Enjoying God E-Book

Alan J. Niebergal

• Herausgeber: BooxAi
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

This book is about experiencing the greatest blessings of this life and the life to come. It is about the beautiful spiritual blessings of Jesus in heavenly places. It is the road to fullness and wholeness. It is the road that anyone who has a healthy self-interest will choose.
This great blessing is a result of being very close to God and having a vital intimate relationship with Him enhanced and released through prayer. To truly learn to pray is not an easy road, but it is very critical to fullness and living the Christian life in the abundance of the Spirit. This is the pearl of great price that Jesus spoke about. This calls for an earnest devotion and discipline to place ourselves in the place where God can gift us with contemplative prayer and we might truly enter into the fulness of enjoying God in this life and the life to come. This requires that we make room in our life for God.
Jesus invites us to come and find rest. We will learn how people that have gone before us learned about the process that God uses in spiritual formation so that we might receive the blessings that God passionately desires to give us. We will learn how we can enter this process and make continual progress in prayer and spiritual formation. Then we learn to truly experience Christlike transformation from the inside out.
In him is life and life abundantly, and as the disciples said, "Where should we go, you have the words of life". This kind of a blessing in and through prayer and Jesus Christ is available to all people. In his strength and by his spirit we can enter into his invitation to life and life abundantly.

Leseprobe

Enjoying God

Enjoying God

Alan J. Niebergal

2022 by Alan J. Niebergal. All rights reserved.

No part of the book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible, copyright@ 2001,2008,2016 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version of the Bible, copyright@ 1979,1980,1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc.

ISBN 978-965-578-018-5

Enjoying God

Prayer and Spiritual Formation

Alan Niebergal

Contents

Preface

Introduction

I. Mankind’s Ultimate Calling

1. Full Union with God in Christ

2. A SAINT-One who is in Christ

3. The Missing Blessing

4. Our Heritage

II. The Process of Spiritual Formation

5. Sanctification Positionally and Practically in Christ

6. The Overview of the Process of Spiritual Formation

7. Types of Prayer

8. Reaching the Heights

9. Stages Along the Way

10. Attachments

11. Consolation and Desolation

12. Dark Night of the Soul

III. The Active and Contemplative Life

13. The Contemplative life

14. The Contemplatives that have gone before us

15. The Active Life

16. Focus and Discernment

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

To the man who was Christlike at a worksite.

Preface

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38).

If anyone thirsts. We all thirst. If a person doesn’t drink water, they will perish. We must be replenished with water to survive. Likewise, if a person doesn’t drink spiritual water, they will not be sustained. We all must keep refreshed, or we will die. Spiritually, we will also miss out on God’s fullness for us. The way to fulness is in the quality of our relationship with the Lord and this quality of the relationship is in Jesus Christ and is developed in prayer. The greater our closeness to the Lord, the more fulness we will have in our life. “It can truly be said that we cannot live the Christian life unless we learn how to pray.”1

We can choose to drink living waters, or we can drink contaminated waters that will make us sick and if we continue to drink this water, will bring death. In a country like Israel, where Jesus lived, water was precious because of the desert-like conditions in many areas. Water that stagnates is likely to carry a lot of contaminants and diseases. Water that is moving aerates itself and purifies itself. Jesus offers us rivers of living waters.

We all have a sense of incompleteness, an emptiness that we seek to fill. There are many ways that people seek to fill it—with family, friends, fame, accomplishments, wealth, possessions, recognition, sex, drugs, and a search for pleasure and comfort, power, and security in many other ways, to name a few. The result is that we live in a culture of addictions. The cry of human nature is –just a little more—just a little more of what doesn’t satisfy, compared to what does. It is like trying to eat snow instead of water. Eating snow for survival can lead to hypothermia and dehydration. It can lead to death. Only pride would hinder someone from not receiving the living water, and try to find another way to sustain life or find fulness in life.

