9 replies to this topic

[Thinker]

Much of the working of the Holy Spirit is not dramatically visible. It is true that the results of His work are frequently visible. Consider the pre-conversion work that He does. Quietly engineering circumstances to engage our attention, He uses various means, such as His Word, a book, a CD, a DVD, the words of a friend or family member, a tract, etc. In that way, He makes us conscious of our sinfulness, of a righteousness that we could never produce and of judgment to come. In John 16:8, this ministry is described. "And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." A person with whom He is working senses his or her lost condition, the judgment that awaits their sin and rebellion, and then a discovery that a Savior has died in their place and that He has paid the penalty due their sin and corruption. If they open their lives to Jesus, as their Savior and Lord, the Spirit of God quietly enters their inner being and takes up residence. Do we see Him enter? Do we see Him change a sinner into a saint? Do we see Him dispel darkness and impart light? Do we see Him changing their inner being, purifying their hearts? We may and should see the results but we don't see the working. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). A quiet and amazing transformation takes place in a human heart. Selah! A vivid and outward emotional response may mask the absence of the Spirit's working. Ron

[chipped china]

When I look back at my life I can clearly see the times when the Spirit was talking to me.

 

I didn't accept Jesus until I was about 35 years old somehow He was working in my heart.

 

When I was 5 or 6 I was standing in the church parking lot saying to myself: I believe in God and I don't know why.

 

During a sermon when I was in 6th grade I picked up the phrase that has always stuck with me. Love does not divide it multiplies.

 

Then I went through 2 horrible marriages before I was 25. I started drinking heavily. Once I thought I was suicidal so a called a Christian hotline. The guy told me he wouldn't council me unless I accepted Jesus. It made me so mad I hug up on him but my suicidal thoughts were replaced with anger over the nerve of that guy! God's tough love.

 

I also remember a very " religious" friend of my sister condemning me for living in sin.  More tough love and not taken with grace on my part.

 

Another time during my drinking while I was very hung over, I was talking to God and telling Him I would do anything to right my ways. My ways were so pathetic, sinful and lost. It took me another couple years to get myself into AA where I learned that God could actually work in your life it you would just let go and let Him. He even healed me of my compulsion to drink. So even though I can look back and cringe at the things I did it was what I personally needed to   bring me to my knees. I don't often go back to that place because I've been made new though going to cross with Him.

 

I definitely felt like I had gone from darkness to Light. I was hungry for doctrine and wanted to do good. God sent people to teach and encourage me. Then I kind of lost my desire to keep learning. I endured a 20 year marriage to an abusive sick man. I no longer believed in divorce so I stayed with him but that just made us both sicker. I didn't know how to help him or myself. Finally my sister talked me into seeing a Christian counselor. God sent more people to minister me and I believe I was anointed with the Holy Spirit. I had His love pouring out of me. That was in 2010. My desire to keep learning and being on fire for Him just keeps going.  Maybe not like in 2010 but in a more realistic way, many addicts don't know what it's like to be even flowing we are always looking for our next high. It can be exhausting always looking for peace and balance. Jesus is the only one who can do this for me and I suppose it's my thorn to keep me humble.

[Candice]

Thinker,

 As you say, He makes us aware of our sinfulness.  For me, this took no one to really tell me since His grace worked subtly as a child on my early twenties, then even after I believed I'd been "converted" in my thirties, several years later, I KNEW my sinful nature, that I had offended a Holy and Perfect and Just God.  That was the moment of true "conversion" for me. 

 

But, I must ask you Thinker, do you have any personal experiences to share.  I don't really know you and what His workings look like in your life....

 

Betsy,

Thank you for sharing from your heart.  And, knowing this, makes a testimony to God all the more real and powerful.

 

Candice

[chipped china]

Thank you Candice, it was really you, Kevin and Charlie (and others) opening up your lives to us that makes me want to show you too how and what Christ has done for me. I grow from hearing revelations God has given others but seeing someone's heart is what makes me love them. It also gives me direction on how to pray for everyone. We are the body of Christ even if we only communicate through these little epistles and we are only has healthy as it's members. I'm kind of homebound right now as is Candice with her hip replacement and weather, so I have the desire to pray and praise with you. God's peace and love to you all.

