Hosting the Presence

by Bill Johnson

  Matthew 28 gives the most complete and well known of the Great Commission passages.

  All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20).

  In it Jesus declares that He has all authority, which obviously implies that the devil has none. In that moment, He gives a commission to His followers. The secret of this moment is that authority is given in the commission. He then instructs them to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high.

  Just as authority comes in the commission, so power comes in the encounter. We see it in Jesus’ life, and so it is for the disciples. And it’s no different for us. There is nothing that training, study, or association with the right people can do to make up for this one thing. There is nothing to replace a divine encounter. Everyone must have their own.

  Tragically, many stop short of a divine encounter because they’re satisfied with good theology. Once a concept is seen in Scripture, it can be shared with others even though there’s no personal experience to back it up. True learning comes in the experience, not the concept by itself. Often we can become guilty of only looking for something to happen to us that is on our list of what constitutes a “biblical” encounter with God. The lists of various experiences discovered in Scripture do not contain God; they reveal Him. In other words, He is bigger than His book, and is not limited to doing something for us the exact same way He did for someone else. He continues to be creative, each time revealing the wonder of who He is.

  Many fail to realize that what is needed in this pursuit of more is an abandonment to God that attracts something that cannot be explained, controlled, or understood. We must encounter one who is bigger than we are in every possible way until He leaves a mark. It is wonderful, glorious, and scary.

  My Story—Glorious, but Not Pleasant

  In my personal quest for increased power and anointing in my ministry, I have traveled to many cities, including Toronto. God has used my experiences in such places to set me up for life-changing encounters at home.

  Once in the middle of the night, God came in answer to my prayer for more of Him, yet not in a way I had expected. I went from a dead sleep to being wide-awake. Unexplainable power began to pulsate through my body, seemingly just shy of electrocution. It was as though I had been plugged into a wall socket with a thousand volts of electricity flowing through my body. My arms and legs shot out in silent explosions as if something was released through my hands and feet. The more I tried to stop it, the worse it got.

  I soon discovered that this was not a wrestling match I was going to win. I heard no voice, nor did I have any visions. This was simply the most overwhelming experience of my life. It was raw power…it was God. He came in response to a prayer I had been praying for months—God, I must have more of you at any cost!

  The evening before was glorious. We were having meetings with a good friend and prophet, Dick Joyce. The year was 1995. At the end of the meeting, I prayed for a friend who was having difficulty experiencing God’s presence. I told him that I felt God was going to surprise him with an encounter that could come in the middle of the day, or even at 3 a.m. When the power fell on me that night, I looked at the clock. It was 3 a.m., exactly. I knew I had been set up.

  For months I had been asking God to give me more of Him. I wasn’t sure of the correct way to pray, nor did I understand the doctrine behind my request. All I knew was I was hungry for God. It had been my constant cry day and night.

  This divine moment was glorious, but not pleasant. At first I was embarrassed, even though I was the only one who knew I was in that condition. As I lay there, I had a mental picture of me standing before my congregation, preaching the Word as I loved to do. But I saw myself with my arms and legs flailing about as though I had serious physical problems. The scene changed—I was walking down the main street of our town, in front of my favorite restaurant, again arms and legs moving about without control.

  I didn’t know of anyone who would believe that this was from God. I recalled Jacob and his encounter with the angel of the Lord. He limped for the rest of His life. And then there was Mary, the mother of Jesus. She had an experience with God that not even her fiancée believed, although a visit from an angel helped to change his mind. As a result she bore the Christ-child…and then bore a stigma for the remainder of her days as the mother of the illegitimate child. It was becoming clear; the favor of God sometimes looks different from the perspective of earth than from Heaven. My request for more of God carried a price.

  Tears began to soak my pillowcase as I remembered the prayers of the previous months and contrasted them with the scenes that just passed through my mind. At the forefront was the realization that God wanted to make an exchange—His increased presence for my dignity. It’s difficult to explain how you know the purpose of such an encounter. All I can say is you just know. You know His purpose so clearly that every other reality fades into the shadows, as God puts His finger on the one thing that matters to Him.

  In the midst of the tears came a point of no return. I gladly yielded, crying, More, God. More! I must have more of You at any cost! If I lose respectability and get You in the exchange, I’ll gladly make that trade. Just give me more of You!

  The power surges didn’t stop. They continued throughout the night, with me weeping and praying, More Lord, more, please give me more of You. It all stopped at 6:38 a.m., at which time I got out of bed completely refreshed. This experience continued the following two nights, beginning moments after getting into bed.

