Perceiving the Spiritual (1)

We are all different and have different giftings. Blake Healy's seeing is very visual and seems very physical. The way he describes it in The Veil indicates that he often sees things with his physical sight. However, he understands that he is seeing a visual representation of a spiritual reality that human eyes cannot see.

When you see in the spirit, it is a visual representation of spiritual reality. That thing isn’t really there, but represents something that is.

An angel is a spirit, not limited by physical form. When I see an angel, I am seeing a visual representation of what and who they are… I am seeing a visual metaphor of who this angel is.

When I receive something from the spiritual realms, it seems like an idea or a picture just arrives in mind. This is often described as seeing in the Spirit.

To explain how this works, I need to compare it with ordinary perceiving. When I am struck by an idea I have read in a book, it is retained by my memory. I can pull it out of my memory into my mind and think about it any time. If I have an experience that strikes me, it is retained in my memory. I can rehearse in my imagination any time. For example, if I saw someone that I had not seen for a long time getting off a train yesterday, I can pull that scene out of my memory into my imagination and see the scene again. These memories come through my physical senses. I see the scene and hear the conversation. I read the book with my physical eyes.

With spiritual stuff, it is very similar, except that I did not have the initial experience of seeing the scene of hearing the idea with my physical senses. The spiritual thought or picture is just there in my mind and I do not know how it got there (I presume by the Holy Spirit). It drops from mind into my memory, so I can recall the idea t and think about it, even though I have not come across it before. Likewise, I can bring the picture to my imagination and see it, and describe what I see, even though have not seen it with my physical eyes. The difference is that the idea or picture is put into my mind by the Holy Spirit, via my spirit, rather than passing through my physical senses.

I realise that we are all different, but reading The Veil made me realise that there are many other ways of seeing available to Christians that I need to press into.

The Veil (4) Wounds

A few weeks ago, I read a book called The Veil by Blake Healy. Blake Healy sees the wounds that many people carry. As I understand it, these do not exist in the spiritual realms. We carry them on our souls, in our mind and our memory.

When I looked at Chuck in the spirit I saw cuts and scars along his face. They came in different lengths and depths each time I saw him.

Not all wounds are the same of course. Some fade away within hours, others heal into scars that never fully leave, and still others are not allowed to heal, festering into rotten gashes that corrupt muscle and bone. How these wounds affect you is, fortunately and unfortunately, entirely up to you. I’ve met people who have let one idle word pull them into a dark pit of forgiveness, bitterness, and self-pity. While others turn a past full of abuse and shame into a crown into a crown of glory by giving it over to the one who died to heal every hurt.

Wounds that go untended skew our view those around us and ourselves. While part of the strategy of the demonic is to deceive us into believing lies about ourselves, the other part is trying to get us to believe those lies about others.
Demons have no authority over you unless you give it to them. A demonic entity has no right to act in your life without expressed agreement from you.

It is our fears, grudges, and wounds that let demons in; and it is our fears, grudges, and wounds that make it impossible for them to level.

Lies are the only power that demons have, and lies are only powerful if you believe them.

When demonic lies start mixing with worries or fear. It reinforces the enemy’s access.

Fear is the expectation of attack or pain, meaning you believe whatever you are afraid of has the capacity to do you harm. That belief is faith that darkness has power over you. It is a disservice the authority God has given to you to be afraid of anything demonic.

The Veil (3) Evil

A few weeks ago, I read a book called The Veil by Blake Healy. One thing that I like about the book is his laid back approach. Unlike many writers on these things, Blake does not get all stirred up about evil and demons.

The truth is that demons are more attracted by what you think than what you do. The deeper truth is that know who you are in Christ determines how you think. The only way to know who you are in Christ is to know what he things about you. That is to say, if you know what God has to say about you then the lies of the enemy seem silly. This is the majority of what you need to know about dealing with demons.

If you can’t view the demonic from the perspective of heaven you will only confuse yourself and what your time.

Demons don’t like you. Any demon that finds you in its sights is going to do everything in its power to steal, kill and destroy everything good about your life. The nice thing is that, for the most part, this isn’t really a big deal.

For the most part, you spirit is quite adept at repelling attacks without your notice.

If your are living a life connected to God and making decisions that protect that connection, the demonic should rarely factor into your life.

The interesting about demonic influence, it feels so real when you’re in the middle of it, but the moment you see it clearly it’s no more threatening than a paper-mache bunny.

The Veil (2) Spiritual

A few weeks ago, I read a book called The Veil by Blake Healy. In the last chapter of the book, Blake gives some guidance to Christians who want to see the spiritual realms more clearly. This chapter is very good. He explains why we should all expect to see more clearly.

The spirit realm may seem like some distant ethereal plane that only affects our side of things in the form of a warm tingling sensation during worship, but the truth is it never leaves you and you never leave it. You may not be aware of it, but you exist in the spirit realm just as much as you exist in the physical. You are one hundred percent there and one hundred percent here. Since the circumstance in our physical lives are usual more apparent than those in our spiritual life, we are often distracted from our spiritual existence. That does not mean we are there any less. In fact, we are constantly affecting the spiritual atmosphere around us with our thoughts, actions, and mindsets. Human beings, more so than any other creature on the planet, have an immense capacity for affecting their environment. This is also true of the spiritual environment.

You recognise whatever you see in the spirit. Though you may not fully understand it, there is a familiarity that comes when you see. Perhaps this is because, though we spend most of our attention on the physical realm, we exist in the spirit realm every minute of every day.

Since our spiritual senses are capable of being much more finely tuned than our physical ones, it stood to reason that anyone should be able to get a decent ideal of their spiritual surroundings.

His most useful piece of advice is too talk to God about everything.

Understanding what everything was usually came with seeing it, understanding why it was there required dialogue with God.

Everything we think and see should be done while in conversation with God.

The Veil (1)

Last year I wrote a series of posts on the interaction between the physical and spiritual realms. This is really important for Christians seeking to operate in the fullness of the Spirit. So I was really encouraged when I read a book called The Veil by Blake Healy. God has given him an amazing gift to see into the spiritual realms. His book tells the story of his life and describes some of what he has seen. Blake started experiencing this gift when he was very young.

I’ve seen angels, demons and other spiritual things for as long as I can remember. I see them whenever I have the mind to look and I see them with my eyes, much as I would see you if you were here sitting in front of me.

Seeing into the spirit is not all that different. You can focus on what’s happening in the physical world or you can focus on what’s going on in the spirit world.

I did not know I was seeing in the spirit when I was young. I remember seeing lights and colour swirl through the air when we went to church on Sunday.

I had no control over what I saw when I was young, streams of light and smoky shadows flitted in and out of my vision unbidden. No I can see in the spirit whenever I have the mind to look and, usually, I do not see anything unless I do so intentionally.

We may not all see into the spiritual realms as vividly as Blake Healy, but this book shows what is possible. We should al aspire to a fuller understanding of the multi-dimensional universe in which we live.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things (Col 3:1-2).