[radar]

A vivid and outward emotional response may mask the absence of the Spirit's working. That resonates with me! Conviction and condemnation.....that subtile beast wormed it's way seductively into my walk in recent weeks...After realizing that the Spirit was trying to help me my deception lifted and I saw that once again I was relying on the arm of the flesh instead of the Power of the Almighty....it was then that I remembered that there was no condemnation for those who are in Christ, and the accuser of the brethren was the condemner...the Holy Spirit did not condemn my sins but convicted me by pointing toward the Cross and the risen Savior sitting on the right hand of God, forever making intercession, and there was my hope..So I was led to repentance, confessed my sins, and my peace returned....now I am very guarded about what voice I am listening to and what spirit is involved....now when the thought is taken captive, it is screened by the word of God. The next step for me is to detect guilt and condemnation, and reject that and look for conviction and hope, and turn in that direction, with the peace of God being my compass. It was easy to get caught up with ministry and outward showings but just as a car won't go far without gas, you can't minister what you do not posses.

 

This was a timely post for me, as being bi-polar, my poles are switching, as it usually does in the winter from the manic to the depressive side...it is strange, to know that your are blessed in every way and have absolutely no reason for depression, but the emotion is very strong to overcome. Of course I continue to pray for continued healing (it could be a lot worse), and am aware that discouragement wants to set in but that is something that I set my will against because I know God is for me no matter what and besides, if nothing was coming against me, what would I have to overcome and press on in the deeper life in Christ Jesus?

 

For a long while I felt guilty and condemned as my pastor was of the school that bi-polar was more of a sin problem than a physiological/psychological condition. Now that being said, I am aware that this condition by no means can be used as a cover for sin no more than the abuse of free grace. I also understand that there is a demonic spirit oppression component. So what has worked well for me was to keep taking the medications that stabilize the chemical imbalances in my brain and avoid any types of narcotics. It has taken me three years to come into the right regiment of medications. I also kept my weekly "therapy" counseling with my pastor instead of a worldly shrink until the accident that happened to my pastor that caused him long term amnesia. He is starting from scratch with his relationship with Christ as he has no knowledge of the bible. But in his "knower" as he always would us that word to illustrate your conscience, he was aware of what was right and wrong. He told me it was strange that he would know what was right and what was wrong and he did not know why. He was an outlaw biker in his former life. When he regained consciousness after his accident, he says he remembers waking up and asking who the people (who were his family) are and if he was a good man or a bad man. I asked my pastor one day why he did not revert to his former outlaw state since he did not know who he was. He told me that it was because the woman who called herself his wife told him he was a good man and he decided to trust and listen to her. I soon noticed signs that he was sealed by the Spirit as time has went on. The only memory that he has had come back was the day he was saved on even though he does not understand what that means. So It is strange and ironic, Jesus spent just three years with his disciples and then sent the Comforter, His Holy Spirit to guide them in all truth. Now I spend time each week reminding my pastor what he had taught me. He seems to be kinder and more compassionate in the mental health area now.

 

The past week has been a rough one for me. I could not concentrate (i.e. read, pray or study effectively) and spent time in the Psalms where David would pour out his heart to God in his torments but would centrally come back to the Grace, Faithfulness and Goodness of God. My thoughts were all fleeting and scattered, but I knew that this would also pass in time and continued to pray that my faith would not fail. Today the blackness lifted just as the sun would shine through the clouds after dark and dreary days of rain! Praise God! That thorn became a Crown of Glory to God when I had seen that by passing through the fire my faith has become stronger. So today a woman comes in to the homeless ministry with suicidal thoughts and tells me me she is bi polar and needs help. It was then that I realized I could tell her that I knew how she felt, that I too suffered from the same affliction, and how with Jesus's help and the right doctor's care (Jesus does use doctors to heal), she could have a lively hope restored to her life just as I had with mine.

 

Sorry for being so long and rambling, but just thinking on what Thinker said brought this flood of memories to mind in the marvelous way that the Holy Spirit moves. And as an added bonus I get the warning of the vivid outward emotional response check. I would say that Thinker's post was used by the Spirit to provoke me into thought and a answer to my prayers of the recent struggles I have went through. Thanks to all Y'all here! THANK YOU JESUS!  

 

Shalom,

radar   

[Candice]

 Like Radar, I notice this thought in Ron's post: "A quiet and amazing transformation takes place in a human heart. Selah! A vivid and outward emotional response may mask the absence of the Spirit's working."  I wasn't really sure if I understood it as meaning, 1)  emotions are not a good gauge of spiritual reality or 2) we can put on emotional façade which isn't evidence of the Spirit's working.  So, taking the text before hand in that same post, I'm assuming their both accurate conclusions??  Ron, please  fee free to clarify your specific thoughts on this if I'm not accurate in my assumptions here.

