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(revised 8/ 21 / 2006) By Tim Greenwood
When I was a small boy, my Dad would turn up the volume when Patsy Cline would come on the pickup radio. Back when she would sing, "… And, He walks with me -- and He talks with me -- and He tells me -- I am His own…" -- I NEVER DREAMED that a thing like that was EVER actually possible. And now -- God the Father -- through the Holy Spirit -- "speaks" to me. I put that in quotes because I don't "hear" Him with my ears and it doesn't seem to come from my head either. It's Him, (the Bible says that He is Spirit), speaking to my spirit. Well I could go on for page on that alone, but that's not my purpose here. God and I just converse -- mostly when I go for quiet prayerful walks. During one of these morning walks God said, "Tim I have a special gift for you today!" Well, I was like a little kid at Christmas! I was really excited! I actually waited by the mailbox until the postman came and went -- but there was nothing special. I then started watching for the UPS truck, until it passed us by. Later, when someone came to our door, I fully expected them to come bearing that gift -- but they had none. The morning passed into afternoon and I still waited expectantly -- but nothing. By 4:30 that afternoon, I was beginning to think that I had heard God wrong. A little later I felt very strongly compelled to come to God in prayer. I went into my bathroom, knelt down with my elbows on a low countertop and began to praise and pray. I heard the voice of God more strongly than ever before say, "Tim, give me your hand," to which I responded, "Father take both my hands!" And, as I raised my hands toward the heavens -- the power of God fell on me like I had never experienced before. My knees could no longer hold my weight and buckled under me and I sat down upon my legs and slid back till I was seated on the floor. Then that power seemed to increase by magnitudes, and I was not able to hold myself upright. I collapsed back against the wall with my eyes closed and hands palms up on the floor at my sides. It felt as if I was a little child again -- being wrapped and bundled up in a thick and cozy pre-warmed satin blanket -- then came a long, loving, caressing hug. In response I attempted to reached out to return the embrace only to end up hugging myself -- so I just relaxed -- and received it. The presence of God was so strong that I was speechless and all I could do was weep. I can't tell you if they were tears of joy or a long overdue emotional release -- but God just held me -- until I was done. Then, God, gently let me go as I thanked Him and expressed my love for Him, Jesus and His Holy Spirit. I have been a lot of exciting places through out this world,
and I have had many great experiences
-- but none before or since (so far) as awesome as this one I have just
tried to describe to you. Now, I didn't ask for that awesome hug -- but
I want to encourage you to go before your Heavenly Father and ask Him
for
one. Now He has repeatedly instructed me that HIS gifts are HIS to give
to whomever HE will. But, His Word says that He is "no respecter of
persons"
so, I believe that if He did this for me -- he will do it for you too.
We are trying to pull that loved one inside of us and make him or her part of us. God put that desire into all of us at creation – because it is something that is in Him. You see at that
moment that I received that hug from God, I felt that my spirit was
enveloped in His Spirit and His Spirit was enveloped in my
spirit.
At that moment – I knew that we had become
ONE.
Recently I had
two other revelations from God. In the first, the simple phrase,
“Spirit Envelopes
Spirit” and then a short clip or flash of the “upper room” during the
impartation of the Holy Spirit. And later a few short
clips of when the Holy ghost
Now let me say
here and now that I'm not teaching some new doctrine. I'm simply
a witness relating what I saw and heard. You are free to believe
it or not. It really helped me and my hope is that it will help
you too. Acts 2:1-2
says, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with
one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as
of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were
sitting." What I saw in
my spirit here was like a fast moving slide-show with sound. There was
a big, bellowing, fast moving con-trail similar to something that I saw
in a movie about an astroid hitting the earth, but roaring down at a
sharp angle out of the sky accompannied by one earth shaking sonic boom
right over the building where the hundred and twenty were. The
noise brought people running from every direction, all expecting to dig
survivors out of the rubble of some disaster. Acts 2:3-4
says, "And there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were
all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the
Spirit gave
them utterance."
The Holy Spirit
only showed me a vision of just a few little clips of that day of
Pentecost. But it was awesome! The people in
the room were all half sitting, half
reclining on mats and pillows when the boom sounded. The room lit
up in a flash which colelessed into who I recognized in the vision to
be
the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
He was translucent to me and possibly invisible to them, with what
appeared to be iridescent flames on His torso and half-way down His
arms,
simular to what had the moment before filled the room.. The people in
the room didn't have tiime to react other than a few which sat up
straight and shielding their eyes, but most didn’t dare to even move.
The Spirit of Jesus came first
to a man there, half knelt down to him hugging him in a bear hug. I
couldn’t
tell who was who. The man sat up straight and responsively hugged back
seemingly hugging himself. This is kind of hard to explain, but that
hug seemed
to pull an entire copy of Jesus’ Spirit completely into the man – which
split
out of Jesus’ Spirit, which still knelt next to him. Even before the
Spirit
completely divided, Jesus’ Spirit moved directly to the next person and
repeated the
process and so on. I only saw three,
but in every case He was being “received” by each person, with an
enveloping
hug – into them. i.e. the Spirit didn’t
sweep in and possess the people, the people’s spirits enveloped His
Spirit and
He enveloped theirs. By the next
scene, all visable evidence of the form of Jesus' Spirit was gone, most
of those in the room were on their feet laughing, singing and hugging
each other, most drunk in the spirit and loudly praying in
tongues. And, just as all the different groups of would-be
rescuers came together around this building, and begin asking each
other "what has happened here!?" And befor they can rush
inside, the twelve, trying to hold each other up come stumbling out
onto the front porch. Someone in the crowd says, "It's just a bunch a
drunks!" And as the people begin to turn away, Peter speaks up
and tells them what just happened. And each stopped and heard him
in their own native language. And that was the end of those
visions.
The Holy Spirit
showed me that
God and all of mankind desires total contact in expressing our love
with each
other. This is why God designed our
spirits to be able to simultaneously envelope and be enveloped by the
Holy
Spirit. Now with this in mind, lets read just a few of the scriptures
from John’s
writings that have this “full contact of envelopment” in mind. I
think John really “got” this early on.
John 15:5-7 - I
am the vine, ye are the branches: He
that abides in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:
for
without me ye can do nothing. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in
you, ye
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
How about this one… The
Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit envelope one another the same way: Oh, now get
this one! It could change the way you “receive” communion:
There’s just
not enough room here to quote all of
these exciting “in him, in whom” scriptures! How about spending some time with God
today? If you give Him a hug, I KNOW
that He will hug you back!
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