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Severe Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Spiritual Struggles, & Horrible Darkness

Yeshua HaDerekh

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Hi, I have severe anxiety and have been struggling with my faith for a couple years.

I'm in a really dark place right now. I feel trapped. Had my first panic attack the other night and called the ambulance because I was scared and thought I was dying. Also darker things than that... I think I've blown up my life terribly especially spiritually and it terrifies me. There's lots of dark thoughts and I'm suicidal at times yet scared of that.

A few months ago, I realised I was on a destructive path after a conversation with a good friend. I hadn't seen it before then or realised how far I'd gone or how close I was to going over the edge again. As if I hadn't had enough to deal with already with the fornication and the legalism and the idolatry...am I even a Christian? I was saved when I was 14... But how can I keep unintentionally stumbling into these stupid sins?? I hate my sin and don't want it in my life. All of those have been confessed to God and repented of (the first two particularly). At least, I've tried. I don't know how much difference it did. But I've pushed Jesus away a lot... I'm now afraid that He's pushing me away because I can't seem to get back to Him and find His forgiveness. It seems that when I pray and cry out to Him things get worse. When I try to take steps towards being surrendered to Him, things get worse. I'm sure I've turned back on Him at times...why wouldn't He turn His back on me? But I've come to Him again and again, giving things to Him, praying for repentance and for Him to turn my life around. Praying for a miracle. I've been committed to sticking with Him and resisting the strong pull to walk away. I confess my sin to Him so much and try to receive His forgiveness. I try to deal with the ugly stuff in my heart and to do what God wants me to do. I've been pursuing emotional healing and spiritual freedom. I've tried to come back to a place of wholehearted surrender. I tried to turn my life around. It's just never enough for Him. I stumble and fall and get angry and say ugly words I don't mean. But since when is life with God about doing things? After losing a special relationship and a successive series of losses, I stopped being vulnerable. I stopped depending on God. I started closing my heart to Him. So stupid. But I was terribly hurt and struggling awfully because of extended suffering I've been through. It all seems hopeless.

I have seen a shift in me in terms of perspective and the way I think since my last visit home in April though. I've come out of a lot of my negativity and despondency and depression and I'm much less emotional and emotionally stuck. Like, the anger that I've been unable to get rid of for two years has shifted quite a bit. I'm more positive and hopeful most of the time. I'm not really sure how this happened. But I do feel numb and empty and heavy inside.

I'm scared that I've sinned so much and got so far from Him that now He's rejecting me. There's so much anxiety and fear about awful things happening to me and to those I love. And I'm super scared of verses like Hebrews 6 and the ones about blasphemy. I struggle so much in my mind and am scared I've accidentally done it and now God has rejected me.

I don't understand what's going on. I don't know what to do. Should I keep hanging on to Jesus and crying out to Him digging my heels into the trench and not giving up? Or should I just turn my back on Him completely? (That second option horrifies me).

Would appreciate help and Christians to chat with.

Take one step toward Him and He will take 2 towards you. Read the Psalms until the panic and anxiety leaves you. Also, remember the prodigal son...He is waiting for you with open arms!
Shalom to you
 
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NBB

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Things get worse when you try to get close to Jesus because you have an enemy that he wants you to keep staying away from Jesus. Be aware of that.

AND, CONGREGATE IN A SPIRIT FILLED CHURCH, SERIOUSLY, CONGREGATE AND ASK FOR HELP. (i'm not trying to yell just remark this)

There is protection and help, and strenght and growth in congregating. (they must believe in being filled with the Holy spriit).
 
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rhomphaeam

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In 1999 my sister rang me to tell me my mother had inoperable cancer and had only a few months to live. My sister here is my younger sister and she is a school teacher. I decided at that time to ring my mother after nearly 15 years of not speaking with her. In fact I wrote my mother from my prison cell after my conversion to a living faith and told her that we needed to stop crucifying one another and accept the cross of Christ as our shared cross because in Christ we were both put to death and could therefore, stop being angry with ourselves.

My mother did not reply in 1999 so whilst I visited briefly after my release I soon discovered that she was as malicious and harmful then as she had been my entire childhood. I didn’t have a rancorous relationship with my mother and I never once verbally abused her or threw her guilt in her face. I simply endured it.

