Do Not Fear Anymore

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darkness, encouragement, experience, freedom, God's guidance, God's voice, joy, light, peace, prayer, spiritual power

In December last year, less than one month ago, God made me emphatically aware of a certain Scripture. Sometimes I read the Scriptures on my daily Catholic kitchen calendar and I am bored. Sometimes they speak to me and I keep them, however, very rarely I sense that God is ‘shouting at me’ through them. The latter happened as I read the following verse below.

“The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.” (Zeph 3:15 ESV)

How Can We Know The Truth?

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, blogging, church, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, false spirits, following Jesus, God's guidance, T.A. Sparks, The Anointing, The Truth

Recently I found a well-written article on how God leads us on the internet. A former famous pastor had published this entry some years ago. I won’t tell you his name because what he shared would not be basically wrong, however, it was not the whole truth. In fact, it is so easy to be misled by someone who has a broad scholarly biblical knowledge. Scholars might often utter a bunch of theoretical truth, yet do they know THE TRUTH? Do they know THE ONE who indwells their hearts and teaches them moment by moment on what to do and what to omit, on when to speak up and when to remain silent? It is not their fault if they do not know that they do not know the living God (yet), but if you and I seek the truth, we should not submit to their “leading”.

Getting Old Ain’t for Sissies…. BUT GOD

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aging, blogging, diseases, dying to self, experience, faith, family, following Jesus, God's love, hope, love, marriage, my grandparents, my parents, the old self, World War II

My parents in the 1970s

I know it’s been a while since I published the last blog article (five months, oh well). Even just yesterday I was wondering whether I would be done with writing publicly as I have felt NO inclination to jot down my experiences with God for a rather long time. No time and no interest in blogging at all! Furthermore, I have experienced a very dry spiritual “blah time”. You know these times when everything seems to be so “normal”, so arduous and boring that you might wonder whether you had known God at all. 🙄

Called to Live A Holy Life

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a holy life, Christianity, discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, God's voice, good works, intimacy, Jesus Christ, peace, preaching, T.A. Sparks, the Bible

Happy New Year to every reader of my blog!  🙂 This post should have been published in December already, but as I was very busy and have been sick for one week, I thought I could offer it to you belatedly although these festive pictures might strike you as odd now.  😉 I just added the quote in the beginning and here we go. T. Austin Sparks put it so properly as he said,

The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control.

I sometimes wonder whether we as Christians know that we are called to live a holy life, a life that is evidently different from what this world calls ‘life’. Not that I am thinking here of ‘holy’ Christians who preach the law while they tend to live licentiousness privately sooner or later. Such preachers are often characterized by a very offensive style of preaching. They only ‘feel good’ if they were able to misuse their self-assumed authority by beating the hell out of their audience (speaking spiritually here). If those who were preached to bow their heads eventually as they find themselves completely discouraged, only then such preachers feel better than others. This is a carnal way to preach the gospel, indeed, as it only serves to boost the sermonizer’s self.

Who really has an impact on this world?

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a holy life, blogging, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, false spirits, Flesh vs. Spirit, following Jesus, God's love, human love, Satan, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, Testimony, the new self, the old self, walking by the spirit

I think many of you might know the temptation to give in to people who do not know God, people by whom you want to be appreciated, though, even despite their sometimes profane remarks. We may not always be able to really like what they say, but we do not want to offend other people, either, or do we? Granted, there is a species of human beings who love to offend others continually; it is like a sport to them. But I do not speak of such personalities. Instead, I refer to those believers who try to live a Christian life and know about the difficulties to obey God when our old nature rather wants to cave in to ‘other spirits’, esp. when such human beings habitually impose their (strong self-) will on others. Our constant struggle to decide between flesh and spirit, as you know, was perfectly described by Paul here.

Are we indwelt by the Holy Spirit … or not (yet)?

