walked with Jesus for three years and had seen him after the Resurrection. Thomas had even put his fingers into Jesus' wounds and exclaimed, 'My Lord and my God!'

But something was still missing. Jesus told them they had to wait until the Spirit descended upon them. Even though they were believers, even though they knew Jesus, they weren't yet ready. They had received the Spirit for them to have faith, and yet the power of the Holy Spirit was still missing.

As a Christian, the Holy Spirit already existed within me through baptism, confirmation and ordination. But it was not until I was prayed over for a release of the Holy Spirit's power that I was baptized in it.

From that point on, my life changed in many exciting ways, and I began praying for countless other people who were seeking more of God. And they, in turn, found that Pentecost happens today much the same as it did 2000 years ago.

Francis MacNutt is a Founding Director and Executive Committee member of CHM.

by John Paul Jackson
Apr/May/Jun 2013

Over the last 30 years, I have spent enormous amounts of time meeting and communicating with spiritual leaders around the world. I have talked to them at length about the wonders of God, and many of them have shared their deep and often very unusual spiritual experiences with me. Most of those experiences they refuse to tell their congregations, denominational heads and friends. Why? It is not always because they doubt what they experienced was real, but because of fear — fear that no one would believe them, fear their denominations would expel them, and, sadly, fear spawned from a lack of depth in their own understanding of God and His ways. As one pastor said to me, "Seminary did not teach me that dreams and visions can still happen today. In fact, I was taught God no longer spoke this way. But they do happen, and it happened to me."

The Broader Church has had little context for angelic visitations, visions of the future and dreams about other people, not to mention a vast number of other God encounters; these are somehow discarded without reference to the truth of them in Scripture. I have watched 90–year–olds weep as they relayed their encounters with God and His heavenly agents. I have seen the wide–eyed wonder of 4–year–olds as they tell, in their own childlike way, the truth of what they are seeing on a daily and nightly basis.

True spiritual life is comprised of spiritual experiences, spiritual manifestations and a spiritual relationship with an awesome God. There is no spiritual life outside of God, who is Spirit. This type of spiritual life is exciting, and it injects us with awe and wonder at how alive God really is. However, for the most part, followers of Jesus in the Church today are like computers that haven't been programmed to open the documents sent from Heaven. Too many of us are left asking, "Was it just a dream?" with no one who understands the impact of what happened to us.

Will God Speak in a Way We Can't Understand?

As always, there will be the detractors who insist that God would not give us something we could not understand. To those who still cling to that theological mantra, I would recommend rereading very closely what is recorded in the book of Job:

In these verses, we find that God can speak to man — and not only does man not understand the dream, but he doesn't even know God was speaking. It might be said that he has ears to hear but does not hear, and he has eyes to see but does not see. We cannot discount what we do not understand — the key is to seek to understand what God has chosen to reveal to us. Our culture has placed a veil over dreams and their interpretation, but that does not mean God no longer speaks through them.

Dreams are much more than a curiosity of the night. When correctly interpreted, they are an agent of change. Throughout Scripture, nations were formed, children were born, lives were saved, and destinies foretold — all through these parables of the night. Is it any wonder kings scoured the earth to find someone who could solve the experience they had the night before?

Until interpreted, dreams are a riddle and a divine enigma. We might know that God has spoken, but we do not know what He has said, and because of that, dreams are also a paradox. They are a treasure hidden in the midst of the obvious.

Our task, then, is to uncover the keys of interpretation found in God's ways. These keys are hidden right in front of us, if we just know where to look. The Bible is filled with examples of how God speaks, but like any course we took in school, we have to study to find the answers.

One–third of the Bible directly connects to a dream or vision sent from God. Interestingly enough, this correlates to the fact that most of us will sleep one–third of our lives. If we were to remove everything in Scripture that relates to dreams and visions, we would remove hundreds of pages.

Through the prophet Joel, God said that in the last days, He would speak to us through prophecy, dreams, visions, signs and wonders. So God chose long ago to speak to us this way in these days. How can we have the audacity to tell Him that we don't believe He can do this, or that we don't want Him to speak like this, as if He does not know the best way to speak to us? We want God to speak only in the way we choose.