 

Radar, "For a long while I felt guilty and condemned as my pastor was of the school that bi-polar was more of a sin problem than a physiological/psychological condition. Now that being said, I am aware that this condition by no means can be used as a cover for sin no more than the abuse of free grace. I also understand that there is a demonic spirit oppression component. So what has worked well for me was to keep taking the medications that stabilize the chemical imbalances in my brain and avoid any types of narcotics. It has taken me three years to come into the right regiment of medications."  Very timely.  I'm not bipolar, but have extreme anxiety for certain times of the day each day for past several weeks.  Depression too.  Don't know if there's not just this big thing going on where every mental illness has been misnamed and given a label.  I too have felt mixture of condemnation (others), guilt (self-induced) and support (others who believe in chemical imbalance and that it's not wrong to take medicine for a sick brain). I read Psalm 51 out loud many times since I have such guilt over the past.  This Psalm is my "go-to" verse when I am having even the slightest need for getting right with God, in addition to my own crying out in my own words.  If I fail in even the slightest stumbling, I just take the plunge into darkness.  If I think I said something that wasn't the best thing to say, even the slightest thing, I just fall into self-condemnation.  This just can't be right.  I don't see others doing this.  Or, maybe they do and don't admit it.

 

Radar, the story of your pastor and how you seem to be ministering to him now to regain his memory and identity is BEAUTIFUL.  How he's seemed to have a change of heart about what goes on in the world of mental illness (or whatever you call it) is kind of interesting.

 

 

In the end, it must be the Lord, our very Father, who convicts each of us of the route we take with respect to this.  Interestingly, Charles Spurgeon had severe depression. I read something he wrote on this:  http://explorebible....and-depression/ 

The Lord comforts those that are cast down. This word “comforteth” is from the Greek word parakaleo {par-ak-al-eh’-o} which means “to call to one’s side and speak to; to encourage, strengthen, instruct, and comfort.” God comforts those that are “cast down.” This word has the idea of being discouraged or depressed. Do Christians get depressed? You bet! In fact, some of the most well known Christians throughout history faced times of depression. Satan’s goal is to get God’s people so discouraged and depressed that he can whisper into the heart of a lost sinner and say, “There is a Christian! Do you want to be like that?”

 

Charles Spurgeon suffered black periods of anguishing depression. On a notable Sunday morning in 1866, the famous Victorian preacher C. H. Spurgeon shocked his five thousand listeners when from the pulpit of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle he announced, “I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever gets to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to.” For some of his audience it was incomprehensible that the world’s greatest preacher could know the valley of despair. Yet, it was a regular part of his life because twenty-one years later in 1887, he said from the same pulpit, “Personally I have often passed through this dark valley.”

Spurgeon also said, “There are dungeons beneath the castles of despair.” His church family at Metropolitan Tabernacle was once amazed to hear Spurgeon begin a sermon from Isaiah 41:14 with these words in his introduction: I have to speak today to myself and whilst I shall be endeavoring to encourage those who are distressed and downhearted, I shall be preaching, I trust to myself for I need something which shall cheer my heart—why I cannot tell, wherefore I do not know, but I have a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me; my soul is cast down within me; I feel as if I had rather die than live; all that God hath done by me seems to be forgotten, and my spirit flags and my courage breaks down. I need your prayers.

 

 Last night, in an intense panic attack, I called a friend who said she'd experienced these before and it wasn't wrong to take a pill for it here and there.  That same morning, yesterday, I woke up with what I would characterize as a protracted panic attack.  Nothing on my mind that I'm worrying about.  Just waking up!  I looked at this website I'd visited before for a Christian counseling office in Billings, MT; about 2 hours away, that specializes in something called EMDR, a newer treatment for PTSD, which I've received alternate diagnosis in the past due to traumatic childhood experiences.  Even Mayo Clinic has done studies on this and is incorporating it into treatment of part of the brain that controls anxiety where the anxiety "go" button gets set and doesn't go "off".  

 

To my surprise and dismay, I recently bought a new book dealing with this sort of speaking the word as a weapon.  Even when I turned the first few pages, there was a check in my spirit.  Something wasn't right, even though there scripture messages in abundance.   Then, after some checking, I find out the writer is a Christian who is practicing divination - foretelling specific future events ( that have not taken place as predicted for a couple of years ago) - e.g. a false prophet.  So, who is safer???  Really!  Am I supposed to just listen to any "Christian" about spiritual warfare?  Bottom line:  go to the Lord.  See my new post coming up from David Wilkerson

 

Ron,

 

Now, I know this is a long response to your post, and I'm not trying to hijack this topic.  I just have to express what is reality, But, I hope I'm not taking this thread to a place that you did not intend for it to go!  Don't want to offend you or anyone else.  But, since you bring up our spiritual state v. our emotional state, I thought I'd come along side Radar so he knows he's not alone

 The other day, as Charlie described  his own experience in this area, I just really took Charlie's counsel (thank you, very good, kind and accepted by me as from the Lord) and gave God the "if this doesn't go away, then forget it.  You can't want this for me.  Is this a thorn in the flesh.  I'll bear it gladly if it has a purpose.  I know, Lord, I can't tempt you or give you ultimatums. I want to, but it won't work.  I want peace and I want it all the time.  If I'm not saved and this depression/anxiety is a sign, then I guess I'll just go on my merry way and live, eat, drink and be merry and forget the Christian life."

