Cults in Cyberspace: Just a Mouse Click Away

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cults, Cyberspace, deception, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, false spirits, false teachers, Hypnosis, Marisa O'Connor, Mind Control, Online-Preachers, preaching, Scientology, Sri Chinmoy, Stefan Molyneux, warning

Photo Credits https://kalingatv.com/features/eye-care-tips-for-winter-by-dr-tarun-panda/

Dear reader, I am still occupied with this issue about cultic dangers. After publishing a more encouraging blog post last week, here comes another warning about the subtlest, and maybe easiest way of how Satan could try to capture our minds. This particular topic has weighed like a burden on my heart for a few days now, but I would find no time to write it all down. Let’s start with a testimony by a woman who experienced ‘something’ on the internet which seemed to be so innocent in the beginning.

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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.

Disclosing Deeds of Darkness

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being born again, Christianity, church, darkness, deception, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, eyes of the heart, false spirits, God's voice, Jesus Christ, light, poems, prayer, preaching, prophecy, separation from religious spirits, separation from the world, worldly spirits

Photo by Sarah Schuberth

To be honest with you, although I was hell-bent on going to bed, quite some time after midnight I felt the strong ‘nudge’ from God to re-publish an older poem of mine, maybe, even two. I do know that this is not my poetry blog and most of my readers prefer reading blog articles instead. Nonetheless, I want to emphasize here, once again, the danger of cherishing any kind of fellowship or friendship, not only with worldly people (which should be clear), but also with those people who are used to meeting on a regular basis where one ought to hear from God. As I have often made clear before, a spirit being who has been birthed from above will, like God, not be predictable in their speaking, writing and doing. We are like the wind if we listen to God’s leading only. So, if we really want to have spiritual relationships first with God and then with one another, too, we do not only need to go away from the world and its pleasures, we should also say ‘Bye bye’ to any regular and obligatory gathering, whatever form it might take (attending church, home church meeting, connecting via internet etc.). The reason for doing so is that we cannot submit to God’s unpredictable leading and to predictable tradition (like preaching or listening to a sermon every Sunday and singing hymns in determined order) at the same time! Either we obey God and cannot be figured by anyone who does not yet have His Spirit, or we submit to another spirit that can be put in a box, a spirit that can be controlled by us. It might be easier and feel better to go on attending meetings with other Christians, but if God does not show up in such a gathering because His Spirit is quenched there, who are we really looking for? 🙄

What hinders spiritual growth

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deception, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, eyes of the heart, feelings, fellowship, following Jesus, God's guidance, God's love, intellect, preaching, suffering, T.A. Sparks, teaching, true faith, Truth in Love

STOP!!! … AND RUN when you sense deceiving spirits approaching you! (Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

Let me begin with an analogy we all know. Imagine you see a small child that has not been fed properly by his parents. Instead, he was badly nourished and therefore grows slowly, even much slower than his peers. Maybe, his parents are extremely poor and cannot feed this child as they should. If this small child gets no help from others, sooner or later the first sicknesses will befall him and most probably, he won’t get that old, either. What is so sad to observe in the physical realm exists in the spiritual realm, too. Nonetheless, the difference is that it is easier to feed a malnourished child than a malnourished spirit being for we can see it immediately when a child is too lean, too pale, and very weak. But how can we discern a believer who has fed on the wrong spirits? Can we see the deception they have fallen prey to as well?  🙄

Stern or silky… how should a Christian be?

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discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, God's guidance, God's love, humanism, Oswald Chambers, preaching, spiritual growth, the cross, writing

His brightness was like the light; rays flashed from his hand; and there he veiled his power. (Hab 3:4 ESV)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth

Lately as I read Oswald Chambers’ daily devotional, I was a bit bewildered at first. I read through it, wondering, still, and thought, “Okay, he seems to be right. But maybe, something is missing here…” Before telling you more, I want to show you the text I have been referring to.

Who Needs Love? by Michael Clark and Susanne Schuberth

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God's love, knowing, knowledge, love, preaching, psychology, rebuke, sinner, speaking, Teresa of Ávila

GOD IS LOVE
(Source: http://www.anaheller.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/58860011.jpg)

It is not the loveable person that needs to be loved. It is the unlovable person, the clamoring child, the rebellious adult, the nasty friend, the raging parent, in a nutshell, it is the SINNER that needs to be healed. If we react to misbehavior by speaking mere words only, they might be able to bring across what we mean, but without love they will never touch the heart of someone who has gone wild. Well, “words” alone are based on knowledge… what we think we know or what we feel. But if our words are not tempered with grace, they can wound and kill. For it is written,

A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. (Proverbs 15:18 RSVA)

Know this, my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. (James 1:19-20 RSVA)

Faith Comes by Hearing – Only?

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ears of the heart, eyes of the heart, faith, freedom, gospel, hearing, listening, preaching, salvation

Seek The Things That Are Above…
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

So often it is stated that faith only comes by hearing and some say if you do not listen to the gospel preached in audible words, you cannot attain faith at all. I often wondered whether that statement was true. Do we know how many people, actually, were able to read and write at the time when the gospel would be preached for the first time? And in the centuries afterwards?

Prayer, preaching, and love – do they belong together?

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Baptism in the Holy Spirit, experience, following Jesus, Jesus Christ, love, poems, prayer, preaching, repentance, spiritual power

The Visual Bible (Here: The Gospel of John)

The most important thing to do for every minister and servant of God is as Jesus reaffirmed,

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt 22:37-39 ESV)

If we move the commandment which is to be found in the second place to the first place, we will surely fail. Although both commandments count as equal, we may never forget that obeying the great commandment alone empowers us to love our neighbors with that love we received from God before (Rom 5:5). Also, if we drop the first commandment and try to love others (or ourselves) on our own, we will be frustrated because of not being able to love anyone including ourselves.