Yes, dreams are full of mysteries and riddles, but then, so is Scripture. The Bible is replete with prophetic enigmas, many of which are still hard to understand today, yet those "riddles of the night" we do not discount. I have found that God takes joy in making us search for the understanding of what He has just done or said. It draws us closer to Him. As we experience that which is beyond our understanding, our hearts are filled with awe. Whenever church becomes "boring," it is due to a lack of awe, and there is a dearth of awe in many churches today.

What About Immaturity?

Some will claim that we should not tell the divinum mysterium to the spiritually immature. But isn't that precisely what was legislated during the Dark Ages, when the Church let only priests possess and read the Bible? Yes, there is a need for maturity, but we act like the Holy Spirit does not know our level of maturation. In so doing, we come perilously close to believing the Holy Spirit does not know to whom He should give gifts. I choose to believe that the Spirit of God knows what God is doing! We are the ones who lack the divine logic necessary to understand the higher processes of Heaven's spiritual reasoning.

Just days before he passed away, a great leader in the Church earnestly exhorted me, "I am going to tell you everything so you do not let happen to you what I let happen to me." I will never forget the agonizing look in his eyes as he lay on his deathbed and for an hour and a half told me everything on his heart. One of the most powerful moments was when he said, "I am on my deathbed because God told me to take a risk. And I looked God in the face and said, 'No, I have too much to lose.'" He went on to say, "The political system within the Church will kill your gift if you follow it."

This great church leader knew why he was where he was, and the regret in the air was palpable. Therein lies the proverbial catch–22 of the godly: We lose if we say that we had a dream, but we lose even more if we do not.

Further complicating matters, one cannot deeply discuss dreams and visions without touching on other spiritual phenomena, including visitations of angels, transportations of individuals, prophecy, translations and the transcendence of time. All these spiritual experiences and more took place in the dreams and visions recorded in the Bible, and they still take place today, but few will open themselves to tell anyone what happened to them.

Why Dreams and Visions?

I have watched the hardest of hearts melt as dreams that were not understood for years were finally interpreted. I have seen giants of men weep until they had no more tears as God revealed to them through dreams how He has loved them since they were children. Recently, a politician clung to me for strength as God gave him the solution to a national problem through the interpretation of a dream he had a few nights earlier.

Is it any wonder that God said the following words:

Look up every verse in the Bible concerning the last days and you'll find it pretty apocalyptic. Wouldn't it stand to reason that in such a time God would choose to speak in ways that would benefit us the most? I wonder how many solutions were missed, how many inventions were never discovered, how many jobs were lost, or how many lives ended too soon, all because the dreamer did not know God was trying to help them.

May we learn the ways of God, and in so doing, may the dreams He gives us take us to the purpose for which we were created.

John Paul Jackson is an author, teacher, conference speaker, and founder of Streams Ministries International.

by Michele Perry
Apr/May/Jun 2013

I woke to the moist heat of early spring 2001 in South Asia, the last scenes of my dream flashing before me in vivid color. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I grabbed a notebook to write the dream so I would not forget.

Two small planes flew into a bank of ominous greenish black clouds.

Winds and torrential rains buffeted both planes' every maneuver. The first plane was thrown off course, losing its orientation and soon fell spiraling out of the sky. The second plane was tossed about in the violent weather, but it eventually flew through to the other side.

As I woke, I heard the loving voice of Jesus whisper, "Beloved, the bad news is you are entering a stormy season. The good news is you are the second plane. It is time to learn how to fly by your instrument panel."

I did not know how stormy the season would be. Or that from the moment I heard that whisper of His, all would go silent and blank for months and months.

At first, I kept doing what I always did, spending time in stillness waiting to hear His voice. After weeks of static and not much else, I began to feel like God might be knitting on the backside of the universe. Or perhaps I had done something wrong to displease Him.

I went through more weeks of trying figure it out. Where did I go wrong?

No matter how hard I tried to see, it was like I had been expertly blindfolded. All I could see were the pages of my Bible, what God had already promised and what I knew to be true.

