Gospel Reading and Reflection

This he exposed (((their))) hypocrisy.

Pick up a book that you have never read that you are interested in reading

Look for the messages the authors leave you

Consequently it is telling you to read all the biblical literature to find the real messages that will ultimately give you newfound insight

Once you've developed that part of yourself, your heightened intuition becomes a useful tool

Surely God is not found in the scripture? People who can't read still believe in Jesus. Thus God must be found by direct experience. The question is, where should I direct my attention in order to find him? What does seeking mean in practice?

Prayer. The Lords Prayer and just general "hey god can you show yourself to me" be persistent

Every person has an innate sense of right and wrong, through introspection you can draw all sorts of profound conclusions based on that knowledge.

You can also lead yourself astray, if you don’t study philosophy, history, and logic.

That's the route I've been taking so far. I just wonder if there is a point where you know that you have found him. Some kind of reassuring experience? Will the seeking ever stop?

Hey, I think you're on the correct path. To seek is an active practice, and while meditating on the Word can illuminate deeper meaning and understanding, I believe the divinely inspired gospel is a tool box intended to prepare your spiritual life. But to practice the teachings in the company of others, to influence and impact their lives with you as a medium and conduit of the Word is the path to "find" God. He can only work so much in a vacuum. It is through the trials and tribulations of others can He work through us. Get this, Goliath of Gath would have triumphed had David never stepped forward.

If you're not familiar with the new testament; at least read the Gospels (if you only had to read one, I'd suggest John...) but try to toss out your preconceived ideas about Christianity that has been pushed by the worldly churches over the last 2000 years.

When you run across something that your heart rejects - look deeper into what it's saying. Whip out Strong's Concordance.

HELLO user. GOD HERE.
YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN. YOU ARE MY NEXT PROPHET. YOUR TASK WILL NOT BE EASY. YOU MUST LISTEN TO THE VOICES IN YOUR HEADS. YES, EVEN THE LITTLE TIMMY. THEY WILL GUIDE YOU. YOU ARE A PROPHET user. YOU MUST GUIDE OUR PEOPLE TO THE RIGHT PATH. IT IS THE SECOND STREET ON THE LEFT WHEN YOU GET OUT. THEN DO NOT STOP. AND DO NOT GET LOST IN THE WILDNESS FOR 40 YEARS LIKE THE LAST IDIO...I MEAN PROPHET. ONCE THERE, YOU WILL KNOW IT IS THE HOLY LAND I GIVE TO THE FINNS. IT WILL BE BASED AND AUTISTIC AND WILL RULE THE WORLD FOR A THOUSANDS YEARS. GO MY SON. AND STOP WATCHING TRAP PORN.

You'll know when he's found you. It's not just an intellectual assent to believe. Bless.

in live there will be ups and downs. Once you think you are up next day you'll find yourself down ... so you start climbing again. Our life journey. Reserve some time for prayer/meditation. Our society is bombarded with news/music etc. from outside. You have to find some time to be still/quiet. God bless!

Seems legit.

scheduling prayer works even better. I can testify. The first step is to be brutally sincere with yourself. THE PEACE OF THE LORD BE WITH YOU

>But to practice the teachings in the company of others, to influence and impact their lives with you as a medium and conduit of the Word is the path to "find" God

Is this mandatory? Can't I Iive as a hermit and still find Godf? I don't like being around other people. I just want to be alone and not get too involved with the world.

>When you run across something that your heart rejects - look deeper into what it's saying.

Are you implying that I should or should not listen to my heart when it wants to reject something? On one hand, Bible teaches that the heart is foolish and prone to wickedness, yet Bible also tells to invite jesus to dwell into our hearts and guide us from there. What is the deal with this?

How will you know it? How did you know?

Thanks. What about accidentally becoming vulnerable to demonic possession while meditating? How do I ensure against this? I've heard people undergo traumatizing experiences after meditating or praying.

Try reading Psalms. Good luck

I mean, there are multiple accounts in the Word where prophets recede for years and meditate only on God, but the thing is, they always return, either by their own means or spurned by God to reveal the gospel to the masses. Meditation is introspective journey, but Jesus' last words were to go out into all creation and preach the Word to every soul. If your goal is truly to seek the Lord, I think being a hermit can only serve you so far.

