Tags
deception, delusion, discerning the spirits, Emmanuel Church (Tulsa/OK), encouragement, experience, following Jesus, God's guidance, God's love, God's voice, image of God, love, Resurrection Life, sheep, Spiritual Abuse, spiritual gifts, T.A. Sparks, The Good Shepherd, The Holy Spirit, the law, this world, View of God, walking by the spirit, world, worldly spirits
The way how this blog post has come into being was really strange. A few days ago I thought about publishing a new article, yet I felt no clear leading apart from posting these pictures of the sheep in a WordPress draft. I also recalled I had written an older blog post about another ‘sheep experience’ that dealt with the how we as His sheep can hear our Master’s loving voice (cf. here). But that seemed to be ‘all’ at that moment. I also searched for a book or an article by T. Austin Sparks that would contain the word ‘sheep’ as part of a title anywhere, but alas, there was nothing. So, I gave up on trying to find something to write about and rather tidied up our flat. Indeed, such an occupation that can turn out a spiritual experience, too. Whether it is cooking, shopping, doing the laundry or else, God is always at hand. 🙂
Reading such a title, we might be tempted to think, “Oh, that is too much for me, look at myself, I am not worthy at all. I am such a failure!!” Contemplating the other side of same the coin, another one might wonder whether they should be changed at all, asking themselves, “Am I that bad? Shouldn’t rather all those others around me be changed?” 🙄 Well, you might have already guessed that the coin I was speaking of is called The Self. Whether we view our old nature as good or as bad does not matter in the eyes of God. What He longs to see in us when He looks at us is a purified spirit being that has become as transparent as Jesus Christ Himself. By such divine transparency we should reflect the glory of God like a perfectly cleaned mirror that reflects the sunlight, even unfractured. But still, we might wonder how such a miraculous transformation could ever happen in us? 🙄 
Yesterday in the evening I found myself mulling over problems other Christians close to me have been struggling with. Although I knew that the solution for our unsolvable problems could always only be found in the spiritual realm, I finally had to realize that the only thing I could do was to keep praying for their deliverance. And I have prayed for it already, even for a long time, for many, many years and decades. As I was just standing in front of the mirror in our bathroom, still thinking about this problem of the fear of death, this sting which exclusively in Christ and His victory is overcome (cf. 1 Cor 15:54-57), I heard the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart distinctively,
It was only today as I have started to see more clearly how Satan keeps our minds busy and worried all day long. Not that I had not heard about it before, however, the theory once learned has come alive now, so to say. What I am referring to is the simple pattern Satan always uses to pull us down on his level as soon as we have begun to relax in the presence of God. You know this pattern that starts telling us to distrust God by asking, “Hath God really said?”
During the last weeks and months I published several articles on walking in the spirit. The connection between walking by the spirit and living in the spirit seems to be quite simple. Paul in his letter to the Galatians put it this way,
Entering the Promised Land 