Dark Cloud of Abba Father
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Dark Cloud surrounding the Father


The Dark Cloud

by Ian Clayton

Ian Clayton's testimony of seeing the Father -- from chapter 10 of his book: "Realms of the Kingdom Volume 1"

 

"When the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Then Solomon spoke: "The Lord said He would dwell in the dark cloud." (1 Kings 8:10-12)

I want to teach on something that has been very dear to my heart. It is a revelation that has built a place of tremendous tenderness and intimacy between God and me. All of my Christian life and Christian experience I have wanted to know God as a friend. The only person who I could think of whoever did that was Enoch. I knew by heart the little that was written about him and I also read the book of Enoch. It is really radical! The purposeful pursuit of the presence of God needs to be your single desire. Not for a spiritual experience. It is not about having a spiritual experience; it is about your desire to encounter God, which then creates the atmosphere for a spiritual experience. If you chase the experience then you will often get an experience but there will be no long-lasting fruit from it. You need to chase the person of God.

One of the easiest ways of learning to engage the realm of Heaven is to engage the realm of the Kingdom that is in you. It is the Kingdom that is in you that transitions you and enables you to be seated with Christ in heavenly places, far above the demonic (Ephesians 1:20-21; 2:6). It is an instant transition; you do not have to go through any realm or layers. So one minute I am here engaging this Kingdom, the next minute I am in the realm of Heaven engaging and thoroughly enjoying the realm of Heaven. Then I can step back through the realm of Heaven bringing all the glory with me. Guess what happens to darkness when light comes in? The greatest truth that is hidden is that darkness cannot penetrate light. You, being a child of light, walk in the light and you will have fellowship, one with another (1 John 1:17). Where does your fellowship happen when you walk in the light? -In Heaven; and you experience the reality of love on the earth. Fellowship in Heaven creates love on the earth because you are bonded one to another.

This teaching is something very dear to me. It came out of an experience that was a death in my life, but then it produced life around me. One of the things that I have learned is that whenever something happens around your life; it happens for a purpose. For me, a circumstance happened, some time ago, where there was tremendous injustice. I came to terms with the reality of the injustice through being able to be in the spirit, being able to go and see what had happened in a meeting and know what was said there, which is sometimes a blessing and sometimes not! That is part of the life of being in the spirit. Through the pain of injustice, after having to get to grips with what to do with all this, I can remember standing before the Lord. He said to me, "My son stood before Pilate and did not say anything. Are you prepared to die?" I said, "Yes, Lord." I did know it would take a year of going to the Cross 140 times a day!

Every day, day after day, knowing who those people were, I had to love them at the Cross. The Cross is the pinnacle of all spiritual experience. It is the springboard that leads you into spiritual encounter. Through some of the things I experienced in that place and that time I began to realise that my pain was supposed to be a springboard to drive me into intimacy with God. So, instead of going into my pain and all the rubbish that goes with it, I realised that if I could hit my pain and use it as a springboard to drive me to God, then I could retrain my thinking and my desires. So I would look forward to the time when the pain would come because it was my springboard to engage God. But I had to go to the Cross and I had to die at the Cross, to the injustice and all the feelings related to the injustice. I had to nail it all to the Cross.

It took me about six months to realise that God would keep on doing this, year after year, unless I realised my pain was supposed to be this springboard. Pain is supposed to be under out feet. Instead it was sitting over my head. I would be walking around work and these angry thoughts would start going around my mind. We are all subject to sin. I began to realise that when these feelings started I could hit the Cross and use it as a springboard to drive me towards God as a friend and a Father, because He is my source of rescue. The Bible says:

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills - from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved." (Psalms 121:1-3)
Verse 5 continues to talk about what God is to you and me:
"...the LORD is your keeper" (Psalms 121:5)

He will keep me in this place. He will bring me to a place of encounter with His presence. If I knew the encounter I was going to come into I would have died willingly, knowing what was there. But there are times when God does things because He wants to check the integrity of your heart, whether you are willing to die where no one sees, where no one is going to reward you and pat you on the back except Him. You see, it is all about Him.

