Abundant Encounters
Josh Marcengill
Does God feel distant to you?
Do your prayers feel like they aren’t heard?
What if we could encounter the God in a real way- the one who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow?
The Jesus who did what He saw his father doing and said what he heard him say?
My guest today, Josh Marcengill. is the founder of Abundant Encounters, an online ministry that helps Christians embrace an encounter lifestyle like Jesus Christ revealed to us.
Josh discusses how we have been invited into this as our inheritance on the earth.
Josh shares his experience as an atheist who tried to take his life- But God came to him and steered him to a different direction.
I was an atheist at 27, and I had been an atheist for maybe two years, and I was getting pretty serious about it, but my life was also falling apart.
The Lord started encountering me in massive ways after a suicide attempt.
I woke up the next morning. The Lord gave me an open vision, and it was a crazy experience. I thought maybe I had schizophrenia because I was an academic. And it just kept going and it kept telling this insane story.
And I saw Jesus and Jesus had kindness in his eyes and he knew who I was.
And I was like, oh, wow, this is.
I don't know you. And so that changed me. I was like, wait, you know me. But I definitely don't know you. Everything I've heard about you is. Is not. I don't know if it wasn't true.
It's just. I haven't heard it the right way.
And then, he just took me on a very unusual, encounter experience. And then he made encounters normal for me.
And I realized that we have set the bar so high that we just don't experience God a lot. And there's a stewardship element to it that's really fascinating to me.
But even the small ones really matter. Any. Let me define encounters. Real quick.
Encounters are. I mean, to me, they're just any moment that God is actually real for you.
So it's a personal, subjective definition. And I believe that's really important because it's still valuable if you think it's real than it is real. For you. And so anytime that you're experiencing something that makes you know that God is real, I think it's valuable.
And I think that when we do that, we can actually steward our experiences. We can live a lifestyle of encounters. Jesus showed us that he did this. And so we're invited into this amazing, abundant experience.
Maybe there's an audible voice, like, in the Bible, we hear about those kind of things. And then the subjective ones are. You know, it's like I heard a voice. It was inside, and it was about the volume that I read with, and it sounded like me, but it just didn't come from me.
I don't know what it was. And I wanted to justify. Normalize those kind of experiences because I think they really do enrich our lives and can lead us into a beautiful, consistent, fellowship with the Lord.
That I think is really, really important.
It's hard to even speak the language of encounter without reading the Bible. It just helps you translate. God speaks all kinds of different styles of languages.
He speaks through creation. And he speaks just oddly at times.
And so it's important to be able to interpret and have a heart for what God has a heart for.
It's so much easier and safer when you have a foundation and in the Word, of course, and those kind of things and have a good church family.
Encounters are real. Have an encounter lifestyle. Build up healthy community around God experiences.
Jan Johnson: I think it's interesting how God chooses us, like for you to have been an academic, like, I don't need this. And you know, something drew you to atheism instead to begin with.
Yet, the day after when you were still alive and he says, I love you, that had to have been like, wow, what you needed to hear, right?
Josh Marcengill: Well, you know, I didn't have a box for it. I wasn't a Christian. I didn't have Christian language or what I was experiencing. I didn't really understand open vision was. Or anything like that.
So it was really interesting just the way that this all happened. It really felt like it was happening to me. And the way the Lord later explained that to me was that the veil was torn and he can run out after his kids.
Luke 15 is a good example. The father runs off of the porch and runs after the son. And so that's definitely what my experience was. He came after me and I definitely didn't deserve it.
There was nothing about me that was righteous in any way. But I had had a hard experience and that had made my heart really hard.
And even during this experience, I remember even though there was several miracles that had happened already, you know, I didn't really call them that. There was still a hardness there.
But the Lord had this plan to break me down, put me in a community. I got saved in a Hispanic church in San Diego, California, and I was the only white guy there.
And I remember just feeling like, like so much love for people for the first time, you know, and it was neat to do that in that experience because, I mean, one, I just really hadn't spent a lot of time around Hispanic people.
Everything was just so different, and I was just so like in awe of who God was, I was just like, wow, God, this is real.
Like, I really know that this is love because I've never felt it before and there's no real connection here. I have no idea how you did this. This is amazing.
And I was just building relationships and it was like this honeymoon experience.
I needed God to show up in a specific way. I needed him to be real.
And, and when he did show up, it was so ridiculously real. I could see it, you know, like, like I'm looking at you now and, and those kinds of things.
And then, and it was so. It was impossible to deny and it, and it broke my box, you know, and I was like, oh, wow.
I just got it right there and I was purified or something like that. But it was just so much more complex than that. But it did break my box, and I was open and my hard heart had a soft spot in it at least, you know, and he had to take me on quite a journey.
I mean, I really had that moment, you know, experiencing and encountering Jesus was such a big deal, but he was the rescuer in that scenario.
And I still needed to know the father because my dad had committed suicide actually at 15.
And so he'd been gone for a long time. My brother committed suicide later on. So these things had ripped my heart apart and made me so bitter inside. And of course I was an atheist, and I look at it now and I don't try to make fun of people in that situation or anything, but I did have like this anger against a God that I didn't believe in.
There was just so much healing that had to be done.
We have a God shaped hole, we have a people shaped hole.
We need people, we need God. But we were made with those needs. And so I was trying to live my life without meeting those needs that I was made with.
And, it had made me a wreck. But it was an absolute adventure with the Lord, learning to receive him in places that I just didn't think he had any business in.
I was just convinced that, no, you don't want this part. I'll keep this.
But he did, he wanted all of it. And you know, he was very territorial. I mean, it reminds me of those Old Testament stories where he's going in and he's taken over land.
That was my heart. That was a picture of my heart. He was in there sorting things out, killing off, you know, all these battles and stuff.
Some of it was really hard. Of course, it was tearing me apart and I think surrender is a supernatural act. I don't think it's something that you can do without some connection, some spiritual reality connection because it's just impossible.
it was definitely a process. And God loves The process.I know he does. Like, otherwise, he probably would have snapped his fingers— once Jesus paid it— All right, good. Everybody's perfect now, you know, but, no, he's growing something.
He's doing something. There's valuable something in what his love for the process is. And, you know, that gives us permission as well to further enjoy the process, even in the extremely difficult moments which so many of us experience.
Fpr more of the episode, listen to the podcast or watch it here.
Set aside an intentional time to think back to when you have encountered God…
maybe even before you were a believer. I had deep encounters when my husband Howard had his brain tumor…miracles throughout, but a richness I had never experienced before. Again, when I asked for the gift of tongues and God came through- a gift I still appreciate. He was right beside me, comforting me the three times I miscarried. And again when I entrusted my granddaughter who was kidnapped by her father and brainwashed into believing my daughter had repeatedly abused her sexually. God is faithful, my friends. He’s always with us- with you and with me. His love never fails. I would invite you to check out Josh’s website.
LINKS
Encounters book: https://a.co/d/8hEHIwY Edify journal: https://a.co/d/fzDe5U9 Testify journal: https://a.co/d/3rCFYKr Abundant Encounters Podcast:
Apple Podcast: https://tinyurl.com/s9vwr8n GooglePlay Podcast: https://tinyurl.com/rg28vy9 Take a look at our journal selection at https://abundantencounters.com/journals Biblical Counseling Sessions: https://www.abundantencounters.com/christian-online-counseling Free Discovery Call: https://www.abundantencounters.com/service-page/my-free-consultation
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