At my sisters request some time later I rang my mother and could sense her quietness and her pending end and began to speak about my step father whom she married when my natural father deserted us because he could not bear any further chaos. I was three years old when my mother remarried and it was at that time that I found the wonder of the church as I walked in the marriage procession in my new red sandals. My mother wasn’t against God - in fact it was her doing that had me placed into a High Church school to begin my formal education into the Canonical Faith of the High Anglican Church.

My confirmation and first true knowledge of Christ and my entrance into occult predications all happened in my seventh year. But as a child it is possible to hold many contradictions in life and to find that in one place it is the majesty of God - in another the tears of knowing Christ - and in another the fear of life and a growing anxiety that would tear at ones mind even unto destruction if it is not separated as a child holds these things separately when an infant - but finally yields to them when they are no longer in balance.

That transition for myself happened when I came home one day singing and filled with wonder after I had been to Communion and whilst sitting in the choir stall as a solo treble chorister watching the faces and the minds of the flock as they were lifted into the presence of God by song. Realising in that instant that they were seeing God and not myself I saw that the light bathing the church was falling down is shards of colours onto them and making a separation according to the blue, green and red of the stained glass and asked myself “who is God?’

As I was nearing my home my song ended and my joy departed and as usual the fearful expectation of entering into my home and a brutal and cruel mother once again gripped me. As my hand fell onto the door handle I heard my name being called out from across the valley so clearly that I swung around in surprise and then realised that God had called my name - and yet whilst I could sense His presence I could not lay hold of Him. All of these things were in my mind when I rang my mother. She refused me and so I hung up. A few months later my sister asked me to visit my mother because her burden in my mothers palliative care was becoming too much. My mother was like a wall of iron and would not trust a word of what I told her about God and Christ. When I left after a few hours I was furious and disturbed more than I had been in my entire life.

That evening I was sitting on a stool in my kitchen and my wife and children were away at boarding school and I was gripped by an appalling rage whilst my thoughts went into a hopeless place - I stood up and my hands grasped at the air in a motion of strangling my mother into submission and over eighty miles away my mother suddenly sat up in bed and began to have a brain seizure which ended in her death. My sister tells me that her heart was so strong that she could feel it on her own breast as she held onto my mother. My mothers head finally threw backwards and she died. And though she appeared to be unable to breath and was pulling at the air for breath - her cause of death was not asphyxia.

What followed was five months of enduring a demonic hoard that came into the air and I found myself in the thick of an unclean host that was vying to convince me that I would be better going back to Satan and complete what I had started in my teens. In the town I lived many doors opened up to me and business men and women gave me entrance into their inner chambers and ask for my help to break their disputes with their competitors - which I did by using occult means. I was given the keys to premises and shown hidden places that I could use to hold occult rituals and no one even asked me what I was doing. I knew many people in this town and could walk its length and breadth greeting fathers and mothers and blessing their children with gifts with their parents looking on. I had to hide from all of that because I could not risk harming the children. Yet young women literally threw themselves into my path and even fathers consented believing some false sense of its worth.

I extended my offices and began to formalise my previous work only this time It had the undoubted Satanic character that was by now impossible to make a pretence of because I knew who Satan truly was.

The demonic hosts were pathetic and I simply tormented them and so Satan sent two angelic powers still in residence in heaven to intercede in my return to his service. I had withdrawn from church life, withdrawn from civic life and withdrawn from every point of influence other than those who came to me and were clearly in the grip of a wicked effect. I walked the town day and night and stood in the midst of the youth gangs and even though they clearly saw me they were not able to say a word as to how this middle aged man could listen to their goings on and they could have no power to even speak to him. At times I would be walking along a road and would suddenly turn sharply and walk right through a dense thicket hedge and find myself in a garden of a fine house and then turn about and walk right back onto the path at the side of the road.

One time as I was returning to the pavement by that means I stepped right in front of a woman who was walking home. She literally didn’t even see me even though I very nearly collided with her. Another time when I was walking at the side of some woods that lay to the side of a housing estate I heard the cry of a small girl. I knew that she was in some difficult trouble and immediately reacted by turning to the direction of her voice. I hadn’t realised that I would be walking right off a twenty foot drop that was obscured by a hedge - but that is what I did and when I came into the small opening that lay ahead I saw the little girl with her hair all messed up with twigs and the man who had just raped her standing by. He looked terrified when he saw me and I had to decide whether to lay waste to him or else help the child. A mountain biker came along the path behind them and I signalled that he needed to purse the man who by now was running away. I took the child up in my arms and asked of her mother.

She pointed to the houses several hundred years away and so I carried her home. It was her friends playing on some open space near her home that told me which door to go to. I gave her to her mother and then left my identity card for her to inform the police who I was.

