Have You Met Him? The Shot That Rang Out in My Spirit!

Just writing these words make my heart start to sing with anticipation, and awaken to hear His voice! Today, while visiting on the phone with a friend, she said something to me that traveled through the phone line and JUMPED at me! As we talked about so many things, and all things Jesus … we were talking about true spiritual freedom, and how Paul as he sat in a jail cell wrote so many of the letters pronouncing victory, freedom, relationship, and union with Christ. She said these words to me that went off in my spirit like a shotgun … “Paul met a different Jesus than the other apostles had met!” Wait? What? Wow! Revelation bombs exploding inside of me! The others had walked with Jesus as a man on this earth, and as such, they refer over and over again to these times of walking with him before he died”. (Certainly, they also met Him differently on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them). She might have said it a bit differently than that, but all I heard in my spirit as she spoke were these words … HAVE YOU MET HIM? Have you met this resurrected, ascended, glorious, ruling, reigning King Jesus? I will say it again as it rings out inside of me … HAVE YOU MET THIS JESUS? The one who lives in all His glory, ascended splendor, and majesty? Not have you heard about him, or read about Him … HAVE YOU MET HIM?

Wow! My spirit is ablaze with this, for it is in the meeting of THIS JESUS that our lives are transformed in ways that even our native tongues are unable to exclaim! I carry within me a deep desire for God’s sons and daughters (myself included) to truly KNOW HIM, not simply know about him, or to know him from the position of our minds. The reason it is so deeply alive in me is that there was a time, not too long ago, that … I MET THIS JESUS! I thought I knew Him, but my life changed forever when this Jesus made Himself known to me deep within the well-spring of my spirit (inner man). I so desire that we (His children) be set free from the religious practices, traditions, and mindsets that have shaped our Christian faith, but somehow have left us wanting for the realities of the Jesus we read about in our Bibles. I am not against the organized church! As a matter of fact, I am FOR the organism of the local Church Body. I am so for her that everything within me cries out for her to awaken more fully, to leave our traditions and ways that have been fashioned by man, so that we might KNOW HIM! I am not any more qualified to know him this way than you are, and in actuality, I met Him this way in the darkest, hardest season of my life when He was all I had. My life as I had known it, died. My hopes, my dreams, my future, my plans, my home, my life all died when Ron yielded his spirit on this earth and went to his eternal home in heaven. The two of us were so blended “as one” that literally the other half of me died.

I have lived the Christian life of formulas, traditions, declarations, praying enough, doing enough, finding favor with God through righteous living and holy ways. I loved Jesus, and this way of knowing and serving Him produced fruit along the way, but I finally “in death” came face-to-face with the Jesus I said I believed in and the one I had experienced at the true core of the results (fruit) of the old way! When we lost the battle for Ron’s life, I just simply knew that there was more to the story than I had experienced and I said, “Lord, how can I say I believe you are who you say you are, and yet …?” “How can this be all there is to you, Jesus?” I don’t know what I expected Him to answer, or if He even would, but I certainly didn’t expect what was to unfold the following few years as He led me on a JOURNEY DEEP INTO HIS HEART! As a result, I tell you the truth … I will NEVER, ever go back to the traditions of my flesh or man-made ways of knowing about Him because for me that would be denying the freedom of Christ that was imparted to me deep within my being as He revealed Himself and brought me into UNION WITH HIM!

Once again, here I am, waving the banner of LOVE over God’s people, as His banner leads us beyond the shepherd’s stand (organized church and leaders) to the TRUE SHEPHERD (Jesus, Himself). Please remember that I am FOR the church … I am not against the church! But, I am more FOR JESUS, than I am for man’s organized ways of shaping our traditions and beliefs. I am for the FAMILY OF GOD … the sons and daughters. If we are family, that means there are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews, and all parts of the extended family that we are called to “do life” with! I am FOR THE FAMILY OF GOD! Please hear me … I AM FOR THE FAMILY OF GOD! It’s simply this passion that burns like a fire in my bones … we must KNOW THIS JESUS DEEP WITHIN OUR INNER BEINGS! We must move past our traditions and religious ways to a true, deep, connected, life-giving relationship with HIM that transforms us and takes us into the supernatural realm we are created to live in with Him. During this season of my life, I had to learn how to stand on my own two feet with Him. Just Him! I didn’t have my other half to say, “What is God saying to you? What do you think we should do? Let’s pray.” It was down to where the rubber meets the road … JUST ME … AND HIM!

