Spiritual Fast Food or… We are what we eat

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, death, discerning the spirits, dreams, experience, God's voice, life, reading, Satan, Satan's voice, the devil, thought life, words, writing

Picture credits http://doctorwellgood.com/healthy-eating/we-are-what-we-eat.html

It seems sometimes I want to bombard my readers with almost one blog post every day. 😉 Actually, it was only about two or three weeks ago as I started to listen more closely to several talks and to observe my immediate inner reaction to what was being said, as I saw that there is a big difference between ‘words’ and ‘Words’. Before I begin to expound on this deeper, I want to point you to Michael Clark’s excellent article about the confusing deluge of words of any kind, even in the Christian world on the internet and elsewhere. Please, read his article here.

Being led by the Holy Spirit

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, justification, killing sin, Matthew Poole, peace, prayer without ceasing, sanctification, sealed with the Holy Spirit, T.A. Sparks, the law, the new self, the old self, Tullian Tchividjian

We know we are God’s children if we have been sealed by Him.
(Picture credits http://knowing-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/Ephesians-1-13-Sealed-With-The-Holy-Spirit-red-copy.jpg)

The Holy Spirit’s method is to set His seal upon us as we move according to His leading; not according to our fancy, choice, aptitude, predilection or ambition. – T. Austin Sparks

Another Fake Revival or… how Christianity is being deceived

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, deception, delusion, discerning the spirits, exhortation, Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit, the old self

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.” (Lk 8:17-18 ESV)
Picture from http://hosts.blogtalkradio.com/talkteachtestify/2015/04/29/the-counterfeit-christianity-unfolded-the-great-deception-of-satan

A dear brother shared a link with me today which led to an article that describes the latest alleged “outpouring” of a spirit – I do not dare to call this spirit the Holy Spirit of God since I really cringe in my heart and soul about this blend of truth and lies we are offered there. Alas, I found a very uncritical entry by a Christian magazine as I followed the link.  😦 If you want to read the whole thing, below is the link. It could serve as a training to sharpen the ability of discerning the spirits in us.

Can we see God in this life already?

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, being born again, experience, eyes of the heart, faith, glory, Holy Spirit, John of the Cross, Martha Jesus, presence of God, seeing God, the dark night of the senses, the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self, the promised land

SEEING GOD means a shift in perspective… 😉
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

It seems to me that there are at least five different stages of perceiving the presence of God. Our perception, or even sight of Him, increases and improves when we have reached the next stage. All happens by the grace o God, of course. What I did not include here are dreams and visions which are something that can happen anytime whether we find our selves in stage 1, 2, 3, or 4. However, they are not as important as being led by God continuously. In fact, from my own experience I know that an immense amount of dreams and visions have their origin in the dark realm of Satan who loves to appear as the Angel of Light. Stage 5, finally, is the fully enlightened and perfected saint who can see God directly and does not need dreams or visions any longer (regarding dreams and visions I was just paraphrasing John of the Cross). Here is my biblical approach on these five various, progressively blessed conditions of heart, mind, and soul.

Different (st)ages of spiritual growth

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, being born again, following Jesus, God's love, John of the Cross, John Tauler, justification, sanctification, spiritual maturity, Taylor Marshall, the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self

On a walk in the evening – Südstadtpark Fürth
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

It has been quite some time since I have wanted to deepen the issue of “The Dark Night of the Soul”, yet I did not know how to tackle that task which is anything but easy. Due to the fact that I can only write about what I know AND have already experienced, I have had to go through very deep and extremely painful valleys of dying to self recently so that I began to see more clearly what particularly the second part of the dark night is all about.

On Receiving (More of) the Holy Spirit

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, experience, Gerhard Tersteegen, Holy Spirit, light, prayer, spiritual power

Light over Limp Leaves (Photo taken by Susanne Schuberth)

Here’s the empty-minded blogger again. If I had enough time, I could write day and night. However, I never know about what to write. That is somehow funny, isn’t it…
In fact, I was just reminded of those situations in the past when I was sitting for an exam, in front of me some blank sheets of paper and a big brown envelope with still unknown questions or some conceptual formulations in it. How uneasy I always felt until the envelope was open! And how anxious until I had read what I had to do, fearing there could have been a challenge I was not able to cope with.

