The goal or height of spiritual growth is to come into oneness with God experientially. I wrote a post titled "Understanding Spiritual Growth And How To Increase Its Speed".
In that post I explained that spiritual growth comes from abiding in Christ. By abiding, we grow into oneness with Christ. I also explained in that post that we abide by being occupied with Christ. I would like to add that another thing that would keep us abiding is love. When we love the place we are currently staying, then it is unlikely that we would want to leave that place. As such, we remain abiding in Christ by loving him. Having said all that, I will move on to our present discuss.
When Jesus used the word "abide" he liked us to a plant. So we are like plants which needs to abide in Christ and be exposed to the sunlight. Sunlight here refers to the revelation of Christ. We come under the sunlight (revelation of Christ) and abide in the indwelling Christ. As we do this, life begins to flow from Christ into us, causing spiritual growth. Just as plant grows in the presence of the sunlight, we need the revelation of Christ, and we need to stay in that revelation by fixing our eyes on it so as to grow. Now, here in this post is an exercise which combines all these principles in order that you might be infused with the life of Christ and grow into oneness with him.
To do the exercise you will need sunlight (a revelation of Christ). You'll get this revelation by spending enough time in study and meditation. When indeed, you are sure that you have gotten the revelation, and it is not just an head knowledge to you, but you've behold this truth with eyes of your heart, then you can go into this mystic prayer. The prayer has 5 stages: Recollection, Prayer of Affection, Prayer Of Union, Ecstatic Union, and Deifying Union. I would explain. You will start as follows:
1) Recollection: Here you recollection this revelation you have gotten. Try to remember it, recount it and behold it in your mind. You can make certain declarations about your identity in Christ and your reality in Christ.
2) Prayer Of Affection: After spending some time to recollect, you begin to love and adore God and the reality in Christ. The truth is that all that is in Christ is Christ. The wisdom that is in Christ is Christ, the power that is in Christ is Christ (1Cor 1:24). Christ is all in all in the reality of Christ. So look at the reality in Christ and love them. Love the wisdom in Christ, the righteousness in Christ, the clear and guilt free conscience that we enjoy in Christ, the holiness and purity that we have in Christ. Love that feeling of being pure and clean, adore it, take pleasure in how sweet it is to have a clean and pure conscience (see Col 2:14; 1John 1:7; Heb 9:14; Heb 10:1-3,16-22; Rom 8:31-34: 1John 3:20). Behold the victory over sin that is now a reality in Christ. Look at this amazing reality in wonder. Yes, it's unbelievable that one would live a sinless life, but this reality is there in Christ. Look at it and wonder upon it, adore it, thank God for it, rejoice over it in your heart. In the prayer of affection you speak with a low tone, uttering whispers of love unto God. And you speak fewer words because you are trying to pay attention and draw from the Holy Spirit. You are drawing from the Holy Spirit because he is the Spirit that shed the love of God abroad in our hearts (Rom 5:5). In the prayer of affection you are not loving God with your human love, you are loving God with God's love—the love that the Holy Spirit shed abroad in your heart. This is why you are quiet, paying attention to the works of the Holy Spirit in your heart, trying to draw love from the Holy Spirit, and love God with the God's love. Whether you feel anything or not, just act on faith. Behold the wonder of God, his power, his faithfulness, his patience, his love etc. Notice I am point to two things—the person of God, and the reality in Christ—you can choose to focus on either one in your prayer. So in the prayer of affection, you just love and adore God or/and the reality in Christ.
3) Prayer Of Union: After spending some time whispering those words of love to your Eternal Lover and arousing passion in your heart for him, you should keep quiet. Yes, be silence as you rest in all that. You rest in the revelation of God, and you rest in your passion for Him. But remember to rest by the Spirit. You are to release yourself to the Holy Spirit and just rest in Christ. At this point no human efforts is needed, you just need to trust Christ and rely on the Holy Spirit. Hold on to the passion in your heart and the revelation in your mind, and just be still as you rest in oneness with Christ. Yes, stay still while keeping every distraction out. Remain like that for hours. Do this every day.
4) Ecstatic Union: As you continue in the prayer of union, life is flowing out of Christ into you. This is happening because you are abiding in Christ; you are sitting like a plant under the sunlight (revelation of Christ). In that place of silence life is flowing from Christ into you. It might not feel like it but remain. Like someone said, "a plant does not make noise when it is growing, it only makes noise when it is falling", growth happens in silence. So as you continue to remain, the life will fill you to the point of ecstasy. At this point you might feel certain things like power, energy, electricity flowing through you, or a boost of confidence, faith, a strong will, boldness etc. You might feel like fire burning within you, or you might feel like you are about to explode. Both your body and soul are filled with the overwhelming fullness of God, this is what leads to ecstasy. You might fall into trance, levitate, glow, bilocation, etc. At this stage the laws of nature might begin to bend around you because the reality of God is invading you. Time may become faster or slower, space may bend and portals to other locations on earth would appear. The divide between heaven and earth become thinner, and heaven is invading your room. Everything is going bizarre as you remain there. However, ecstacy is not our goal, oneness with God is what we are after
5) Deifying Union: After the great shaking of reality which came about as a result of the fullness of God invading you, then you will come in union with God. You become one with the Son. When you come into oneness with the Son you might find yourself seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. And the Father might begin to show the son greater works and teach you certain things.
"For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished." (John 5:20).
Or the Father might begin to do things through you, and together with you. You can translocation to another place and you will minister as the Son to somebody or some people. You will just do things in perfect union with God, commanding all the powers that God has in oneness with the will of God.
Alright, this is where I will end this post. This is not just theories, I am sharing this from experience. If you can practice this prayer and remain consistent, you will grow spiritually so fast, and you will have a lot of amazing experience with God. This is something that God lead me into, it took years for me to grasp what he was trying to make me do. He would often remove my ability to speak in the place of prayer, then he would draw me into this intimacy and love, and he would ask me to stay.
I didn't understand at first, I try to run away from it. But each time I come to the place of prayer God starts this thing again, so I stopped praying all together. I would only come, dip a toe into prayer, and run away before it gets too bizarre. But that didn't stop me from experiencing some really bizarre things. After years of growing and learning more about Christ, I finally got enough understanding to practice and teach this prayer. Some of the terms used here are borrowed from Christian Mystical Theology. I only made some changes in there definition. It turned out that Christianity has a rich history of mysticsim, and the Christian mystics developed these stages of prayer from their experience. So I am not the only one that has experienced this pray, this means it can be generalized. So this is something that have been practiced by several people in history, it has been tested and proven to be effective.
The potency of this prayer is amazing. You will find yourself walking in greater victory over sin, loving God, enjoying the joy of salvation and filled with the peace of Christ. I pray you will receive the strength to practice it regularly and allow it totally transform your spiritual life.
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