I tried fasting. I tried rebuking the silence. I tried stomping my foot and having a good old–fashioned tantrum. Nothing relented. (Not that I thought tantrums were the answer. But I was really frustrated. Can you relate at all to feeling like that?) Months dragged by.

Dear reader, do you know how they test instrument–rated pilots? I didn't.

I found out much later that they blindfold them to everything but their instrument panels in the cockpit of their airplane. The only reference point they have is their understanding of the numbers and gauges on the panel in front of them. And only instrument–rated pilots can fly safely in clouds and storms.

Soon that spring and summer had turned to fall, and I was a student in a five–month training school with an international missions organization in India. It was a growing, stretching time that had almost nothing to do with the classes.

Hidden in my room, I cried myself to sleep almost every night. I felt like I had been plunged into an enormous pitch black room, and God might be in the room, but He wasn't letting on where He was. I was the one who kept running her hands over the walls looking for the light switch so I could see Him again.

I clung to my journal and Bible. I immersed myself in Scripture even if I didn't feel anything. I began to orient my life based on what God said, who I knew Him to be, based on His promises. The pitch–blackness began to lighten ever so slightly. I could sense His Presence if only by sheer faith. I started to know I wasn't alone because He said I wasn't. Not only just because I had an encounter.

Midway through this season, I really did wonder if my sanity was in jeopardy. I begged God to tell me how long this silence would last. In His absolute mercy, He told me that this silent time would end two years from the day I first landed in India. He also gave me one promise. I would come up out of this desert wasteland carried by Him. I cherished those few words as if my life depended on them. In the months ahead, it virtually did.

Part of this discipleship school included an outreach portion. I wound up co–leading our small team. The first half of the outreach went wonderfully with only normal bumps in the road. But the second half of our time was an unmitigated disaster.

We arrived at our second destination in late January in the middle of near blizzard conditions. Our hosts had not even prepared the basics for our coming. There was tension from the outset.

Our primary host was a local pastor, who had major issues with both women and foreigners. Our sending leadership failed to adequately discern in advance where this pastor was in his understanding. He had been sent an all–Indian team led by two women foreigners. That, my friend, was a recipe for trouble.

In all fairness to him, it was a bad situation that could have been avoided by a little foresight. Hindsight is usually 20/20, isn't it?

By the third day this man was responding with violent, erratic behavior, threats to turn us in to the government and curses. At one point he had me physically pinned against the wall shouting death threats. We had to pull the team out and make a run for our own safety, only after he stole all our team money.

I held it together, more or less, until we got all our team members safely put on trains to their respective homes for a break while we sorted the mess out. As soon as they were on their way, my thin façade of normality broke apart.

Our host's contorted, rage–filled face kept playing over and over and over again in my head like a broken record. I could feel him grabbing my collar and nearly lifting me off the ground. I could not sleep. I could not eat. I didn't sleep much more than thirty minutes a night for almost the next two weeks.

Soon afterward, because of his ongoing threats to the organization that put on the school, I was put on a plane back to the U.S.A. with less than 24 hours notice. I was exhausted and deeply shaken by it all.

I arrived back in the U.S. bewildered, emotionally frazzled and possibly with a bit of post–traumatic stress. The dreams I had for India were shattered beyond recognition. All I had to hold on to was the promise of Jesus and His word. He did not rescue me out of that season, but He did walk with me through it.

Almost five months later, I was on my way to move to Colorado to start a new chapter in my life. My routing took me through Kansas City, where I spent several days at the International House of Prayer visiting friends there.

My friends were on the night watch, which is like the night shift of worshiping prayers who pray through the hours of midnight to six o'clock. The first two nights I joined them and spent the time reading my Bible and drinking coffee to stay awake. Again I felt and saw nothing except my own raw brokenness.

This silent, dark season had been going on for well over a year at that point. The third night I almost stayed home. I had a severe headache. But I felt a very faint tug on my heart that for some reason I needed to be there. So I decided to go, headache and all.

Throughout the night there were calls for those who wanted prayer to raise their hands. I felt so low I did not even want anyone to pray for me. I just wanted to hide. Six in the morning rolled around. And the leaders issued the last call of the night for prayer. One of the first things I heard in months was Jesus saying, "Put your hand up."

