Session four from our Vineyard at Home Retreat, February 2018

1. FLYING HIGHER
The spiritual value of Peak Experiences

2. SPIRITUAL “PEAK EXPERIENCES” ARE A
NORMAL AND IMPORTANT ASPECT OF A
GOOD LIFE WITH GOD

3. PSYCHOLOGIST ABRAHAM MASLOW
* People can undergo “peak experiences” of rapture, ecstasy,
bliss, elation in everyday settings and situations.
* The more emotionally healthy we become the more likely it is
that we will have peak experiences and have them more
frequently.
* As we age, peak experiences may give way to more sustained
states of serenity he called “plateau experiences”

4. ANTHROPOLOGIST VINCENT CRAPANZANO
35 potential States of Consciouisness,
including: “road trance” (arriving
somewhere and not recalling how one
drove to get there); daydreaming,
dreams, nightmare, ecstasy,
hallucinations, visions, etc…

5. Comparing “Deep Root”
experiences with “Peak
Experiences”…

6. Deep-root experiences with God anchor you.
Peak experiences with God untether you.
Deep-root experiences are cultivated over time.
Peak experiences catapult you into new levels of awareness and encounter.
Deep-root experiences are FORMATIONAL.
Peak experiences are TRANSFORMATIONAL.

7. Characteristics of Biblical Peak
Experiences

8. OFTEN INVOLVE EXTRAORDINARY
MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD’S PRESENCE
 “After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with
him and led them up a high mountain, where they were
all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His
clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in
the world could bleach them. And there appeared
before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with
Jesus.”
Mark 9:2-3

9. IMPARTS THE IMPRESSION THAT ONE
HAS BEEN MARKED BY THE SACRED
I have to boast, even though it doesn't do any good. But I will now
talk about visions and revelations given me by the Lord. 2 I know a
certain Christian man who fourteen years ago was snatched up to the
highest heaven (I do not know whether this actually happened or
whether he had a vision—only God knows). 3-4 I repeat, I know that
this man was snatched to Paradise (again, I do not know whether this
actually happened or whether it was a vision—only God knows), and
there he heard things which cannot be put into words, things that
human lips may not speak.
2 Corinthians 12: 1-4

10. OFTEN ATTENDS A CLEAR AWARENESS
OF CALL OR COMMISSIONING
 “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high
and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
 2 Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his
face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
 3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the
whole earth is full of his glory.
 4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was
filled with smoke.
 5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King,
the LORD of hosts.
 6 Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he
had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
 7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for
us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Isaiah 6:1-7

11. EVANGELIST D.L. MOODY
MOODY’S ENCOUNTER WITH GOD ON WALL STREET, NEW YORK
“My heart was hungry, and I had no mind for begging money for my school.
I had been praying for so long. Suddenly the Spirit of God came on me”
(People thought he was sick and they said, ‘Get a doctor!’).
“Leave me alone, leave me alone” Moody said. “Well what shall we do?”
“Don’t do anything, Just get me a room somewhere and leave me alone!”

12. EVANGELIST D.L. MOODY
“One day, in the city of New York — oh, what a
day! — I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it
is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul
had an experience of which he never spoke for 14
years. I can only say that God revealed himself to
me, and I had such an experience of His love that
I had to ask Him to stay His hand.”

13. BIBLICAL LANGUAGE AROUND PEAK
EXPERIENCES
“I saw the Lord…”, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit…”, “I was
in the Spirit on the Lord’s day…”, “but Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit,
looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God…”, “Did not our hearts
burn within us?...”, “whether it was in the body or out of the body I
do not know…”, “In Your right hand are pleasures forevermore…”,
“they were baptized (immersed) in the Holy Spirit”

14. “WHAT NO EYE HAS SEEN,
WHAT NO EAR HAS HEARD,
AND WHAT NO HUMAN MIND HAS CONCEIVED”[A]—
THE THINGS GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM—
THESE ARE THE THINGS GOD HAS REVEALED TO US BY HIS SPIRIT” (I COR. 2:9-10).
All earthly peak experiences are foretastes of the glory
that will be revealed at the End of the Age when the full
consummation of the Kingdom of God will release we
who have been saved from sin and death, untether us
from the limits of physiological restraints, and completely
unveil the wonders of God and His glory to our fully-
formed minds and hearts to the point that we will “know
even as we are known” ( 1 Cor. 13:12).