Thanks for your kind words.
I don’t recall Jesse saying why or if he was even told why.
It’s been my observation that God sometimes tells folks why and often does not. It’s not as though God is big on explaining HIS WHY’S to mortals.
In some cases, it’s been because prayer warriors, faithful servants in The Lord have prayed to be able to see Heaven and return—usually prayed many years for such.
In many cases, God says something like—I WANT YOU TO GO BACK AND TELL THEM—TIME IS SHORT; GET READY; FORGIVE EVERYONE; HEAVEN IS WORTH IT ALL; HELL IS REAL; etc. etc. etc.
Sometimes it seems like a special tickle in Daddy God’s heart to just bless a treasured believer with such an experience.
That’s the range of things I’m aware of. I don’t pretend to read God’s mind well, if at all.
I like Jesse because he’s candid, down home real etc. Sure he likes spit and polish—that’s his background. But he’s been through being a rock star and the whole Southern Cajun experience and he’s not all that interested in phony stuff.
I thought it was interesting that when The Lord showed him his mansion—all the details were just as Jesse would have picked out himself. DOH! God certainly knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts.
I find a LOT of RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS TYPES to be very . . . welllll . . . UNGODLY. I’m not here speaking of gross immorality though the effect is likely worse.
I mean askew from God’s heart and His priorities.
The pharisees were all ready to stone the woman. Christ had a different priority.
The pharisees were convinced they knew the Scriptures well and how to apply them and stoning was the only fitting option.
Christ had a different priority.
The publican thought he had prancing prayers down just right. God had a different priority.
The Magicsterical Sanhedrin was convinced it was infallable and could execute God’s judgment precisely correctly and righteously. God snookered them.
Throughout Scripture and history man has presumed to have successfully packaged God in man’s tidy little boxes. And, to have discerned precisely and exclusively correctly even God’s own packaging of Himself.
GOD HAS ALWAYS PROVEN BIGGER THAN THAT—than either one.
God seems to love to use the unlovely, strange, katty-wumpus and unesteemed to confound the wise. It seems to be a major hobby of His.
And, often He seems to seize on this or that core aspect of a believer’s heart after God and run with that and seemingly not pay much attention to a lot of other true garbage in the process . . . at least for many long years.
Sometimes it seems like the undealt with flaws are to remind the servant of God about how human they are. Sometimes it seems like they are to dare/challenge onlookers to focus on God’s priorities, avoid carnal fleshy, mean spirited judgment and focus exclusively on what God is doing in the situation rather than on the flawed vehicle God may be working through.
I see endless cat-calls on FR about all manner of folks. Generally, the harsh, critical, prissy, arrogant, mean-spirited judgments are much more of a stench to God than whatever they are criticizing.
Folks flinging such mud and such rocks have clearly never had their own crud rubbed in their faces sufficiently horribly to quit such spiritually destructive activities.
That could be quite frightful. Have they crossed a line where God no longer disciplines them? That would be pretty horrible.
Personally, I thin Jesse’s story can stand on it’s own.
When he returned from his Heavenly visitation, he was a bit late for his speaking in the large church where he was visiting. So he walks down the asile from the back up to the platform to speak. And, as he’s walking he thought the people were particularly odd in the way they looked at him and were looking at him, pointing at him and talking to those standing nearby—evidently about him. Something about that was unusual and strikinglyi so.
Then he gets to the platform and the pastor looks at him strangely. Come to find out, his countenance was literally very overtly glowing—giving off a very evident light that everyone in the room could see.
The naysayers on FR have no explanation for that. They can deny it; disbelieve it etc. but they have no explanation for that. It flushes all their catcalls and derisions right down the toilet. It proves they are wrong and Jesse was right. I think that’s hillarious.
Another cute tidbit . . . Maybe it was driving back from that engagement. I don’t recall . . . I forget the specifics but they were something like say a 3 hour or 5 hour or some such drive was involved. Along the way, Jesse gets to worshiping and singing and he and the car seem to be just engulfed in a glorious anointed fog sort of something. Anyway—after a bit, that dissipates and Jesse notices that he’s about at his turnoff to his home. And from the time he left to the time he arrives at his home, it’s about 30 minutes or some such has transpired—a total impossibility. His wife verifies the time stamps. I think Jesse had gassed up before leaving the distant city and had that or a phone call time as one time stamp.
I love it when God pulls stunts like that. And God seems to love it, too. However, He virtually never does it for rock throwing critical judgment, mean-spirit pharisee types.
From God’s perspective, evidently, they can go suck rocks.
BTW, some have claimed that the Scripture about the richman and Lazarus etc. speaks of an unbreachable gulf etc. etc.
Yeah, there is evidently a routinely unbreachable gulf . . . particularly before Christ’s Crucifixion & Resurrection.
However . . . Many folks were resurrected at that dramatic event . . . and evidently wandered around alive to die again . . . witnessing about God and The Resurrection and Heaven.
Certainly God can do whatever He wants consistent with His word.
A LOT of assumptionis and presumptions about what the Bible says are human inventions—just as the pharisees’ understandings were human inventions.
God does NOT fit in any box, no matter how big we think we’ve constructed it.
These sorts of experiences have been increasing the last 10-20 years. The better ones are all quite congruent. They depict the God of the Bible. They depict the Heaven of the Bible.
Yet, they also seem to be tailored to the individuals involved. What a surprise.
To my mind, Heaven and God are both vast and complex enough to slice and dice such realities and presentations pretty much however He wishes consistent with HIS UNDERSTANDING OF HIS OWN WORD.
He does NOT have to get my OK on it!
The key test to me . . . in addition to whether the experiences are consistent with Scripture’s core priorities or not . . . do they bring God glory—do they lift up God’s priorities—do they strengthen folks RELATIONSHIPS WITH GOD.
All the ones I have any interest in, do. AND THEY GREATLY DO SO in many cases.
At some point, those who throw rocks at such are the losers. They clearly lack discernment of the most minimal level and/or their biases are blinding them to some treasures FROM GOD. That’s dumb.
Their loss.