God's Pictures Are Worth Their Weight in Faith 

As an aid to this constant prayer, take advantage of the different gifts in your church.  God sometimes gives different ones of His children dreams and visions, painting a picture for us that can impact our hunger level in ways that doctrinal words can’t.  If God gives a picture to your group of Christians, keep it before your eyes as an aid to faith as you seek God’s presence. 

Our friend Steven seems to have this gifting, and one of his visions has encouraged my wife and I when we get tired or distracted from seeking God’s presence.  Steven was in a church service (in reality), worshipping with the rest of the congregation, when he happened to glance up.  A kind of crystal or glass was hovering above the congregation, shining down on the group like a streetlamp.  Steven looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what he was seeing.  No one seemed to be noticing, but when Steven looked up, the lamp-crystal was still there, and it seemed to rise with the sincerity and passion of the worshippers.  It rose higher and higher until its light was not just shining on the congregation but also on the neighborhood around the church.  Steven could somehow see similar lights, at varying heights, all around the city, hovering over the different churches. 

This vision has helped my wife and I hunger more for the presence of God in our home, in our church, and in all the churches in our city because we can see, visually, the encroachment of God’s Spirit, through the churches, on the whole city.  The stronger God’s presence is among us, the more impact the church will have, “believers [being] increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women” (Acts 5:14). 

Coming soon...Chapter 2.14:  Judging Sin in the Church?  OMG!