So I walked back along the road intending to return home to wait for the police to arrive and a blue light passed by and two very concerned officers looked at me intensely. I thought to myself that their concern was worthless and they were no more likely to find this rapist than they could truly see what was happening in their town. I waited nine hours at home and then in a fury I went to the police headquarters and rebuked the the CID team in unmistakable terms. They thought they could resist me but I laid waste to their pretentious nonsense and demanded to know how they could not have come to my home in nine hours given that I had seen the rapist and had handled the child so intimately as to carry her home.

When I left the station they were in a state of consternation. Then a few hours later a police team arrived at my home with a blue light and I had to rebuke them also for being so foolish as to imagine that a blue light would accomplish anything with me. I went to the station to assist with their investigation and a woman sergeant was placed in the lead seat in the interview. Her intelligence would have been better served to have been applied to a sweet shop. She explained all the procedures yet missed the only salient point. A child had been raped right under their noses and they had not even connected anything material that would find the criminal. She imagined that she would set me into a place of sociological meanings that are utterly worthless in truth and so I rebuked her with psychological realities and set her aside. In the end a police inspector asked me to tell them what I would do. By then I knew they didn’t stand a chance of sparing anymore girls and left the station.

I walked the town for three weeks and heard of one other rape and finally one night I came across his house and handed him over for destruction. He was arrested and confessed to his crimes. If he hadn’t he would have lost his life because I cursed him unto death and he knew it because he was looking from behind his laced curtains whilst I stood against him with outstretched arms.

The thing to know about these things are their true meaning and that is to know that Satan understands that he cannot possess those who are called and chosen of God. He can only rely on our anger with God and our inclination not to trust God when we are in that mind. If we have not been into the darkness of his kingdom beyond the fact of the fleshy heart and the worthless world of greed and jealousy then we may be truly ignorant of just how he works. Or that he sees the souls of men and women and children as his commodities. He is always dependant on our willingness to treat others and even ourselves in that same manner. But as I realised - even when turning away from God as I did and even going into a sorceric mind of rebellious independence from God - he still cannot possess the called and the elect of God to his own ends without eventually having to face God.

So God brought it to an end as suddenly as He allowed it to start. I collapsed onto my bathroom floor one day and when I woke up I knew that I was near death - I only just managed to climb onto my bed and within a few moments my body began to run with water. I looked at my clothes and could see that I was soaked completely in the entirety of my body so that my clothes had gone dark with water. My wife found me in that condition the next day when she returned with our three children from boarding school and called the doctor. When he came into the bedroom his first words were “what are you afraid of?”

For six weeks I slowly regained my strength and then went to my office and for another six weeks repented in tears and groans and threw myself upon the mercy of God. After six weeks of praying from five o clock in the morning until the early evening I was told by God that I must step down from my calling in the prophetic ministry and be silent for six years. I was not allowed to speak about Christ or minster or even pray for anyone other than my own wife and children.

When the Lord was in the wilderness under the power of the Holy Spirit He was constrained in obedience to the Father to be tempted directly by the devil face to face. To endure physical temptation and to hear the blasphemous ambition he has to be worshiped as god. It is a mistaken voice if we imagine that he did not understand that the one to whom he promised the entire earth with its glory was not the one who he saw when he first opened his eyes when he was created in the midst of the fires of God. When Jesus was at the supper table he told the disciples that the god of this world was coming and that he had nothing in him. You and I cannot give that account and so we utterly depend on Christ and his obedience - it can never be our own.

I not only turned away from God but did so with a clear certainty that I would be risking my life because the Father will not permit his children to transgress the boundary that separates eternal hell fire from paradise. You cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit because you have already passed out of death into life by being translated into His kingdom.

Satan finds that claim to blaspheming the Holy Spirit a very simple mechanism and believers find it a simple matter to press us with claims to being pharisaic because we may become legalistic in our walks. All Satan has to do it make the connection in our thinking and then suddenly we are in the same meaning as were those Pharisees whom Christ told were not of God even though they were the keepers of the Law of God. You do not have the Law of God - you have Christ who fulfilled the Law of God.

When I am standing outside my office side entrance and I am speaking to a father of children and one of his daughters is removing her top and exposing her red bra in her bedroom window and looking straight at me and her father is oblivious to his daughters mind I know that the best thing I can do for him is to have regard for his daughter with compassion and turn away.

