5 Ways to Receive Spiritual Gifts Through Your Dreams
Did you know you could receive an overflow of Holy Spirit’s life and gifts while you sleep? You can! It’s easy, and it actually happened quite often in the Bible. Father knows that when we’re asleep is one of the best times to get our attention and He promised He would reveal Himself in visions and speak to us in dreams (Num. 12:6). He declared in the last days He would pour out His Spirit and the result would be the seeing of visions and dreaming of dreams (Acts 2:17).
Throughout Scripture Holy Spirit used dreams to deliver all kinds of revelatory gifts, including words of wisdom, words of knowledge, and prophecy. We know God is the same yesterday, today and forever and whatever He did through dreams in the Bible, He wants to do through dreams in our lives as well. Let’s explore what Scripture reveals and discover what kinds of gifts we can expect through our visions of the night, and how best to position ourselves to receive those blessings.
5 Ways to Receive a Dream Gift
1. Honor dreams as a valid way to receive heavenly blessings. If you have not honored dreams in the past and have simply dismissed them as insignificant recycled leftovers from the day, repent for that. Purpose in your heart to see dreams the way God sees them. Renew your mind with Scriptures on God’s perspective of dreams, prayerfully meditating on them and asking Holy Spirit to make them real to you. Passages such as, when we are asleep our heart is awake (Song of Songs 5:2), God visits us in the night (Ps. 17:3 NKJV), and the Lord gives our hearts counsel and instruction while we sleep (Ps. 16:7) are a great place to start.
2. Ask Holy Spirit to give you His revelation and gifts while you sleep. We have not because we ask not, so we want to be intentional and specific with our request (Jas. 4:2). We see this principle clearly exemplified in the life of King Solomon. Most of us recognize Solomon for his legendary wisdom, and we know God is the one who gave him the gift. What is often overlooked, however, is when God imparted that supernatural gift. In First Kings 3:5-15, we discover it actually happened in a dream. We naturally expect God would have orchestrated this epic encounter during the day and we assume God would have wanted Solomon awake for such a significant event. Instead, we find the exact opposite is true, and that the entire conversation and impartation took place in a dream.
What is most exciting to realize is that the wisdom Solomon received through his dream is the same wisdom we can receive every night through our dreams too. The Hebrew word for what Solomon asked for and received is shama, which is a “hearing” heart (1 Kings 3:9, 11). He asked for a listening heart, one that could clearly hear the Lord’s direction and guidance. This is the essence of wisdom, the ability to hear from the Spirit of Wisdom Himself. We can have that, too.
3. Believe God is speaking through your dreams. You might think your dreams aren’t like biblical dreams, that your dreams are crazy! But they’re really not. What seems ridiculous is actually revelation. What seems silly is actually sacred; it’s just symbolic. And the best part? God spoke through all kinds of crazy dreams in the Bible too! How about some sheaves of wheat bowing down to you? Or what about the sun, moon and stars bowing down to you? I have no idea what a bowing star would even look like, yet that is what Joseph dreamt (Gen. 37:6-10). And we know the interpretation: The wheat and stars were symbolic, representing his family. And his family literally did end up bowing down to him in waking life years later (Gen. 43:26-28).
We see God gave Joseph a predictive word in his dream about the future. It was a gift of prophecy. This happened not just through dreams, but through strange dreams. We understand, though, that they weren’t strange as much as they were simply symbolic. The message of the dream revealed heaven’s perspective; it was God’s prophetic word to Joseph.
This is why we don’t want to dismiss or discount our dreams. We might say it’s just a dream; however God calls it the word of the Lord (Ps. 105:19). Because Joseph was found faithful and honored God’s message through the dream, God honored Joseph and the dream’s prophetic word of knowledge did come true.
4. Record the revelation. Be prepared to receive your heavenly gift in the night by having a journal and pen or cellphone for voice recording at your bedside. Whether it’s a word of wisdom or knowledge or prophecy, it is only a blessing and benefit if we remember it! We mistakenly assume a dream is so impactful that we “could never forget it,” but it will often disappear from memory within moments of awakening if we do not honor the revelation by immediately recording it. If God considers dreams important enough to include in the Bible, then our dreams are important enough for us to write down too. We want to steward the spiritual gifts we receive through our dreams well, and that starts with recording them.
5. Act on the message and make your dream come true. In Judges 7 we read how God gave the Midianite soldier a prophetic word of knowledge in his dream, which resulted in Gideon being built up in faith. God showed him that a loaf of bread would invade their camp and destroy their army. Now that is a crazy dream! But while it seems silly, we realize it’s simply symbolic. And the message is, in fact, sacred. Even through the strangeness, God is speaking. By meditating on God’s version of the situation – that victory was imminent – Gideon was encouraged. By seeing what God saw, he was able to feel what God felt – peace, faith, fearlessness. Gideon received the prophetic promise God revealed through the dream, and then acted on the dream’s message. He made the dream come true. We can do that, too.
Literal or metaphorical, straightforward or symbolic – God is speaking. He is downloading words of wisdom and knowledge, gifts of faith and prophecy, and all manner of revelation to our hearts while we sleep. In our dreams, in our visions of the night, when we fall into deep sleep and slumber in our beds, God opens our ears and instructs us, He enlightens us with the light of life (Job 33:14-18,29-30).
God cares about what we care about. Whether you are a software engineer, homeschool mom, political representative, or Kingdom entrepreneur, He wants to help you with whatever you’ve got going on in your life. Your heavenly Father knows all the answers and He already has the solution you’re looking for.
When you go to bed ask Him for His perspective on your problem or project and expect to receive His supernatural insight. He is the giver of every good gift and He can’t wait to share His understanding and counsel with you. Invite heavenly creativity and spiritual gifts into your life by receiving an overflow of Holy Spirit’s revelation while you sleep. Dream your way to wisdom, faith, healing, and miracles tonight!