What does Jesus look like? Jennifer Bagnaschi says she no longer has to guess. The host of Deep Believer, one of the best-known testimony channels on YouTube, has interviewed hundreds of people about their encounters with God. In this episode of the God’s Truth Podcast, she turns the microphone around and tells Abigail Smith about her own: angels standing guard on a staircase, a stranger who seemed to be waiting for her, and a night when at least six people say they saw Jesus walk into the room.
She also gives one of the most detailed descriptions of the Lord’s appearance we have heard on the podcast. What follows is her account.
A girl who wanted the truth
Jennifer grew up in Philadelphia with parents who were both ministers. The family began in a Baptist church and moved to a Pentecostal one when she was eight, and there she saw miracles with her own eyes. She moved to Connecticut at fifteen, and like many teenagers raised in church, she reached a point where she needed to know that the faith was hers and not just her parents’.
So she tested it. Waiting at a bus stop one day, she prayed without saying a word. In her heart she told God that whoever the true God was, she would let Him come to her. She kept it silent on purpose; she believes the enemy can hear what we say aloud but cannot read our minds. A few hours later, she says, she heard Jesus Christ speak to her plainly: “I want you.” No other name answered. That was the start of her walk with Him, and she says nothing has shaken it since.
From wedding planner to Deep Believer
Ministry was not the plan. Jennifer trained in interior design and then spent ten to twelve years as a wedding planner. As a military family, they moved often, and around six years ago they settled in Colorado. There she felt a pull toward what she calls a kind of journalism for the Kingdom: telling other people’s stories of God.
One of her early requests went to a cardiologist she found on LinkedIn, Dr. Sam. The interview was meant to be about how a heart that forgives can look different from a heart that holds on to bitterness. Instead, he spoke with fire about the rapture and where we stand on the biblical timeline. About two weeks later the video went viral, and Deep Believer went with it. Jennifer does not take the credit. When God’s hand is on something, she says, no one can hold it back.
Two angels standing at attention
Years earlier, in a small colonial house in Portland, Connecticut, Jennifer got up in the night to pray over her children, as she often did. At the top of the staircase she saw two angels, one on the top stair and one on the next, standing at attention.
They were not towering. She puts them at around five foot seven or eight, dressed in white gowns, without wings, with perfect features and hair slicked back without a strand out of place. She could not place their nationality. Their nationality, she says, was heaven. And she understood at once why they stood like soldiers: the King was in the house.
Her response was not what you might expect. Something in her heart was not right at the time, and a holy fear came over her. She hid behind a door off the hallway. Then Jesus walked around that door, looked at her and reached out to touch her. She raised her arm to shield herself out of shame. He touched her anyway. The next thing she knew, it was morning and she was waking up in her bed.
She shared a second moment she believes was angelic. Walking into a Kohl’s store at night with her two young daughters, she realised her phone was gone. She ran back out and found a car she did not recognise, a hand stretched out of the window holding her phone, and a voice that said, “I’ve been waiting for you.” She never saw the face.
Even so, she says she has seen Jesus more often than she has seen angels.
What Jesus looked like
Jennifer knows her description upsets some people. She gives it anyway, and says it has been the same each time she has seen Him.
- About six feet tall, with fair skin that was so bright she could hardly say what shade it was.
- Light brown hair falling to His shoulders, and a beard so perfectly groomed that she laughs it looked like the work of the best barber money could buy.
- Strong and muscular without being heavy, with the build of a carpenter.
- A deep, masculine voice she says she can still hear.
- Blue eyes that were alive, as if a whole world lived inside them. When He looks at you, she says, it feels like you are the only one He sees.
- A white gown with gold embroidery on the shoulders and small gold tassels.
She believes He is extraordinarily handsome, and she knows the objection from Isaiah 53:2, that He had “no form nor comeliness.” Some read that as His earthly appearance, others as how He looked after the beating before the cross. Either way, she says, what she saw was glory. But beauty was not the main impression. The one word that filled her mind when she saw Him was authority.