The child who cried out on the edge of the woods only spoke one word in her crying out. She said “NO” with such authority that I knew that she was being harmed by a greater than herself. When I left my mother to die knowing that I could not penetrate her mind to find the woman even in her time of death I walked away in rebellion and anger. No one should imagine that anything I have written here speaks well of me. It does, however, speak well of the goodness and the mercy of God. Once my six years were finished the Lord restored me to my calling and I haven’t heard a word from the devil since.
 
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rhomphaeam

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I looked and saw the Potter’s clay.
Conceived in all its worth and purpose.

To comprehend such fine intent, was made.
Behold in all that beauty measured true,
The Workman did with skill to labour all.

Its lovely hues and colours set to good.

The outer garment bright, its form well hewn.
Its detail all mosaic laid and true it was

Then chanced to test its purpose known.

And in an instant hope was need and waste.

True purpose dashed, its beauty gone aside.
Such form by sin did break it all and loss.

Until that day would come when promised seed,
Being lifted up and pierced did bear the cost.
That in this earthen vessel, now death and ruin,
Receive that treasure which was priceless made.

Not now outward can its worth be known.

Nor eye can yet behold its beauty more.

Tis inward set, a mighty gift, eternal treasure.
The gift of life His very own is given now.

Where look you ought, save to His purpose made?
Where look to see His present labour on?
Where look you now to flesh refused for hope

A broken vessel yet, the proof is set within.
The sweet aroma rises in hopes new song.
 
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CaitM

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In 1999 my sister rang me to tell me my mother had inoperable cancer and had only a few months to live. My sister here is my younger sister and she is a school teacher. I decided at that time to ring my mother after nearly 15 years of not speaking with her. In fact I wrote my mother from my prison cell after my conversion to a living faith and told her that we needed to stop crucifying one another and accept the cross of Christ as our shared cross because in Christ we were both put to death and could therefore, stop being angry with ourselves.

My mother did not reply in 1999 so whilst I visited briefly after my release I soon discovered that she was as malicious and harmful then as she had been my entire childhood. I didn’t have a rancorous relationship with my mother and I never once verbally abused her or threw her guilt in her face. I simply endured it.

At my sisters request some time later I rang my mother and could sense her quietness and her pending end and began to speak about my step father whom she married when my natural father deserted us because he could not bear any further chaos. I was three years old when my mother remarried and it was at that time that I found the wonder of the church as I walked in the marriage procession in my new red sandals. My mother wasn’t against God - in fact it was her doing that had me placed into a High Church school to begin my formal education into the Canonical Faith of the High Anglican Church.

My confirmation and first true knowledge of Christ and my entrance into occult predications all happened in my seventh year. But as a child it is possible to hold many contradictions in life and to find that in one place it is the majesty of God - in another the tears of knowing Christ - and in another the fear of life and a growing anxiety that would tear at ones mind even unto destruction if it is not separated as a child holds these things separately when an infant - but finally yields to them when they are no longer in balance.

That transition for myself happened when I came home one day singing and filled with wonder after I had been to Communion and whilst sitting in the choir stall as a solo treble chorister watching the faces and the minds of the flock as they were lifted into the presence of God by song. Realising in that instant that they were seeing God and not myself I saw that the light bathing the church was falling down is shards of colours onto them and making a separation according to the blue, green and red of the stained glass and asked myself “who is God?’

As I was nearing my home my song ended and my joy departed and as usual the fearful expectation of entering into my home and a brutal and cruel mother once again gripped me. As my hand fell onto the door handle I heard my name being called out from across the valley so clearly that I swung around in surprise and then realised that God had called my name - and yet whilst I could sense His presence I could not lay hold of Him. All of these things were in my mind when I rang my mother. She refused me and so I hung up. A few months later my sister asked me to visit my mother because her burden in my mothers palliative care was becoming too much. My mother was like a wall of iron and would not trust a word of what I told her about God and Christ. When I left after a few hours I was furious and disturbed more than I had been in my entire life.

That evening I was sitting on a stool in my kitchen and my wife and children were away at boarding school and I was gripped by an appalling rage whilst my thoughts went into a hopeless place - I stood up and my hands grasped at the air in a motion of strangling my mother into submission and over eighty miles away my mother suddenly sat up in bed and began to have a brain seizure which ended in her death. My sister tells me that her heart was so strong that she could feel it on her own breast as she held onto my mother. My mothers head finally threw backwards and she died. And though she appeared to be unable to breath and was pulling at the air for breath - her cause of death was not asphyxia.

