Stuck in the Soul or… Governed by God

Tags

blogging, death, deception, discerning the spirits, experience, fellowship, Flesh vs. Spirit, following Jesus, God's guidance, habits, life, love, loving your enemies, overcoming the world, P.W. Faunch, peace, prayer, rituals, Satan, soul, soul-life, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, the cross, the devil, the heavenlies, the old self, the throne, the whole armour of God, thought life, walking by the spirit

Just lately I have begun to see that a continuous life in the Spirit has to be governed by the Lord alone. Anything else I chose according to my old fleshly habits led to death, even my own thought life. Before going further by giving you another example, I decided to paste one of two short excerpts from T. Austin Sparks which clearly revealed the truth of my experiences afterwards to me. TAS said,

Life in the Spirit

Tags

being born again, darkness, discerning the spirits, dreams, entering his rest, entering the Kingdom of God, evil spirits, experience, following Jesus, God's guidance, grace, prayer, Salt and Light, Satan, spirit and life, T.A. Sparks, the devil, the heavenlies, The Holy Spirit, the promised land, the whole armour of God, walking by the spirit

During the last weeks and months I published several articles on walking in the spirit. The connection between walking by the spirit and living in the spirit seems to be quite simple. Paul in his letter to the Galatians put it this way,

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”  (Gal 5:25 KJV)

The Secret of Power and Ascendancy by T. Austin Sparks

Tags

ambition, Ananias and Sapphira, ascendancy, aspiration, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, following Jesus, God's guidance, Holiness, joy, Judgment, Life and Death, Light and Darkness, Overcoming, overcoming the world, peace, Pentecost, rest, Satan, self, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, the cross, the devil, The Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God, The Kingdom of Heaven, unholy, walking by the spirit

Today I want to offer you some food for thought by T. Austin Sparks, a man of God of whom I am certain that he really knew what he was talking about from his own experiences in the kingdom of God. Regarding spiritual ascendancy and power Sparks meant that we should follow God’s “inward and upward call” (my words) to overcome, in particular the devil. TAS said that Satan cannot tempt anyone whom he finds poor in spirit. Indeed, if we are fully dependent on our Lord in all things, the enemy is helpless while we are being drawn higher and higher on this spiritual mountain called “Zion”. In that which follows you will find two excerpts from two different articles by TAS.

Smooth Talk and Flattery or… The Counterfeit Kingdom

Tags

Angel of Light, counterfeit spirits, discerning the spirits, dreams, exhortation, experience, flattery, God's love, light of life, Lucifer, Michael Clark, repentance, Satan, the devil, visions

Before sharing another, this time ‘older’ and longer vision with you on here, a few words on how visions and dreams from God differ from our soulish imagination. If you had any dream or a vision from God, you will never, ever be able to forget it! These dreams and visions remain in the background of your mind and they do not disappear. There is a light and a life to them which is eternal as they have come from Him. Over the years I made observations as for God dealing with us human beings in a similar way, whether we know Him or not. That means, all human beings who do not know Him yet receive warnings from God as to their eternal destiny if they do not repent. I recall that a worldly woman once shared a terrifying dream with me less than three decades ago. I felt it might have been from God and suggested to seek Him regarding this. As a confirmation regarding the assertions I made, here are the Scriptures God pointed me to at that time. It is an excerpt of Elihu’s rebuke of Job.

The Division of Soul and Spirit (Heb 4:12)

Tags

church, compromise, darkness, discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, following Jesus, freedom, God's love, hope, Jesus Christ, joy, life, light, peace, promises, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, tithes, visions

I wonder how can we describe something we have never experienced before?  🙄 Although you might realize that this unexpected shift of perspective belongs to the most amazing experiences possible in the life of a follower of Christ, did you ever expect God to really work miracles?  🙄 As for me, I had given up on waiting for miracles. Over the years and particularly during the last one and a half years, I had more and more given up on expecting something more from God than an ordinary life full of daily struggles. Having no real breakthroughs in many areas of life, I waited on God to fulfill His promises of which I, honestly, thought I might only enjoy them after this life on earth. Quite a saddening prospect for the rest of your life, don’t you think?  🙄

Drawn toward the Light

Tags

darkness, encouragement, experience, following Jesus, forgiveness, God's love, inspiration, Jesus Christ, light, Light and Darkness, sin, thought life, Walking in the Light

After many gray days lately, last week the sun came out for a short time again. Swimming under an almost clear blue sky in my favorite outdoor pool, I suddenly got aware of the fact that all human beings, even most animals and plants are drawn toward the visible light. These few sunrays made the water sparkle and glitter both on the surface and underneath. Due to the warm temperature inside (30° C, i.e., 86° F) the pool soon turned into a vapor bath. As the cold Eastern winds blew stronger, playing a funny game with these continually shaping clouds of steam, my heart was rejoicing over the ingenuity of our Creator. It was really an amazing spectacle!  🙂

Under A Foreign Yoke

Tags

darkness, deception, discerning the spirits, dying to self, experience, God's goodness, heart, light, mind, prayer, Satan, sin, spiritual attacks, temptations, the, the cross, thoughts

Have you ever felt an increasing uneasiness as you pondered on the possibility to cave in to somebody’s pleading because you knew in your heart it would be the wrong thing to do? I do not know whether this is only a people pleaser problem, but I assume I am not the only one who is struggling with these thoughts and temptations.

Getting Detached

Tags

darkness, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, following Jesus, light, the Puritans, Thomas Brooks, Tim Challies

Is the following a mere assertion to you? I say,

Either we’re Christians or we jump on bandwagons.

In my experience, we either take a stand for Christ or we remain neutral toward whatever people might suggest to us. Imagine someone, let’s say a worldly person, approaches you by presenting a hair-raising conspiracy theory to you. Actually, that happened to me two times lately. One person was convinced that her child had become severely sick due to kerosene emission by aircraft… 🙄 Conclusion: this person finally found someone on the internet who not only sold grossly overpriced (and overdosed!) dietary supplement, but who also offered bloodcurdling nonsense to prove his theory. Since no doctor could help her in the past, as she said, yet this person on the net eventually could, she now seems to take everything this man utters at face value. Sigh.

Everyone can hear the Voice of God

Tags

dreams, encouragement, experience, God's love, Heaven and Hell, Jesus Christ, joy, light of life, ransom, redemption, righteousness by faith, salvation, sin, suffering, visions

As my closer walk with God through Jesus in 1995 had just begun, one of the first books He nudged me to read was the Book of Job, again and again. It was not ‘fun’ to read but important for me to know beforehand about these years of suffering and pain that were still ahead of me back then. I decided to copy and paste a longer Scripture that deals with the WHY and HOW God speaks to ALL people in this world through dreams, visions, and more often than not through adverse circumstances. To Job who would think he was a righteous man Elihu said,

“I see!” – Receiving Supernatural Spiritual Sight

Tags

), discerning the spirits, experience, following Jesus, heart, light, mind, spiritual blindness, suffering, T.A. Sparks, the god of this age, the new self, the old self

If we long to have (more) spiritual sight and insights, we must be prepared that God will take us through many, many severe sufferings. Who wants this? Surely, our old nature hates suffering. And this is why God takes us through these things. He knows that our new spiritual nature that is opposed to the flesh will finally come out victoriously. Below I offer you an excerpt from T. Austin Sparks’ writings that deals with the topic I have just touched on. Sparks described here the cause of spiritual blindness that both springs from our old nature and Satan’s work in our soul.