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freedom, God's love, humor, inspiration, joy, pain, self-knowledge, the new self, the old self, wretchedness
Yes, it’s no coincidence that my headline might remind you, not only a bit, of Michael Jackson’s song “Bad”.
Meanwhile I really KNOW that our God is funny despite all the pain His presence has caused my old self which dies hard (oh – another allusion). 😉 The pain of being deeper and deeper exposed in His light as a true “nothingness” in God’s and in my own eyes (cf. Romans 7), finally means the beginning of real freedom. The freedom to admit every bad thought at once – and you might be surprised, but there are ONLY bad thoughts springing from the old self. The freedom I experience today is so different from anything I knew before that I thought I should share it with you.
In the late afternoon I decided to leave the house for a prayer walk, no, to be honest, it was so cold at home because our heating and warm water system had broken down once again and God’s consuming fire only warmed my heart up, however, not the rest of my body. 😛
I was not really sure whether I wanted to pray or rather keep on grumbling and mumbling which has been my favorite prayer habit recently. Well, after about 20 minutes during which God’s merciless light exposed one bad thought in my heart after the other – always finding myself angry with God or with others, most often because of nullities – I suddenly began to laugh out loud. What was this???
In a split second I saw the grace of God in the midst of that painful chaos inside me. And I began to love what He has been doing in me, realizing that it is indeed a blessing to know that I am totally wretched and that I will never find the tiniest trace of goodness inside me. NEVER!! HALLELUJAH!!! 🙂
“Well, Susanne, are you crazy??”
Yes, I think so. But let me tell you a bit more. As I began to laugh about my badness, God directed my eyes toward the sky. I watched the snowflakes that came down quickly and disappeared immediately as they would touch the ground. Whether they melted or became connected with others, their individual beauty was gone in the wink of an eye. At the same moment I realized that I was thirsty and that I had nothing with me, not even candy. Why not “eating” snowflakes? I opened my mouth and a bigger snowflake touched my tongue. Mmh….. good…..but still thirsty. I opened my mouth again, watching the sky, yet the snowflakes landed everywhere in my face by carefully avoiding to meet my mouth. Of course, prayer didn’t help either. 😉
Suddenly I perceived that God had just told me something. Not that I “heard” Him saying anything. But there was a truth in my heart which I thought could turn out into another blog article. God asked me whether I would rather have and experience many of His blessings – every snowflake representing a specific blessing – or rather a glass of water so that I would not get thirsty again. Of course, a glass of water would be better, I said to Him in my mind. But then I was reminded of Jesus’ words to the woman at the well. He did not want to give her water to quench a temporary thirst, nooo, He wanted that His Spirit became the source inside her heart from which others could be fed. Which heart? A new heart, of course, for it is written,
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ez 36:26-27 ESV)
A heart created by God on which the law of divine love has been written so that we can love God and everyone else with the same unconditional love. However, the old self must die completely before this miracle can take place.
binniebin said:
Only by divine remaking from the Holy Spirit that our sinful nature can be redeemed to a nature that can worship God. From that new nature birthed by the Spirit, we can start loving, God’s way 🙂 Thanks for your sharing, Suzanne!
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Yes and amen, Joanna. You are so welcome! 🙂
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kenneth dawson said:
yea that text you quoted from ezek. is very significant–I looked up that word cause in the Hebrew and it is very interesting–it literally means–I will make you.
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Wow, Kenneth!
“I will make you.”
That was really helpful. Will serve as a reminder for me in the days ahead, I am sure. 🙂
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Michael said:
Yes! That passage in Ezekiel 36 goes with Jeremiah 31: 31-34 and now you have tied it into John chapter four!!! Most excellent revelation of the totally transforming nature of the NEW Covenant and how vastly different it is from the Old. Thank you dear Susanne! Keep listening and sharing.
“Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that said to you, Give me to drink; you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water… Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
(John 4:10-14 KJ2000)
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
YESSSS! The Scripture from John 4 was really missing, my dear brother!