Through that time I began to realise that there was more. God wanted to bring me into something more. So for about ten or eleven months I began to be aware that when I would use this pain as a springboard I would go into the realm of Heaven and begin to experience this 'terror.' I always thought that fear was associated with demons because God did not make fear. Well, yes He did actually because:
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

So I began to become aware that there were things happening that I had no knowledge of. I had never heard of anybody talk about this. I had inklings that we were able to meet with God, but no one had ever said, "Ian, I have talked with God face to face." But the Bible said Moses did (Exodus 33:11) and:
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8)

The Bible says you are going to see Him. I had all these scriptures going round in my brain as I was going through this process, because I wanted to know God. My desire in life is I want to know God. I want to know Him. I want to be able to sit with Him as a mate and talk with Him about what I am doing. God is as interested in you and what you are doing in Heaven as you are about Him. Did you know that? Jesus said:
"he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do." (John 14:12)

The Bible says that. Do you agree with the Word? Okay, did God create a universe? The purposeful pursuit of God has our brains skidding around corners! The purposeful pursuit of God should be your desire. I began to become aware that there was more to the person of God than I had ever experienced. These five things need to be taught in the church:
1) The realm of God; His dominion; His influence; His power; and His authority
2) The place of God and where He does His business
3) The function of God and what He does in Heaven
4) The role of God and how He does it
5) The person of God and who He is

Nowhere did I hear people talking about the person of God and who He is. I got so hungry, I wanted to know God. So everywhere the Bible said "God," I would start to read. I got the concordance out and there are about 4,900 or more scriptures where it says "God - Elohim/Yahweh" and I began to read the scriptures, one after the other, trying to get to know God. I wanted to know God as my Father. I have a right as a son to get to know God as my Father. I have a right as a son to get to know Him as a Father.

I came across an interesting scripture which talks about the treasures of darkness:
"I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD, Who call you by your name, am the God of Israel" (Isaiah 45:3).

I began to ponder these treasures of darkness and to think, "God, what on earth is this treasure of darkness that Your Bible talks about there?" Little scriptures like that populate your brain and you read the Bible and think "Whoa! What is going on there?" So I began to hold it in my heart.

"They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." (1 Corinthians 10:2 NIV).

It is talking about Israel, how they met with God at Mount Sinai and about the darkness that was around Mount Sinai and the cloud that was there. Suddenly the treasure of darkness started to look like it might be the cloud of darkness, where the presence of the glory of God is.

There is a difference between demonic darkness and a veil of darkness. I began to go through the Bible for the word 'darkness.' There are about six or seven different meanings in the Greek and Hebrew that mean darkness and it actually does not mean dark, it means something totally different. Suddenly I realised that the terror I was feeling when I saw this darkness actually was not terror of the demonic. It was an awareness of my absolute impurity. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of God because when you stand in His presence all that you are is made absolutely open and plain to be seen.

God is a person. He is not just an ultimate power source for you and me. It is important for us to connect with God on the basis of friendship, not on a need basis. God Himself has a need, did you know that? God has one need - the need for someone to love Him. I do not know what I would do without my family, because they nurture me as a father. How do they do that? They just love me. In all my hobnailed boots and the nakedness of my soul, they love me. If that is what it is like in the natural, how much more in the spirit? God has a yearning for us to experience Him and to love on Him. So, I had all these thoughts going around in my brain and I suddenly had all these scriptures going on too.

Seeing and being part of the realm of God, the place of God, the function of God and the role of God is wonderful and they will change your life - but for me, I found it was still not enough. I knew there was more to Him than the God that I saw on the throne in the majesty and burning fire, with the angels and the things that go on there, because on the seventh day Heaven shuts down. I began to think, "God gets off His throne on the seventh day, because it says He rests and He does not have to do anything." I know because I have been to Heaven. So I wanted to know what He did and what He was like. I started to ask the question, "Father, what are you like when you get off the throne?" When I am at work, I have government in my work place. I am different from how I am at home, although I am the same person. I carry something different. When I am in church teaching I carry something different. Then when I go home I can be open with my kids and I am a family man, I can enjoy life. I wanted that 'enjoying life' thing. It is great to know the authority in church, to know the power around you, but it does not bring you into relationship that allows you to know about someone. It does not allow you to know who they are.