  Extremes

  There are many interesting encounters that God has had with His people throughout the years. It’s a mistake to use one as the standard for all. The two most life-changing encounters I’ve had with God couldn’t be more different from one another. Above, I related the story of being electrocuted in His Presence. The other one was so subtle that it would have been as easy to miss as it was to catch. It was because I “turned aside.” The Bible says, “When Moses turned aside…God spoke.” My burning bush was a Scripture that the Holy Spirit highlighted to me. I stopped and considered it, pursuing what God might be saying. That was May of 1979, and I’ve never been the same since. It started small, much like a seed. But it has been increasing continuously, having tremendous impact for how I think and live. (It was Isaiah 60:1-19, where God showed me the purpose and nature of the church.)

  Your encounter with God may stir up a holy jealousy in me; it isn’t healthy to judge what God has done in me by comparing it to what He’s done for you. In the electrocution experience I mentioned above, I didn’t know if I’d ever get out of bed again. It seemed that my circuits were fried and that I had lost the ability to function in life as a normal human being. That, of course, wasn’t the case. But I only learned that after the fact: after I said yes to “more at any price.”

  It’s not how extreme an encounter is with God. It’s how much of us He apprehends in the experience—and how much of His presence He can entrust to us. Jesus manifested a lifestyle, as a man, that is intensely practical, and can no longer be avoided or considered unattainable. It is possible to carry the Presence of the Holy Spirit so well that the Father is revealed to this orphaned planet. That satisfies the quest for divine purpose quite well. Doing exactly as He did is what Jesus had in mind when He commission us in John 20:21.

  Learning to Focus

  Psalm 37 is one of my favorite psalms. I turn to it frequently to feed on over and over again. In it, I discovered that waiting on the Lord was quite different from what I had originally thought. Waiting is not sitting still. It is more clearly seen in setting up an ambush for the one who promised, “I will be found by you” (Jer. 29:14). He wants to be found by us, but we must seek Him where He may be found. This is a place of rest that comes out of the
conviction of who He is in us, and who we are in Him. For that reason, waiting makes sense. Verse 7 tells us to “rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” Resting is a beautiful picture of people that no longer feel the pressure to strive to prove themselves. They are comfortable in their own skin. (Before we’re saved we performed to get an identity so we’d be accepted. After we’re saved we find out we’re accepted, and that’s our identity, and from that reality comes our performance.)

  Patiently has two meanings: “pain in childbirth” or “whirling in the air in dance.” Both of these activities require incredible focus and strength. We are to wait on God with an unflinching resolve and focus, much like what Jacob had when he wrestled the angel. The same can be said of Elisha when he contended for Elijah’s mantle.

  There are seasons in life when being involved in many diverse activities is not only acceptable it’s good. But there are also seasons when it is deadly. I was once driving from Northern California to Southern California on Interstate 5. South of Bakersfield I found myself in a dust storm that almost completely blinded me. It covered the entire freeway. There were cars immediately behind me, so I knew stopping could be disastrous. As I got into this cloud of dust I could faintly see cars and trucks scattered all over both sides of the freeway with people waving frantically. Talking with friends, listening to music, and the like are acceptable activities while driving, but they could have been deadly in this moment. Absolute silence filled the car as I worked to maintain my speed and focus on the lane ahead of me. After a minute or two, we made it through that terrifying cloud of death by God’s grace alone.

  Intense focus restricts what you are willing and able to see. And while this approach will keep you from seeing many things, it will also open your eyes to see more of what you hunger for. Self-control is not the ability to say no to a thousand other voices. It’s the ability to say yes to the one thing so completely that there’s nothing left to give to the other options.

  The Holy Spirit is our greatest gift, and must become our single focus. With that in mind, each of us has become the target of God for a specific encounter that redefines our purpose on planet earth. It’s the baptism of fire. We were born to burn. And while the danger of turning our attention from the person to the experience exists, it’s worth the risk. No amount of miracles, no amount of insight, no amount of personal success will ever satisfy the cry of the heart for this baptism. And while many would like to just get it over with, often times there is a deep process involved. For the 120, it was ten days of continuous prayer. For me it was an eight-month season where my prayers actually woke me up. I didn’t wake up to pray. I woke up praying.

  Such a singleness of focus is rewarded. I personally don’t think that these encounters are supposed to be a one-time event. We must have frequent encounters with God that continuously recalibrate our hearts that we might be entrusted with more and more of God.

  What a person values they will protect. God will give us the measure of His presence that we are willing to jealously guard.

  Historic Encounters

  When Jesus appeared to two men on the road to Emmaus, He opened the Scriptures to explain why the Christ had to die. As yet they didn’t know who He was, but they persuaded Him to stay for a meal. When He broke the bread, their eyes were opened, and then He vanished. Their response is one of my favorite ones in all of the Bible. “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking?” (Luke 24:32). That is exactly what happens to me when I read of what this same Jesus has done in the lives of those who have given themselves for more. My hearts burns.

  Below are a few stories of people and seasons in God. They are but a small handful of thousands that should be told.

