What is a vision?

[WhiteWings]

What is the definition of a vision from a Biblical pov?
And even more important how to be certain it's a vision and not just an idea/dream.
I never had a vision about anything religious.
Not even about worldly things.
I think...

Dreams usually/always are a compilation of experiences in your life. Can be a mix of real life experiences combined with bits and pieces of a book and movie.
My personal experience is that my brain never really stops when asleep. I rarely can remember a dream. But if I during that day spend a lot of energy to solve some problem it's not unusual for me to wake up in the middle of the night with a solution to that problem. So far only worldly 'problems' (usually trading related)
Is that a vision from God? Or just me having figured out something? I think don't think God has much interest in my worldly challenges/hobbies so it must have been myself generated solution/vision.

So an extrapolation on the above...
If I would be more knowledgably about the Bible and tried to solve a problem the chances are big during my sleep the solving continues. Perhaps the problem gets solved. (or looks that way)
How do I differentiate between that solution coming from God or just my own mind finding a solution?

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Joel 2 tells us that we will dream dreams. Joseph was a dreamer of God-given dreams. These are "night visions", which obviously happen when you're asleep. They differ from normal dreaming in several ways.

They are literally like broad daylight in your perception, for brightness, and they are like you are really there (because your spirit IS). He usually "speaks" to you in them, ie. a scripture given with understanding, or an instruction of some sort.

They usually involve seeing something in the spiritual realm that your natural eyes and carnal mind cannot conceive of. It's God's way of communicating by bypassing the carnal mind in a sense and dealing directly with your spirit man.

Daytime visions usually, but not always, come as a result of prayer, from pressing in and focusing on God. Essentially we have "spiritual eyes" or the ability to perceive things in the spiritual realm, and God "opens" them as HE sees fit. Elijah saw an army, Peter saw a sheet.

Neither of these two types of visions are "abnormal", but completely normal and documented for us to understand that we are more than flesh and blood, and the Spirit of God is very much alive and as OPENLY (as perceivable) active in our lives as we will allow Him to be. Blessings....

[Molly]

Most of my visions come while awake.

I see pictures and this is confirmed true by the Spirit.

This is always a surprise to me because I am in no way visual.  I normally don't see things with my eyes.

(I would make a terrible eye witness in court.)

For instance, in the late 90's, I was working and thinking on other things, and all of a sudden I saw a vision of hundreds of people camped out around a pond that I was familiar with, and they were there because of the water, but they had been driven from their homes--for a reason unknown to me.

Now we have the tent cities in the states, which is something I never would have imagined then, but this vision is even bigger than that--

Anyway, for me, it's like a waking meditation that comes on suddenly.

[onlytruth]

i find ...when at total rest,letting the cares of the day go ,i sense and then see what is going on around,or at times what is about to happen.
i haven't stopped for a while now(rested)but i should again; and when i do i go to a quiet place and slow myself down.
blessings  :icon_king:

[fire walker]

 :thumbsup:Card,

These dreams differ from the natural dreams while sleeping or the day dreams we may have about everyday life in this world in that they are very vivified dreams
we receive from above without any struggle put up by the carnal mind because  these dreams bypass the carnal mind, the one receiving the message in these dreams is in spirit receiving what is being revealed,
 
Just my two cents worth, and though I have experienced these dreams a few times my  mind of flesh (carnal mind) can't conceive or receive such things when they occur, I claim to be no authority on the subject.


Peace,
Fire Walker
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

:cloud9: Joel 2 tells us that we will dream dreams. Joseph was a dreamer of God-given dreams. These are "night visions", which obviously happen when you're asleep. They differ from normal dreaming in several ways.

They are literally like broad daylight in your perception, for brightness, and they are like you are really there (because your spirit IS). He usually "speaks" to you in them, ie. a scripture given with understanding, or an instruction of some sort.

They usually involve seeing something in the spiritual realm that your natural eyes and carnal mind cannot conceive of. It's God's way of communicating by bypassing the carnal mind in and dealing directly with your spirit man.

Daytime visions usually, but not always, come as a result of prayer, from pressing in and focusing on God. 
[/quote

[sparrow]

Dreams... can be something, and dreams can be nothing. I find that when they really are something, I wake up out of them and just have a "knowing" feeling, if that makes sense. I rarely wake out of a dream and when I do, it's always been something that has been life altering (in small ways or big ways, doesn't matter but the key is that it is life altering in a positive way.)