What followed was five months of enduring a demonic hoard that came into the air and I found myself in the thick of an unclean host that was vying to convince me that I would be better going back to Satan and complete what I had started in my teens. In the town I lived many doors opened up to me and business men and women gave me entrance into their inner chambers and ask for my help to break their disputes with their competitors - which I did by using occult means. I was given the keys to premises and shown hidden places that I could use to hold occult rituals and no one even asked me what I was doing. I knew many people in this town and could walk its length and breadth greeting fathers and mothers and blessing their children with gifts with their parents looking on. I had to hide from all of that because I could not risk harming the children. Yet young women literally threw themselves into my path and even fathers consented believing some false sense of its worth.

I extended my offices and began to formalise my previous work only this time It had the undoubted Satanic character that was by now impossible to make a pretence of because I knew who Satan truly was.

The demonic hosts were pathetic and I simply tormented them and so Satan sent two angelic powers still in residence in heaven to intercede in my return to his service. I had withdrawn from church life, withdrawn from civic life and withdrawn from every point of influence other than those who came to me and were clearly in the grip of a wicked effect. I walked the town day and night and stood in the midst of the youth gangs and even though they clearly saw me they were not able to say a word as to how this middle aged man could listen to their goings on and they could have no power to even speak to him. At times I would be walking along a road and would suddenly turn sharply and walk right through a dense thicket hedge and find myself in a garden of a fine house and then turn about and walk right back onto the path at the side of the road.

One time as I was returning to the pavement by that means I stepped right in front of a woman who was walking home. She literally didn’t even see me even though I very nearly collided with her. Another time when I was walking at the side of some woods that lay to the side of a housing estate I heard the cry of a small girl. I knew that she was in some difficult trouble and immediately reacted by turning to the direction of her voice. I hadn’t realised that I would be walking right off a twenty foot drop that was obscured by a hedge - but that is what I did and when I came into the small opening that lay ahead I saw the little girl with her hair all messed up with twigs and the man who had just raped her standing by. He looked terrified when he saw me and I had to decide whether to lay waste to him or else help the child. A mountain biker came along the path behind them and I signalled that he needed to purse the man who by now was running away. I took the child up in my arms and asked of her mother.

She pointed to the houses several hundred years away and so I carried her home. It was her friends playing on some open space near her home that told me which door to go to. I gave her to her mother and then left my identity card for her to inform the police who I was.

So I walked back along the road intending to return home to wait for the police to arrive and a blue light passed by and two very concerned officers looked at me intensely. I thought to myself that their concern was worthless and they were no more likely to find this rapist than they could truly see what was happening in their town. I waited nine hours at home and then in a fury I went to the police headquarters and rebuked the the CID team in unmistakable terms. They thought they could resist me but I laid waste to their pretentious nonsense and demanded to know how they could not have come to my home in nine hours given that I had seen the rapist and had handled the child so intimately as to carry her home.

When I left the station they were in a state of consternation. Then a few hours later a police team arrived at my home with a blue light and I had to rebuke them also for being so foolish as to imagine that a blue light would accomplish anything with me. I went to the station to assist with their investigation and a woman sergeant was placed in the lead seat in the interview. Her intelligence would have been better served to have been applied to a sweet shop. She explained all the procedures yet missed the only salient point. A child had been raped right under their noses and they had not even connected anything material that would find the criminal. She imagined that she would set me into a place of sociological meanings that are utterly worthless in truth and so I rebuked her with psychological realities and set her aside. In the end a police inspector asked me to tell them what I would do. By then I knew they didn’t stand a chance of sparing anymore girls and left the station.

I walked the town for three weeks and heard of one other rape and finally one night I came across his house and handed him over for destruction. He was arrested and confessed to his crimes. If he hadn’t he would have lost his life because I cursed him unto death and he knew it because he was looking from behind his laced curtains whilst I stood against him with outstretched arms.

The thing to know about these things are their true meaning and that is to know that Satan understands that he cannot possess those who are called and chosen of God. He can only rely on our anger with God and our inclination not to trust God when we are in that mind. If we have not been into the darkness of his kingdom beyond the fact of the fleshy heart and the worthless world of greed and jealousy then we may be truly ignorant of just how he works. Or that he sees the souls of men and women and children as his commodities. He is always dependant on our willingness to treat others and even ourselves in that same manner. But as I realised - even when turning away from God as I did and even going into a sorceric mind of rebellious independence from God - he still cannot possess the called and the elect of God to his own ends without eventually having to face God.

