What does it mean to be spiritual?

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being born again, carnal mind, children of God, faith, Martin Luther, Oswald Chambers, sanctification, spiritual mind, the new self, the old self, true faith

Crocuses in the City Park (Stadtpark Fürth, March 2015)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth

In the past I read rather often that Christians tried hard to be “more spiritual” because they had observed others who seemed to have arrived at a more mature level of spirituality than they themselves. And at that point as insecurity set in, they began to ask, “How do we get there? How to become spiritual at all or even more spiritual?”
The apostle Paul defined Christian spirituality for us. He wrote in his letter to the Romans,

Knowing God…

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agape, being born again, ecstasy, eros, experience, eyes of the heart, feeling, flesh, God's love, intimacy, Jesus Christ, joy, knowing God, Oswald Chambers, peace, prayer, relationship with God, spiritual power, the Kingdom of God

Knowing God… and Being Known by Him
(Source http://pixgood.com/intimacy-with-god-quotes.html)

Instead of boring you to death with a new article written right from my blank mind, 😉 I decided to copy and paste two daily devotionals from Oswald Chambers that really hit home as for the consequences of being intimate with God. We will see and feel it in our own lives, and others will too, when all our thinking and doing eventually spring from being one with God as we abide in His love. If we are really as intimate with Jesus as Jesus was with His Father, the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) cannot be ignored, neither by us nor by anyone else, for it is written,

“A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Mt 7:18-20 ESV)

My House Shall Be a House of Prayer

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agape, becoming one, church, ecstasy, eros, experience, God's love, heart, homosexuality, intimacy, love, Martin Luther, Michael Clark, Michael Lazio, prayer, prayer of love, resisting temptation, spiritual power

Abiding in His Love…
(Picture taken from http://www.scatterthestones.co.uk/flourish-in-gods-love-for-you/)

If we still lived in Old Covenantal times, we could easily enter God’s house of prayer today by attending a church meeting in a visible building. Of course, I do not deny that Christians in churches do pray, too, but I want to clarify which prayer our prayer life should mainly consist of in New Covenantal times.
As Jesus cleansed the temple by driving out the merchants who sold animals and those who changed money, He surely made them angry. Shortly afterwards, the Jews certainly thought that Jesus was insane when they asked Him,

“What sign do you show us for doing these things?” (Jn 2:18 ESV)
and He only answered,
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (Jn 2:19 ESV)
🙄

Christ in Us – The Hope of Glory

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divorce, experience, eyes of the heart, God's love, Jesus Christ, light, love, marriage, Paul Schuberth, peace, spiritual power, William Shakespeare

My husband Paul
(Photo by Sarah Schuberth)

The description of a mystical experience I want to share with you today is very personal and I already wrote about it more than a year ago in an email to someone else. In contrast to all those other mystical experiences with God I wrote about before, that one included my husband Paul. In order to help you understand where I am coming from, I am giving you some more information about my personal life so that the whole experience itself might make more sense to you. Here is what I learned from God about how He sees marriage and particularly about how He sees us.

God’s Love vs. human love

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being born again, Bernard of Clairvaux, dark night of the soul, darkness, ecstasy, experience, eyes of the heart, following Jesus, God's love, heart, intimacy, Janet Ruffing, Jesus Christ, joy, Karl Rahner, mysticism, pain, sanctification, Sebastian Moore, spiritual power, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self

His Love is Stronger than Death…
(Picture taken from http://guardthedoor.com/day-8-love-is-not-jealous/)

Am I able to love like God loves? No, never, and that won’t ever change. But I do know as soon as my old self has been completely died, I can.
How is that possible? The only hindrance to let God’s love fully flow through us and from us to others is the old Adam, the one who has not yet given up on trying to do God’s work, the one who has not yet stricken his colors and given into that painful process of dying to self whatever the cost. I do admit that cutting heart pains day and night are not fun, really.  😦 Yet Jesus didn’t promise us that circumcision of the heart by pruning our old and worthless branches would be all joy and pleasure. Instead, He called sanctification “the narrow way to life” which only a few were able to find during their lifetime. Our goal should be the one the apostle Paul by grace had already achieved as he described here,

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20 ESV)

Spiritual Gifts and Fellowship

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Body of Christ, experience, eyes of the heart, fellowship, God's love, Jesus Christ, knowing, natural talent, spiritual gifts

At the End of the Day … All Good Things Come from Above
(Photo by Sarah Schuberth)

Basically, the Body of Christ should consist of many different members with many different gifts and we should all submit to one another according to the gifts the others have been given. That is the way the church initially was meant to be when the first Christians had no Bible as we know it today. We read in 1 Corinthians chapter 12,

How can we discern God’s voice from other voices? (updated Dec 28, 2016)

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abiding in Christ, carnal mind, discerning the spirits, eternal life, Islamic mysticism, Jesus Christ, John Wesley, other religions, peace, spiritual mind, Sufis

Seeking God in the Silence…
(Picture taken from http://www.stjosephimperial.org/stewardship)

This is another article on discerning the spirits. I hope I can dig deeper now than I could do it before on this blog site. Actually, discerning the spirits is not about thinking, “The Bible is true and everything else that comes from this world or what was written in other religions is completely wrong.” Knowing the Living God, I realized that the eternal I AM always communicated His wisdom to human beings. The difference between all those other religions which had come before the book of Genesis was written and before the Hebrews were chosen to be God’s people that was allowed to get to know Him as the only God, is simply that there was a blend of God’s truth mixed with other religious stuff and God had not yet enabled man to discern the whole truth. Before Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection it was not yet time to do so (see Acts 17:30). Only God’s chosen prophets in the OT could utter pure divine wisdom through God’s Spirit dwelling on them. However, there were always wise men in the past who shared divine wisdom as well (though not perfectly, still truth mixed with lies at times) such as Seneca, Plato, Confucius etc. pp. However, since Christ has come into this world and is risen, we may know that we only find The Whole Truth by abiding in Him who “became to us wisdom from God” (1 Cor 1:30 ESV).