  Dwight L. Moody

  It was some months later, while walking the streets of New York, that Dwight finally experienced the breakthrough for which he and Sarah Cooke had been praying together. It was shortly before his second and most important trip to England. R.A. Torrey had this to say about this significant advance in Moody’s life:

  Not long after, one day on his way to England, he was walking up Wall Street in New York; (Mr. Moody very seldom told this and I almost hesitate to tell it) and in the midst of the bustle and hurry of that city his prayer was answered; the power of God fell upon him as he walked up the street and he had to hurry off to the house of a friend and ask that he might have a room by himself, and in that room he stayed alone for hours; and the Holy Ghost came upon him, filling his soul with such joy that at last he had to ask God to withhold His hand, lest he die on the spot from very joy. He went out from that place with the power of the Holy Ghost upon him, and when he got to London, the power of God wrought through him mightily in North London, and hundreds were added to the churches; and that was what led to his being invited over to the wonderful campaign that followed in later years.

  Dwight describes the experience in this way:

  I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York—oh, what a day!—I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience for to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it would be as the small dust of the balance.

  Evan Roberts

  For a period of time Evan had been seeking and finding a more intimate relationship with the Lord. William Davies, a deacon at the Moriah Chapel, had counseled young Evan never to miss the prayer meetings in case the Holy Spirit would come and he would be missing. So Evan faithfully attended the Monday evening meeting at Moriah, Tuesday at Pisgah, Wednesday at Moriah, and Thursday and Friday at other prayer meetings and Bible classes. For thirteen years he did this and faithfully prayed for a mighty visitation for the Holy Spirit.

  One day before school, in the spring of 1904, Evan found himself in what he later referred to as a Mount of Transfiguration experience. The Lord revealed himself in such an amazing and overwhelming manner that Evan was filled with divine awe. After this he would go through periods of uncontrollable trembling that brought concern to his family. For weeks God visited Evan each night. When his family pressed him to tell about the experiences he would only say it was something indescribable. When the time drew near for him to enter Grammar School at New Castle Emlyn, he was afraid to go because he was afraid that he would miss these encounters with the Lord.

  At this time a convention was being held at Blaenenerch a few miles from his school. An evangelist named Seth Joshua was leading the meetings. On Thursday morning, September 29, 1904, Evan Roberts and 19 other young people, including his friend Sydney Evans, attended the meeting. On the way to the meeting the Lord moved on the small company and they began to sing: “It is coming, it is coming—the power of the Holy Ghost—I receive it—I receive it—the power of the Holy Ghost.”

  During the seven o’clock meeting Evan was deeply moved and he broke down completely at the close of the service. When Seth Joshua used the words “Bend us, oh Lord,” Evan entered such travail that he heard nothing more. He later testified that the Spirit of God whispered to him: “This is what you need.”

  “Bend me, Oh Lord,” he cried. But the fire did not fall. At the 9 o’clock meeting the spirit of intercession was moving on the congregation in great power. Evan was bursting to pray. Then the Spirit of God told him to do so publicly. With tears streaming down his face Evan just began to cry: “Bend me! Bend me! Bend me! Bend us’. Then the Holy Spirit came upon him with a mighty baptism that filled Evan with Calvary’s love and a love for Calvary. That night the message of the cross was so branded upon Evan’s heart that there would be no other theme of the great revival he would soon help lead. From tha
t night on Evan Roberts could focus on one thought—the salvation of souls. Historians would refer to that night as “Blaenanerch’s great meeting.”

  One midnight shortly after this, Evan’s roommate and closest friend, Sydney Evans, came into the room to find Evan’s face shining with a holy light. Astonished, he asked what had happened. Evan replied that he had just seen in a vision the whole of Wales being lifted up to heaven. He then prophesied: “We are going to see the mightiest revival that Walker has ever known—and the Holy Spirit is coming just now. We must get ready. We must have a little band and go all over the country preaching.” Suddenly he stopped and with piercing eyes he cried: “Do you believe that God can give us 100,000 souls, now?”

  The presence of the Lord so gripped Sydney that he could not help but believe. Later, while sitting in a chapel, Evan saw in a vision some of his old companions and many other young people as a voice spoke to him saying: “Go to these people.” He said, “Lord, if it is Thy will, I will go.” Then the whole chapel became filled with light so dazzling that he could only faintly see the minister in the pulpit. He was deeply disturbed and wanted to make sure that this vision was of the Lord. He consulted with his tutor who encouraged him to go.

  Mel Tari

  In the mid 1960s, Tari was sitting in his Presbyterian church as people were praying, when suddenly the Holy Spirit hit the place. Everyone began to audibly hear the sound of a mighty rushing wind filling the room. The village fire bell began ringing, and local firefighters rushed to the building. The church was covered in flames, but it was not burning. Many were saved that day. What began with a few dozen people would go on to impact the world.