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Amen, I know the knowing, too.  :laughing7: :thumbsup:

[martincisneros]

Although anyone can experience them, you're going to find a higher incidence of them, and often much more intense in Holy Spirit anointed Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers, with the prophet probably usually having the greater regularity of them.  It's a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and of angels in a believer's life.  There's quite a few Scriptures that I can get into about it, but not necessarily with a lot of clarity 'cause it's one of those kinds of questions like "tell me what speaking in other tongues through the Holy Spirit's ministry in one's life is like."  There aren't very many frames of reference for it outside in the natural realm.  You've either got to be around it absolutely all of the time or experience it for yourself to get an incling of what's available to a believer.  There's a lot of verses about it, but without very many frames of reference...

Scripturally, visions don't take precidence over the Written Word, according to 2Peter 1 where Peter describes being on the mountain with Jesus when He was transfigured, but then he calls the Written Word a more sure Word of prophecy than his own eye-witness testimony of His Majesty.

Some of them you could liken to a dream while you're awake, but it's being guided by the Holy Spirit and/or an angel or multiple angels.  There's various degrees of intensity.  Acts 10 describes Peter having gone into a total trance.  Many believers have experienced the type of vision where they're reading Scripture they've read a thousand times and suddenly a phrase, verse, principle, or whatever seems to stand straight up from the page in a much, much bigger font than the context of what you're reading.  You might be reading something in 10 to 14pt font and when the Holy Spirit is specifically talking to you, all of a sudden a key phrase or whatever will seem like for just a split second it was at least at an 18pt font.  For most believers it'll be a verse or a part of a verse that'll do that.  Few press through until whole books of the Bible do that to/with them.

The greater the relationship with the Lord, sometimes the very thing someone is asking the Lord about, they'll suddenly have an image of the answer, but they're still seeing it from within their body rather than losing a frame of reference for where they're bodily at.  Or He'll call attention to something and as some would describe it, they're seeing it in their mind's eye.

But then there are times when it'll seem like you've been swept off to Camelot and like St. Paul said about some of his own experiences: "not sure whether or not I was in my body."  In 1Corinthians 12 the gift of discerning of spirits operates with one of the types of the above visions, or a combination of them, 100% of the time.  It's not a gift of discernment.  It's specifically the discerning of spirits, whether animal, human, angel, or demon.  You'll suddenly know what's behind someone and what they're doing.  Sometimes this will operate in the calling of someone to a particular task, life function, or addition to their calling (an edit: as was likely the case with Timothy in the New Testament from how Paul addresses him about the prophecies made over him and waging a good warfare with them).  Some people will have a season in their lives where the Holy Spirit will show them to themselves in a context where they're preaching to a packed out Convention Center or Stadium 'cause that's what He's wanting them to wage a good warfare about in their prayer time in order to get from where they're at to where they need to be to see that happen.

I don't know if any books have ever come out specifically about this, but many of the old time Pentecostals have reported testimonies of praying in other tongues for extended periods of time and having visions of who their spouse was supposed to be, sometimes with added details of how many children they'd have, or where they'd pastor together someday, etc.  Kenneth E. Hagin Sr. who has already gone on to heaven would occasionally mention that that's how he knew that Oretha was the woman he was supposed to marry.  And they were married for probably nearly 70 years.  I've never known of a divorce to ever come about after that kind of revelation 'cause it would be a manifestation of the Word coming to harvest in their lives and/or something they've prayed through.  So, the spiritual warfare, temptations, etc., just wound up not being there or not as intense as they are for other people, or people were just more grounded with not having the "I wonder if I did the right thing" 'cause "duh!" God showed 'em.  I'm trying to remember other examples of men of God that were a little more well known over the last hundred years or so 'cause if there's a tape, book, or whatever about it, or any chapters of a personal bio about it, then obviously you'd have a better chance of finding 'em than if I mention some obscure person that doesn't google very well or come up at any library or volume of Church history.  I know that Dwight Thompson, the man that lead me to Christ, used to tell stories all of the time of pastors that he knew that got all of that by revelation.

Basically, it's just one more means by which God reveals His will to people.  Occasionally it'll be a warning as in the book of Daniel, Revelation, etc.  St. Paul would intercede for the Churches that he ministered to with such intensity that many if not all of his epistles came out of visions.  From personal experience, in all likelihood, the very letters he wrote themselves may have come word for word from the vision.  My own spiritual dad, Kenneth Copeland, gets his monthly ministry partner letter that way with a lot of fasting and believing God for the ongoing overcoming of his ministry's partners/family.  Ephesians 1:16-23 is a prayer for God to include visions in how He raises you.  It's obviously up to Him regarding how intense those are or whether they're barely above the level of God conceptualizing with you about some new area of doctrine.