So I began to meditate around all these things. It is important to understand, when a door opens in the realm of the spirit for us and God begins to quicken us, if you do not work with the door that God has given you until it comes to fruition, you will lose it and something else will stand in that door - and usually it is a demon. So when a door has been opened in the spirit for you, with knowledge that is starting to come and a yearning and a desire, you need to keep on that path until you find its fruit. I understand that, because I have seen what happens when you do not keep the door open. So I began to chase God. I did now know how to do it, all I knew was Enoch walked with God.

I began to ask in my heart, "God, who are you?" I asked a question which I now know the answer to, "What were You before You were?" You know, when you lived in the 'was' before the 'is'? What 'was' You?" The Bible says, the God:
"who is and who was and who is to come" (Revelation 1:4).

I now understand the process and how it all works. "But God, what 'was' You? I want to know what You were. I want to know You. I want a relationship with You beyond just having an ultimate power source. I want to know You, I want to know who you are."
"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3)

It does not just say you may know Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the church has got stuck there. The scripture says to know God and Jesus, who are two distinct persons. But they are in such unity that they are One, because each One's desire is bound up with the other, just like you have a body, a soul and a spirit. You are one but you actually have three different functions inside you. It is the same with the Godhead. We are made just like Him - you are made in the image of God. The issue is to know Him.
"the pure in heart ... shall see God" (Matthew 5:8)

So how do I become pure in heart? The Blood of Jesus is the only way. I can remember having an encounter with the Pillar of Fire in my room over a seven day period. At first the Pillar of Fire was there for about fifteen seconds, but then I said, "Lord, You need to go, I cannot handle this anymore." Then it went on and I was able to handle it for a longer period of time because the more familiar you become with it the longer you can stay in His presence. The more you are changed into the image of the One that is there, His image, you do not get consumed by the fire. When fire burns it does not consume something; it actually changes the nature of it. What is displayed as flame is the gases that are coming out of that changing nature. So the more you draw near to the fire and the glory of God the more that nature changes your nature and conforms you to the fire. What comes off your life is the dross being burned. God is changing our nature. The Bible says:
"Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?'" (Matthew 7:22).

I found myself standing in front of the Pillar of Fire in my bedroom and a sword would come out of the fire and go across me. I found myself saying, "But Lord I have prophesied in Your Name" and the sword came back across me; "But Lord I have fed the poor in Your Name," and the sword swung across me again; "But Lord..." I got to the stage where I had no more 'but's' left to justify myself being in the presence of God. The only thing that makes you pure in heart is the Blood of Jesus Christ. Out of this flame came a Lamb and stood in front of the flame and the Lord said to me, "The only way you can come into My glory is by the blood of the Lamb. Now come." I put my hand into that flame and my arm went totally transparent. Then I pulled it out and it became my flesh again. I would put it in and think, "Wow! Glory! Look at this" because I want to know Him. The only way you can know Him is to hang around Him, understanding fire, the terror that happens there and the desire to know Him.

John the apostle makes an amazing statement. He says, this God is:
"the One who was from the beginning. We have seen Him with our own eyes; heard Him with our own ears, and touched Him with our own hands" (1 John 1:1 VOICE).

In that scripture there is a woven truth: not only can I hear Him, which the church is very efficient at doing, but I can see Him. Not only can I see Him, but my hands can handle Him too. Another translation puts it like this:
"I myself have seen him with my own eyes and listened to him speak. I have touched him with my own hands" (1 John 1:1 TLB).