We thirst and the way we seek to fill this thirst is of utmost importance? No wonder there are so many self-help books. These wisdom ideas may assist in living a better life to a certain extent, but they don’t fill man’s ultimate thirst. We may have our wagon attached to the wrong star and, in the end only find the in the end emptiness, even though many people courageous their lives. Jesus said he will show us the way to fulfillment and that it is in him. He said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He gives us spiritual life right now and eternal life to come, plus the result of spiritual life is fullness in this life.

In my life, I recognized strength in some Christians that I worked with and I knew, that I didn’t have that strength they had and I wanted it. After seeing that strength in a few people, I read the Bible almost completely through, over the course of a year, before I prayed the sinner’s prayer at the invitation of an evangelist sermon in a church and was remarkedly reborn in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. I wept profusely with an attitude of gratitude for his love mixed with tears of repentance as God poured his waves of love upon me. The emptiness and lack of purpose that I sensed before were now gone. I experienced peace, forgiveness, joy, and love. The overall intensity of that experience lasted about a few days. Fortunately, I had some people to walk alongside me and assist me in my discipleship in Christ. Then I had to learn to walk more by faith rather than just feelings. This is the standard for every disciple of Jesus, many may only sense that intensity for a short time, sometimes a few hours, a day, or a week. The experience of salvation may be different, but the road of discipleship is similar for all. We must learn to walk by faith and not just seek him for the feelings we receive from him, but to seek him for Himself. This is the only way to true Christian maturity.

Quite a few years after that I remember as a Pastor reading the above scripture on the rivers of living water again and thinking--you know, I am not really experiencing what Jesus is talking about here. As a Pastor, the church was growing and people were coming to saving faith, but this wasn’t bringing the fulfillment that Jesus had said would occur. Why wasn’t I experiencing the fullness of these rivers of living water, even though I was walking in faith and serving Him?

The thirst is not filled in anything but Christ. Not in Christian service, not in being recognized and appreciated, in nothing but in Him. Oftentimes, our motives are corrupted and our goals contaminated. There must be a purification process that has to occur in our soul and when our wagon is on the wrong path, it will not happen. This process of the Christian life is called spiritual formation and through this process, God looks at us and we invite him to look at the deepest recesses of our hearts and cleanse these aspects of our soul so that our thirst is truly filled in Christ. It cannot be satisfied with contaminated water. The cup must be cleansed to hold the living water in its fulness. It is spiritual transformation into actual and practical Christlikeness. Not just on the outside, but deep within the heart and soul. “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). We must advance in our interior life.

Spiritual formation has been largely neglected in many evangelical churches and denominations. This is mostly true in local churches. This is somewhat surprising since spiritual formation is of utmost importance in the discipleship process. However, a lot of seminaries that train pastors now have a spiritual formation element. We can clean up the outside like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, but in our service to God, we can be self-serving. God’s objective is fullness in our lives. (Ephesians 3:19) Not just a superficial cleaning of the outside. Our heart must be purified if we are going to quench the thirst and this thirst is quenched only in enjoying God and being in full union with him. The greater the practical union with Christ, the greater the fulfillment. (2 Corinthians 9:6) The greater our seeking of primarily God’s glory the greater our fulfillment and the fuller our enjoyment of God as His kingdom is advanced.

Introduction

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

Mankind’s greatest inmost desire is for God. Only God can fulfill man’s longing, only God can complete man, and only in God does man find his home—his ultimate place of belonging. C.S. Lewis, in his books Mere Christianity and Weight of Glory, said that it wasn’t primarily the intellectual rationale for God that brought him to salvation in Christ, but in getting in touch, with this innermost longing in his heart for God and at various times experiencing this longing and the fulfillment he experienced during the short intervals of time. These longings for God, for Lewis, were very beautiful. Reason can only take us so far. We don’t know everything but God does. God’s reason unlike man’s is not corrupted by pride and self-seeking. Let us trust Him who knows far more than we can think or imagine.

All people at some time experience these longings. It is being drawn to something very good and awesomely beautiful. It is being drawn to the light, as the gospel of John emphasizes. We sense then a drawing to come to completion—a drawing to come home, to where we belong. As the Bible says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God is the author of these longings.

