Sensing Angelic Presence (I)

adapted from Youtube teaching on “Sensing Angelic Presence Pt.1”

We spend a lot of time on the Mind of Christ discussing new creation theology and scriptural interpretation, but what I want to do is make sure that I am also teaching on spiritual gifts. I’ve done a teaching on the discernment of spirits already and I want to keep expanding on spiritual gifts and how they play out practically in our daily experience. 

Today I want to teach on how to sense angelic presence and how this gifting can help us in our walk with Christ. This is something I’ve been wanting to teach on for a while but just haven’t felt the grace yet for it but I have been lately so I want to act on it.

What I plan on doing is laying down some guidelines that I personally adhere to when I’m moving in this gifting, I’ll talk about some ways to sense and even interact with angels, and then I’ll wrap things up with some final advice and some warnings about activating this gift and growing in it. I’ll also do an impartation at the end.  

I fully understand that this particular topic isn’t for everyone and that’s fine. This is just something that God has taught me that has been very useful in my walk and has helped me. That doesn’t mean you need to agree with me or have the same experience. I just want to make that clear before I begin - if you’re not at least a little open to the idea of angels in your experience, this teaching probably isn’t for you. 

My goal is not to share my experiences in order to appear more spiritual or gifted than you - in fact, there are plenty of people who are far more advanced in this gifting than me. My goal is to help those who want to learn about this and grow in it. There are other ways of approaching this, but I’m going to share how I approach it. So maybe for you, it’s going to be worth getting a variety of perspectives on the topic, just a suggestion. I do try to approach the topic as “rationally” and as “scientifically” as possible, even though we are dealing with what might be considered “supernatural” by some. 

Guidelines for Angels 

First, a very general overview of angels and what their function is in the new creation. I’m not going to lay down a theology for angels - this teaching would take far too long - you’ll need to go elsewhere for that. I’m just going to give some basics and make the assumption that you have some basic familiarity with this topic. 

Here’s how I define an angel: 

Angel: An angel is a spiritual being from a heavenly realm who aids us in our journey into the life of Christ. 

We know that angels are an integral element of the Biblical narrative, and play an important role in God’s unfolding plan throughout the Scriptures. For instance, there are the angels who appear to Abraham fairly early on in Israel’s story, there are the angels who help the prophets like Elijah, and then there are the angels who appeared to the individuals in the first-century Jesus movement - remember, in Acts, we read an angel helped Peter escape from prison. 

So, generally speaking, these angels are beings who are being sent from heaven to advance the cause of Christ. When I say “cause of Christ,” I mean God’s desire to save, redeem, and restore the entire world. Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, it makes sense that angels play a role today in helping God’s children. 

Angels are an important part of the new creation experience, but not the be-all-end-all. Knowing Christ is the be-all-end-all. Angels are subservient to Christ, the father of all spirits and the head over all principalities and powers. Angels are a signpost that points to the greater reality. They are not the greater reality themselves, and that leads me to my first guideline with angelic experience: 

Angelic interaction should always point us to Christ and His kingdom. 

The point of having an experience with an angel isn’t to be able to say you had a cool spiritual experience. Angelic interactions help us learn and grow in the eternal life of Christ. They teach us something about God and His kingdom or help us see a new side of God’s character. Angels do not glorify themselves, but the ascended Christ, and work with him in their daily activities. Any valuable experience will help me grow my faith and wonder of God. 

My second guideline: 

Angelic experiences will be supported by the Scriptures in some genuine way, shape, or form.  

This doesn’t mean you need to see a literal verse in the Bible, but God will always support your experience by illuminating a passage of the Scriptures that will aid you in your understanding of your experience. You won’t have to draw crazy conclusions from the Scriptures in order to validate your experience if it is truly from God. Let me give you an example: 

Once, a few years ago, I was feeling particularly exhausted in a long-term work situation I was in. Basically, I really didn’t like the job I was in and it was leaving me feeling exhausted every day - in spirit, mind, and body. 

One day, I came home and felt like I had enough. As my head hit the pillow, I prayed that God would refresh me and give me strength in my weakness. I fell asleep. A few hours later, I half woke up and could just sense something in my room with me. It wasn’t scary - I didn’t feel terror or unease. I began to feel like something was touching different parts of my feet. I looked down at my bed but couldn’t see anything. The room was buzzing. I felt the covers at my feet begin to shift and fall off my feet. At that point, I became alarmed and fully awake. I looked down but nothing was at my feet. I felt a throbbing buzz in the atmosphere of the room and peace. I soon fell back asleep. 

The next morning I woke up, feeling completely refreshed. It was the best sleep I had had in a long time. I seriously felt like a completely different person. I started praying about my experience and asked God to clarify what had happened because it was so unusual. 

