Meeting Jesus Face to Face

When my wife and I were living in our first apartment after we moved to Barrie, I felt (as I always felt ever from my day of salvation) a deep desire to give back to the Lord for some of the many things He had done for me. Including the many ways, he had freed me from my deep dark and demonic New Age past. In fact, I have such gratitude for all of the things that He continues to do in my life that I still have these same desires to this day. I do get blessed every time I try to bless the Lord so we do have an ever-deepening relationship.

I knew for years that one of the gifts I had been given was that of music and it was my desire to use this gift to further Christ’s kingdom. In order to prepare for this calling, I had compiled a book of maybe about 50 to 60 praise and worship songs. All of which are regularly sung in many different types of churches. I began to worship God as I played through the songs. I did not just sing the words but as I played I meant them and truly worshiped the God of Heaven and Earth. This became a huge blessing in disguise because when ever a saint (redeemed Christian) worships God, the act of worship directly calls God into their life. His presence is bound to come. I had no idea and was completely unprepared for what was about to happen.

I went through song after song praising Jesus and after I had been praising for about 30 minutes the standard worship sensations came: The tingling, the feeling of peace and fulfillment, the waves of heat and cold, the coolness of the air and the purity of my breath as it left my lungs. The Holy Spirit began to work in my life as He continued to do every time I entered worship. As an aside: having experienced both New Age and the Holy Spirit quite deeply, I can say the sensations between the two might be similar at first but at their root are completely different. It takes an astute discernment but the two types of spirits simply can not be compared.

At the 60 to 80 minute mark of strait worship, things began to get absolutely incredible. I feet a deep tingle which became to be almost like an electricity in my arms and soon found it hard to continue playing my guitar. I will spend a moment to try to explain the sensation: It was close to the numbness that you feel when you sleep on your arm but there was no pain, and the electric sensation was about 100% more intense. There also was not the same “numb” sensation as when your arms fall asleep.

Before long I could not feel not only my hands but also my arms and legs. It soon became impossible to continue playing my instrument as the sensations continued to intensify. My breathing felt clean and pure as a I resorted to praising with my lips with all of my mind, soul, body and heart. When I could no longer sing because my breathing was becoming labored (in a healthy non-hyperventilating way), I continued to follow the desires of my heart and spoke blessings directly to my God; praising His name, calling upon him, thanking Him and sharing every other joy I had within me at that time.

Before long I could only feel the beating of my heart as the rest of my body, lungs and extremities were pulsing with a powerful all-consuming and almost paralyzing (in a good way) jittery electric sensation. It was like someone had pored Holy Spirit fluid over every part of my body and I was absolutely soaked in it as it permeated my flesh. By this time I could now only feel the blood immediately around my heart and could barely contain any of my sensations. I continued to surrender control to the Holy Spirit. I was genuinely in a non-drug-induced, spiritual and physical high. All I needed was my guitar, my heart of worship and my worship calling upon God and He came.

My wife was in the other room so I felt it safe to continue to worship even though the spiritual manifestations of the holy spirit was more intense than I had ever experienced in my life at that time. I knew in a worst-case scenario she would be there monitor me if things truly got “out of control”. I knew at that time if I stopped praising God He would have politely ended my experience at that point, but I was still yearning for more so I continued to praise and pray. I knew God was in my midst as I had worshipped many times like this before but I always stopped myself before this point. I continued on.

Then, something hit me that I had never felt before in deep worship. I felt a deep fear. Not a dreadful or horror movie type of fear, but a genuine fear for my life because I knew something huge was about to happen and I knew my physical flesh was not able to contain it. I felt like what I guess Moses must have felt on Mount Sinai when he was in the full manifest presence of God. The “fear of God” was upon him.
I at this sensation immediately quaked under the power of the holiness of God in my life and knew that no matter how pure or forgiven God had made me, I would still have sin in my life and this sin my consume me as God enters into my midst. I began to fear for my life. I began to just trust in God and His spirit that I would not perish in his manifest presence that I felt was coming just around the corner. A part of me yearned for Him to come while another part of me wanted to run away because I knew no matter what I did I would not be ready for him. The ball had been set in motion and there was no turning back.

