Hinds’ Feet on High Places or… The Only Way Out is Up

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Allan Halton, discerning the spirits, earth, encouragement, evil spirits, experience, following Jesus, God's guidance, Hannah Hurnard, heaven, hinds' feet, Jesus Christ, joy, Michael Clark, pain, pandemic, peace, prayer, Resisting the Devil, rest, Satan, spiritual power, suffering, T.A. Sparks, Taking our Thoughts Captive, the devil, the enemy, the heavenlies, thought life, unrest, visions, walking by the spirit

As a preliminary note before delving deeper into my latest experiences with God, “Hinds’ Feet on High Places” here bears no relation to Hannah Hurnard’s novel with the same title. Although I never read her book, I heard from a few readers of my blog how much they liked it as they shared part of its content with me in the past. I have just read the plot introduction of this book on Wikipedia and I realized that there might really be a lot of similarities between Hurnard’s description and my own experiences with God as to suffering and sorrow. However, I want to go a step further now and to rather focus on a positive prospect of our life with God than on the difficulties of endurance.

Balaam and the Angel or… The Danger of Compromise

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compromise, controlling spirits, discerning the spirits, disobedience, entering his rest, entering the Kingdom of God, evil spirits, experience, false spirits, following Jesus, God's voice, God's wrath, grace, honesty, manipulative spirits, obedience, Resisting the Devil, rest, Satan, the enemy, the fear of God, the whole armour of God, transparency, visions, walking after the flesh, walking by the spirit

Landscape with Balaam (Joseph Anton Koch 1832/36) – German National Museum, Nürnberg

With compromising here I meant the temptation to mix the spirits in order to please people or ourselves more than God. In other words, God has told us to do something, but we begin to wonder after some time whether He might have changed His mind regarding the commandment once given. If God has shown us a certain direction we should walk in, we can be sure that He had good reasons why He led us that way. Whether we understand His guidance or not, it is always also for our spiritual protection if He warns us and tells us not to move along a way we might have chosen on our own. We read in the Book of Numbers,

“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num 23:19 ESV)

Exposing the Enemy by Exercizing Authority in Christ

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authority, deception, discerning the spirits, entering his rest, experience, following Jesus, freedom, knowledge, Lily, peace, prayer, Resisting the Devil, rest, Satan, Submission to God, T.A. Sparks, Taking our Thoughts Captive, the angel of light, the devil, the enemy, The Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God, the mind of Christ, the presence of God, the whole armour of God, thought life, walking by the spirit

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It was only today as I have started to see more clearly how Satan keeps our minds busy and worried all day long. Not that I had not heard about it before, however, the theory once learned has come alive now, so to say. What I am referring to is the simple pattern Satan always uses to pull us down on his level as soon as we have begun to relax in the presence of God. You know this pattern that starts telling us to distrust God by asking, “Hath God really said?”

Stuck in the Soul or… Governed by God

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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,

The Secret of Power and Ascendancy by T. Austin Sparks

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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.

Silence… A Secret Way to Wisdom

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anger, discerning the spirits, evil spirits, experience, fear, following Jesus, Liberty, life, obedience, peace, prayer, the devil, the mind of Christ, walking after the flesh, walking by the spirit, wisdom, worldly spirits

I guess many of you know how bad you feel when you said something of which you immediately realized that it was the wrong thing to do. Even if what you uttered was the truth, either the timing was not right or the statement was not spoken in love. Recently the Lord made me aware of certain Scriptures regarding this. Maybe, I will mention some of them further below. What He taught me in practical terms, instead, appeared to be a bit unusual at first.

“Today, if you hear His voice…”

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authority, discerning the spirits, entering his rest, experience, eyes of the heart, fellowship, following Jesus, God's guidance, God's voice, hearing, obedience, resisting temptation, Satan, T.A. Sparks, the devil, the fear of God, The Holy Spirit, thought life, walking by the spirit, wisdom

I wonder what the Lord tries to tell you and me today. Actually, I believe God wants to help us in ALL things concerning our everyday life. He is eager to lead us into ALL the truth about everything through the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 16:13). Since God rarely approaches us with a loud voice unless a severe warning is necessary, some of His messages go unnoticed. If our minds are busily occupied with the handling of appointments, schedules, and deadlines, His subtlety is easily ignored.

Entering His Rest

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controlling spirits, destruction, discerning the spirits, entering his rest, eternal life, experience, following Jesus, God's guidance, Jesus Christ, life, Resisting the Devil, spiritual power, the hard way, The Kingdom of Heaven, the narrow gate

Instead of writing another long-winded article in which I decribe my latest experiences with God, I am going to offer you a link to an older entry, see further below (*), which I just reread and edited a bit. As I described lengthily in my last blog, Jesus has started to set me free from all bondage that kept me from closely following His lead on a moment-by-moment basis. With ‘bondage’ I mean old habits, human tradition, and obligations of all kinds. You can hardly imagine how often I find another seemingly good work I have been used to, of which I now see that that has not been God’s will for me at all.

Susanne Schuberth’s Spiritual Diary (Part 6) – On how to resist the devil… in difficult cases

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controlling spirits, discerning the spirits, experience, family, fellowship, Fellowship of His Sufferings, following Jesus, Jesus Christ, manipulative spirits, Michael Clark, Resisting the Devil, resurrection power, spiritual experience, spiritual power, Testimony, the law

Maybe, you like me, have come to know difficult people. Maybe, even VERY difficult people. Perhaps, these people were not only strangers, neighbors or friends. Well, you might have had to deal with difficult loved ones for years or even decades. As much as we should love our enemies when they attack us, speak evil of us, yeah, persecute us because we follow Christ, in the same way we ought to be cautious to listen to God’s leading when we are confronted with such persons.

It is not helpful to always blame ourselves for not being able to love them as we think we should. Sometimes, instead, we need to take a stand and resist the devil who drives them. If we submit to a controlling and manipulative spirit in others, we cannot follow the Lord just the same. In such cases Satan is allowed to make us angry, upset, resentful and… we are hurting at that! Yet, is all this pain really necessary, i.e., has it all been part of God’s plan for us? Or was it rather the devil who knows the full range of how to destroy our God-given peace through any kind of dead works of the flesh? 🤔

“Don‘t panic, it‘s only infodemic!“

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coronavirus, discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, infodemic, Jesus Christ, pandemic, peace, Satan, spam mails, thought life

Sometimes I wonder about God’s inexplicable leading. Really, I cannot understand His way of thinking at all! Just lately He began to teach me about something that has been very unnerving for me. For several weeks, even months, I detected in my spam and trash folder on WordPress many, many spam mails. During the last weeks even about one thousand every day! These mails come from different email addresses; however, the common thing is that they are written in Spanish and that their message consists of only one question.