The IHOPU Student Awakening: Manifestations, part 2

As the IHOPU Student Awakening continues here in Kansas City, the Holy Spirit continues to move by healing bodies and hearts. His presence has come and filled so many with peace and joy in a fresh way. So many friends that I have spoken to personally have been changed from the inside out and filled with a new measure of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is truly preparing His bride to meet Him through this time of refreshing!

With this increased measure of the Holy Spirit’s activity however has come a new level of “manifestations”, or human bodies reacting to the nearness of a holy God. For some attending and watching via webcast unfamiliar with such manifestations, this has created confusion, offense, or distraction, so I wanted to write a series of posts to bring biblical clarity to what is happening so that our perspectives can be aligned with the Lord’s in this move of the Spirit.

In the last post in this series, I gave a little bit of background and some scriptural evidence for corporate “manifestations” of the Holy Spirit. If you have not read it, be sure to check it out here. It will make this post make much more sense!

The Scripture gives us many different instances where the Lord’s presence caused an out-of-the-ordinary reaction of the human frame. Here are a few examples that come to mind:

1. Daniel 8:17-18: The angel Gabriel approaches Daniel and causes him to tremble and fall flat on his face because he was deeply afraid. Daniel was in a “deep sleep”, but then was stood upright by Gabriel.
2. Acts 2:4,13,15: The Holy Spirit falls upon believers causing them to speak in other languages and move and behave in such a way that onlookers thought they were drunk with alcohol.
3. Acts 9:3-4: Paul sees a light from heaven, causing him to fall to the ground.
4. 2 Corinthians 12:1-5: Paul was caught up to the heavens and experienced things that he could not utter.
5. Revelation 1:17: John sees a vision of Jesus and falls at His feet as if he was dead. Jesus then lays his right hand upon him.

Just take a second and imagine what your reaction would be in each of these settings. What would you do if the angel Gabriel showed up in your bedroom tonight? Would you have an adverse reaction? I certainly would! When the Lord visits us in an unusual way, it’s almost guaranteed that we will certainly react in an unusual way!

The Holy Spirit has been visiting us in an unusual way with the joy of the Lord, and people have been reacting to His presence by dancing, laughing, and enjoying Him just as a child enjoys the company of their father. And like we see in Acts 2, some even seem as if they are “drunk with wine” as they are experiencing God’s healing presence and joy.

I am so grateful that His joy is not one-sided. He longs to share His joy with us, so that we would experience the delight that He feels towards us. This is what empowers us to give our love back to Him. The common phrase that comes to mind is “a merry heart does good like a medicine”. Unlike the temporary pleasures of the world, His joy really does heal hearts of deep brokenness and pain!

Here are some other verses and biblical phrases to consider. As you read through the list, ask yourself “what do these things really look like?”

• “Tremble before the Lord all the earth” (1 Chr. 16:30)
• “Rejoice [the Hebrew word actually means “to spin violently like a top”] with trembling” (Psalm 2:11)
• “Shout with joy to God” (Psalm 66:1)
• “Gladness and joy will overtake them” (Isaiah 51:11)
• “Men will faint with terror, apprehensive of what is coming” (Luke 21:26)
• “Their overflowing joy welled up” (1 Cor. 8:2)

We tend to view these things as simply lasting for a moment inside our mind or our heart and without any outward expression, but they simply cannot be that way because of the strong language of each passage. Most of our understanding of the order and culture of a church service comes from our current experience. We read the book of Acts and are completely disconnected from the power dimensions that were seen in the early church as normative. The Old Testament accounts of God’s dealings with Israel and New Testament Christianity were never seen without the spiritual, heavenly realm interacting with the earthly, physical realm. This was the norm for them. Early Christianity was known for its spiritual power and its utter foolishness to the human intellect (1 Cor. 1:20-31). But today, we live in a world where Christianity has abased its concept of God and His dealings with men to things that are abstract and detached rather than concrete and experiential.

Our whole spirit, soul, and body were made to experience the presence of God. Christianity was never meant to be a religion of mental ascent and enlightenment, but rather an experience of power and love connected with the truths of God’s person.

I’m personally convinced that the Lord brings bizarre manifestations to offend the mind and reveal the heart. He gives us all opportunity for humility and Christlikeness by:

1. Inviting those whose body reacts to the presence of God in strange ways to renounce their pride and submit to God’s hand.
2. Inviting those whose body does not move at all to believe that He is touching them, but just in imperceptible ways.
3. Inviting those who are confused or distracted to ask for help to set their focus on Jesus, His glory and worth, and His work in people’s hearts and lives.

He is really answering all those prayers we have prayed for humility and to be like Him!

Of course, the Lord’s love for someone is never demonstrated by their body reacting to His presence more than another. His love was demonstrated once and for all on the cross of Calvary. The cross is the greatest statement He could ever make about our worth to Him. We should never determine our worth by the measure of a manifestation of His presence on our human frame.

God knows exactly what we need individually, and if we open our heart to Him we can trust Him to fill us with what we need to love Him well. For some, this may mean that their body shakes or they laugh as the Lord fills them. For others, it may mean that they weep or lay on the floor in reverence as the Lord fills them. Yet still for others, it may mean that they tangibly feel nothing at all as the Lord fills them.

In the next post in this series, I’ll talk about a couple more topics I want to address, including “operating in the flesh”, asking for more of the Lord’s presence, and some of the other practical concerns that arise when we encounter manifestations of the Spirit.

I welcome your comments! Facebook users, be sure to click “View Original Post” and comment on the blog itself as I do not often check my Facebook comments.