My worship of Christ continued for a little while longer when all of a sudden something happened that I really did not expect. To my right and about the height of the door jam I felt the presence of a spirit. Not a “ghost” but a spirit. I was more scared now then at any other time in my life. I was not afraid that the spirit (manifest presence of God) would harm me in any way; I just feared that I would be completely consumed by its awesome presence and once again was trembling for my life. My heart began to beat faster and it became a little harder to breathe as I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. I was not “possessed” but overwhelmed by the spirit of the living God in my life. My flesh could barely contain being in the direct presence of God. I worried at this time that my physical body would simply collapse and I was fine with this. There was no better way to die that I could think of. Tears of joy began to flow freely from my eyes down the side of my cheeks and by this time my arms and legs were flying fee in the air almost completely out of my control because of the strong electric pulses and sensation running through my flesh. My spirit was completely uplifted in awe of God’s glory.

As strange as it sounds, it almost became cloudy in the room that I worshiped it. This manifestation has happened before in other group worship times I was a part of but has never happened when I worshiped alone. I was so tempted to look up at the spirit to my right to see its face but a wise and righteous fear filled me and stopped me from doing so because I knew I would be consumed by the eyes and face of the presence of what I would see. My flesh was on the edge of collapse as it was and was only being held by the peace and blessing of God.

By now I could not feel my extremities at all could barely feel any part of my own body. The electric sensations flowing through me turned me numb in a way and I began to fear for my heart to go into arrhythmia (unsteady beating). My eyes must have been dilated like saucers at the time because it was night and I could see the room like it was bright as day.

At this time I could no longer speak as my tongue was tied with the awesomeness of God. I continued to worship in silence and reverence of what I was experiencing. I could almost not believe what was happening, but I was more concerned with just surviving through this moment. Questions went through my mind like: “why me?” “Why Now?” “I am not worthy” “Lord can’t we do this later because I am not worthy of you”. My thoughts then stopped as I listened intently. To be absolutely clear, I was free and not bound in any way, I just could not move because of the mighty presence that surrounded and filled me. The spirit/entity then moved from beside me to directly in front of me.

His / her feet never touched the floor as it floated about 1 foot above it. I would dare not look above the hem of “His” white garment for reasons I have mentioned before. I was not prepared and I did not desire to die at that time. He then spoke to me: “Why do you not trust me? I have everything under control”. His voice was soothing and permeated deep into my soul and it was as though He was talking directly into my inner ear and bypassing my eardrums. I questioned at first why I would be asked such a question because I knew I trusted the Lord, but then I immediately recalled recent moments that concerned me. Moments that I thought were completely out of control, not necessarily out of God’s direct control but larger than a “simple God solution” and through this time I felt as though God did not truly control the solution to the circumstance. At this revelation, I completely understood the depth and reasoning behind His question. I was dumbfounded and speechless. I realized that Jesus was telling me that He did have everything completely under control, even the parts I thought He had left me alone with. Realizing this I gave it all to Him and said: “I do trust you Lord”. I spoke in the same way that He spoke to me: Through the depths of my spirit.

I have had experiences with angels in my life before and this presence was different than anything else I had ever known. Because of this I must believe that the presence I experienced was the manifest presence of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit consumed me and God spoke through him.

After speaking my simple words I felt the entity do what I thought of as smile. I could not look directly into His face but I could tell he smiled like how one would tell when a person is smiling on the other end of a phone conversation. There was a slight pause and then I was slowly pulled together and could begin to feel normal sensations return to my arms and legs. My skin was ashen white as I could now feel my blood returning to my limbs. I did not want the experience to end, but I knew it couldn’t continue forever.