"But I don't want to put my hand up."

"Put it up."

"Okay."

A small group of people I had never met gathered round me. I told them I had a headache. They told me I had been called, "Beloved by my Father in heaven, and the desert time was over. Now the season changes." They saw me coming up out of the wasteland being carried by Jesus. Remember His promise to me from months before? I began to weep with the intensity of His love that wrapped around me.

These people could have no idea what the words they shared with me meant. Soon the weight of His Presence grew so heavy, I could not put words together or sit up without someone holding me in place. It was as if Jesus came and bear–hugged me. I could not walk or talk for over twelve hours. I was carried out of the wasteland in more ways than one.

When this experience began to lift, I realized the date and time. He came not two years to the day I had landed India, but two years to the hour I landed in India, given the time difference. It was as if Jesus had been counting the minutes until He would rush in to engulf me once again in His tangible presence. This season may just have been as hard or harder for Him than it was for me. It still brings tears of gratitude to my eyes even ten years later.

You, sweet friend, have just read of my first experience of what St. John of the Cross and other early Church writers call the soul's dark night.

What exactly is the dark night of the soul?

It is a time when our experience of God's presence is either cut off completely or is greatly diminished. It is a time we must walk by faith and not by sight. It is a time of very little outward feeling and very little to no dramatic outward encounters. It is often wrought with challenges and difficulty.

And all the while it can feel like God is silently knitting on the backside of the universe a few thousand light years away.

But these dry times are the times we learn how to fly by our instrument panels. And they are some of the most important growing experiences in our spiritual journeys with Jesus. They bring the preparation of desperation that creates in us a platform for His demonstration through us.

If we keep walking onward with God, these seasons will come usually more than once. But they do not have to be discouraging or defeating times. They can become springboards into the deepest places of intimacy we have known yet, if we embrace Jesus within them and allow Him to do His work in our hearts.

In these hidden seasons God withdraws much of His tangible touch in the arenas of our soul and the physical world in order to draw us deeper into the realm of the spirit. He is not at all absent, regardless of what we feel or don't feel. He is just present with us interacting in a different way.

What about you friend? Have you too had these times when it felt like God was silent and hidden from your sight? What an encouragement to know He is still present with you; He is simply presenting Himself differently.

The hidden seasons for me ebb and flow much like the tide. But they have become precious intimate times when God cements internally in me that which He desires to do externally around me.

They are times of my faith deepening in the experience of just knowing He is and He is with me regardless of the experience of my faith. Wilderness seasons do not have to be barren seasons. They can be desert places filled with beauty and wonder and burning bushes.

When God withholds the external place of visitation, it is only to build in us an internal place of habitation that cannot be moved no matter how fiercely the storm winds blow. May I pray for you?

Papa, I ask You right now to show this dear one reading this Your nearness... In the places You are hidden, restore the adventure of seeking, knowing You are longing to be found. In the places that are dry, I pray that the outrageous beauty of the desert might be seen. I ask the peace of knowing when sight is cut off, it is a time to learn to fly by what You have already given, so that no cloud, no storm may ever derail Your promise in our lives. Help this amazing friend of mine see all that You are doing in every season of this supernatural journey with You. Amen.

This article is adapted from an excerpt of Chapter 6 of, An Invitation to the Supernatural Life, written by Michel Perry, Chosen Books.

Michele Perry is an author, speaker, artist, and founder of Iris Ministries Base Camp, Sudan.

by Linda Strickland
Apr/May/Jun 2013

In St. Luke's account of the events that immediately followed the Resurrection, he tells us about an encounter involving Jesus and two of His disciples. On their way to Emmaus, the two men were walking and talking about everything that had just occurred. I can just imagine that their conversation was not a casual one, as they were most likely in a state of shock, confusion and grief. When Jesus walked up and asked them what they were discussing they didn't recognize Him. Assuming He was an uninformed visitor to Jerusalem, they began telling Him the unbelievable story of how Jesus had been arrested and then crucified. They went on to express their concerns saying, "We had hoped He was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This happened three days ago. Then some women from our group of His followers were at His tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said that His body was missing, and they saw angels who told them Jesus is alive!" (Luke 24:21–23)

They walked and talked for some time, and when evening approached they invited Jesus to stay with them. As they sat down to eat together, the scripture tells us, "As they sat down to eat, He took the bread and blessed it. Then He broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him. And at that moment He disappeared! They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts burn within us while He talked with us?" (Luke 24:30–32).

