Two Kinds of Rest

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bondage, burden, discerning the spirits, duties, encouragement, entering his rest, freedom, relief, rest, the new self, the old self

To be honest with you, sometimes I would rather write theoretically about any topic I have only heard of than always sharing what I have just experienced with God. If I could talk about another great revelation of sorts, okay, everybody would like to share or read such stories. But another lesson learned through worries, doubts, fears, stress and suffering? Therefore, what I ask myself often is this, ‘Who really wants to read my testimonies about the latter anyway?’… Only those who can relate, I guess.

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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.

“I see!” – Receiving Supernatural Spiritual Sight

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), 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.

A Hard Lesson to Learn

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circumcision of the heart, darkness, dying to self, experience, Fellowship of His Sufferings, following Jesus, God's love, joy, Morning Star, pain, Sickness, suffering, T.A. Sparks, the dark night of the soul, the mind of Christ

Wendelstein/Upper Bavaria
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

This will be a rather short blog post since I am not doing that well at the moment. Before sharing with you what I have learned lately, inspired by an exchange with a sister, I offer you two quotes from Francis of Sales who said,

“The indifferent heart is like a ball of wax in God’s hands, ready to accept all the impressions of his eternal good pleasure. It does not place its love in the things God wills, but in the will of God who wills them.”

“A truly loving heart loves God’s good pleasure, not only in consolations, but also in afflictions….”

Knowing the Lord through the Fellowship of His Sufferings

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being born again, darkness, discerning the spirits, experience, following Jesus, heart, knowing God, suffering, T.A. Sparks, the cross, the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self

The Visual Bible: Matthew
(Source http://hsbnoticias.com/cine/movies/148050-the-visual-bible-matthew)

All human beings suffer. It begins with being born when both mother and child must suffer until they have been fully separated from one another. Suffering continues when we grow up and see that this world is not what we hoped for or expected it to be. Neither are we perfect, nor is it our environment including the people we know. We may have had many wishes and desires in our lifetime of which only a few were fulfilled. Or worst case, even none of them! Furthermore, we suffer from diseases we would not have chosen if we had been asked before. We suffer from being rejected and misunderstood, from being hurt and offended, and so on and so on…

Get Thee Out… and move on

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darkness, discerning the spirits, dying to self, experience, following Jesus, God's love, intimacy, joy, light, Michael Clark, pain, resisting temptation, suffering, the new self, the old self

 

“For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.” (Dt 4:24 KJV) – Photo by Susanne Schuberth

I do not know as yet what this blog post will turn out like and I need to admit it is a pretty hard one for me. So I prayed to the Lord that He might help me by adding His wisdom and thoughts on what He has been teaching me during the last few weeks.

Only honesty before GOD will set us free

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darkness, deception, discerning the spirits, dying to self, exhortation, following Jesus, prayer, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, the new self, the old self, true faith

“And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.” (Hos 2:18-20 ESV)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth

I would have never imagined that seeing myself at the worst, incapable of anything which is good and able to commit EVERY sin if put in the ‘proper’ circumstances would be the entering wedge to spiritual freedom in the kingdom of God. Actually, as soon as we stop trying to appear, even if only a wee little bit better than we really are in our old and fallen nature, God comes closer and closer in order to share HIS heart and mind with us. I believe we need to first fully recognize in what kind of prison we have lived for all our life and to despair of our inability to set ourselves free in any way. We need to be so fed up with our old ways of thinking and behaving that we more and more cry out to God to give us a new heart and the mind of Christ. We must knock on heaven’s door like the persistent widow as described here.

Natural Life versus Kingdom Life or… How Do We Enter the Kingdom of God?

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being born again, church, deception, discerning the spirits, dying to self, exhortation, experience, eyes of the heart, Jesus Christ, joy, peace, Righteousness, T.A. Sparks, the Kingdom of God, the new self, the old self

Source http://www.lovethispic.com

We know what Jesus said about the Kingdom of God. So, just in case someone wants to convince us of already living IN the kingdom (although we do not really know what that might mean) or tells us that he himself lives there, we should remember Jesus’ words on how we can get there and on how the kingdom of God is NOT. We read,

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” (Jn 3:5-7 ESV)

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (Lk 17:21-22 ESV)

Enjoying Life by Obeying God or… The Choice of Life and Death

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death, decisions, discerning the spirits, dying to self, eternal life, exhortation, experience, family, freedom, friends, grace, idolatry, joy, life, loved ones, new creation, old creation, pain, peace, suffering, T.A. Sparks, unbelief, walking by the spirit

Some Wildflowers on the Balcony
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

God spoke to me a few minutes ago through the following Scriptures. He made them alive particularly by emphasizing the word TODAY. You can read this word five times in these verses. As many might know, five is the number that stands for GRACE. Just to give you a few hints as for the context in which God spoke to me, I can tell you that I had a struggle regarding a decision on how to react (or not) to someone’s misbehavior that put them in more or less big trouble. If you love someone, you might know how difficult it is to not intervene when you see things go downhill. So, my heart was very troubled about this trial as God pointed out to me that NOW it was my choice to turn to Him and to obey Him instead of trying to ‘save’ someone I love. If I obeyed Him, all things would turn out well, He said. Below you can read the Bible verses that reached my heart and comforted me immediately.

Wanna be a Spiritual Leader… or rather not?

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being born again, church, dark night of the soul, experience, Jesus Christ, leadership, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self, true faith

Picture credits https://greglee.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/spiritual-leadership.jpg

It was certainly not my plan to write about spiritual leadership, but somehow I came across this topic on the internet and here you are. Having read some deliberations from T.A. Sparks on how God, not man (!), makes spiritual leaders, I thought I could arbitrarily excerpt some characteristics from his article and share them with you. Since God’s way is not man’s way, a spiritual leader is not necessarily a theologian who graduated from college and has been pastoring a church for many years. Most probably, you won’t find God’s man or woman tarrying with a crowd of clerics, all of them decorated with titles and honors. No, the man of God is not a prince in shining armor, just as his Lord Jesus Christ in His time on earth did not push himself to the fore. Quite the contrary. It was always the people that so often pressed around Him because they would be drawn by the Holy Spirit in Him. Let’s hear now what Sparks had to say as to what a spiritual leader who was called by God needs to go through and how he eventually sees God, himself, and his work for God.