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adamic nature, afflictions, ascendancy, being led by the Holy Spirit, demons, discerning the spirits, Division, experience, fears, fellowship, following Jesus, God's goodness, God's guidance, God's love, God's voice, Michael Clark, overcoming the world, prayer, rest, resurrection, soul, Soul Rest, T.A. Sparks, the cross, the fear of death, The Holy Spirit, the old self, the throne, trials, unity, waiting on the Lord, walking by the spirit
Yesterday in the evening I found myself mulling over problems other Christians close to me have been struggling with. Although I knew that the solution for our unsolvable problems could always only be found in the spiritual realm, I finally had to realize that the only thing I could do was to keep praying for their deliverance. And I have prayed for it already, even for a long time, for many, many years and decades. As I was just standing in front of the mirror in our bathroom, still thinking about this problem of the fear of death, this sting which exclusively in Christ and His victory is overcome (cf. 1 Cor 15:54-57), I heard the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart distinctively,
“God is good.”
‘Oh…’ 🙄 I was surprised since I had not even asked a question regarding God and His goodness. Nonetheless, I knew God had spoken to me, though not by delivering those people from their fears right now, but by somehow telling me that He had heard my prayers. It appears to me that it is part of His plan to save all people for whom we earnestly pray. However, His timing must be accepted which, for our old impatient nature, is a difficult thing to do, isn’t it? 🙄 We want to see immediate success. Our adamic nature was born into this world which is still driven by this mentality of “Press the button and all will work out fine.” But waiting on the Lord is something else…
“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.” (Is 30:15-16 ESV)
In these verses that were brought up by Michael Clark during fellowship on the phone yesterday, the contrast between the realm where God is Lord and this world where our soul is driven by demonic forces has been exposed. It seems we have been given the choice to run and fix something or someone else when God has not answered our prayers regarding these things in our timing yet. In such cases we decided to “flee upon horses”. But on the other hand God offered us even here rest for our souls, just like Jesus did by asking us to come to Him (see Mt 11:28-29). If we draw near to Him, not to anyone else and their advice first, then we will be delivered from whatever might cause us pain.
This morning as I started to read T. Austin-Sparks’ daily devotional, I did not get that far with delving into what he was talking about. What I got, instead, was only the first part I pasted below.
“All the believers were one in heart and soul. (Acts 4:32 ISV)
The Lord must have a company in the earth who, in every respect, are a heavenly people. Their spiritual resources of life, power, wisdom, knowledge, and purpose must be heavenly and by mediation of the Holy Spirit alone. Their means and methods must be Divinely supplied and dictated. Their energy must be directly Divine energy; which means that they must have been separated from their own.” (1)
I tried to read further, yet there was a certain fear in my heart that came to the surface while reading. This fear was caused by my observation that the closer I got to the Lord during the last almost half year, the more trials, pains, and afflictions popped up out of nowhere. Of course, I went through many painful trials before, too. Nevertheless, it got obvious to me that the number of afflictions has clearly increased. Every day there are new challenges while Susanne has continually been longing for a time of rest from struggling, fighting, and praying until there was victory in sight. As a matter of fact, I could write a lengthy blog post almost every day about such trials if I had the time and His leading to do so. When I had stopped reading TAS, I told the Lord that I feared all that persistent suffering (physical, mental, and spiritual). Indeed, I could not get rid of that thought when I, once again, heard the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart like yesterday. He suddenly said with a very tender voice,
“You never need to be scared. There is a solution for everything.”
‘Oh…’ 🙄 Again, I was surprised at how this message affected me. God says something and His words strike a chord in us that only He knows about. I felt comforted at once and there were hope, confidence, and faith which had not been there before. God reminded me afterwards of the following verses below.
