What Selflessness Is Like

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feelings, God our Father, God's love, happiness, Jesus Christ, joy, prayer, salvation, Satan, self-forgetfulness, self-will, selflessness, suffering, T.A. Sparks, The Holy Spirit, the new self, the old self, trials, true faith

Picture credits https://www.happywholehuman.com/help-people-rise/

I just bumped into a blog where someone was praised to the skies for being able to do gymnastics at an advanced age. There is nothing wrong about such a laudation in itself since this and similar things are that which our fallen world can exclusively look at. Whatever is visible, audible, tangible, countable, measurable, yes, everything that is perceptible by our senses will be praised if it promises pleasure to people. As I skimmed through the comments section of this blog post, the longest response there caught my eye. The commenter, of course, was still older than the aforementioned person who would receive rave reviews, and he, outrageously, won this and that competition at an even higher age. Dear reader, it was almost impossible for me to finish reading their self-praise by which I felt greatly repelled. What about those people who cannot behave as they would want? What about those who are sick and cannot move their bodies any longer as they would love to? I doubt you will find any writing on the internet where these people are praised… BUT…

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Discerning the Spirits

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Christlikeness, discerning the spirits, evil spirits, experience, false teachers, prayer, self-forgetfulness, self-will power, selflessness, the devil, true faith, wisdom

Listening to God’s Voice Ensures 100% Quality.  😉
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

Let’s say someone invited you to join a gathering of people who call themselves Christians. That does not necessarily mean that you attend a church, a home church, a conference or a similar thing. Just imagine that you are going to meet people you have never met before and you want to find out whether they are honest and upright Christians – or not. The most common mistake we tend to make in such cases is the conviction that everyone who is friendly must be indwelt by God’s Spirit. Dear brothers and sisters, nothing could be further from the truth, since Satan usually “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14 ESV). Satan tends to be the nice guy who feeds the bunny a carrot first, but later he whips the stick out of his pocket. As wonderful as it is to meet friendly Christians who really radiate the light and love of God, as painful were my own experiences in the past when I had to deal with those other, in the long run, harmful encounters. Today I rather ask God for His wisdom to show me the truth so that I can more easily perceive who is ‘the real thing’ and who is not (cf. Js 1:5). Love bombing to win me does not work anymore as long as I sense the Lord’s gentle voice inside me saying, “Take care, Susanne!” and I simultaneously feel repelled by the presence of false spirits in those persons I am confronted with.

Focused On Knowing God

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darkness, dying to self, experience, Gerhard Tersteegen, God, heart, light, mind, self-forgetfulness, the new self, the old self

When The Light Comes
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

The following text is an excerpt from chapter 1 “God, Our True Life” of Gerhard Tersteegen’s book “The Quiet Life”. I hope you find it helpful in your quest of experiencing and receiving more from God.

We are conscious these days of a deep-seated hunger, a secret need in our heart’s core, to be set free from sin, from the world, and from self-centeredness, and so to be reunited with our source. We must only be in earnest about it. The power is close at hand. Just stay where you are and unite yourselves with God as with something there already, that you do not need to seek! For God is certainly with you and in you, although hidden by darkness. It is true that this Something to which your heart inclines is not known by you clearly; but this not-knowing is true knowing, and this undefined, better than a thousand definitions.