So that means I have a legal right to go and touch my Father. My family would not be very impressed if I did not touch them. When I come home my son comes running out and we have a hug. I am not afraid of showing affection to them and they are not afraid of showing affection with me. How much more should we be like that with God? How do you show someone affection? You do not sit on the throne at the other side of the room and have them stand twenty-five miles away worshipping you. The way you show them affection is you walk up to them, you embrace them, you be with them, you hang around them, you sit with them and care for the things they care for.
"The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling." (Ephesians 1:17-18)

It is not about your calling, it is about His calling. His calling is that you would be a son or daughter of His, a spirit child before the Lord; His child. He wants you to know His calling for you. His calling is that you would know Him; that you would be with Him; that you would experience Him; that you would understand Him; that you would talk with Him, not just have Him talk to you.

The church has been taught how to listen to Him and they are very proficient at hearing the voice of God, but they are not so good at standing before God talking to Him. That is because they have never been taught that you can go to Heaven and talk with Him.

There are two key issues that flow like a vein of gold through all the scriptures:
1) I can know the Father, and 2) I can talk with Him and see Him, not only while He is on the throne but also off the throne.
"For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

"Lord, what is this darkly stuff? If I see now darkly, then face to face, what is this darkly thing?" There is obviously some progression through 'darkly' to 'face' to 'face.' Would you agree? In Genesis 15 it says:
"As the sun was going down [setting], Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, a very terrible [or frightening] darkness came" (Genesis 15:12 EXB).

In all my Christian experience darkness had always been associated with demon spirits. This comes from the doctrinal belief that when Jesus died and it got dark - that the darkness was demonic. I wonder if it was demonic or if we just believed it was? The Bible does not say, but does talk about the darkness that descended:
"It was now about the sixth hour (midday), and the darkness enveloped the whole land and earth until the ninth hour (about three o'clock in the afternoon), While the sun's light faded or was darkened" (Luke 23:44-45 AMP).

I wonder if it was God coming to stand and watch over His Son? Deuteronomy 5 says:
"And when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near me, all the heads of your tribes and elders; And you said, Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have this day seen that God speaks with man and man still lives" (Deuteronomy 5:23-24 AMP).

So wherever there is this 'darkly' and 'dark', there is God; and wherever God is, you can talk with Him. So why does the Bible refer to the voice out of the midst of darkness?
"Then Solomon said, The Lord said that He would dwell in the thick darkness" (1Kings 8:12 and 2 Chronicles 6:1 AMP).
"for God made my heart weak, And the Almighty terrifies me; Because I was not cut off from the presence of darkness, And He did not hide deep darkness from my face"
(Job 23:16-17)
"Clouds and darkness are round about Him [as at Sinai]; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne" (Psalm 97:2 AMP).

So clouds and darkness are about Him. I wonder what He is like in the cloud? I wonder what He looks like? If people can speak to Him in the cloud, that means He is not on the throne. That means I have access to be near Him when He is off the throne. Why the darkness when He comes off the throne? A veil is an amazing thing. It covers the full reality of the person so you cannot see - thus, you see darkly. The cloud is a veil that surrounds the very Person of God, not just when He sits on the throne with governmental authority, but as our Father, with absolute power, absolute purity and absolute dominion - we have a right to speak to Him face to face.

My journey with the springboard came with all these scriptures and my meditating around them, trying to get to grips with this darkness and horror that I felt under this coming veil. When I got into the Bible and looked up the word 'horror', I found that it means 'absolutely in terror'. Not just being afraid, but in terror. I began to become aware that every time I would springboard into this place that the horror and the terror would grow. I began to hate going there, but was so fascinated and so yearning to know Him that I would go anyway. The most amazing thing is that you not only become aware of yourself but you become aware of the yearning of God in that cloud. On the day of the fall: "the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, 'Where are you?'" (Genesis 3:9)

God was not on His throne when He said that, He was walking in Eden. When God finishes on the seventh day He has one purpose - that is to see who is coming to draw near Him. he wants a relationship with us.

There are three common threads that run through all these scriptures:
1) Every single one of these people had a deep personal encounter with the Person of God.
2) There is darkness all around Him as a veil, as a cloud,
3) They are all connected with the dread or horror or awareness of His absolute holiness and absolute power.

