Called to Live A Holy Life

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a holy life, Christianity, discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, God's voice, good works, intimacy, Jesus Christ, peace, preaching, T.A. Sparks, the Bible

Happy New Year to every reader of my blog!  🙂 This post should have been published in December already, but as I was very busy and have been sick for one week, I thought I could offer it to you belatedly although these festive pictures might strike you as odd now.  😉 I just added the quote in the beginning and here we go. T. Austin Sparks put it so properly as he said,

The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control.

I sometimes wonder whether we as Christians know that we are called to live a holy life, a life that is evidently different from what this world calls ‘life’. Not that I am thinking here of ‘holy’ Christians who preach the law while they tend to live licentiousness privately sooner or later. Such preachers are often characterized by a very offensive style of preaching. They only ‘feel good’ if they were able to misuse their self-assumed authority by beating the hell out of their audience (speaking spiritually here). If those who were preached to bow their heads eventually as they find themselves completely discouraged, only then such preachers feel better than others. This is a carnal way to preach the gospel, indeed, as it only serves to boost the sermonizer’s self.

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Susanne Schuberth’s Spiritual Diary (Part 5) – “Beholding Him”

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encouragement, eros, experience, God's love, intimacy, Jesus Christ, joy, knowing God, light, Longing for God, my journal, peace, prayer, the fear of God, the promised land, walking by the spirit

Photo by Susanne Schuberth

I just decided to translate, edit, and publish another part of my spiritual diary in which I described my everyday experiences with God in the Spirit about seven years ago. The following excerpt can be read in direct succession of Susanne Schuberth’s Spiritual Diary (Part 4) – “A Dream Come True…” Below you will find my try of describing these seemingly contradictory experiences of the love and the fear of God, affecting and smiting you at the same time. If that is not confusing to a human being, I don’t know…

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.

LOVE is YOU

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discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, God's love, intimacy, life, light, love, Michael Clark, sanctification, the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, the Kingdom of God, the new self, the old self

After sunrise in the Public Pool (Fürth/Scherbsgraben)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth

After a pretty long and dry period without much inspiration, here is another joint article by Michael Clark and me.

Satan is a liar. And he is very good at that. He tells us to worry about tomorrow because God would not care or provide. Therefore, we fear the future although we might know there are Scriptures which promise the opposite of what the devil keeps whispering into our ears. If we are tempted to sin, our enemy embellishes the act of sinning and plays the consequences down by offering us only good feelings that should make us fall asleep spiritually. And what is worst, Satan tries to convince us that God could NEVER give us what he, Satan, offers. Instead, he presents God as a someone who would take everything from us which would, if we listened to the devil, make our life worthwhile (I am mainly referring to sin here). Although we might spell out the appropriate Bible verses to the angel of light, he will only laugh at us, knowing that our natural heart is terribly wicked and inclined to commit every sin imaginable if the right conditions were presented to us.

Honesty is the best policy

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anger, experience, frustration, God's love, heart, honesty, intimacy, real love, relationship with God

Getting more and more childlike…
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth – Kindergarten Erlöserkirche Dambach/Fürth)

Following the suggestion of a dear sister, I began to write blank-mindedly as usual another article of which I now only have the very next paragraph that was part of a comment I had written on her blog.
“So many think because they believe in Jesus, they are automatically indwelt by the Holy Spirit and would be able to do what Jesus did (love their enemies, for instance). However, it needs a very long time and countless anointings of His Spirit until we can love more and more people in more and more difficult situations. If there is no love in our hearts, then there is none, and we need to wait until the Holy Spirit fills us up to the brim.”

Attaining Maturity of Faith

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faith, God's love, head knowledge, heart knowledge, intimacy, John Gill, knowing, knowing God, Oswald Chambers, spiritual power, true faith

Christian Love Quote

Indeed, I have just read the best and shortest definition of what faith really is. A few words that explain why so many who only know the Bible are still struggling with getting more faith when they read and reread written promises of God. However, their faith does not really grow and they cannot attain spiritual maturity. Even praying over those aforementioned Scriptures, i.e. promises, alone does rarely help anyone. Why? Here comes the definition.

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)