 

What is the normal Christian life?  Ok, I can't just sit here and pray and read the word when I'm in a panic attack and need to and want to serve my family dinner, clean, do other things that must be done.

 

Ron,  I recall your words and questions in your original post:  A person with whom He is working senses his or her lost condition, the judgment that awaits their sin and rebellion, and then a discovery that a Savior has died in their place and that He has paid the penalty due their sin and corruption." YES, DONE THIS MANY TIMES!!   "If they open their lives to Jesus, as their Savior and Lord, the Spirit of God quietly enters their inner being and takes up residence. Do we see Him enter? NO, DON'T SEE HIM ENTER. "Do we see Him change a sinner into a saint?"  YES, LOTS OF CHANGE FROM BEING A DOWN IN THE DIRT SINNER TO SEEKING HIM ALL THE TIME AND WANTING ONLY TO PLEASE HIM!   "Do we see Him dispel darkness and impart light?"  NOT SURE IF I CAN MEASURE THIS.  "Do we see Him changing their inner being, purifying their hearts?" YES, SLOWLY BUT SURELY AND CONSISTENTLY WANTING TO BE PURE EVEN TO THE POINT OF HAVING NO ONE ELSE!

 

OK, so why panic attacks and depression?  If I read Psalm 51 more out loud, will this change?  I f I praise more, will this change?  Is this just a thorn in the flesh?  I've done the word-faith stuff.  Don't know, I think it's more about expressing and trusting - like hanging from the ceiling by a strand of dental floss!

[Charles Miles]

Candice,

 

Please forgive me if I in any way suggested that my questions for the Father were in any way an ultimatum.  I was in dispair and did not understand why I was seemingly left alone to face the demons one finds there when I asked for help.  The situation was one in which I could no longer cope and I really thought I could not live through much more of the continuing situation in which I found myself, after 60 years of a supposed christian life.  My cry was one of complete surrender to whatever the Lord wanted , if he would have anything to do with me.  "Here I am, take me and do whatever you need to do because I simply can`t do anything else about what is going on in my life, and I have tried everything I know.  If this is all there is please take me home"........The situation was such that if things continued, I felt God was about to have another dead christian, and I couldn`t believe he wanted that or even wanted me to be in such dispair.  I never intended to issue an ultimatum to the Creator of the universe , especially from one such as I.  The Lord so lovingly and gently showed me that most all the problems I faced were things I could not change and things that were way beyond my control.  Here is the summary God showed me...."I have become miserable, I have tried everything I know to solve things, I feel so helpless, I profess to being christian, I have known about you since age nine, I have been a regular in church, I have come to the conclusion that all this mess will kill me"......   God said all that was true!  He also showed me that all my problems started with "I". He offered me an opportunity to get to know Him on a close personal level, a level of Father/son, to actually be a child of His, a member of His royal household with all the rights of sonhood, rights of inheritance, and rights of peace, comfort, rest, lack of worry.  I simply took Him up on that offer(which had been offered me all along in my life), and He has done all that He has promised He would do!!!  I never, ever in my confused life really understood how magnificent an offer that has always been and the price God paid to be able to offer it to me.

 

Please excuse the long post, but I just had to let you know that I have been stupid about a lot of things in my life, but I hope it didn`t come across that I was dumb enough to give God Almighty an ultimatum. I stand amazed, humbled, greatful, awestruck, and so happy that the Father loves me so much that He would even consider me worthy to even speak to Him and try as best I can to refect His greatness back to heaven in the form of worship and praise.

 

This place I`m in now is one of complete peace and I can say without hesitation that this place is available to all who will repent and ask for it. I don`t know if everyone`s peace come as quickly as mine came but I can say that God is faithful to keep His word in all things.  If you ask for peace....it will come, in fact why not just consider it to be there the instant you ask.  I know that sounds simple, in fact so simple that I missed it for years.......I mean years. Trust, turn it over, leave it with Him and trust that He keeps His word.  He will.