The Greek and Hebrew use six different words which are translated 'darkness'. They all have similar elements: It is thick; it always covers around the Person of God (not His realm); all of the words express an attitude of surrender by the one that encounters it.

In Psalm 97:2 the word 'darkness' means to dread or to be afraid, to fear or to shake terribly.
"The Lord said that He would dwell in the thick darkness" (1 Kings 8:12 AMP).

The throne of God, where He displays what He is, is only part of who He is. At Jesus' transfiguration it says:
"While he was saying these things, a cloud came and covered [overshadowed] them, and they became afraid as the cloud covered them [they entered the cloud]"
(Luke 9:13 EXB).

I have been meditating around these scriptures and I have been thinking, "God, I wonder what will happen if I go into that cloud? I wonder what it is going to be like to actually be able to draw near to You and maybe even say hello?!"

I do not know anybody who has taught this anywhere. As I am thinking, the religious spirit gets in there saying, "You know, all the believers say if you see God you will die". Well, actually, that is what you are supposed to do anyway so I thought, "I have absolutely nothing to lose! If I physically die I cannot die in any better place! But my greatest fear was going through the cloud, because of the horror and the terror and the shaking. That is the scary part. Here is the most amazing thing - the scary part is all this side of the cloud. Because, once you go into it, you become transfigured into His image. So I am busy thinking, "Do I go in? Don't I go in? Do I go in?"

It is amazing how the flesh wants to stay alive! I had my legal will written, as I started thinking, "If I die, what are my kids going to think? What am I thinking anyway? If I die, He is going to take care of them, isn't He? That is what He says." You need to go to the Cross with all these things. There is no other way but the Cross.

The Bible talks about the priest who would go in when the cloud of God would descend over the Holy of Holies. The priest would go in, get the incense and swing it around. Then he would stick his hand through the veil and swing the incense around (the veil was twelve inches thick, did you know that?), hoping there would be enough smoke, that when he got inside, he would not die. They used to tie those little bells on the end of His garment so they could hear him moving around. They knew that if there was not any noise the guy was dead - a crisp, lying on a floor somewhere. They also used to tie a rope to his leg so that if he fell down they could pull him out because they were afraid of going inside (Leviticus 16:2).

Because I knew this I was thinking, "Lord, this darkness is a veil, what am I going to do? Stick my hand in there and swing some incense around? What am I going to do?" It is amazing how religious doctrine tries to stop us relating one-on-one with God. I would go through this religious process: "Father, I take the Blood of Jesus and apply it to my life." It is great to do that, but God is more interested in you than even the Blood. He wants you because when you are with Him you are already sanctified by His presence, but the Blood helps you get there. It makes you righteous. It enables you to become pure, because when you are pure you can see God.

So I began to go through this process of praying, "Lord, I take the Blood of Jesus and I apply it to my life, but... Oh God, I just want You." It began to turn from a doing of all these things, to "Lord, I just want You, Lord, I just want You, I want Your presence, I want to know You, I want to see You, I want to talk with You." For weeks the burning desire to talk with Him would be inside me. Then suddenly, my pain was gone. I woke up one morning and all the clamor of all that pain of the injustice had gone because I had turned from my sinful nature to the realm of God. It had gone! I was feeling, "Yahoo, I am free!" Now I was healed I had no springboard to bounce from and I started thinking "Oh no! I am going to have to go there, to actually make a choice myself to go there."

You have to choose, you have to make a choice to go into the presence of God. No one else can make the decision for you. A springboard enables you to find the pathway but then you need to choose to go along the pathway.
"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty"
(Psalms 91:1).

The clouds and the darkness are His secret place. The word 'secret place' can be translated 'cloud' and 'darkness', and 'shadow' can mean 'cloud' and 'darkness.' I made a choice that day, "Whatever happens Lord, the next time I am in the spirit, standing on that hill where your darkness is, I am going to walk into it."

You can pray in tongues all you want and think that you are going to be ready, but when you stand there and the cloud is standing in front of you!
"It is a terrible [dreadful; terrifying] thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31 EXB).

