The manifest presence of God is a tangible reality. It isn’t something you merely feel with your emotions but can feel physically as you can a hug or a kiss. It does touch your emotions as well as does a hug or a kiss, but it is also tangibly felt. Moreover, it can be shared from one to another.
The fullness of the Godhead dwells within us and the Holy Spirit is both dwellings in us and can dwell upon us. In the Old Testament, someone would feel the Spirit of God come upon them and they would prophesy, dance, or sing unto the Lord. God empowered them by His Spirit resting upon them to carry out what was asked of them. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, but that did not end the coming of the Spirit upon us.
When someone gets “slain in the Spirit” they are overloaded with the presence of God residing upon them by transfer of one to another. One doesn’t need to be in direct contact with another believer to have this sensory overload of the presence of God. But many think they need that laying on of hands from an anointed minister to receive from God. God does meet people this way, but it is not by any means His only way. God wants to meet with us one on one. Jesus is our mediator; we do not need another to mediate for us.
God can meet you in your room sitting before Him asking the Holy Spirit to come and be with you.
One can sit quietly before the Lord and feel the same feeling you have felt when receiving prayer from another. A couple of years ago, this writer was on a ministry team and prayed for people and saw them slain in the Spirit. This is not some special gifting, just a person being obedient to minister to others in the Lord.
Feeling the Presence of the Lord
An important thing to understand is that while it is beneficial to be able to soak in His presence in such a manner, it is also necessary to learn to stand and walk in His presence. The Christian walk isn’t confined to our experiences with God, but us giving to others what we have been given. God empowers us with His Spirit to give away to others the treasures within us.
Oftentimes, we seek from God only enough to meet our own needs instead of going beyond that to receiving power to give away to others. We will lose what we do not give it away which is one reason why it is better to give than to receive. We need to move beyond receiving to giving for it is the only way we truly enjoy what we receive.
Moreover, the Holy Spirit isn’t limited to manifesting only by means of causing someone to be “slain in the Spirit.” An interesting thing has been happening to this writer of late when the Spirit comes, where her hands tingle and pulsate as if they are waking up from falling asleep, but yet it isn’t an uncomfortable feeling like that, but unusual just the same. This has only happened a few times. The first time is when someone prayed for her to receive a new impartation of the Spirit. For over 24 hours from that moment, her hands pulsated and tingled. After the first 24 hours, every time she would tell the testimony of it they began to do so again. Even when she wrote about it, it occurred. Even now. Then it subsided for a while, until one day she was watching a gathering of believers on line who were all full of the Spirit when the presence of God just came upon her in the room and her hands began to pulsate and tingle once again.
God reveals himself in a different wonderful way
There are so many ways God shows up to us and one person’s experience will not be the same as the next. It’s okay to not be slain in the Spirit, maybe God wants to reveal Himself in a different way.
Each of His children is unique and He expresses Himself in a way to each of us that is the way that is good for us. God delights to share Himself with us and allow us to experience Him in all kinds of ways and we must be careful not to put His ways of expressing Himself into a box and call things “not God” when they really are. The Holy Spirit is given to us to lead us into all truth and to empower us to live out the reality of the Kingdom of God in this world. Let us be Spirit-led in all we do and be open to the goodness of God to be revealed through us as we pour out what we have been given to others who need a touch from God.