A Night With the King
About twelve to fourteen years ago, Jennifer wanted to do something simply for the Lord. It became A Night With the King, an annual three-day gathering of worship and prayer. The most recent one fell on Halloween weekend, Friday to Sunday, and she says it drew the heaviest spiritual warfare the team had ever faced. Everyone involved felt attacked. One person nearly caught fire. Bricks were thrown at the building. The team stayed in prayer, and on the first night, while a Halloween party carried on outside, they worshipped.
That night, speaker Sandielyn Taylor began to sing “Yeshua” to usher in the Holy Spirit. Partway through she dropped to her knees and asked someone to take the microphone because she could not hold it any longer. She later explained why: she had seen Jesus walk down the middle aisle, in a humble white robe.
At the back of the room, a woman named Eda had seen two women praying on the floor and then realised there were three figures, not two. A man in white was standing over them with His arms outstretched, praying with them. Jennifer herself, worshipping on the front row, saw Jesus walk right past her, smiling at her in a plain white robe. Her first thought was that it could not be real.
Then the Lord reminded her of something. Years before, during worship, she had seen the Holy Spirit and He appeared blue. She never told anyone. Much later, two different guests on her channel, including a man named Chris Garcia, independently described the Holy Spirit the same way. The lesson she took: when God shows you something, do not talk yourself out of it.
None of the witnesses at the event had told each other what they saw until they compared notes afterwards. And on the third night, the royal ball, two more women who did not know each other, one on the prayer team and one from Georgia, both said they saw Jesus in a royal purple robe with gold and a gold crown. As Jennifer puts it, He dressed for the occasion.
“Come up here”
In another encounter, lying wide awake in bed, Jennifer heard the Lord say, “Come up here. Come up now,” just as a worship song with those very words began to play. She then saw an ancient golden staircase, worn with what looked like thousands of years, leading to a doorway into heaven, where people were busy going about their work. She waited, and at last Jesus stood in the doorway and repeated the invitation. The words echo John’s vision in Revelation 4:1.
She is candid that seeing more of God can depend on what we are willing to let go of. Her question to viewers is a searching one: is anything in your life blocking what God wants your eyes to see?
How to grow in seeing in the Spirit
Asked how believers can cultivate spiritual sight, Jennifer said the gift is in everyone and simply needs to grow. Her advice:
- Spend time in the secret place. Set apart time alone with the Lord, and learn to be silent before Him. Most of what she knows about God, she says, He taught her there.
- Guard who you share with. Some of the people who laughed at her encounters were churchgoers. Some who believed her were unsaved, and went on to give their lives to Jesus.
- Do not put people on pedestals. Titles are jobs, not crowns. She warns that praise can quietly dim what God has given a person, and she writes about this in her book.
- God is always right. Prophets are not. Abigail added that a true prophetic word confirms what God has already spoken to you, and Jennifer agreed, pointing to Psalm 62:11.
- Let the Holy Spirit teach you the Word. The Bible, she says, is the one book where you can know the Author. Chew on every word and let Him interpret it.
Above all, she says, God gives good gifts simply for the joy of seeing His children in awe, the way a parent loves to watch a child open a present. Guard your heart, worship God and not people, and stay open to Him.
Connect with Jennifer Bagnaschi
- YouTube: Deep Believer
- Website: deepbeliever.com
- Share your testimony on her show: Be on the show
- Book: The Devil’s Greatest Fear on Amazon
Mentioned in this episode
- A Night With the King, Jennifer’s annual three-day worship gathering
- Sandielyn Taylor, speaker at A Night With the King (read her own testimony)
- Dr. Sam, the cardiologist whose Deep Believer interview went viral
- The Devil’s Greatest Fear by Jennifer Bagnaschi
Scriptures in this episode
- Isaiah 53:2, “no form nor comeliness,” discussed in light of Jennifer’s description of Jesus
- Revelation 4:1, “Come up hither,” the invitation in her staircase vision
- Ephesians 2:2, the prince of the power of the air, behind her silent prayer
- 2 Corinthians 13:1, every word established by two or three witnesses
- Matthew 6:6, praying to the Father in secret
- Proverbs 27:2, let another praise you, and not your own mouth
- Psalm 62:11, God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this
- John 14:26, the Holy Spirit shall teach you all things
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