1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
|
Conference of the inner healing
###############################
:date: 2019-05-25T09:56:54
:category: faith
:tags: Christianity, innerHealing, desertStream
When John wrote about himself he didn’t himself us an evangelist,
a gospel-writer, an apostle, he identified himself as the one
whom Jesus loved.
The situation where John leaned on the Jesus’ chest: we cannot
just read it, we have to have the experience it ourselves. Living
like a wife whose husband left for the far away country
(business, solider) and she doesn’t know she has means of instant
communication, so she just reads his old love letters. We are
just reading the old love letter of Bible instead of the instant
messaging with him.
The biggest spiritual exercise we all need to do regularly is how
to let ourselves to be fools. Perhaps in every situation we don’t
see the expected of our following of what we believed was God’s
voice is our training to be willing to be a fool for Christ.
Perhaps when we leave our shopping in the supermarket and nothing
happens, we should say “Thank you, Lord, that you gave me
strength and courage to actually follow on what I believed was
your voice and that a bit of my pride got shed off.”
---
“We are more than conquerors in Christ” (not sure how accurate
quotation this is, and I am certainly not sure my interpretation
is correct). “Conqueror” here as a survivor, somebody who get to
the other side of the story and still lives to tell the tale.
However, we are not supposed just to survive, we are supposed to
live. We may not be the one at the helm of the history (no need
for control freaks, Jesus is the one at the helm), but we should
be changing the flow of history not just follow or react to what
happens to us.
Don’t wear Saul’s armour! We are all unique, we are all special,
we are all individuals (“`I am not`_”), and we all should serve
the Lord according to our special gifts.
.. _`I am not`:
https://youtu.be/KHbzSif78qQ
----
Mental and spiritual deprivation:
* if our parents were not Christians, so they cannot teach us how
to live as a child of God,
* too busy, so not enough time (or interest) to deal with the
intimate relationships
* they own vulnerabilities (her father was a solider in the
Second World War)
Deprivation lead to the defensive detachment: standing on the
outside, cynicism, lowered expectations.
Ex 16: gather only as much manna as needed. Those who gathered
more and kept it for themselves, it got mouldy.
Satisfaction: godly (full of gratefulness and thankfulness which
in healthy manner hopes for more) and ungodly (self-sufficiency,
lowered expectations). “As a doe longs for the living waters …”
do we long for more? Do we pray, that God could make us more
thirsty? We are too often satisfied with just what we have, we
have our salvation and that’s enough. It is not easy to recognize
we need to hope for more.
----
There are some things which are required for small groups:
* Equal exchange for everybody — there is no one who would be
above others (not like in the professional psychotherapy
session). We all are equal and all should be very authentic.
Decision to be authentic is very challenging one: no everybody
is the same and we have a great pressure to emulate others, or
even worse the leader. Some small groups are very cold and not
very secure. Only deep relationships allowed deep resilient
against shame, we have to know how others are able to sustain
difficult conversations.
* Mutual inspiration and mutual respect. Say “Thank you!”,
simple things. There are many groups which are not like that,
they are more oriented on plans and schedules.
Don’t advise, but lead each other towards God to search your
own answers. Lead each other towards God for confession as
well (provide testimony, but not direct confrontation).
We need to have compassion with other other and for yourself,
so that we could be honest and not judge each other.
|
