A Vision of Christ

I took the Bible that had been given to me as a gift and started to read in the gospels concerning the life of Christ. But this time the Holy Spirit took control in a remarkable way.

Suddenly it seemed I was there! No! I WAS there as the Lord sat upon a rock, his disciples around Him. He was in front of a huge mass of people who had come to hear Him speak and see His miracles. I was somewhere behind Him as He turned and spoke with His disciples about this and that but I didn't really make out what He might have been saying.

The rest of this experience, I have NEVER been able to describe in human language and I don't know if the Lord will ever enable me to. I have seen or met almost no one who has reminded me of this dear Man except I saw a dim reflection of Him in the late Kathryn Kuhlman whose meetings I have been privileged to attend many years ago. The only word I can use as to what I saw was love. There was no selfishness about Him at all but what love!!! What amazing love! As He looked around at His disciples, what a communication of His love to them I cannot describe. It seemed that to Him each one of them was like the most important person in the world at the time. He was actually joking with them. His laughter and smiles were contagious! There was something going forth from Him that had no self interest - it only went out in love - pure self-less love. I have tried to describe it in the past but the life I witnessed through the Holy Spirit in our Savior was so beyond human language that I'll probably miserably fail again! Only the Spirit of God can reveal Christ to you. I have tried to describe what I saw as being "life giving" --- there is that verse in I Cor.15:45b which says "The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit." His every look, word and smile gave life to His disciples - even the slightest deflection of His eyes gave life! He was talking to one of them, laughing and joking and it seemed two seconds later He turned and looked out over the crowd and though I did not hear any of His words during this part of my vision, my spirit was suddenly reminded of the scripture on how Jesus had compassion on the multitude as "they were like sheep without a Shepherd." Although I was already crying due to the love of God being literally poured through my heart like rivers and springs of living waters, the feeling increased far more as I seemed to be taken into His Being at that time. Though at the same time I was somehow behind Him as He was sitting upon that rock I was also within Him as just a second before He was laughing and joking seemingly carelessly with one of His disciples, but now there seemed to be an upheaval of a tremendous sorrow for those who were "sheep without a Shepherd" and this sorrow was so vast and abundant I wondered where He suddenly got it all as it was like a vast ocean seemingly caring, grieving and longing over every single one of those persons in that crowd!!!

The scene changed! Suddenly somehow I seemed to be taken inside the woman who had the issue of blood. (there is no way I can be theologically correct on this one OK? Except maybe her blood loss for 12 years corresponded to the little girl Jesus was traveling towards to raise her from the dead after 12 years of life. The point is: we are all leaking life, but Jesus Christ is the Wonderful Life Giver!!) Somehow I guess the Lord was allowing me to experience what she experienced and how she experienced it. On her(my??) hands and knees, struggling through the crowd, getting closer ... and closer ... the atmosphere seemed to turn around, turn upside down even and become unstable as the compassion of Christ took hold of my (her?) insides - it was as if I were in her shoes as she had almost touched the hem of His garment..... but I don't think I ever got that far. I was just reeling and crying and crying and crying as the whole atmosphere seemed to turn somersaults. Jesus is just too wonderful!! Too awesome!!!! Oh! The wonder of it all! The amazing pity! The boundless love! It was then a prayer formed within me: "Lord, I would do ANYTHING, I would give a thousand lives just to have lived back then, just to have been anywhere near this Man. I told the Lord I would have done anything to have lived back then and just been 200 hundred feet from where He was!!! It's no wonder the crowd pressed around Him! It's no wonder thousands flocked to see Him and stayed around Him for days, even after they had run out of food! He is the single most attractive One in the universe! Yet its so strange there were different reactions to Him from the religious ones.

The scene changed again - this time He was healing the sick, laying His hands upon them when suddenly His whole body seemed to straighten up and He just moved like lightning!!! He seemed to say "God is going to touch someone over here! And He seemed to be about ten feet away from where He first was like a flash! As He laid hands upon that person they just broke and cried and cried and whatever miracle was happening to them must have really meant something to them ... but this is not what struck me!! What struck me was that I was inside of Him while this was taking place, was the fact that He was even more excited about this miracle then that person was! He truly loved them more than they loved themselves!!!!!! What selfless kind of love was this?? He was more excited and thrilled than they were! But I had thought "He's God, He's used to miracles, isn't He? No!! He was amazed!! He was thrilled!! Because He loves us more than we do ourselves!!! Do you suppose it was because He was so living?? I have never seen anyone more excited about life and having more fun!!! His life was one mass revival!!!!!! It's no wonder John said of Him the world could not contain the books if they were written of the things that Jesus did and said in that short time He was alive! BUT THE POINT IS: JESUS IS NOW EVEN MORE ALIVE THAN HE EVER WAS THEN!!!!! Where are we????? ..... Where have we been? One of the main points of my writing this is the real Jesus is NOT LIKE WE THINK HE IS OR WAS!! This is why to not love Him is so wrong because He is so wonderful. Who would want to withhold this knowledge from others? My point is, no one who really could come to know Him would EVER want to disguise or shield this reality from mankind. He is just too too wonderful. There's more than enough for me and for you and for the whole universe!

It took awhile to come back to myself and come down from such a high and there I was: a mess! I had left a pool of tears on my bed and there I was, just sobbing and sobbing, wishing I had only lived back at that time and as I was wondering about it all and praying and meditating a stillness seemed to steal over me and a peace seemed to settle upon me as if a Giant Dove was hovering over me brooding and gently fluttering His wings. I was reminded of the scripture in Genesis where it says "and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." Gen 1:2. Then things really got still. Things really got quiet as if there were no noise or movement in the whole universe except for His voice and the hovering of His wings as the Holy Spirit began to whisper to me: "Kevin, I have showed you the life of Jesus ... I want that very life to walk this earth again .......... in you!" Of course my response to what he said was "no way!!!" "No way I could ever be like that! It'll take forever!" At that point He directed me to II Corinthians 4:6 and then verses 10 through 12. But that is not a that but rather it is Him and you and I have that HIM living in us! Oh! If only we did not imprison Him in our human spirit! If only we let Him make His home in our whole heart mind, spirit soul and body!

Of course as I read II Cor. 4 later where it says in verse 6 "God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in [the] face of [Jesus] Christ." This of course corresponded with my experience of seeing the face of Jesus and the love expressed through that face. It also corresponded to God speaking light out of darkness after the hovering of the Spirit of God over the dark depth of the voided and empty human soul. Still there is a deep depth within every man woman and child of a fathomless ocean like depth of capacity to experience the endless abundance of Jesus Christ! Both He and we are much much more than we know!