But today the situation is different. If there was such a brown envelope, it would be empty. No question for me. No conceptual formulation, no task but to write. And there will be no one who will give me bad marks if I fail or high marks if the article turns out to be readable. Honestly, that is relieving. 🙂

What is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?

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anointing, assurance, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Charles G. Finney, experience, Jesus Christ, justification, light, love, repentance, spiritual power, The Holy Spirit

God’s Eternal Light from Above
(Picture taken from http://www.simplyheavenlyfood.com/2013/12/word-of-day-december-292013.html)

John the Baptist said,

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Mt 3:11 ESV)

Although I had heard about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal camp before and I had indeed found some hints in John of the Cross’s autobiographic entries as well, yet as IT would happen to me, I had no clue what THIS could be. Therefore I asked God to help me grasp that overwhelming experience that finished my justification process, during which I had been feeling my own sinfulness to an increased degree as a very painful fire burning in my heart for many weeks in 2008.
Our God was so gracious to point me to Charles G. Finney’s autobiography where I found my own experiences confirmed. Finney who was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the in the United States in the 19th century offered a very helpful narrative that answered many of the questions I had at that time.

The Living Flame Of Love

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, being born again, church, Doña Ana de Peñalosa, ecstasy, God, Jesus Christ, John of the Cross, mystics, psychology, Richard P. Hardy, sanctification, the new self, the promised land

Star Trails beyond the Cross (Photo by Paul Schuberth)

A bit further below you can read John of the Cross’s last poem which he wrote when he finally had become completely ONE with God.

John of the Cross was a Carmelite priest and mystic who put his “up and down” experiences with God biblically founded down on paper until he reached the whole unity (i.e., unio mystica) with God through Jesus Christ. That poem was one of the first writings I had read from him when I came to know God’s living flame which had just begun to burn exceedingly high in my heart in the year 2000.

At that time I hoped that I had already finished my long way with God, that is, I thought I had reached the goal of perfect unity with Him. But, alas, it was only the beginning of a long, both blissful and painful way that led me closer and closer to Him. During the following years when I often thought that God would be silent and all the darkness inside me deeper than ever, He had been far closer than ever before, yet my birdbrain could not yet grasp it. God’s indwelling of a human being is indeed a divine mystery.

True fellowship knows no death

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, being born again, ecstasy, experience, Jesus Christ, Johann Koller, John Wycliffe, life after death, light, love, spiritual power, the Kingdom of God

Johann Koller
Born: 2 Feb 1932
Died: 28 Apr 2010

In order to illustrate the statement I made in the headline, I decided to start with my testimony of how I met a man spiritually whom I never met personally before. Here is My Story #1.

His name was Johann Koller. He was an Austrian prelate in Vienna, appointed by John Paul II, who served in the Roman Catholic Church as a priest until his dying day on April 28 in 2010 at 12.55 pm. Let me tell you why I remember his time of death so precisely.

At that time I had never come to know anybody personally who knew Christ’s loving embraces (‘agape’ love) from their own experience. Not one, indeed. One day as I was writing down my spiritual experiences with God – which finally resulted in a fat book the RCC here in the archdiocese Bamberg in Bavaria didn’t want to publish – I randomly banged into an Austrian website.

Putting on the new self – but how?

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, being born again, church, commandments, experience, following Jesus, love, promises, sanctification, Spirit-filled, spiritual power, the Kingdom of God, the new self

Seeing the Spirit
(Photo by Paul Schuberth)

If someone has been used to reading through the Bible by distinguishing between commandments and promises, he will surely feel crushed, time and again, especially when he comes across a commandment which appears an impossible thing to be obeyed by us. Here are some examples.

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (1 Jn 2:15-17 ESV)

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Mt 10:37 ESV)

“But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Col 3:8-10 ESV)

Have you ever tried to not love the world, or to love Jesus more than your family, or to kill the flesh which seems to be indestructible? Or have you ever felt jealous or angry but you didn’t want to feel those feelings any longer? And you prayed to God about it – a thousand times, and more – but He seemingly didn’t hear you?