There is nothing our flesh can DO or DENY, in order to KNOW HIM MORE, for it’s not in the “doing or not doing” – it is in the YIELDING of our hearts! The true place deep within us that allows His light and life to transform us, as He comes and shows us the pieces He desires to remove, to re-position, to dust off, or whatever needs to be done in order to bring us into the REVELATORY RELATIONSHIP we were created to live, and to become the new wineskin! This real inter-connected relationship where we live, and move, and have our being IN HIM ALONE! Remember when Jesus said to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am”? Peter responded with, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”! Jesus said … YES! Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven did, and it is upon THIS ROCK OF REVELATION OF WHO I AM … that I will build my church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her! It’s not just knowing that He is the Son of God and that He died for us, but it is also taking Him deep into our being and living from the UNION that comes from our deeply connected life IN him.

Paul was not one of the disciples who walked with Jesus when He was on the earth. We all know that it was just the opposite … Paul was AGAINST this Jesus and all He had to say & do! Paul knew the Torah (law) completely as he was the principal student of Gamaliel, the high priest (Acts 22). So, when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus … he met the RULING, REIGNING, ASCENDED, GLORIOUS JESUS! The reason the books that Paul penned in the scripture are so powerful is due to the revelation of THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD that He had come into union with! It came from the REVELATORY encounters he had with the Spirit of God teaching him (revealing to him) the God-head and their ways! Let’s remember that Paul did not go to spend time with the other Apostles for some 3 or 4 years; instead, he spent time learning OF GOD straight from THE ONE who called him. This is available to us today that we would be taken into the place of the Spirit where Christ is unveiled within us! The veils of religion and traditions are removed and HE IS REVEALED within us! His light breaks forth in us and dispels the darkness, hurt, pain, suffering, trauma, religion, and new creation life flows up out of us in ways we had not even known were possible. I will never quit speaking of this supernatural, mystical place in God that He desires to take us because I know the ways He changed my life as He did this marvelous, mysterious work IN ME! If he will do it for me … he will do it for you, too!

I reiterate that I did not DO anything that brought about these encounters, revelations, and unveiling of the Godhead. I didn’t confess my way into them, I didn’t declare my way into them, I didn’t fast my way into them, I didn’t even pray for them as I didn’t know they were possible! What I DID DO was submit my broken heart to Him – yielding so fully out of my acknowledgment that it was ONLY HE WHO COULD HELP ME. It wasn’t a simple prayer, it was a complete and utter submission to His LORDSHIP in my life from the deepest part of me! It was a yielding that came truly from the depths of my heart and not my mind. At the time, I didn’t even realize I was doing it, for I was really only looking to Him as the way to move forward in my life – even though I had no idea what that would look like. I realized that He was the Potter and I was the clay and my only hope was for Him to make something new of my life. So, there I was, yielded and humbled before Him – knowing that He was all I had and I desperately needed Him to make Himself real to me.

Recently I have been brought face-to-face, once again, in the yielding place of “WILL YOU”? Will you follow Me, no matter what? Are you (Laura) willing to trust and follow Me even if it costs you “this new thing”? YES, LORD … I WILL FOLLOW YOU! I will press beyond the Shepherd Stand to ONLY follow you! I will trust you, Jesus, for I will never go back to the place from which I’ve come! NEVER! The world and the religious system will never satisfy my soul, capture my attention, or be my gaze! ONLY YOU, JESUS! ONLY YOU! I have said “yes” as your Bride and only YOU will satisfy me.