I did an internet search on angelic touch in the Scriptures and was led to the story of Elijah - where I was reminded of this:

“The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.’ So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God…” 1 Kings 19:7-8 (NIV) 

God began to show me that when Elijah was exhausted and fearful on his journey, an angel was sent to refresh him. The angel touches Elijah to wake him up and nourish him. The interaction with the angel helps Elijah to continue his journey.  

Hopefully, the parallels between my experience and Elijah’s are evident. This angelic experience was allowed by God and it brought refreshment to my mind, body, and spirit. It was supported through an angelic experience that is recorded in Scripture. I was grateful for this experience and it helped fill me with strength, resolve and wonder.  

So, obviously, some of these angelic experiences or encounters can seem really unusual or even scary and that’s why I’ve personally developed another guideline: 

Asking Christ’s permission before engaging with an angelic encounter will ensure the experience is spiritually edifying. 

What I mean by this is that every time I sense an angelic presence or some sort of invitation from the heavenly realm (we will get to what this looks and feels like), I immediately begin talking with Jesus about the experience. If there isn’t a sense of “yes” or a peace from heaven, I won’t continue to engage with what is happening. I invite the Spirit of Christ into the experience. This is a sure safeguard that helps me avoid fruitless experiences that are not divinely ordained. If we stay in the peace of God and trust Christ, we will always be safe and protected from darkness. I am tired of fearful people who think that every spiritual experience is a tool of the devil - God keeps His children safe and we need to believe that.

These three guidelines are the platform or framework for all of my spiritual experiences, and I do believe they will help you as well. As a small endnote, we want to approach any and all spiritual experiences with discernment, humility, and wisdom. I’ll talk to you a little bit more about what can happen if we don’t, but you get the idea for now. So, let’s continue into what this looks like in our daily experience. 

Angels in Our Experience 

Remember that the kingdom of heaven and the fullness of the Christ-life is already within you. You have been united with God in the heavenly realms and Christ has conferred his spiritual kingdom upon us to help us live divinely empowered lives during our time on earth.  

All of our angelic experience is the fruit of this reality. Spiritual giftings are manifestations of the inner Christ. Jesus Christ lives within us - in Him we live, and move, and have our being: 

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 (KJV) 

“‘For in [Christ] we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” Acts 17:28 (NIV)

The Holy Spirit is the spiritual presence of Jesus Christ, who lives within you and me. So imagine the divine-human, Jesus Christ living and moving within you. The inner Christ brings to us the kingdom of heaven and releases the giftings and graces of the Holy Spirit. As we grow in faith, His senses and His way of experiencing the world become ours.  

As we grow with God through the purification (“sanctification”) process, we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). This means we begin to see with His eyes, hear with His ears, and touch with His hands. Our senses become trained to discern movement in the spiritual realm (Hebrews 5:14).  His world becomes our world. It is within the context of our Christ-empowered senses that the spiritual realm comes to life in our natural experience.  

Here are some of the ways I have learned to discern angelic presence. This is not an exhaustive list but tools that come from my personal “bag of tricks.” 

Touch 

This is something I discussed a little earlier in the teaching. We begin to reach a point in our spiritual growth where the body itself becomes sensitive to touch from the angelic realm. I personally experience these as gentle taps or electric jolts of very strengths in different parts of my body. They are physically discernible sensations in the human nervous system that can invite us into angelic experience.   

Sometimes, I will get touches on my body to clue me into healing needs. A few months ago I felt a touch on my stomach when I was talking to a young man at my job. I found a non-awkward way to ask if he had any issues with his stomach. He told me he had been dealing with a chronic stomach problem for years. This opened the door for me to pray with him and invite God’s healing presence and love into his life. I found out the next week from his friend that he had not had any issues since the prayer.  

Sight 

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” Christ says in Matthew 5:8. One meaning of this is that purity of heart leads us to tangible spiritual experiences. Over time, we can learn to identify angels through the use of sight. I personally experience this as flashes of light, orbs, or floating shapes that occasionally pop into my vision. At times, it can also look like the air itself is slightly bending or “buzzing” before my eyes, almost like a subtle static sheet you would see on an old television when there is no signal.I will also see certain types of radiance or dullness around people - what you might call spiritual “auras.”

A few months ago, I became worried that I had an issue with my eyes. Full of fear and the skeptical words of my friends, I went to a Christian eye doctor for an examination. I was scared to share my experience because I did not want to feel judged. I found a way to ask her about my experience in a way that wouldn’t sound too crazy. She looked at me skeptically and said, “Well, you either have a ripped cornea or you see angels.” After the examination, my eyes were found to be perfectly healthy. I felt vindicated knowing I wasn’t delusional. 