But it is also the most wonderful, blissful experience. That is the other side of the coin, you choose what you desire. So I chose that day, "Lord, when I stand there, I am going to come into that cloud." You can understand, I literally wet my pants! And that is ok, the Bible is full of men of God who did that and if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for me. That is what washing machines are for, thank You Jesus!

So, I can remember making a choice that day to go into the cloud of darkness and the horror and the terror and the absolute awareness of my sin, my nature and everything that I am not supposed to be. I am a spirit being, I am just in this body that is a representation. When I made a choice to walk through that cloud, all the fight was on this side of the veil. I stepped into the dark cloud and when I came through it, on the other side, there was this absolute total tranquility and peace that is beyond human words to describe. I was standing in a canopy about seven meters wide. I had all my religious beliefs like, "You can't see the face of God because you will die," so I had my eyes turned away. But man - I really wanted to look! And I stood there. What do you say? I went there with a list of all these things I wanted to ask but when I was there, how irrelevant they all were!

I can remember standing there thinking, "What am I doing here? This is the God of the universe... I can see His feet." Let me tell you something: God is not what you think! I kind of looked and then thought, "I am still alive." Then I heard this drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, as tears were falling down by His feet. He said to me, "It has been a long time since anybody has been here, son."

I was a mess. I backed out and I was a mess for quite some time. Yet there was this desire, wanting to go back. For the simple reason He was crying - that was reason enough to make me go through that cloud and face the pain. So, it took me about a week. Often, when my wife and kids would go away I would be praying in tongues, saying "Lord this is my time now. Every night I am going to come into Your presence, I am going to go into the spirit and meet with You like that."

What began to happen was I got more and more bold with all the questions I had. I had not received answers yet, but that was immaterial because when you are there they are immaterial anyway. I do not just make small talk with my children like, "Hi son, how are you? Great weather we are having." If that was how my son spoke with me every day I would slap him! He speaks to me and engages me face to face. In the same way I was feeling, "Lord, I want to see You, I have a right to see You." So, gradually I began to lift my eyes. Let me tell you what God's skin is like - if you could get a mat of diamonds of about five or six carrots each, weave them together like skin, put the colours of the rainbow in it, make it go blue-white, burning and rippling with fire and flickering with light, then you have an idea of what His skin is like!

Nobody ever told me that this is what I am going to look like. The Bible says that we will be conformed into His image (Romans 8:29), so what He looks like is already living in me and I am going to become like that. Hallelujah! I wonder why they covered Moses' face?

I wanted to speak to God face to face. I wanted to see Him smile at me. If I die, I die. I cannot die in any better place. I love being here and I am happy to spend the rest of eternity here. I do not care. I made a choice, "God, I am going to speak to You and I am going to look on You." I chose that day to lift my eyes slowly and when I looked at Him a number of things happened.

Firstly, I almost got swallowed up into the eternity that is in God. The eyes are the window of the soul; that is what the Bible says (Matthew 6:22). God is eternal and eternity dwells in Him. Eternity is in His eyes because He is eternity. I found myself getting sucked into this vortex of absolute wonder and glory, into the Person of God - which is what we are supposed to do anyway. Then I started putting the brakes on, feeling "this is too much!" Just that alone took me about three weeks to try and get some understanding on - and it still fries my brain! And that is okay.

What stopped me going into His eyes was the fascination of what was happening with the outside of His body. His eyes stayed the same, that fascinated me, but there was a transition of what was happening to His body. His face was changing between the face of a man, a lion, an ox, an eagle, a lion, a man, an ox, a man... I spoke with Him as a man speaks face to face with his child - and I am still alive today.

That has totally changed my life. What made Satan ridicule God was His vulnerability with Adam and Eve, because when He played with them He was like a child with them. That is what Satan mocked because He saw God with all this power and authority but with absolute vulnerability. So when God is like that with you, He makes Himself absolutely vulnerable with you. I am a person who loves touching things. You are allowed to touch as a family, isn't that true? Well, God is my Father. Aren't I allowed to touch Him?