HAVE YOU MET HIM – THIS JESUS? Have you met the One who may cost you everything, but in return give you more than you can possibly even ask, think, or imagine in return? Have you met the Lover of your soul, the Father in whose family you have been adopted into? Have you met Him – the ruling, reigning, filled with majesty JESUS? Have you met Him – the Seven-Fold Spirit of the Living God, full of wisdom, revelation, understanding, power, and might who is always willing to impart Himself and gifts to you? Do you walk with Him and talk with Him all throughout each and every day in union and communion – in relationship? Remember that union and communion cannot be a one-sided conversation where one party does all the talking and waits for the other to respond to the list of “honey-do’s”. Do you KNOW HIM … TRULY KNOW HIM? He loves you so much! He desires to reveal Himself in ways beyond your comprehension that will set you free, put your life together, empower you until you are over-shadowed by His canopy of love in a way that provides, protects, heals, guides and radiates through you – even to the point, like Peter, that the overshadowing heals those in your pathway.

There are no formulas by which this type of relationship happens. We can’t follow a list of things to do, pray enough, read the word enough, or any other works of man. Don’t get me wrong … these are all important things to do, but they are in RELATIONSHIP, NOT IN FORMULA. Our minds work in such a way that we have been trained to think, “do this – get this”! If I just “do” enough of these things, I will get more of Him! It does not work that way. There are many people who DO these things for years, and yet still do not really KNOW HIM! We know some level of Him, but we don’t truly KNOW HIM! He wants to reveal THE REAL DEAL to us without it being relegated to our American way (or whatever nationality) of understanding! You see … we met Jesus and then we entered into the places that shaped our view of who He is and how to reach Him. We wrapped a lot of tradition and religion around the REALITY of His true nature, works, identity, and supernatural expression. Let’s go back to the way Paul met Jesus when he was knocked off of his “high horse” and religious indoctrination. He went away with the Lord and the Godhead revealed themselves to Paul, taught him, revealed the most incredible UNDERSTANDINGS to him that changed him as he was taught the mysterious ways of God. Do you realize how many times Paul used that phrase, “it’s a mystery”? The mysteries only come alive as an unveiling inside our spirit by Him, and of HIM … THE REVELATION OF THE CHRIST … the Son of the Living God! In the nano-second of the flash of an eye, suddenly your spirit exclaims the wonders of the most marvelous of supernatural insight and understanding that only one second ago, you had not yet known! He comes alive IN YOU!

I do not compare myself with Paul in any way, but I too, have met THIS JESUS! The unveiled, revealed Jesus who is in the very center of my being! I not only met this Jesus, but I met MY FATHER, and the Holy Spirit as He taught me “in the night hours”, setting me free, healing me, and bringing me into the most mysterious encounters that instantly changed me because I chose HIS WAY OVER MY WAY! I laid it all down, as He called upon me to enter into this reality of His ways – not out of religion, tradition, or formulas, but out of THE DEEP INNER JOURNEY INTO HIS HEART where He marked me, sealed me, and brought me to the place of unveiled mysteries IN HIM! Like Paul, I do not count myself as “having arrived”, but instead, as a prisoner of HIS LOVE where I will continue to follow Him DEEP INTO HIS HEART to discover this most marvelous God who loves me! I know He loves me beyond a shadow of a doubt because He has made it KNOWN INSIDE OF ME how precious I am to Him! He is the only one that will NEVER leave us … NEVER! There is no death that will separate us because He has already died and lives forevermore! I too shall live in Him, with Him, and for Him, all the days on this Earth … and then we shall continue our love throughout all eternity! This is for me, and for you! Let’s GO DEEPER into His heart and consciousness to discover what He has in store for us! Remember that it is a matter of the HEART that will lead us to this place that the mind will never be able to ascend to. Selah!

“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”  Jeremiah 29:13

Written January 17, 2022 – by Laura Krewson