Is it fair that God gave us this longing? If we desire goodness and wholeness, we desire God. He is God and He made us. It is a drawing to wholeness and fullness. He absolutely knows what is good and he is the essence of goodness. Yes, it is fair because he draws us to goodness which is fullness and is what is best for us and others. He extends His love to all. He created us with a thirst for what is good and He is unfathomably good and His goodness makes the most sense. Where else could we go? We can allow ourselves to be drawn to good or evil. Fulfillment is found nowhere else but in Christ. God created us for a growing love relationship with Him. However, many spend their time in countless distractions to deny these longings and try to find fulfillment in themselves, or in power, security, sex, or vanity. Mankind shoots for the wrong target and too often hits it. (Romans 3:23) Why focus on what does not satisfy? The answer is that, just like Adam and Eve, mankind looks for what they think will satisfy primarily from looking at outward appearances. However, it is a sign of health when a person longs for righteousness, which is God himself. He is the only one righteous. (Romans 3:10) We long for goodness, as we long for heaven, a world without evil, pain, and destruction. A place of fulness and joy.

It is also very beautiful that God longs for us. He longs for us to experience the best, which is full union with Him in love. After Jesus told his followers that He is actually the bread they are looking for, in other words, he was not the way to primarily gain material things, but the very essence of life in himself, many fringe followers chose no longer to follow him. Jesus said to the disciples, “Do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of life” (John 6:66-68). They were catching the essence. There is no fulfillment found anywhere else. Are we truly a disciple of Jesus or just a tourist for a time, to try to get what we think we think we want? It is too easy to have misplaced affections.

We as Christians often talk about the love of God for us and how that changes us and strengthens us, however, we don’t talk enough about our growing love for God and with God and of God. Loving God is what thoroughly changes us and deals with the root issues of our lives. We focus much on loving self, but are we loving self too much? To keep this in perspective, we must love God more than self, or self itself becomes an idol, to be worshiped and adored. We need a certain amount of self-love, but too much is called selfishness or, at the worst, narcissism. Without some self-love, we would not even seek true fulfillment in God or seek the salvation of our souls. However, our culture today encourages and celebrates narcissism.1 We must love God more than self, to be ordered rightly. Jesus asked Peter during his ascension and appearances to the disciples, “Simon, Son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15). Do you love me more than the world or the things of the world? Do you love me more than other people? Do you love me more than self? Loving God is the only way to healing and to finding and enjoying our true self in Christ and to fullness in life and life eternal in heaven.

We have made secondary things of first importance and first things of secondary importance. If we have the wrong target, it is likely we will hit it and miss out on the fulness of this life, and in the life to come. If we are going to realize our ultimate goal, the goal must be very clear in our minds and heart. “If we don’t know where we are going, any road will get us there.”2 What is the primary goal of man? What is the primary goal of the Christian? To answer this question is of utmost importance. In this book, I hope to emphasize not only our primary objective but also the Biblical basis and explain some of how to arrive at this goal. However, the process is so very vast and has been so neglected, especially among us as Evangelicals, that it will take another book or the reading of other books to understand the process more completely. Because it is so profound and mysterious when we let God be God, Saint John of the Cross said that it was trying to explain the unexplainable. I will be only touching the fringe of the garment, in relation to the process. Of course, our best teacher is God, and we learn by spending much time in prayer with God and making a lot of room for God in our lives. We only learn prayer by praying. In our prayer life, we go from talking at God to talking with God, to learning how God speaks to our heart and mind and frees our will. Most of all we learn to be silent and sit or stand or walk in his presence. We need to learn how to listen to Him and fully enjoy Him. How can we grow in our love for God, if we don’t regularly spend quality and valuable time with Him in prayer? Our best time should be spent with Him.

Satan doesn’t want us to spend time with God in prayer and will seek in every way to get us to forsake this in our Christian life. Be prepared for resistance and press on. ((James 4:7) When we go to pray, Satan will especially seek to distract us. Everything that we could possibly imagine will be thrown into our minds and hearts. “We must never underestimate the perverting power of the demonic.” 3 Prayer takes practice and persistence. We think that prayer should just be easy and natural. It is once we are proficient, but even then, we will experience different times of resistance.