Once, in a church service, I saw a flashing light in the air pass over a group of people. I began to pray about what this might mean. I began to receive a message or “prophecy” from God for someone standing under the flash of light. I went over to the person and asked if I could pray with them. I shared what I sensed (leaving out the details about the light) and it hit home for the person I was praying for. This spiritually edifying moment began with me seeing a flash of light, which I identified as angelic presence. 

There’s also the potential and possibility to see things in vision. What I mean here is the imagination seeing something in your reality that you might think is just your imagination, but really is an invitation to interact with the spiritual realm. I’m not talking about visions with the eyes closed - I mean “open” visions if you will. And what I’ve come to learn is that what we sometimes see through our imagination might not be real in a material sense, but it can be clueing us into something that is happening in the Spirit. These things we are seeing in our natural experience that we think is our imagination is actually God telling us that something is happening spiritually and He is giving us a way to see this. There is spiritual meaning behind what we are seeing. But visions are a topic for a different time. 

Smell

This is an interesting one and unfortunately, this gift only seems to activate for me when I’m in temptation, where I can occasionally smell the unpleasant odor of an evil spirit or presence. It sounds scarier than it is. Again, this is just something that can happen to the natural senses that is clueing us into what might be happening spiritually. 

One, I was in a large worship service and the smell of roses suddenly filled the section where I was sitting. It was so overpowering that I began mentioning it to the people around me, who assured me it was someone’s perfume. This was not a chemical smell, it was one of the most natural and floral scents I have ever smelled. I wondered if what I was smelling was angelic presence, but I do not have enough information to make any strong conclusions about the experience. 

Hearing

This one is super important. The Psalmist says, “sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have opened” (Psalm 40:6). Christ says, “he who has ears to ear let him hear” numerous times in the Scriptures. Yes, these verses are about our attunement to the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, but it is also possible to literally hear spiritual sounds. 

This invitation to the angelic realm can manifest in all sorts of ways. We can hear voices, music, or sounds coming from the other realm, as God allows and grants. Also, ringing or pops in the ears can clue us into angelic or divine presence with us. As a musician, this is something that I experience all the time. 

Once, a few years ago, I was in deep spiritual struggle and wrestling with God. I went to bed one night and was awoken by a very loud sound in my left ear that sounded like someone ripped a sheet of paper in half right next to my head. Startled, I asked God what it meant. In my spirit, I heard, “that was the sound of the veil between heaven and earth tearing. There’s no distance between you and me.” It was unusual, but such a blessing for me at the time because I was really struggling in feeling distance between me and God.  

Taste

I’m including taste here even though it’s something I’ve never discerned or experienced in my interactions with angels. We know that our true bread is the spiritual bread that comes from the Holy Spirit so maybe you have had experiences with a spiritual taste that you want to share with me. There have been times where my lips have burned (Jeremiah 5:14) in church services and it was an indicator that God was pressing me to speak something to an individual or the church at large. But, at the time of this teaching, I have never had an experience with a spiritual taste. 

Intuition 

This is when you just know that there is angelic presence with you and you feel it in your gut. It’s a feeling I get without any doubt that God is inviting me into something. These are impressions on the heart and mind that are impossible to ignore. This happens the most to me when I am in church or worship services and God wants to shift or release something in the spiritual atmosphere. I usually attribute this inner intuition to the Spirit of Christ more than angels, but I wanted to include it here as well. 

Environmental/Circumstantial  

This is probably the biggest way that I sense angelic presence in my life. What I mean by environmental is that you can discern physical changes in your personal environment that are actually clues that an angel is present and wants to release or speak something from heaven. 

This could be physical signs or symbols, like tiny feathers or “gold dust,” or something more subtle like a door that is open when you come home that you know you closed. Occasionally, in my experience, tiny feathers will appear the air, on desks, or on my furniture. Now, what’s most important isn’t that the feathers I find are literally angel feathers, but that they are a sign and symbol in my experience that is inviting me to interact with God’s realm, if that makes sense. After seeing these signs, I tune in and usually begin to intuit or sense angelic presence.  

There are these things that can happen in our experience that might seem like nothing, but they are actually inviting us to take a step back and ask God if He wants to do or say something. Some practical examples of this might look like you see the same set of numbers over and over again. We should tune in because these numbers might actually be Scripture references in disguise. The numbers that I see over and over again, all over the place, are 220 and 316. Every time I am reminded of Galatians 2:20 and John 3:16 - key verses throughout my spiritual journey. If I didn’t think of these in a spiritual context, they would mean absolutely nothing.  

What I would advise is that you just pay attention to subtle changes or shifts in your environment that are clueing you into the presence of the angelic. Once, I was reading a book on a topic like this and could just sense that there was a presence in the room with me. Suddenly, across the room, a light flipped on and it completely freaked me out if I’m being honest. I knew it was just an angel giving me a physical indication of its spiritual presence. The purpose of this angel was to facilitate what God was doing in my heart and mind through what I was reading.

Continued in Part II