The Times We Live in or …Thoughts on Today’s Theology

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Catholicism, Christian books, Christianity, darkness, deception, discerning the spirits, dying to self, Evangelicalism, exhortation, experience, false spirits, false teachers, light, Lucifer, Protestantism, Satan, temptations

In recent weeks I got more and more aware of the fact that there has been an alarming trend in (public) Christianity to migrate from often times good beginnings as believers in God and Christ to one of three seemingly different camps of Christendom. Let me give you my observations for this assertion.

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Small things and big things or… How to meet God in everyday life

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Benedict of Nursia, Christianity, contemplation, deception, discerning the spirits, dying to self, experience, false gospel, false teachers, fame, following Jesus, Francis of Assisi, Jesus Christ, Joel Osteen, John of the Cross, Joyce Meyer, Lester Sumrall, mediation, Michael Clark, mystics, Resisting the Devil, riches, sacraments, Satan, success, Teresa of Ávila, the cross, worldly spirits, ZEN, Zig Ziglar

Photo by Susanne Schuberth

I just did a short research on the internet that left me quite frustrated, at least regarding the Christian notion of small things and big things. It has been quite obvious to me that this world is all about recognition, fame, money, fulfilling all your dreams and the pursuit of happiness through sensual pleasures. However, reading the views of famous and successful Christians (aha!), you could find several instructions and to-do lists on how to ”pray for the big things” (Joel Osteen) or the advice that ”spending time with God through prayer and His Word is a prerequisite for having a great life and fulfilling your purpose” (Joyce Meyer). The latter also said that, “I can tell you from experience that God’s help and presence in our lives is vital. He is the Author of all true success and everything that is good-without Him, we can do nothing of true value.” The problem with what these famous Christian preach and teach is that they sometimes offer a great deal of truth mixed with a tiny amount of lies. That can be really tricky at times as you might see when you read Joel Osteen’s whole quote that says, “I don’t think you should spend your life praying for things, but I do believe you should thank God for what He’s given you… but I think the scripture teaches us that we can pray for our dreams, pray for the big things… he’s not a small God; this God is incredible” (Emphasis in red is my suggestion of the little lies in these two quotes here).

Waiting on God…

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agape, Corrie ten Boom, Darren T. Carter, deception, depression, discerning the spirits, divine inspiration, entering his rest, experience, following Jesus, God's love, peace, rest, restlessness, Satan, separation from the world, spiritual flow, success, the devil, trusting God

View from Zirndorf’s Tower ‘Alte Veste’/Bavaria
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

This morning as I was searching for a quote from Corrie ten Boom which I had found on my German daily kitchen calendar, I discovered many others in the English language on the internet. However, the one I was looking for was not among them.  😉 In this particular quote Corrie said it so well, “You won’t lose time if you wait on God.” Isn’t it true that our old nature wants to see things been done, if possible all at once… so that we can rest AFTERWARDS? Has it ever occurred to you that God might have forgotten about your concerns since you prayed and prayed… but nothing seemed to have happened?

Can we be deceived?

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carnal mind, deception, experience, God's love, mysticism, Oswald Chambers, salvation, spiritual mind, spiritual power

“Can our eyes deceive us?”
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

I recalled having read a certain quote by Oswald Chambers quite some time ago. However, whenever I tried to find it again, I failed, since I could not remember the exact wording. Just today as I was searching the net for mystical experiences by Christians, I would find some criticism about the very word “mysticism” by T.A. Sparks and A.W. Tozer instead. Of course, there has been false mysticism in Christianity, too, but not all mystical experiences were wrong. As long as one gets closer and closer to the Living God, I would never dare to say that mysticism was a bad thing. The false mystical experience might get obvious to us when we realize that it has caused the believer to get more and more focused on his own person and “ministry” than on the person of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. Pride about knowing more than others, arrogance toward not-so-spiritual believers, and sometimes even a sort of megalomania (about what God would be able to do through the little “ME”) go hand in hand with Satan’s spiritual suggestions.

Who wants to experience the final death of self aka “Mystic Death”?

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being born again, darkness, Evelyn Underhill, experience, following Jesus, illumination, pain, psychology, purification, sanctification, the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, unbelief, unification with God, walking by faith

Clouds Obscuring the Source of Light
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

If there was another way to encounter the Living God and to stay in His holy and pure presence 24/7 here on earth and eternally too, I would have immediately said, “No, thank you, I am content as it is, no more death in my life needed.” Well, having been plunged into the second part of the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, in fall 2013, yet without interruption only one year ago, I today gave in after so many struggles with and against God since I saw it makes no sense to pray to God that I might have it my own way any longer. That means, if this death will continue to last for years in which I neither have any interest in God nor in spiritual things and in which God gives me more and more sickness and pain, then so be it. Period.

The Simplicity of the Christian Life

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experience, experiencing eternal life, freedom, Gerhard Tersteegen, God’s presence, Holiness, knowing, peace, prayer, spiritual blessings, the Kingdom of God, the presence of God, the promised land, thought life

Bumblebee Feeding on a Purple Tansy
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

I found three quotes from Gerhard Tersteegen (*) today of which I think that they are quite enlightening with regards to our true Christian “duties”. From my own experience I can confirm that God freed me from so many things of which I had thought I should do them, either because others expected me to do so or I demanded it of myself. It has been a very long struggle and I am not yet through it all, but sometimes I feel a kind of very quiet peace I have not known before. Immersed into a silence where spoken words and even thoughts come to an end, I discover the subtle power of the omnipresent God that is reflected by all creation. And out of the blue, your whole being knows what LIFE is all about…
Q: “How do we get there?”

A Life Redeemed, now……or later?

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circumstances, eternal life, experience, joy, life after death, new life, Oswald Chambers, seeing God, spiritual power, spiritual transformation, wilderness

The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus…
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.
Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

Rethinking Maturity, Time and Eternity

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age, being born again, Dorothy L. Sayers, ecstasy, encouragement, exhortation, experience, faith, feeding on Christ, God's love, maturity, mystics, psychology, spiritual maturity, the Kingdom of God, youth

Auferstehungskirche Fürth
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

I do hope that the excerpt by Dorothy L. Sayers below gives you some food for thought as to rethinking those concepts of youth and age our current culture proclaims, and which, in my view, have infiltrated the Church more than she is aware of. We read about “senior pastors” who are in their 40s (at most) and about training the next generation of church leaders, pastors, and elders, by simply teaching them tradition, theological theories, and doctrines. Indeed, the amount of books one has read does not make him spiritually mature. And the number of years we have believed in Jesus does not make us any more mature than a newborn child (speaking spiritually here). Actually, it is all about experiencing God in our own life and knowing that He can be trusted in every given situation. This kind of faith is nothing that can be taught and nothing we can soak in by reading about it only. Testimonies from others might point us in the right direction if they whet our appetite for experiencing God’s love and His kingdom first-hand. Yet they cannot provide the meat we only get when we leave the area of being fed by men and their different views of Christianity far behind. We need to feed on Christ who alone is our true food and drink.

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)

Different (st)ages of spiritual growth

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, being born again, following Jesus, God's love, John of the Cross, John Tauler, justification, sanctification, spiritual maturity, Taylor Marshall, the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self

On a walk in the evening – Südstadtpark Fürth
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

It has been quite some time since I have wanted to deepen the issue of “The Dark Night of the Soul”, yet I did not know how to tackle that task which is anything but easy. Due to the fact that I can only write about what I know AND have already experienced, I have had to go through very deep and extremely painful valleys of dying to self recently so that I began to see more clearly what particularly the second part of the dark night is all about.