We can make petitions of God when we ask God for help, support, and for things and we can pray intercessory prayers for others’ salvation and assistance and healing, but the prayer we are talking about mostly is being silent in God’s presence with an attitude of loving divine attentiveness toward God. This way, God can speak to our souls and lead us progressively into the way of fullness. This is when we are inclined to listen. When the eastern monks used to pray at times, they would repeat the “Jesus’ prayer.” “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Just sit, stand, kneel or prostrate yourself on the floor and quietly enjoy being with God and he will direct you. To center on God and practice a divine attentiveness to Him is to pray. It is good to remember in this learning process that a technique must never take the place of God.

We become what we desire the most. If we desire God passionately, we will become like Him, as we go progressively proceed along this road our hearts will be progressively purified. This does call for courage and integrity. Not many, however, take this road, because it is not easy. As Jesus said, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). This road takes the utmost devotion, diligence, and perseverance. It is a rigorous journey, but well worth it. The closer you are drawn close to God, the more you will be drawn like a magnet to God. The more you are drawn to God, the more obstructions are removed, and the greater the fulfillment, the closer to the pure essence of goodness you enter into with God. As John of the Cross said, “The soul, then, enkindled with the love of God, yearns for the fulfillment and perfection of love in order to have complete refreshment therein. As a servant, wearied by the summer heat, longs for the refreshing shade, and as a hireling awaits the end of his work, the soul awaits the end of hers.”4

One of the people in history, who had been very Christlike was Francis of Assisi. Many say that he was the most Christlike person in this modern era. His influence even today is enormous. He has inspired and directed many by His absolute passion for God. Thousands were drawn to be with him, as he directed them to God. The dedication of these followers of Christ was radical and profoundly impactful throughout the centuries and even today. There were many others throughout history that we can also learn from and be inspired to draw very close to God. To name another passionate lover of Christ is Saint Antony of the Desert, who in the third century had hundreds come to him in the desert to be guided and learn from him the gospel and the way of spiritual formation in Christ. When we are truly Christlike, people are drawn to the Jesus we know. (Acts 4:13) At the same time, we must realize that “a holy life, though important is no replacement for gospel proclamation to the lost.”5Along these lines, J.I. Packer states, “The way to tell whether, in fact, you are evangelizing is not to ask whether conversions are known to have resulted from your witness. It is to ask whether you are faithfully making know the gospel message.”6 Even Francis of Assisi with humility and boldness preached the gospel message enthusiastically and explained in his preaching and one-to-one evangelism, both heaven, and hell. He was a fiery preacher of the gospel on the streets.

To state it more Theologically, our ultimate goal is union with God in heart, mind, and practice. Too often, we think that just knowing about God and studying about Him will bring us to fulfillment. But even if we could understand all mysteries, if our heart is not purified and transformed, and drawn close to God, there is something missing. (1 Corinthians 13:2) If I have not a growth in my love for God—I have nothing. Of course, loving God will also result in loving others in a Godly way. We must go from just knowing God to loving God. Even in our activism, we can sense that we are not experiencing the living waters that Jesus promised. (John 7:38) It is all about Jesus.

Unfortunately, many in our Evangelical churches have reverted to just enduring life until Jesus comes, they are worldly enough to be accepted by the world, but not ever radically changed within and have given up on spiritual formation, and have settled to accepting the status quo of appearances, and seeking the approval of others, even over our approval of Jesus and love for him.

Too often, people are fooled into an approach to life as Christians where they want to put as little as possible into their relationship with God and still get as many benefits as possible and have some assurance of salvation. They want to put in as little effort and still love the world and its comforts rather than Christ and the cross of Christ. “To accept Christ is to shoulder the cross.”7 It is the way of love. One day everyone will realize how much we missed out on and how foolish we were. The relationship with God and its quality is the only thing that brings lasting fulfillment in this life and reward in the next. (Ephesians 3:19) We deny the false life of selfishness and pick up the true life in Christ. The frustration that many Christians experience is largely due to trying to live their life without Christ flowing through them. (Galatians 2:20) Just like Theology, Spiritual Formation is difficult and many only just play around on the edges.