On demonic possession, do not worry. If your heart is set on God and you've asked and accepted him into your heart, there is NO room for a demon to creep in, neither would it dare. Remember, your God is bigger. Always and forever. You've got serious muscle on your side. And even if you feel a stirring of demonic presence, say, "I rebuke you in Jesus' name." They will flee.

>being a (((capitalist)))

If God is so generous why won't he take my pathetic soul away from this earth which he has so obviously abandoned?

Who has God at this point? I'm pretty sure I've lost him per my own fault.

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>How will you know?

I'm still seeking myself, brother. I'm plugged in my church and teach the children, I struggle with prayer, lust and the sins of the flesh, but I feel him. Intellectualizing the Holy Ghost is counter intuitive, it's like an ant trying to contemplate the inner machinations of a human. My knowledge is human and limited.

However! That being said, I feel him like a hot flush through my spine and cheeks when faced with a trial or task and that's when I know He's with me and speaking. But that's only my experience, his touch may impact you in a completely different way. I hope I'm of service and not confusing you with this.

What if they masqueraded as a force of God? Satan in the end is the great deceiver. How to recognize actual God's embrace from something that merely pretends to be such?

never too late to turn back. AFAIK Constantine was baptized on his death bed.

>Are you implying that I should or should not listen to my heart when it wants to reject something
That's an awesome question, it's clear that you're on the right path. I see the Heart (and emotions) as a *compass*. It's not exactly a map - and it's certainly not the territory. We're trained through childhood and adulthood to misinterpret what our Hearts tell us.

Listen to what your Heart tells you, but don't accept it as the ultimate reality. Once you get a reading from your compass, don't just follow it blindly. Tilt your head up from it and look around. Hope that makes some kind of sense heh.

>How will you know it? How did you know?
I would describe my experience as having had my Being smashed into thousands of pieces but then reassembled in a more correct manner. As if I had spent my life putting together an Ikea dresser, but I did it completely wrong (because I had listened to the advice of everybody else) until Jesus walked into the room and reassembled it correctly for me.
The disassembly was a death, but the reassembly was a personal resurrection. Very disturbing and emotionally painful, but it was ultimately good and correct.
I actually didn't come to Christianity for several months after my experience - I was calling it a "spiritual awakening" for months as I was studying these subjects relentlessly trying to figure out what happened to me. The breadcrumbs brought me to the Gospel of Philip, which led me to the canonical gospels. Suddenly I was reading these books with new eyes and it was as if they were explaining my experience(s) in ways that I had not been able to articulate myself.

From personal experience, there was a time when I was praying for truth and the salvation of my soul. Thinking in retrospect I was doing what Romans 10:13 says "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Don't worry about confusing me. I ask these same questions from many people in order to find if there is a common theme that could point me to the right direction.

>Listen to what your Heart tells you, but don't accept it as the ultimate reality. Once you get a reading from your compass, don't just follow it blindly. Tilt your head up from it and look around. Hope that makes some kind of sense heh.

Yes, that makes a lot sense. Thanks for sharing your experience. Was your "death" a spontaneous experience, or did it occurr after a period of realizations, or some external event?

Was there a specific point or realization when you knew you had been saved?

Give them all your money and let them lobodomize you
You will get your reward.
When your dead.
They promise.

I suggest that you read the gospel of John and the epistle to the Romans for the basics, from a King James version if you're reading in English.

Ooooh! That is a good question. All right, forgive my simplistic answer, but I think it will serve well.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the light, none come before my father except through me." Jesus is our light, our truth. And multiple examples through the Word describe Lucifer as the prince of the power of the air, the great accuser and deceiver, the god of the Earth. How can deception survive under the lens of truth? First ask, is this spirit of the Earth, of the flesh? If so, speak the name of Jesus before it, and time after time brother they retreat and expose themselves. Darkness cannot survive in the light.

God is always waiting for you if you're willing to go back to Him.

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"Paranormal" bible quotes are my favorites
See you in the afterlife my brothers :)

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I had some doubts about being saved at first when I was watching some "christians" preaching on youtube. The point when I became sure of my salvation is when I recalled Romans 10:9-10( That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.) and John 6:37(All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.).

Some advice from my experience as well is:
Understand that salvation is an unearned gift from God.
Understand that Jesus is God in the flesh.
Avoid modern bible translations and stick to the King James Version.