Michael, may I tell you that your comment was extremely encouraging for me, even the most encouraging comment I ever got from you? 😉
Love you in Him,
Susanne
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Michael said:
Yes, Kenneth! Great addition to this mystery of the New Covenant, how God gets for Himself a people who are devoted to Him as their Father and a Bride for His Son… All by His wonderful empowering and life changing grace! I wrote about these passages on my blog a while back and tied in a few more here….
https://awildernessvoice.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/faithful-is-he-who-calls-you-he-will-do-it/
Susanne, feel free to delete this URL to my blog if you like. BTW, I am glad that I was an encouragement to you for that is my desire for ALL who are seeking the fulness of Christ in their lives. Keep on sharing, dear sister! He is there with you even when you can’t feel it.
Love you in the Son as well,
Michael
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Michael, I won’t delete a link to a post which I find very helpful to encourage the Body of Christ. Thanks for sharing it on here, my brother!
Indeed, I do know and also “feel” that He is with me 24/7, but somehow I simply see my dying old self which never produces any good thing and thus I have no real positive feelings currently, unless He changes that for a few moments. But it’s okay right now, acceptance and patience have set in… 😉
Love,
Susanne
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Pat Orr said:
This post causes questions. Does the old man pray? Does he meditate? In my case he does. I need him to die, so my new man is the only one praying, so my new man is the only one meditating.
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Indeed, Pat, you raise VERY GOOD questions! 🙂
I think that the old man is neither inclined to pray nor to meditate unless he wants something for his own self. The old self always wants something that puffs up pride. Insofar, we might as well assume that it is the new self which already worships God in the Spirit if – and only if – it is not interested to get something from God but rather wants to bring glory to His name. Sounds a bit complicated, still, and I know it is anything but easy to differentiate between the old man and the new man.
Briefly, the old self is mainly focused on this world and our circumstances while the new self is already (exclusively) focused on Christ and God who are in Heaven. And Heaven is a place of which we know that we can never get there without the help of God. Thus we urgently need His Spirit who draws us deeper and deeper into the spiritual Kingdom of God. Actually, it’s really a long way to get more and more rid of the old self until the new creation shines finally through….. Pheeeeew! 😉
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Herbert Orr said:
Herbert’s comments.Read 2nd Tim 4 v13: books. My note says: books: may have
been portions of the O T. This makes since since Paul learned the law under
Gamaiiel, who, no doubt, had access to books to teach Paul.
When I was a young father (before my H S baptism), I was insecure in that role.
So, I read self help books about being a father. I wanted Pat to read them also.
so we could take advantage of the truths listed. She refused because she already
knew how to rear our kids. As I stated before, after the H S baptism, I read the
works of Watchman Nee. with Christian devotion. Herbert
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
I admit, Herbert, that I have always been insecure about raising kids and wondered how many mistakes we make as parents (maybe only unawares). Countless, I assume, and I do know that I need His grace and forgiveness for what went wrong in the past. And although I too read many self help books, I was extremely confused afterwards because of their often contradicting messages. Without God’s help in all things, I would be completeley lost in EVERY area of life.
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Delyn Merce said:
Well, dying to self is not easy…and seems to take forever. I have no illusions about how wicked I am apart from God’s Grace/Jesus’ shed Blood which has made me righteous in Him. I am very grateful that God spends the bulk of our time building me up–because I don’t need any help in beating myself down. I listen to grace preachers He has led me to because grace is what feeds me. Although I’d been saved since I was about 14, I was not raised in a Christian home–and my relationship with God was a long time in growing and coming together. So 5 years ago (age 59) I had an epiphany during Easter week–it was the BEST Easter ever!! I finally “got it”–all that Jesus died and rose to save me from, and the more abundant life He wanted me to live here and now (not just blissful Heaven’s Eternity with Him). Walking in grace the past 5 years has strengthened me so that I can come to Him fearlessly with my sins and flaws–everything I want Him to change NOW, if possible…because we really can’t do much of anything in our own strength and efforts–if we could, we wouldn’t need a Savior! Guess I’ve jabbered enough–thanks for your post, God bless you Richly!
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Great comments, Delyn! ⭐ You’re very welcome as to the post.
I was glad to hear about your wonderful Easter epiphany five years ago! 🙂 It is sooo true that we need a Savior, I have often said this, too. But who would ever believe it unless they experienced their utter helplessness without God in EVERY area of life?
May God bless you immensely, dear sister! ❤
PS
Dying to self REALLY seems to take forever. 😛 You nailed it!
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Delyn Merce said:
Have a blessed weekend!
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Many thanks! The same to you. 🙂
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Delyn Merce said:
Thanks 🙂
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Michael said:
This is so true.
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