 

In Christ`s love,

 

Charlie

[Candice]

Charlie, no worries because I don't believe you gave God an ultimatum.  I (I, me, myself) wanted to do that because it seems like  being real is important since He knows anyway!  I took your cue because you got real with Him yourself.  I don't know what your experience looked like so I can't say a word about that.  But, I definitely appreciated your transparency and caring heart.  I just know God wouldn't really answer me if I give Him an ultimatum to take away anxiety and give me peace - He won't be put to the test by me.  But, it is "I" who did say that to Him anyway because He knows it's in my heart.  I know He is the omnipotent One and I believe His promises.  I'm just impatient.  I believe it's just a thorn.

 

NO worries.  You did not say anything as a stumbling block!

 

Love

Candice

[Charles Miles]

Thank you Candice for your reply.  I worried some over my post after writing it because often the written word does not give the same information about what one is trying to say as the spoken word.  Hard to explain, but I think we all know how this works.

 

I have been reading your posts in another thread about trials and difficult situations, and I do have a thought.  I don`t think God causes us problems just to see how we react, but I do think He watches how we deal with stuff thrown at us by the devil.  Kind of like we used to get a pop quiz in school....kinda, but not exactly.  Maybe, just maybe, there are 3 things we can use to overcome in stressful situations. 1. Knowledge about God, who He is, and how we can avail ourselves of His power and grace,  2. The understanding that God loves us so much we can`t comprehend and wishes us only good things.  3. The faith to consider any problem already solved when we take it to Him, and rest upon that trust as faith.  For years I would take things to the Lord, tell Him about them, but not turn the situation over to Him completely, so I still worried and agonized about the situation when everything didn`t clear up immediately. This (looking back now) shows a lack of trust on my part that God would do what He said He would do.  That is a lack of trust, showing me now that I had a faith problem.  There might have been some earthly items for me to clean up from a problem, but spiritually the problem was no longer mine, and I had no business at all concerning myself with God`s problem.....because I gave it to Him....didn`t I?  Well, didn`t I?  It`s His now and He said He would deal with it.  Maybe my problems and messes that pulled me down were the result of one main problem....lack of faith in a God whom I said I had faith in.  This is probably not your area of weakness, but it was mine for years and years. All this stopped when I became a family member of God`s family and I knew for a lead pipe cinch that the Lord would take care of His own when they stayed in a relationship close to Him.  I find it is easier to stay in very close relationship when I associate with other children of God so I can be supported in my faith walk by them.  

 

When junk presents itself now, I try to turn it over to my Father right away, but still do anything I should do within my power to make things right with others effected.  After that.....it`s His. Not always easy to keep from trying to convince God how to solve things, but being reminded of Abraham and how he helped God "solve" the childless problem, makes me want to keep my hands to myself. Anyway, know that I pray for you, elizabeth, china, and all on here daily.  This really is a precious group of saints who are always seeking the Lord.

 

In Christ`s love,

 

Charlie

[Kevin Blankenship]

In response to Charlie and Candace's discussion.  I, too, have had these......crisis??...experiences. Many, if not most of the old Christian writers whom we all have grown to love and rely upon have said, in so many words, that we all must go through these crisis experiences an that they are an evidence of God's grace at work to draw us utterly to Him.  (I may have misread alot of the above posts as I am having to read fast and post faster).

  My prayer's for y'all and for all of the Christian brotherhood/sisterhood around the world who are going through these times.  Personally, I believe that God is NOT "put off" by our candidness to HIM. It reveals a faith in Him.  If we didn't BELIEVE in HIM, than we wouldn't have these frustrated crys to him.

   We, like the apostles, are going to Jesus while he sleeps (we think) and the storm is raging and our boat is being tossed about on a sea of uncertainies, despairs, depressions, clinical depressions, anxieties, etc etc.  And we cry:  Save us LORD!!!!!!!!   Jesus comes in at the right time. When the storm is over......our faith is a bit stronger.......we'll need that strength for the trials that come.......for I believe that the great USA is undergoing a trial by fire, so to speak.  Nothing is going right.  Candace....Charles......if I missed the mark on what y'all were talking about....it is because my scanning your posts got me stirred up and feeling empathetic.  Forgive me for not reading carefully. I'll come back here today when chores are done and read carefully.  And to THINKER.......I apologize for this hijack, if that is what it is. Your post obviously stimulated conversation. On a Christian forum....HIJACK is likely the wrong term.  I am like Candace, THINKER.  Share about your own personal experiences with your subject matter. I am trying to get to know everyone here......not just what they believe precisely......but to KNOW them on a personal level.   Anyway.....Love....Peace.....Merry CHRISTmas to everyone here.  I wish I didn't have to rush this morning. I'm in the mood to talk about all of this.  But duty calls.  (Nature is also calling............stewed prunes ya know.)