Prophetic Dreams and Visions (pt 1)

Dreams and visions, dreams and visions, dreams and visions! Does God still use dreams and visions today?? Yes.

There are many instances of God using dreams and visions to speak to people both in the old and the new testament. I've always thought that this was pretty cool. Joseph (old testament) dreamed, Jacob (old testament) dreamed, Joseph (new testament) dreamed, Peter and many others had visions, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar both dreamed. And this is just scratching the surface! It's just awesome that God can use whatever way He chooses to speak to us. I personally love to dream (although sometimes I get lazy and don't want to search for the interpretation). God has began to use dreams powerfully in my life. In fact, when I'm searching for confirmation on a relatively big decision, I ask God to give me a dream and most of the time He does.

I will make this statement parenthetically but I've got to say it because it's pretty important. We as believers have to believe in the supernatural. We must also identify those who have the gift of interpreting dreams in the body. Just as God gave the grace to Daniel and Joseph to interpret dreams in the old testament, He gives that same grace to others in the body today. First believe that the grace for interpreting dreams exists, then search for it in the body. There are many treasures that God has laid in these earthen vessels. Ultimately the treasure is Christ, but there's so much more to Christ than we know.

Ok so please let me briefly validate dreams and visions with one of my favorite verses. We all know the passage in Joel 2:28-29 and the retweet in Acts 2:17-18. But there's another scripture about dreams that I want to show you. The following verse has helped me tremendously when it comes to this subject...

Job 33:14-18
14 For God does speak — now one way, now another —
though man may not perceive it.
15 In a dream, in a vision of the night,
when deep sleep falls on men
as they slumber in their beds,
16 he may speak in their ears
and terrify them with warnings,
17 to turn man from wrongdoing
and keep him from pride,
18 to preserve his soul from the pit,
his life from perishing by the sword.
NIV

Incredible. God speaks in many ways but man does not always see it. One way God speaks to us is through dreams and visions of the night. Now this may be hard for us to believe because sometimes our dream life is nothing short of carnal. It's because our dreams have sometimes left us with meditations of lustful thoughts, murderous thoughts, and all kinds of craziness, we tend to dismiss dreams as a valid tool for God. Think of your dream life as a tool. The tool is used by the user for a specific purpose. What if you had a tool and a person with muddy and slimy hands came and borrowed your tool? The tool would be dirty. That's what happens to our dream life when we allow the hands of the enemy to shape and mold our thought life. Our dreams become dirty. Fill yourself with the Word and you will experience authority in your dream life. God will be able to use that tool to "show you things to come".

I'll have to finish this at another time! I've got some crazy stuff to share with you about how God has recently used my personal dream life to lead me in the path of His righteousness for His name's sake. Stay tuned for part 2!