“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of ALL their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them ALL.” (Ps 34:17-19 ESV – emphasis in caps added)
Dear brothers and sisters, God delivers us out of ALL our troubles! Not by always changing our circumstances first, but by pulling us closer to Himself. Christ alone has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and He is sitting on a throne high above all principalities. If we draw near to Him in prayer, in all our weakness and helplessness, we will sooner or later find ourselves seated with Him there in the heavenlies. This is our ‘overcomer position’ Christ has won for all of us through His cross, His resurrection, and His ascendancy to the Throne. The more we listen to His divine advice and leading, the more we share in the power of His resurrection, too. Indeed, it is IN CHRIST that we have already overcome the world and all that suffering related to it. Jesus pointed to this truth when He told us,
“I have said these things to you, that IN ME you may have peace. IN THE WORLD you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33 ESV – emphasis in caps added)
It was also today when the Holy Spirit asked me to share all my recurring thoughts, feelings, and all my mental reruns with Him as soon as they kept bothering me. I tried that about three times in a row and I was amazed at the effect. At first I shared with Him an offense by a worldly woman, a woman whom I most probably will meet tomorrow again. That was a mental rerun caused by a profound offense, a thought I could not get rid of. As soon as I opened up toward God, I saw that particular insult together with similar offenses of the past lined up on a chronological chain of sorts. All of those were related, yet there was only one root cause. Then I heard God say, “I am going to heal this right now.” Although I still had some doubts about this deliverance, I found out soon that all those former thoughts about such and similar offenses were no longer interesting to me. And so I keep sharing whatever bothers me with Him today. with our God for Whom everything is possible (see Mt 19:26).
In closing, I offer you a longer except by T. Austin-Sparks from another article in which he also wrote about the unity of faith which keeps us as brethren together in His love.
“No, we shall not go wrong in being governed by the Spirit; but even there many good Christians may not be able to understand. Are you prepared for that? It is not conformity to a system of teaching or truths that is needed, but to be able to take account of the movement of the Spirit of God that will not make us independent, a law to ourselves, the Lord will attend to that. But oh, it is more important than anything else in these days that the Lord should have a people who know the Spirit, who hear His voice and follow Him; and all who do that will move in the same direction, will flow together. The reason for so much division and conflict is the fact that the Spirit is not Lord. Other things are Lord, Christian interests are Lord, interpretations are Lord, mental appraisements are Lord, all sorts of things have taken Lordship. Where the Spirit is Lord, we shall speak and think the same thing; there will be no mere individualism.
“Let us listen to what the Spirit says. Let us ask the Lord to make very sure in us that we are not being moved in our lives, in the course that we are taking, by what is religiously natural, but that we are really children of the Spirit and know the Spirit and are in conformity to God’s thought for this present dispensation, true children of Abraham according to the Spirit.” (2)
I want to repeat these important statements by TAS.
The reason for so much division and conflict is the fact that the Spirit is not Lord. Other things are Lord, Christian interests are Lord, interpretations are Lord, mental appraisements are Lord, all sorts of things have taken Lordship. Where the Spirit is Lord, we shall speak and think the same thing; there will be no mere individualism.
AMEN to that.
(1) https://www.austin-sparks.net/english/openwindows/003452.html
(2) https://www.austin-sparks.net/english/000428.html
“In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks’ wishes that what was freely received should be freely given and not sold for profit, and that his messages be reproduced word for word, we ask if you choose to share these messages with others, to please respect his wishes and offer them freely – free of any changes, free of any charge (except necessary distribution costs) and with this statment included.”
All images by Paul Schuberth 2016, Susanne Schuberth 2019/2021
Entering the Promised Land 
Great blog article, Susanne. Of course it is on a subject that not many Christians want to read about… Why God allows suffering. You wrote,
“This fear was caused by my observation that the closer I got to the Lord during the last almost half year, the more trials, pains, and afflictions popped up out of nowhere. Of course, I went through many painful trials before, too. Nevertheless, it got obvious to me that the number of afflictions has clearly increased. Every day there are new challenges while Susanne has continually been longing for a time of rest from struggling, fighting, and praying until there was victory in sight.”
Susanne, I know much about the things you have and are still suffering from. I have prayed for you in many of these matters, yet we have not seen an “Insto-chango” fix in many of them like we had wished. It seems the God places a high value on our experiences we must endure in this life that we often pray to have removed. Yet the more we draw close to God, the more we have to endure such things until they have worked a deep opening in our souls (by the hands of the Great Surgeon He is) which He is operating on to remove.
This morning in my “Open Windows” devotional by Sparks I found the following that brought me back to your latest blog article…
“”The Holy Spirit, with all that the gift of the Spirit means of enduement and endowment and instruction and strengthening, is not a substitute for experience. We are very often found asking that certain things shall be done for us by the Holy Spirit which the Holy Spirit will never do. He has to lead us into experience. It is the only way in which He can answer our prayers. Many prayers are answered through experience. You ask the Lord to do something, and He takes you through experience, and you arrive at the answer in that way. You had not meant that, of course: you wanted the Lord to do the thing there and then as a gift, as an act; but that would have been merely objective, something given, whereas He wants to make it a part of yourself, and so He answers prayer by some experience. “Steadfastness worketh experience,” and if there is no experience, what is the good of anybody or anything?