St. Paul was guided by a vision in the closing chapter or two of Acts when God told him that everybody would be saved, but the boat would be lost in the horrible storm they were in where everybody had gone without food for a couple of weeks.  He'd previously had a premonition that he tried to warn everybody about (which Scripturally is a word of Wisdom in 1Corinthians 12), that if we get into that boat, it's going to be bad for all of us!  Visions in a New Testament context, and I'm more than willing to get detailed with the Scriptures, but this is another one of those areas where unless God opens the eyes, it'll seem like I'm speculating.  But anyway, visions in the New Testament are one of the ways that God guides us.  His primary way is through the Written Word, and every vision will always be subject to that.  If some dude, like a Muslim, has visions of having dozens of virgins when he gets to heaven, then that came out of his own vain imaginations as it says in Colossians 2:18-19:

18Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.

Visions by definition are radical and specific guidance about a matter that the Scriptures might not get into a lot of details about.  A pastor that's trying to reach his community with the Gospel may have a vision of the ruler of darkness and the wicked spirit in heavenly places that's specifically hindering the spread of the Gospel in that region.  With a name, face, or something to identify what's behind his difficulties in doing what he needs to do, or with specifics like that that are keeping his tithing congregation from prospering, then he's able to specifically take authority over what's been going on and yank it down from the seat of authority it's presumptuously taken, and then to experience the flood gates opening of the manifestations of God's Word in his life and in the life of his congregation that he knew all this time were his and his congregations, his ministry team's, etc.  Many times, not just hindrances to the spread of the Gospel or the general prosperity of believers are resolved that way, but specific sources of regional plagues are dealt with in that way, like in parts of Africa where most of the people that had Aids no longer have it and are all too ready to testify to the power of Jesus Christ by the thousands to that effect.

Visions are a product of a Word-filled and Holy Spirit filled life and they're an integral part of the helmet of salvation.  Speaking in other tongues is the gateway to most of it happening for those believers that are instructed to skillfully lay claim to the interpretation of what they said.  I could pray in other tongues for a few minutes right now, and then believe that I receive the interpretation as 1corinthians 14 instructs, and either immediately or in hours/weeks/months a vision might be one of the ways that God chooses to show me what that was all about, particularly if it's one of those areas that's easier to show someone than to tell them about where God's not wanting any "oops" in how He meant something.  As Ephesians 1 says, it'll mainly be about a revelation of a part of my inheritance in Christ, or about the inheritance of the global Body of Christ, if not a regional segment.  In a ministry context where you're ministering the Word to someone, the interpretation up to and including visions can happen right on the spot while you're sharing with someone and as you're talking you're just over into this other realm and describing what you're seeing.

Again, not all visions are created equal.  Some are these total out of body experiences where you're transported to God knows where, while others will be a very clear and undeniable imposition of the Holy Spirit or an angel upon your mind's eye.  I may take some heat for this, but I don't believe a guy can fulfill his Ephesians 5 role of being Christ to his body, his wife, without being able to operate proficiently in this where she's concerned.  I'm not talking about winning lotto numbers or necessarily having it all figured out about the plan of God for their lives, but that watchfulness that someone would have over their baby or figurative baby kinda thing.  If any married folks choke on that closing part, then just pray about it and shelve it if you need to, and study the Scriptures about all of the rest of the above.  But what I've just said is definitely available to spouses and to parents.



subject to editing if I notice any horrendous typos that might obscure any of what I meant to say above

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: EXCELLENT Martin, and spot on..... :thumbsup:

[martincisneros]

How do I differentiate between that solution coming from God or just my own mind finding a solution?

Time with Him.  As some people describe His voice as Him speaking as He wrote in the Bible, or sounds like in the Bible, you also know when it's a particular loved one that's showing you their photo album, a stranger showing you theirs, or whether you're looking through your own photo album, your own drawings, etc.  It'll all have the same flavor or sense of it being Him.  Particularly if it challenges you in a way that's towards a Scriptural goal or principle, but you'd of never personally/mentally gone there in a million years.  Like if God said to move to Nebraska, look for this particular pastor or the one I'll point out to you, and you're to help his ministry in this way either as a one time or from now on or until the season that I release you from that.  Your first thought would be "huh?  where's Nebraska??"  Not likely to have been that pizza before going to bed kinda things and within the spectrum of something godly.  And the really life altering stuff will usually find some form of confirmation, validation, or peace to you when you start pursuing it, particularly after the first 4 years -- going back to the parable that Jesus gave about cutting down a tree after four years that wasn't producing the fruit He was expecting.  Some would say to bounce it off of someone else, that's spiritual, but if they're not called in the same way as you are, then that might not be very helpful.