>Was your "death" a spontaneous experience, or did it occurr after a period of realizations, or some external event?
Hmm tough to say exactly...it wasn't the result of any sort of external event though.
My very first experience was a "voice" (I didnt actually hear anything though - it was like a voice without a sound?) that said "The world isn't supposed to be the way it is." Obviously lots of people feel that way - myself included - but it had always been a matter of the intellect. I heard it in my Heart, so-to-speak.
Looking back, it's as if I had taken myself to be a vase full of water. The vase developed lots of superficial cracks and chips throughout my life. The "voice" was a crack that finally ran right through the walls of the vase. This weak point lead to dozens of cracks throughout the vessel which then shattered and the water flowed out everywhere. Then I realized that I was the water the whole time - the vase had been a limitation.
It's scary to lose your form, even if it turns out it was an illusion.

So....spontaneous, but the implications of the first experience was what led to the death. I didn't have any sort of spiritual practice, and I had no particular religious beliefs.

Read John 14-17, on at least four different occasions in that passage Christ is almost imploring us to ask for blessings. Reading that one cant help to feel admiration and humility for His love for us.

Because we are living in a simulation to see whether we are worthy or not.

I have to go, but thanks for the replies, I read and appreciate them all.

I remember when I was saved. I was living in Seattle at the time and working as an actor. I drank heavily every night, was a constant nuisance on my friends and family and my ego was as massive as they come. I was raised in the church, but at this time bordered on militant atheism.

It was the evening after a large performance and I was back in my apartment and I felt empty, brother, like the cargo hold of a plane opening and spilling its load. I looked at a bottle of whiskey as a means of solace and felt a hot flush and vision of myself in the future as an old, decrepit old man dying of cancer and loneliness and I lost it. I broke down in tears and sobbed myself to sleep crying out to God again and again. I heard nothing.

The next day I got my ass to church. It was a large one I hadn't visited full of two hundred plus people and it felt full. I went there with a girl I was courting at the time. Service was sweet and uplifting and they were baptizing new members right afterwards. I stared at the tub yearning for a change. That's when I heard His voice, "Go." And I kid you not, I stood up, ignored the line and straight up dove into the water. I felt my pass self die in that moment, like a turd being flushed away and when I rose for air, it was like breaking out of a sweltering humidity. That was my experience.

That's awesome dude. Did it feel like a death of self?

At least, a proper thread. Amen
PS: Research Orthodoxy, the only true Christianity

The most powerful form of prayer is Thanksgiving-- "For before you have asked, I have provided."
God shows up whenever you let it.
Try waking up tomorrow and saying a quiet prayer,
"Thank you for the lessons I will reveive today and for the knowledge you have set in my path for me to discover. I pray that I might have the wisdom to notice it. Amen."
The hard part is then paying attention constantly to not miss it throughout the day.
Remember, user: Christ's disciples were all deeply flawed individuals, but He loved and forgave them anyway. You are no different.

Death of self, absolutely - it was almost as if I could almost physically feel parts of my Self being peeled away. But because I had almost completely rejected Christianity, I got sidetracked after my first experience by reading lots of eastern guru-types who seem to tell people to completely let go of the ego. I was afraid I'd end up wandering around my city in a loincloth until I got locked up in an asylum haha.

I would liken my "death of Self" to removing everything from your bedroom in order to "reset." But as I was removing things from my bedroom, I started ripping the baseboards off the walls intending to dismantle the walls and plumbing lol. Then I remembered that God gave me the bedroom to begin with and it seems wrong to destroy something that God gives you. A lot of eastern stuff seems to deny not only the flesh, but also the soul.

I love your testimony, brother! Living in this place, it's reassuring to hear others' experiences with the Spirit.

I had a very similar experience. I started to dabble in eastern mysticism as a gateway to Christ, as though meditation were a removal of my attachment to the Earth instead of a intentional seeking and knowing of God.

I think it was C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity where my eyes were open to the concept that only through the death of self and my presumptions of Christian living could God work through me and intensify, revive my personality.

Do you still feel yourself getting in your own way? That's what I'm battling. Like I'm trying to reconstruct the floorboards while God already has the schematics and construction crew to get the job done right.