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adultery, being led by the Holy Spirit, discerning the spirits, divorce, experience, false spirits, God's guidance, Indwelt by the Holy Spirit, remarried, separation from the world, sin, Spiritual Life, T.A. Sparks, this world, walking by the spirit

This question is not meant as an offense to anyone. Instead, I want to make sure that nobody misses out on something that would be theirs in Christ by their spiritual nature. So many struggles as to ‘keeping the law’ by living according to what is written in the Bible WITHOUT the power of the Holy Spirit could be avoided, I believe. T. Austin Sparks offers some very practical and helpful explanations on how we could discern whether the Holy Spirit is acting in and through us all the time or whether we might detect a lack of spiritual guidance in our everyday life. We do not need to worry if we cannot fully understand what TAS was talking about below. However, we might ask God to fill us with this divine life if we have not known it the way it has been described ourselves. Jesus affirmed this promise here as He said,

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13 ESV)

What Really Counts in Life

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aging, blessings, books, commandments, death, disaster, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, following Jesus, God's love, hurry, Judgment, mind, obedience, rest, restlessness, the fear of God, the Kingdom of God, the new self, the old self, this world, thought life, waiting, wisdom, youth

If someone nurtures soaring hopes and plans, we might tell them to stay more grounded or earthed instead. But have you ever heard someone suggest to you to get more ‘heavened’? 🙄 If you, like me, often times wonder about the seeming hopelessness of our existence as we cannot sense the presence of God while (sometimes ridiculous) everyday troubles keep preying on our minds, you might have also observed non-Christians who can seemingly live their lives confronted with less problems and difficulties than we can. Yet, in the long run, that is not the truth. The Book of Ecclesiastes tells us some sobering facts.

“Hath God really said…? “

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accusations, adultery, condemnation, deception, discerning the spirits, divorce, doubts, exhortation, experience, faith, false guilt, following Jesus, God's voice, peace, prayer, Satan, sin, the new self, the old self, thought life, Zarah Leander

Maybe, you are familiar with what has been going on in me lately. Imagine, after careful consideration aka prayer, you finally do something of which you are convinced that it must be God’s will for your life. I am not thinking of big things here, only of some small obedience of ours. As long as you are indecisive, you might feel weak, even confused. But as soon as you decide to give in to God’s tender ‘nudgings’, you sense some supernatural strength coming back to you. As you follow His leading and do what was needed, eventually, His peace surrounds you to show you His pleasure. How wonderful an experience! 😊 But then…

Spirit-led vs. spirit-driven

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anxiety, blogging, deception, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, eyes of the heart, false spirits, following Jesus, God's love, God's voice, heart, Satan, the Kingdom of God

Although I have been posting articles about discerning the spirits for almost 27 months now, I have come to realize that it is often times not possible to explain the difference between these emotions that move our soul habitually and, by contrast, those tender ‘nudges’ or even stronger impressions of restraint in our hearts by which God leads our spirits. Actually, we can only recognize what we have come to know ourselves, right? So, I simply want to tell you today what God’s leading is NOT about.

Disclosing Deeds of Darkness

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being born again, Christianity, church, darkness, deception, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, eyes of the heart, false spirits, God's voice, Jesus Christ, light, poems, prayer, preaching, prophecy, separation from religious spirits, separation from the world, worldly spirits

Photo by Sarah Schuberth

To be honest with you, although I was hell-bent on going to bed, quite some time after midnight I felt the strong ‘nudge’ from God to re-publish an older poem of mine, maybe, even two. I do know that this is not my poetry blog and most of my readers prefer reading blog articles instead. Nonetheless, I want to emphasize here, once again, the danger of cherishing any kind of fellowship or friendship, not only with worldly people (which should be clear), but also with those people who are used to meeting on a regular basis where one ought to hear from God. As I have often made clear before, a spirit being who has been birthed from above will, like God, not be predictable in their speaking, writing and doing. We are like the wind if we listen to God’s leading only. So, if we really want to have spiritual relationships first with God and then with one another, too, we do not only need to go away from the world and its pleasures, we should also say ‘Bye bye’ to any regular and obligatory gathering, whatever form it might take (attending church, home church meeting, connecting via internet etc.). The reason for doing so is that we cannot submit to God’s unpredictable leading and to predictable tradition (like preaching or listening to a sermon every Sunday and singing hymns in determined order) at the same time! Either we obey God and cannot be figured by anyone who does not yet have His Spirit, or we submit to another spirit that can be put in a box, a spirit that can be controlled by us. It might be easier and feel better to go on attending meetings with other Christians, but if God does not show up in such a gathering because His Spirit is quenched there, who are we really looking for? 🙄