Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts

Apr 27, 2017

Traveling in the Spirit and Portals

Traveling in the Spirit and Portals


I live in Arizona, which is home to the city of Sedona. A beautiful town nestled in the red rock cliffs which is famous for its “energy portals.” People travel from around the globe in search of a supernatural experience with these portals. I’ve visited Sedona a number of times and I’ve read some of the research that’s been done on the source of energy found at the portals. Most of the research suggests that the portals owe their energy to a unique presence and arrangement of rocks and minerals such as iron oxide and quartz which cause circular flows of magnetic energy in certain locations.
Such portals may provide entertainment for the curious and some opportunity for spiritual travel, though testimonies of the later are difficult to find. Many people experience spiritual travel without accessing one of these portals. If you don’t happen to live near one, your opportunities to use them are limited. The use of such energy portals for spiritual transport is impractical for most people. And even if they were more widely available, I don’t think they’re the best means to accomplish our goals. The kind of portals we have access to as believers are more powerful, more reliable, and safer than these energy portals.
As it relates to spiritual travel, a portal is generally understood to be an entry and exit point between two realms. It’s really nothing more than an opening or a doorway. A portal could be a passageway between the earth and heaven or between any other two places. In the fourth chapter of the book of Revelation, we read where the apostle John was invited to ascend through a door (or portal) into heaven to witness the things God wanted him to see and hear:
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, ‘Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.’
“Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne.  And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.”Rev 4:1-3
This is a wonderful example of what traveling in the spirit can be like for the believer. For those who are not experienced with traveling the spirit, a good place to start is to understand first, that God wants us to come into His dwelling place and meet with Him. The words “come up here” go out to all of His children. If we want to enter into the heavens we must, like John, become “in the spirit,” which is to say that we must become more aware of the spiritual world than we are of the physical one. Once we are aware of the spiritual world, we simply set our heart on God and expect (by faith) that He’ll reveal Himself to us the way He did to John.
Whether or not you see a door open in the heavens, you can travel there any time you like. It was nice that John received a personal invitation and that the Lord showed him the doorway but we have an eternal invitation. Jesus said He is the door that anyone can go through if they desire to visit heaven or meet with the Father.
This is an excerpt from my book Traveling in the Sprit Made Simple

Feb 26, 2010

Traveling in The Spirit

I'm seeing more reports of people being moved from one place to another, supernaturally. I'd like to examine those experiences today. One type of experience is when we are taken in the spirit somewhere, but our physical body remains in the same place. I believe most of us do this when we dream. It can also occur when we're awake. Some people travel in the spirit to another location with their physical body, through the dimension of the spirit. There are other reports of people appearing to be in two places at the same time. I don't want to be led into deception or heresy about this subject. But if it's something God wants us to experience, I don't want to miss out because of my own skepticism. So I'd like to examine what the bible says about them.

Ezekiel was transported in the spirit and describes the experience in Ezekiel 8. He was moved from his dwelling place outside Israel during the captivity and taken some distance to Jerusalem. Phillip experienced a similar thing after baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:39). Paul described his trip to heaven, confessing he didn't know if he was there only in the spirit or in his physical body. (2 Cor. 12:2) While friends were interceding for Peter, he was mysteriously freed by an angel. It's obvious he didn't know if it was a vision or an experience in the natural (Acts 12:8-10) After traveling through a gate, which opened by itself, he arrived at home. Someone made the comment that it wasn't Peter, but his angel, which begs the question - were people know to have experiences in which angels appeared as friends and family? Much of the book of Revelation is an account of the things John saw and heard while being taken to different places in the spirit realm and in the natural.

Jesus was often slipping away and reappearing mysteriously. He appeared walking on water. (Matt. 14:25) He disappeared after talking with the the two disciples he met on the road to Emmaus and re-appeared to a different group shortly after. (Luke 24:31-36) He appeared to the disciples again in a room where the doors were closed, which seems to imply he either walked through a wall or materialized before them. (John 20:26) Jesus also made a fascinating comment about the fact that we would do the things he did; “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. (John 14:12)

There's plenty of scriptural backing behind transportation in the spirit. One could even argue that Jesus wanted us to do the very things he did and more. But some are stumbled at these ideas. I'm setting aside my biases and letting God do what he wants. The word says 'to those who believe, all things are possible'. John Crowder wrote a blog post in which he described his own experience of bi-location.

If you listen to the men and women having these experiences they all tell a similar story; the experiences are a byproduct of living in a deeper relationship with God.

Here are 2 videos in which people discuss their experiences of traveling in the spirit. The first video is an interview with Ian Clayton who talks about his experiences and the biblical basis for them. The second features Jeff Jansen.