Even before their eyes were opened, their hearts felt what their eyes could not see, and knew what their minds could not understand.

In Holy Scripture, references to the heart as a physical organ are few and unspecific; however, the word heart is often used to describe the dynamic forces that make us human and unique. Deuteronomy 6:5 gives us this commandment, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength." The words heart, soul and strength represent the intellect, the will, the emotions, the spirituality and the physical being — all that a person is and can do for God.

According to biblical usage, the heart is the source from which emotions flow; feelings that range from love, joy and peace to anger, envy and hate. The heart feels, remembers and desires. It has the ability to ponder, discern, seek and choose; and though typically associated with the brain, we can think with our hearts. We are also told that the heart can become sick, proud, hard and obstinate. The heart is where our relationship with God is most expressed — He looks at our hearts, listens to our hearts, and speaks to us through our hearts. It is through the eyes of our heart that we can truly see and know God.

One day I received a phone call from a man who attended a Christian Healing Ministries conference and while there had experienced healing. He told me that although he was highly educated and intelligent, he was having trouble 'wrapping his brain around' what had happened to him. He said he was calling with the hope that I could help him understand.

We talked for quite a while, but nothing I said seemed to be helpful to him. I finally asked if he would be willing to wrap his heart around what had happened. He unenthusiastically said he would try, so before we hung up I prayed with him, asking the Holy Spirit to speak truth to him. A few months later I saw him at another event and immediately knew something had changed. There was such a noticeable transformation in him that his face looked physically different. Before, he always looked serious and somber, but the man who stood before me was smiling and even looked child–like. With great excitement he told me that God had opened the eyes of his heart, and he was now certain that all that had happened to him was true. He said that his heart knew he was healed on a level that was beyond his understanding.

In his book, Healing, Francis MacNutt says, "As I experience the paradoxes of the healing ministry, I become more and more aware of the mystery involved. Those who want simple answers and absolute clarity are bound to be disappointed."

For many of us, including Jesus' disciples, the eighteen inch trip from your head to your heart can be a long journey! Throughout the Gospels we are told that during the three years that they were together, Jesus' disciples struggled with some of His teachings. As a matter of fact, in the Gospel of John we are told that many of Jesus' early disciples deserted Him because "His teachings were hard." (John 6:66) After these disciples left, Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked them if they were going to leave Him as well, to which Peter replied, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68–69)

While the faithful ones who remained with Jesus still did not understand all of the things He told them, particularly concerning His impending crucifixion and resurrection, they stayed because their hearts trusted Him and were connected to Him. This kind of acceptance without explanation requires extraordinary faith, and demands a conscious choice to follow your heart! Although their loyalties would be tested and they would make many mistakes, empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, these very same men became an unstoppable force that turned the world upside down with the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ.

While in seminary my husband had a professor who told his students that, as priests, they should try to connect with the 'minds' of people when teaching about Jesus. My husband disagreed, saying that he believes if you have the heart of a person their mind is likely to follow, but if all you have is their mind they just become religious. Even when the mind cannot understand, the heart fuels the faith to believe and trust!

Recently Francis and I were having a discussion about this kind of faith; faith that originates in one's heart and (seemingly) overrides the intellect. He told me that although he realizes many people struggle in this area, he does not. Believing what seems unbelievable, or being willing to do something simply because God asks him to, is essential in his line of work. He said, "Every time we pray, especially in the area of healing, it takes faith because what we are praying for hasn't happened yet. Since we cannot prove the supernatural, because it is invisible, we always need the gift of faith to believe the great mysteries of Christianity."

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 1:18–20 )

Linda Strickland is CHM's Associate Director of Ministry and Assistant to Judith MacNutt.