The main problem we have as people in general and even as Christians is sinful pride, both natural and spiritual, but many do not know how to change it. Only in Christ is change possible. Satan has us running in circles when the world is dying and going to hell. “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24) “The power of evil perverts the good. “The demonic is present under a thousand disguises.”8 Pride, ingratitude, and anger, as well as all the seven deadly sins, must be rooted out in our souls and this is only done in Christ and in cooperation with Christ and by Christ. This most often is a long process. Inner sin will not be completely and utterly eliminated in this life, but we can, in Christ, be transformed and our hearts more filled with God rather than with sinful pride and self. Our reach will always exceed our grasp until we are in heaven and then although we will still have a lot of room for growth, in heaven we be without the presence of sin, that does not mean that we are fully mature, or know everything. There will still be much to learn and experience in heaven. (Romans 7:25-8:11) However, perhaps our hearts can be filled in this life to the top with Christ, as many of the spiritual giants of history, and take that inheritance to heaven with us.

Our heart is the essence of our desires. It is the essence of who we are. “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Our hearts have to do with our true desires—our primary desires. We come to Christ through our minds, hearts, and will. Some, however, after salvation neglect the heart. Real conversion occurs when our heart is affected, like Jonathan Edwards, states in his book, Religious Affections, states. However, we are called to grow in our affectionate love for God. Our desires can be set free in Christ, as we passionately yearn for Him and at the same time experience great contentment and fullness. Our emotions can be set in the right order in the true process of spiritual formation. In the process, we will also be touched with God’s heart for the lost and for His church—His people.

It is imperative that we have sound doctrine and especially teach and preach the reformed understanding of justification by faith, for it is the beginning of all in salvation as well as our sanctification. What we have neglected to its full extent, is our practical sanctification which is the main aspect of spiritual formation, especially as it relates to the interior life. On this doctrine of justification by faith alone by grace alone, through Christ alone, the church or individual stands or fails. However, we have enlarged the head and neglected the heart. “The heart has its reason, which are quite unknown to the head,” Pascal stated. Both are equally important, although, Theology assists us in discerning all experiences. If experiences are contrary to the Bible, it is from the wrong spirit. All experiences must be tested against scripture because Satan often pretends to be God and gives even religious direction that is wrong or wrongly interpreted or tries to lead us to implement it, with the wrong timing. We must also learn the art of discernment as well as the discernment of spirits. (1 Corinthians 12:10) Because of the misunderstanding and the vastness of the process and the difficulty, we have neglected discernment and been scared off of spiritual formation, because Satan seeks to distort and misconstrue truth. Let us go on to the fulness of Christ. “To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).

If we do not have the target in focus, we are going to miss the mark. Some make evangelism the main focus of the Christian life. This is very important but not the primary goal. This is the fruit of abiding in Christ, but it is not the primary goal. Again, we are making secondary things first. Some believe that ministry is the primary target of the Christian life. After all, people are hurting and people feel good when ministering to others. Jesus did say, if you love Me, “feed My sheep” (John 21:17). If we love Him, we will feed His sheep. Love for the Lord is primary. (Revelation 2:4) Out of the overflow of a love relationship with Him, we will feed His sheep. Gregory Palamas said it is “very, very dangerous to talk about God if you don’t know how to talk to Him.” When we love the Lord not only with our mind but our heart, we will especially feed His sheep—not only Christians but those who are pre-Christian. It will be because we love the Lord, not because we primarily want to feel good about ourselves, that we feed the sheep. Even preachers can serve God, primarily because it makes them feel good about themselves. It is good that work is done for the Lord, but it is even better if it is done largely out of love of God and with God. (Philippians 1:15-18; Philippians 1:15-18) Having said all this, the primary focus of the gospel is regeneration, not transformation. Transformation is the result of regeneration.