I can remember reaching out and feeling "Man, I am going to get fried here! But who cares, because I am in the most wonderful place anyway." And I can remember reaching out and touching, and I expected to get blown out of the water - out of the cloud, onto the earth, flat on my back, with my hand fried. But what I found when I touched Him was my yearning and my love for Him went through me into Him. This is because His desire is to be loved by His family.

I touched Him and it was like the most warm, fuzzy feeling of comfort, just in the touch. I have no words to describe it. Then the love of God came through that touch back to me and that is what laid me on the floor. It was the absolute abandonment of God towards me, as a child that dared to come into His presence.

God is calling all of us to come into His presence. Not just to His throne, but to the Person. You see, God is a person. He is not just our ultimate power source. He is a person who wants a relationship with you and me. He wants to be able to talk to you face to face. He wants to be able to express Himself to you and talk with you. I love going into the realm of the Kingdom and spending time just watching what happens around the throne. Just watching is the most amazing thing you can experience. I am trying to make this real for you. I am a normal person. I do not consider myself super-spiritual. All I have done is pursue God, and that is all I have done. When I chase God, people call me super-spiritual. Does that mean that they are naturally carnal then? That is the reality. They mock the very thing that they want, because they know that there is a price to be paid to get it. Now you and I can reach out and touch God and it will change you. It will change the way you do things. It will change the way you think. It will change your life.

No one ever told me I am going to look like my Father. No one ever told me what my Father was like. The Bible is quite clear about the semblance of what He is like, because there are angels around Him and they take on His image because of the power of who He is. God is our Dad and we have His seed in us and that seed is going to make us look like Him. You can have skin that is going to look like diamonds matted together, moving with fire, full of glory and light blue, full of light and flickering with power.

You can have a face that turns from lion to ox, to eagle, to man (Revelation 4:7, Ezekiel 1:10). I wonder why they covered Moses' face? Was it just because of the glory or was it that his face was doing the same thing? I have not spent forty days with God, I have spent about half an hour; that was enough. Forty days and you would take on the image of the Father. Remember, the fire changes whatever it touches. It changes that nature into its image.

When Moses had his face covered, it was not just because of the glory, it was the revealing of the glory, the revealing of the glories of the faces of God. What they were terrified of was the changes in His image. They were not afraid of the light, they were terrified of the revealing of that light, hallelujah!

We need to spend time just worshipping Him. I love the exercise of just worshipping God. I know that God wants to touch your life. It is all about you encountering God and pursuing God, so that you can speak with Him. Then you will get some more secrets and some things that will help to bring you to a place where you can meet with Him. I am not saying it is going to happen for you today, but you need to set your heart and you need to make the choice to go down the pathway. The reward of dying is absolute life! That is the good part about it.

Let us chase God. It is about you pursuing God and chasing Him. If you find it hard, just spend some time praying in tongues or listening to music, or words of life - just begin to engage God.

ACTIVATION
"Holy Spirit, we come as your sons and Your daughters. Father, Your Word says You have given us free access to You. Father, You have given us access, according to who You are, into Your presence. Your Word says that we can come boldly before You, into Your throne room. Father, I want more than just Your throne. I want your presence. I want to know You - the only true God and Your Son Jesus Christ. I want to know You Father. I want to see Your beauty and gaze at Your majesty. Father, I know that there is terror and there is absolute awareness of You and the nature of the body that I live in.

But Father, there is another nature. That nature is You who lives in me. It is the nature that I turn to today. Lord, I come, Lord, like Enoch, like Moses, like Abraham, like John, like Paul, Lord, who my eyes have seen, my ears have heard and my hands have handled.

Lord, I come in my nakedness and my vulnerability as You say I can. Lord, in Your Bible is says that you wait, looking for the son to come. It says that You ran towards him, that You covered him with Your garment (Luke 15:20-22). Lord, today I come.

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Original full book from the author's website: http://www.sonofthunderpublications.org/books/

Dark Cloud surrounding the Father