Rethinking Maturity, Time and Eternity

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age, being born again, Dorothy L. Sayers, ecstasy, encouragement, exhortation, experience, faith, feeding on Christ, God's love, maturity, mystics, psychology, spiritual maturity, the Kingdom of God, youth

Auferstehungskirche Fürth
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

I do hope that the excerpt by Dorothy L. Sayers below gives you some food for thought as to rethinking those concepts of youth and age our current culture proclaims, and which, in my view, have infiltrated the Church more than she is aware of. We read about “senior pastors” who are in their 40s (at most) and about training the next generation of church leaders, pastors, and elders, by simply teaching them tradition, theological theories, and doctrines. Indeed, the amount of books one has read does not make him spiritually mature. And the number of years we have believed in Jesus does not make us any more mature than a newborn child (speaking spiritually here). Actually, it is all about experiencing God in our own life and knowing that He can be trusted in every given situation. This kind of faith is nothing that can be taught and nothing we can soak in by reading about it only. Testimonies from others might point us in the right direction if they whet our appetite for experiencing God’s love and His kingdom first-hand. Yet they cannot provide the meat we only get when we leave the area of being fed by men and their different views of Christianity far behind. We need to feed on Christ who alone is our true food and drink.

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Knowing God…

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agape, being born again, ecstasy, eros, experience, eyes of the heart, feeling, flesh, God's love, intimacy, Jesus Christ, joy, knowing God, Oswald Chambers, peace, prayer, relationship with God, spiritual power, the Kingdom of God

Knowing God… and Being Known by Him
(Source http://pixgood.com/intimacy-with-god-quotes.html)

Instead of boring you to death with a new article written right from my blank mind, 😉 I decided to copy and paste two daily devotionals from Oswald Chambers that really hit home as for the consequences of being intimate with God. We will see and feel it in our own lives, and others will too, when all our thinking and doing eventually spring from being one with God as we abide in His love. If we are really as intimate with Jesus as Jesus was with His Father, the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) cannot be ignored, neither by us nor by anyone else, for it is written,

“A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Mt 7:18-20 ESV)

My House Shall Be a House of Prayer

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agape, becoming one, church, ecstasy, eros, experience, God's love, heart, homosexuality, intimacy, love, Martin Luther, Michael Clark, Michael Lazio, prayer, prayer of love, resisting temptation, spiritual power

Abiding in His Love…
(Picture taken from http://www.scatterthestones.co.uk/flourish-in-gods-love-for-you/)

If we still lived in Old Covenantal times, we could easily enter God’s house of prayer today by attending a church meeting in a visible building. Of course, I do not deny that Christians in churches do pray, too, but I want to clarify which prayer our prayer life should mainly consist of in New Covenantal times.
As Jesus cleansed the temple by driving out the merchants who sold animals and those who changed money, He surely made them angry. Shortly afterwards, the Jews certainly thought that Jesus was insane when they asked Him,

“What sign do you show us for doing these things?” (Jn 2:18 ESV)
and He only answered,
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (Jn 2:19 ESV)
🙄

God’s Love vs. human love

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being born again, Bernard of Clairvaux, dark night of the soul, darkness, ecstasy, experience, eyes of the heart, following Jesus, God's love, heart, intimacy, Janet Ruffing, Jesus Christ, joy, Karl Rahner, mysticism, pain, sanctification, Sebastian Moore, spiritual power, the dark night of the spirit, the new self, the old self

His Love is Stronger than Death…
(Picture taken from http://guardthedoor.com/day-8-love-is-not-jealous/)

Am I able to love like God loves? No, never, and that won’t ever change. But I do know as soon as my old self has been completely died, I can.
How is that possible? The only hindrance to let God’s love fully flow through us and from us to others is the old Adam, the one who has not yet given up on trying to do God’s work, the one who has not yet stricken his colors and given into that painful process of dying to self whatever the cost. I do admit that cutting heart pains day and night are not fun, really.  😦 Yet Jesus didn’t promise us that circumcision of the heart by pruning our old and worthless branches would be all joy and pleasure. Instead, He called sanctification “the narrow way to life” which only a few were able to find during their lifetime. Our goal should be the one the apostle Paul by grace had already achieved as he described here,

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20 ESV)

The Mystery of God’s Love

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ecstasy, experience, God's love, heart, inspiration, Jesus Christ, love, the new self

Divine Dust Disclosed (Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

Some years ago I tried to put into words what usually cannot be put into words. Therefore I wrote several poems in German which hint to the spiritual reality of those things that are normally hidden to the physical eye. Although the natural mind cannot grasp the depths of God, His Spirit is able to strike a chord in us that finally will make us grasp the beauty of divine love.

Entering the Promised Land

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being born again, compassion, dying to self, ecstasy, experience, freedom, God's love, Jesus Christ, joy, love, peace, sanctification, the Kingdom of God, the new self, the promised land

Behind the Veil (Painting in watercolors by Susanne Schuberth)

Sharing the heart of God, our view of life and people changes dramatically. Being set free from old habits, we can change our former “automatic reaction mode” into the new seeing-as-God-sees and feeling-as-God-feels “unconditional compassion mode”.

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.

Susanne Schuberth’s Spiritual Diary (Part 1) – “Seeing the Invisible Realm”

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arrow, dreams, ecstasy, experience, fire, God, heart, love, pierced, prayer, spiritual power, visions

Love Heart Arrow Black Wallpaper (Layoutsparks.com)

I decided to translate some parts of my spiritual diary from German into the English language.

Between January 2010 and December 2011 I described my everyday experiences with God in a very detailed way that displays how adventurous and surprising it is to walk in the Spirit with God and Jesus; actually, it could easily be compared with the ups and down while riding on a rollercoaster.

Perhaps this whole thing turns out a series – or not, since I never know beforehand what God nudges me to do or write in the very next moment. Well, this entry, at least is kind of the beginning of sharing my detailed records… 😉

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You are being loved by Jesus – unconditionally at that

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baptism, being born again, church, ecstasy, homosexuality, justification, Lord Jesus Christ, love, sanctification, sin, spiritual power, the new self

Jesus Love Graphics and Comments
(Photo taken from http://www.coolchaser.com)

Today I want to focus on a group of men and women who really struggle with feeling what others don’t feel. Some people tell them that it is okay to feel that way (the liberal Christians) and some people often remind them that they are not the way God wants them to be (the conservative Christians).

As you might have already guessed it, I am speaking of homosexuals, respectively of all people who do not fit the picture of being “straight”. Actually, I do not want to canvass whether homosexuality is a sin or not because I think there has already been written that much about it. Rather, I want to point to the fact that all of us are being loved by God just the way He created us and that God alone can set us free from feeling any kind of condemnation as for our natural tendencies when He grants us access to the experience of His ecstatic spiritual love, i.e., AGAPE which includes EROS – that’s for sure.

Would you love to die for Jesus?

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Bernini, ecstasy, heaven, Jesus Christ, love, martyrdom, near death experience, out-of-body experience, Saint Teresa of Jesus, spiritual power, Teresa of Ávila

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (The Ecstasy of Teresa of Ávila)

Whenever I find myself alone regarding my experiences with God and I am tempted to let myself go, there is only one thing I can do, and that is, to look at Him who knows how it feels to stand alone. Even though tears might fall down still, there is sooo much comfort in knowing that He endured the same. And surprisingly, God doesn’t want us to remain in our suffering as if there were no hope. Quite the contrary.

More and more I have been realizing that suffering is not the ultimate purpose but only the means to receive His joy at its fullest. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?