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Aiki's Blog: Ruminations and Ramblings.
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In my early twenties (I'm over fifty now), I struggled severely with anxiety and obsessive thoughts. These two things often go together, as anyone badly afflicted with anxiety can tell you. In my case, my anxiety led to cluster panic attacks, insomnia, even swallowing problems. It was awful. I...
James 4:7
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Some Christians these days want to "take the battle to the Enemy," to run up to the devil, kick him in the shins, and declare, "Get lost! You're defeated and we know it!" They exhort fellow Christians...
Matthew 4:4
4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Why did Jesus quote Scripture to the devil? He was, after all, the Author of the words he was quoting. Why didn't he just say, "Man shall not live...etc...
The recent revelations concerning Ravi Zacharias have spawned all sorts of responses and observations from Christians, many of them trying to figure out how a prominent figure like Ravi could've had such a longstanding and grossly sinful "dark side" to his life. What has struck me, though, is...
I was talking with a Christian brother some time ago about surrender and how God had responded to my persistent and consistent daily surrender to Him in my life. As I described what God was doing in me as I submitted to Him - often many times in a day - my Christian brother began to question me...
1 Corinthians 16:13
13 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
I attend a German Baptist church (not German myself, though) and there is among the congregants - especially the older ones - an attitude that resonates strongly with what Paul the apostle wrote in the...
Most Christians I talk to about living a holy life have the same basic idea about doing so: "I work my hardest to be a holy person," they say, "I struggle fiercely against sin, and when I can't give any more to the effort of being holy, then I ask God to add His own power to help me carry on...
The story of Christ saying to people before him at the Final Judgment, "Depart from me. I never knew you," is well-known among Christians (Matthew 7:21-23), sometimes offered as a chilling threat from the pulpit, in tandem with exhortations to live righteous lives, to "do the will of the Father...
I often hear Christians urging one another to be easy in their sin because God always forgives, His grace is greater than all their sin and, besides, no one's perfect. Believing these things, many Christians have settled into a pattern of sin>confess>sin>confess, 'round and 'round, nothing...
The Great Battle every believer faces in discipleship, in going deeper with God, is the intrusion of Self into the whole business. Self tries to supplant God; Self tries to do for God rather than allowing God to do His own work; Self tries, and works hard, and labours, and strives - and fails...
I've written in this subforum about Self, death to Self, co-crucifixion with Christ, and living by faith in one's union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. I've pointed out that all this is necessary to bringing each of us into rich, joyful fellowship with God. In this post, I'd...
Paul the apostle once wrote, "Knowledge puffs up but love edifies." These days, Paul's remark is made to mean that believers who wish to be loving need to back off the doctrine stuff. The idea that many modern pastors are putting forward is that love and truth are at odds with each other. Now...
Is anybody else on a monthly Netflix subscription? My wife and I got one some time ago, when Netflix was just getting started. It was novel, was commercial-free, net-based, and had a better offering of movies we liked than most other comparable sources of movies and t.v. shows. But this has...
You know, we all come to God's word with certain presuppositions, filters, and experiences that color how we encounter and understand God's word. One of my presuppositions is that the person who is truly born-again cannot lose their salvation. And so, when I encounter the passages and verses...
I am discipling a fellow right now who has recently come to faith in Christ. His past life was...dark. Lots of drug abuse and sexual sin. But God reached into the middle of the crud of his life and has drawn him to salvation. It's been a real treat to watch God move this...
I've done a fair amount of posting on CF over the 10+ years I've been a member. I've had thousands of positive, appreciative responses to my posts. Over the last couple of years, though, the moderators of the forums I frequent are increasingly censoring my posts. Now, I take pains to be very...
I am a discipler at my church and have written a basic "Christianity 101" course for those I disciple. Among the things that are most important to new believers is the means of victory over sin. Since sin is perhaps the believer's greatest barrier to fellowship with God, learning to deal with it...
When I was in my early twenties, God took me through a period of time where I struggled horribly against deep anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsiveness. This terrible inner battle was actually the result of a prayer I had made to God asking Him to make Himself real to me. I had left home...
I've had a lot of push-back over the years when I've suggested that God is quite enough to free people from the depression, anxiety, phobias and obsessions they take on. The Church has been steeped for so long in the notion that popular psychology is the only truly effective way for people to...
I've been posting for a number of years now on ChristianForums and have frequently encountered people who are struggling with deep depression, severe anxiety, obsessive-compulsiveness, schizophrenia, and the like. Often, they come to CF because, after countless hours of therapy and constant...