At this time immediately I felt a larger than life urge that: “if I can only touch the hem of His garment I would be healed.” I don’t know at that time what I would be healed from as I was not “sick” but I sure desired whatever I might have received by touching His garment. I almost respectfully began to crawl on my hands and knees across the floor as Jesus knew what I was trying to do. He allowed me to draw nearer. As I moved closer I had a feeling He would step or move away slightly from me and in doing so save my life. This is exactly what happened. The spirit wisely moved away from my extended hand (middle finger extended forward) when I was only 1 inch from touching the hem of His garment. I was relieved and not disappointed and I am sure Christ was pleased for the expression of my faith.

Before I could think my next thought, an even more profound event occurred. The physical manifestation of who I understand now to be Jesus himself slowly ascended and went through the far wall of the room. He then began to do what I felt as ascend into the sky or heavens. This was not surprising to me. What caught me in immediate amazement was that I was drawn with him (in my ethereal sense). I immediately saw myself from the ceiling looking down at my body still alive and in exactly in the position I had left it: Kneeling and leaning forward on the floor. I then was lifted up to see my apartment and the houses in my neighborhood then immediately continued to climb upward and experienced a complete view of my city, my country, then my continent. At that point I was launched across the earth, witnessing everything that was happening within it. I saw children praying at their bedside about to go to sleep. I saw people making love; I saw homeless asking for alms at the street sides. I saw all of the night lights of our nation twinkling like one would see from a satellite photograph. I then faced the horizons and saw the simultaneous rising and setting on our sun.
For the first time in my life a saw a glimpse of how God sees our world. I saw our earth as a complete whole as well as lives of every animal and individual as unique. I could see the completeness of time pass by every millisecond. I heard the simultaneous prayers of all that asked (or almost all, I don’t think my mind could had conceptualized every prayer request like God) and I also began to see the actions of all, their emotions, their trials, stresses and pains; their joys and sorrows. I could experience their lives if not only briefly from their perspective. It was simply incredible!

God then whisked me around the world past the rising sun where I saw the great pyramids of Egypt and a frustrated man walking beside his camel, I saw people from all nations, all tongues, all trials and all temptations in their home countries walking through their lives as they saw fit; some in rebellion to God, some worshiping in other synagogues. I actually began to understand some of their journeys and plights and how God sees things. Prior to this I had no conceptual idea of how extensively God saw our world and everything in it. I knew in my mind that He was all present and all-knowing but now I truly began to truly understand. For just one brief moment I saw our entire world and everything within it and understood. Then within an instant, I was brought back into my room and into my body and into my own moment with these words left ringing in my heart. “I see all”

Those three words marked the completion of his statement to me and the word “see” as a new meaning to me as I understood the completeness if its intent. I then looked inwardly to my life. Who am I to not “consecrate” everything to God? By doing so I remove some of the fullness He wants me to experience in my life. Who am I to think that “my problems” are too unique or too much for God to bear? or Who am I to think that I have to be completely independent and not show dependence on others or Jesus when I had just experienced millions of people that experience rich blessings from directly letting God do His blessings in their lives by allowing themselves to be dependent and ask and rely on Jesus? Before this vision, my personal doubts were partially standing in the way of God truly being God over my life. He was still working but I was limiting his blessings in my life in many ways. It is hard to not doubt when you face hard times but God loves you and will carry you through any experience that faces you.

I was dumbfounded to say the last. I truly understood. I truly understood! WOW. I can just trust in God completely and in His time He will take care of my every need. His wisdom, presence and peace, will sustain me all through my days and through any circumstance I would face. I truly understood! God is a magnificent God.

It took a few minutes for me to recover from this life-changing experience and I over time I lifted myself off of what was now my peaceful position lying on the floor. I did not want the moment to end so I let it last as long as I could.

After getting up I shared with my wife what had happened and she shared in my joy. I was glad I could share this experience with her. There is not much more to be said from here. This is just one of the many miracles, signs and wonders that has happened in my life.

Thank you for sharing this one with me by reading my account. I will post other accounts as soon as I can.