“”So then, experience is of greater importance than being delivered from tribulation. “Tribulation worketh experience.” Oh, how often we have asked the Lord why He allowed this and that, or why He did not do this or that. Why did He not hinder Adam from sinning? Why has He not stopped the world in so many things that have had most terrible results? Experience is very largely the answer. Experience is very important because, after all, it is the very quality of service. When we come to real life, and we are really up against things and the issues are of the greatest consequence, we do not want just information, we want experience, and we go where experience can help us. Is that not so? Thus experience is the very body and quality of service and usefulness to the Lord.”” – https://www.austin-sparks.net/english/001978.html
Oh, the value of experience and suffering in the eyes of God! Even His own Son had to learn obedience through the things which He suffered. When confronted by His own suffering and death Jesus prayed, “Father, I would that this cup should pass from me. But nonetheless, not my will but thine be done.” He was obedient even to the death of the cross, but oh, what a wonderful outcome was gained by experiential obedience, the salvation of the world and many sons and daughters being born of the Father’s love for us all. Just as water and blood poured from Jesus side by that Roman lance, so are we “born of the water and the blood.”
“Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify:” (1John 5:5-7, ESV2011)
This is a great mystery, is it not? Father, open the eyes of our hearts that we might see all that is ours in your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen
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Thank you so much for your encouraging words and insightful contribution, Michael.
In fact, I have often asked God during the last years why He does not give me something to write about which people really like to read, not an ear-tickling thing, of course, but something that encourages them in their walk, something that makes them feel how much God loves them, something of the kind. I cannot say that God gave me an answer but His leading that set the (His) agenda.
If I had not listened to God’s leading, I would have had no excuse here because I do have an old nature and I still make a lot of mistakes, for sure. We know that our soul can never perceive what the spirit is all about as our soul simply reacts to everything perceived on and from the outside only. Yesterday I re-read a long quote from Watchman Nee on my blog and that made it pretty clear to me again: What comes from God, instead, ALWAYS comes from the inside, without premonition, without following our logic, our reasoning, our natural feelings or our volition.
As for me, I have seen no better option than following Him in all His inscrutable ways since I have known His overwhelming love, too. You might remember the vision I shared with you a few days ago, my brother. It was in the midst of another physical suffering period last week when I could not sleep in the night due to stabbing pains in the appendix area. My bag for the hospital was packed and I tried to pray despite the pains, wanting to know what God had in mind for me. Instead of an answer, I found myself in a dark blue lighted atmosphere, standing right before Jesus Christ. Although the light was not that bright, I could see His face better than ever. There was such tenderness and deep love in His eyes, something I had never seen in any human face before. As I approached Him and put my arms around His neck, my left hand suddenly touched a vertical wooden stake right behind Him. Indeed, by embracing Him, I embraced His cross as well.
So, I agree, Michael, it is a great mystery to come to know Jesus as the Son of God Who overcame the world for us so that we could be(come) overcomers IN Him, too.
As for this TAS devotional… yes, indeed, my numerous experiences lately led me to greater thankfulness and appreciation of what Christ has done for us and of what He still does. It seems the more we let go to Him, the more we receive from Him in our inward (wo)man as well. The more we trust Him, the bigger He becomes in our own eyes, too. This also is a mystery, isn’t it… 🙄
Thanks again for your inspiring response, Michael! ⭐
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Susanne, It is interesting that your vision was in blue. I looked it up on the web where it appears in the Bible…
“Blue can represent God (Exodus 24:10, 25:3, 38:18, Numbers 4:6 – 12, 2Chronicles 2:7, Ezekiel 1:26, etc.), royalty (Esther 1:6, Ezekiel 23:6, Jeremiah 10:9) or riches (Ezekiel 27:7, 24). It can also mean service to God and godly living (Exodus 28:6, 8, 13, 31, Numbers 15:38 – 40, Esther 8:15).”
Most of these are speaking of the nature of Jesus and those who walk IN Him by the Spirit. I found it interesting that you felt the cross behind Him as you hugged Him. The cross is the power of God unto salvation and Jesus is ever near the cross. John saw Him in his vision in Revelation, not as a lion but as a standing Lamb as though it had be slain. Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God before the Jews killed him. We most often thing of Jesus sitting at the right side of God on His throne. What I get out of all this is that the cross is part of His royalty in heaven, the Lamb who was slain for all our sins, not a padded throne from which He rules as we think of royalty today. The elders in heaven saw a lion, but John saw a vulnerable Lamb. Why? It is what we are called into, “the fellowship of His suffering and being conformed into His death.”
