Christ’s Shattered Sheep

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deception, delusion, discerning the spirits, Emmanuel Church (Tulsa/OK), encouragement, experience, following Jesus, God's guidance, God's love, God's voice, image of God, love, Resurrection Life, sheep, Spiritual Abuse, spiritual gifts, T.A. Sparks, The Good Shepherd, The Holy Spirit, the law, this world, View of God, walking by the spirit, world, worldly spirits

The way how this blog post has come into being was really strange. A few days ago I thought about publishing a new article, yet I felt no clear leading apart from posting these pictures of the sheep in a WordPress draft. I also recalled I had written an older blog post about another ‘sheep experience’ that dealt with the how we as His sheep can hear our Master’s loving voice (cf. here). But that seemed to be ‘all’ at that moment. I also searched for a book or an article by T. Austin Sparks that would contain the word ‘sheep’ as part of a title anywhere, but alas, there was nothing. So, I gave up on trying to find something to write about and rather tidied up our flat. Indeed, such an occupation that can turn out a spiritual experience, too. Whether it is cooking, shopping, doing the laundry or else, God is always at hand.  🙂

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Knowing God… and Being Known by Him

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being born again, commandments, dying to self, eternal life, experience, faith, following Jesus, God's love, heart, heart knowledge, intimacy, Jesus Christ, Judgment, knowing God, overcoming the world, spiritual growth, T.A. Sparks, the body of Christ, the cross

I chose the subtitle of my poetry blog that once sprang from 1 Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 3 also as the headline for this article because I believe that the most important thing for us Christians is to really get to know (read ‘love’) the Lord. If we have an intimate relationship with God Who is the Creator of everything, then there is no need for us to worry about anything anymore. Jesus Christ promised eternal life NOW to everyone who, by the grace of God, has been given an intimate knowledge of God in the Spirit. He said,

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (Jn 17:3 ESV)

The Connection Between the Fear of God and Justification

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experience, forgiveness, God's love, grace, Jesus Christ, joy, justification, peace, repentance, righteousness by faith, sin, sinner, suffering, the fear of God, The Fear of the Lord, the new self, the old self, true faith

The following is an excerpt of a (not published) book I wrote about seven years ago. I just translated a text of my journal which should clarify that the experience of the fear of God and being justified by Him usually go hand in hand.

To separate awe from God from an everyday, natural fear is not easy. For it is real fear as other languages ​​also make clear:

Gottesfurcht (German)

crainte de Dieu (French)

timore di Dio (Italian)

temor de Dios (Spanish)

The fear of God is, above all, the fear of displeasing God by transgressing His commandments. I believe a further difference compared with other fears is that our natural anxieties cause narrowness inside our mind and make us think of running away from a frightening situation. “Cut and run!” the thief might think when suddenly confronted with the policeman. He, too, is, or at least should be frightened when he must face governmental authority. Nevertheless, it might happen that the thief, instead, goes over to attacking the authority figure when he realizes that his getaway route has been cut off.