The Coronavirus Causing Chaos or… You Keep Him in Perfect Peace Whose Mind is Stayed on YOU

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coronavirus, discerning the spirits, encouragement, following Jesus, God's love, hope, Jesus Christ, joy, mind, Pandemia, peace, prayer, repentance, spiritual power, thought life

As I was just reading the whole chapter 26 from the prophet Isaiah, I began to wonder whether there might be a connection, a similarity to what the whole world is going through due to this pandemic coronavirus right now. Here in Bavaria after the case of disaster has been announced, everything has become chaotic. People have begun to act crazily, even insane at times. Dear brothers and sisters, even if we have to stay at home due to a ban on going out, I believe that God can help us out in everything. We won’t die of famine if we trust in Him, we won’t be ‘contaminated’ due to a lack of toilet paper or hand soap, and we will be able to experience joy and peace as the apostle Paul and Silas did when they were in prison (see Acts 16:25).

Mind Pollution vs. A Sound Mind

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discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, feelings, following Jesus, God's love, Jesus Christ, peace, prayer, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, the mind of Christ, thought life

I might be wrong but I imagine that the mind of Christ must be, and must have been as Jesus walked on the earth, like a deep, clear water that could not be moved by anything else but by the voice of His Father. We know that we as believers should be like-minded as we share the mind of Christ. Yet how often do we experience the opposite of clarity in our minds? Are we continually filled with good thoughts toward life, toward our neighbors (even our enemies!) and toward ourselves? 🙄

Getting Old Ain’t for Sissies…. BUT GOD

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aging, blogging, diseases, dying to self, experience, faith, family, following Jesus, God's love, hope, love, marriage, my grandparents, my parents, the old self, World War II

My parents in the 1970s

I know it’s been a while since I published the last blog article (five months, oh well). Even just yesterday I was wondering whether I would be done with writing publicly as I have felt NO inclination to jot down my experiences with God for a rather long time. No time and no interest in blogging at all! Furthermore, I have experienced a very dry spiritual “blah time”. You know these times when everything seems to be so “normal”, so arduous and boring that you might wonder whether you had known God at all. 🙄

Drawn toward the Light

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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!  🙂

Who really has an impact on this world?

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a holy life, blogging, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, false spirits, Flesh vs. Spirit, following Jesus, God's love, human love, Satan, spiritual power, T.A. Sparks, Testimony, the new self, the old self, walking by the spirit

I think many of you might know the temptation to give in to people who do not know God, people by whom you want to be appreciated, though, even despite their sometimes profane remarks. We may not always be able to really like what they say, but we do not want to offend other people, either, or do we? Granted, there is a species of human beings who love to offend others continually; it is like a sport to them. But I do not speak of such personalities. Instead, I refer to those believers who try to live a Christian life and know about the difficulties to obey God when our old nature rather wants to cave in to ‘other spirits’, esp. when such human beings habitually impose their (strong self-) will on others. Our constant struggle to decide between flesh and spirit, as you know, was perfectly described by Paul here.

The importance of Oneness with Christ for fellowshipping with one another

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agape, church, discerning the spirits, experience, family, fellowship, Fellowship with God, God's love, heart, Jesus Christ, mind, Oneness, T.A. Sparks, The Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ

My favorite public pool currently (Bibert Bad, Zirndorf)
– Picture taken from http://www.romantisches-franken.de

Strange… during the last two or three weeks I thought about writing another blog, but I was either too busy with visiting our family members who live scattered in Bavaria or I felt no inclination to start writing on the computer because of summer time. Many plants (about 130) on our two balconies and inside our flat need to be cared for, too. Honestly, I like gardening more than being on the internet and swimming in the outdoor public pool (s. picture above) was more attractive to me as well. It is only in water when several body pains disappear and therefore I swam more than I walked lately. 😉 In Germany we experienced a first heat wave in April, which was VERY unusual, and it seemed hot summer did not want to take a break in May, either. Eventually, today it began to rain a bit which has been much needed by nature and so I sat down in front of the computer, wondering what I was doing here. 🙄 Again, no inclination to write. As I checked the latest file on my thumb drive which is called “New Post”, I saw that I had written this very thing beneath on May 25^th already. Forgetful Susanne! 😊 So, now here you are… the rest of it at least… which means I deleted some details that did not speak to me today any more.

The Secret Fundament of Being Useful for God

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desert, discerning the spirits, dying in the wilderness, dying to self, eternal fire, experience, fellowship, fire, flesh, following Jesus, God's love, honesty, living water, Moses, natural life, revelation, Roger T. Forster, T.A. Sparks, true ministry

Roger T. Forster, whose article “Making History with God” I found in T. Austin Sparks’ library online, would write,

“God is writing history, but He is drawing men into fellowship with Himself as He does so, making them the occasion for a chapter in His book of the story of humanity. There is a chapter for Noah, a chapter for Abraham, a chapter for Moses and many others, and a chapter for you and me. He calls us to share in His great declaration, ‘I am bringing to pass what I am bringing to pass’, encouraging us to be like Moses, a hole in the ground filled with His living water, or a common bush, aflame with the unquenchable fire of His love, so that He can use us in His great movement of liberation.”

https://www.austin-sparks.net/mags/ttm01-5.html

What Really Counts in Life

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aging, blessings, books, commandments, death, disaster, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, following Jesus, God's love, hurry, Judgment, mind, obedience, rest, restlessness, the fear of God, the Kingdom of God, the new self, the old self, this world, thought life, waiting, wisdom, youth

If someone nurtures soaring hopes and plans, we might tell them to stay more grounded or earthed instead. But have you ever heard someone suggest to you to get more ‘heavened’? 🙄 If you, like me, often times wonder about the seeming hopelessness of our existence as we cannot sense the presence of God while (sometimes ridiculous) everyday troubles keep preying on our minds, you might have also observed non-Christians who can seemingly live their lives confronted with less problems and difficulties than we can. Yet, in the long run, that is not the truth. The Book of Ecclesiastes tells us some sobering facts.

Everyone can hear the Voice of God

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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,

Spirit-led vs. spirit-driven

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anxiety, blogging, deception, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, eyes of the heart, false spirits, following Jesus, God's love, God's voice, heart, Satan, the Kingdom of God

Although I have been posting articles about discerning the spirits for almost 27 months now, I have come to realize that it is often times not possible to explain the difference between these emotions that move our soul habitually and, by contrast, those tender ‘nudges’ or even stronger impressions of restraint in our hearts by which God leads our spirits. Actually, we can only recognize what we have come to know ourselves, right? So, I simply want to tell you today what God’s leading is NOT about.