“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies.Who is he that comdemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Rom 8:33-37, AKJV)
Thanks for sharing your vision with us, Susanne. May we all be conformed to the image of the Son. Amen.
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Amen to your prayer, Michael! You are welcome as to the sharing.
Very good input on this blue color, my brother. I had not even thought about it, yet I was wondering about this rather dark blue light, though.
With mentioning Jesus as the lamb, you reminded me of this dream I shared with you lately. In this dream I was standing all alone in a corridor in front of an open (purple) door. I heard that people were talking inside and I knew they were waiting for a teacher or a lecturer. I was a bit insecure whether I should join them or not.
But then I got aware of a not so small lamb that was also standing right before me, looking inside the room. I felt so sorry for this lonely and seemingly sad lamb that I took him on my arms.
A bit reluctantly I entered the class room with this lamb on my arms. To my surprise, there were primarily adults and elderly people sitting on several chairs behind a few desks. There was only one seat left and it was even the best one. I avoided it and tried to rather hide while sitting in the middle of all these guys with this lamb on my knees. I hugged him, still, and I sensed an increasing warmth coming from the lamb’s body. Over time, it was as if the lamb was more and more melting into me.
Thanks a lot for another inspiring comment, Michael! 🙏🏼🕊️😇
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Susanne, you wrote, “Indeed, it is IN CHRIST that we have already overcome the world and all that suffering related to it.” IN Christ is where we find true fellowship. Paul prayed about his deep longing for that fellowship saying, “That I may know Him, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering and be conformed unto His death.” He spoke of suffering as fellowship with Christ! When we can pray as Paul did and see the importance of suffering and being conformed to all that Jesus is, we will know the power of His resurrection, for sure, even His power over death.
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Cor 15:55-57, KJV)
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Michael, I am afraid I answered this comment of yours accidentally in my previous response to you above where I described this vision I had with Jesus. 😉
All that suffering has to do with our physical body, our soul and our old nature. But IN HIM we already share the NEW CREATION with a new nature and a new spiritual body (which is perfect like His). Through His Spirit in us our fickle souls are quieted as they are governed by Divine power instead. It seems like a contradiction from the outside, but we can rejoice in our spirits through our union with Him while we are suffering, still. Makes no sense to our reason, or does it? 🙄 Our souls only know joy when good things happen and they always suffer when there is physical or mental pain.
Yes, removing the sting of death is one of the greatest miracles, I believe. However, since Jesus Christ is THE LIFE and THE RESURRECTION, there cannot be death IN HIM at the same time, right? Sounds even simple. He took all our sin and fulfilled the law Himself so that
“[…] the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me [us] free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom 8:2 KJV)
Thank God! 🙂
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You are right, Susanne, sin and death no longer have power over us IN Christ, but like Jesus said, “He who finds his life shall lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake shall find it.” So many of us spend our lives trying to “find our lives” and live live of comfort and well being. To deny ourselves is to lose our lives for the sake of all that is ours IN Christ. When we embrace the cross as you did as you hugged Jesus you were signifying that IN Christ death no longer had power over you. That is our place IN the Son just as it says at the end of Romans chapter eight. What a blessing you are, dear sister as you abide IN Him.
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Wonderful comment, Michael! 🤍👌🏼 Thank you so much.
I highly appreciate our fellowship and the encouragement that comes from you. 😇🙏🏼😇👍🏼 You wrote,
“To deny ourselves is to lose our lives for the sake of all that is ours IN Christ. When we embrace the cross as you did as you hugged Jesus you were signifying that IN Christ death no longer had power over you.”
Wow, that was a great and uplifting interpretation. I had not seen this at all! Thank you!! 💟👌🏼
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You are welcome, dear heart. It is from the Spirit of Christ to you. ❤
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This life is filled w/ trials and tribulations which we long — in human terms — to escape. Yet God is able to use our suffering to accomplish His spiritual purposes — purposes w/ a spiritual dimension. He is our strength and Salvation. We must cling to that knowledge.
Thank you, as always, for sharing your insights and experiences, Susanne.
With love,
Anna ❤ ❤ ❤
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Anna, I know your life has been filled with trials and suffering, too. 😦
You are very welcome as to the sharing.
With love,
Susanne ❤ ❤ ❤
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It is good to hear from you again, Anna. I KNOW He is doing a good work in you and healing you of your past so you can be free IN Christ and His love. ❤
You are in our prayers, dear sister,
Michael
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