So God brought it to an end as suddenly as He allowed it to start. I collapsed onto my bathroom floor one day and when I woke up I knew that I was near death - I only just managed to climb onto my bed and within a few moments my body began to run with water. I looked at my clothes and could see that I was soaked completely in the entirety of my body so that my clothes had gone dark with water. My wife found me in that condition the next day when she returned with our three children from boarding school and called the doctor. When he came into the bedroom his first words were “what are you afraid of?”

For six weeks I slowly regained my strength and then went to my office and for another six weeks repented in tears and groans and threw myself upon the mercy of God. After six weeks of praying from five o clock in the morning until the early evening I was told by God that I must step down from my calling in the prophetic ministry and be silent for six years. I was not allowed to speak about Christ or minster or even pray for anyone other than my own wife and children.

When the Lord was in the wilderness under the power of the Holy Spirit He was constrained in obedience to the Father to be tempted directly by the devil face to face. To endure physical temptation and to hear the blasphemous ambition he has to be worshiped as god. It is a mistaken voice if we imagine that he did not understand that the one to whom he promised the entire earth with its glory was not the one who he saw when he first opened his eyes when he was created in the midst of the fires of God. When Jesus was at the supper table he told the disciples that the god of this world was coming and that he had nothing in him. You and I cannot give that account and so we utterly depend on Christ and his obedience - it can never be our own.

I not only turned away from God but did so with a clear certainty that I would be risking my life because the Father will not permit his children to transgress the boundary that separates eternal hell fire from paradise. You cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit because you have already passed out of death into life by being translated into His kingdom.

Satan finds that claim to blaspheming the Holy Spirit a very simple mechanism and believers find it a simple matter to press us with claims to being pharisaic because we may become legalistic in our walks. All Satan has to do it make the connection in our thinking and then suddenly we are in the same meaning as were those Pharisees whom Christ told were not of God even though they were the keepers of the Law of God. You do not have the Law of God - you have Christ who fulfilled the Law of God.

When I am standing outside my office side entrance and I am speaking to a father of children and one of his daughters is removing her top and exposing her red bra in her bedroom window and looking straight at me and her father is oblivious to his daughters mind I know that the best thing I can do for him is to have regard for his daughter with compassion and turn away.

The child who cried out on the edge of the woods only spoke one word in her crying out. She said “NO” with such authority that I knew that she was being harmed by a greater than herself. When I left my mother to die knowing that I could not penetrate her mind to find the woman even in her time of death I walked away in rebellion and anger. No one should imagine that anything I have written here speaks well of me. It does, however, speak well of the goodness and the mercy of God. Once my six years were finished the Lord restored me to my calling and I haven’t heard a word from the devil since.

Thank you for sharing this part of your story. You write well as the story is gripping.

However, I don't understand how you can know Christ and get into the occult in the same year.

I understand how blaspheming the Holy Spirit is not possible for a believer since we have already received the sacrifice and witness of Christ through the Holy Spirit. What scares me though is that is it possible to push Him away so much that eventually He leaves and it's like committing that sin? It goes against everything I believe about the Holy Spirit staying in you forever and never losing your salvation, but it still terrifies me.
 
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CaitM

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I come from a pretty fundamentalist and legalistic background so legalistic patterns are something I continually struggle with even though I have thrown much of it away. I want to live my life in light of the finished work of Christ and out of my position and identity in Him as His child.

I haven't had much if any contact with the occult- like I said, I grew up in a conservative Christian family so was protected from much of that. I actually grew up pretty afraid of it. But through suffering I became more aware of the reality of spiritual warfare. It was through some pentecostal friends that I learned how to resist the Devil and cut off the evil attachments in my life. I have become afraid of it again though.

I have struggled with intrusive thoughts a lot and at times have gotten blasphemous thoughts in my head that I don't want and don't mean and it scares me. One night I was so scared about thoughts telling me to curse God that I spent half an hour begging God to forgive me and didn't dare try and sleep. I desperately didn't want to do that. Sometimes it's other awful thoughts. When those thoughts come I say "bless God" "bless you God" over and over to myself.
 
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rhomphaeam

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I am deeply emotionally, mentally, and spiritually distressed.
Please pray for me, for God to have mercy and grace on me and forgive my sins and give me life!

Can I ask you sister if you still recall what the pentecostal brethren shared with you that gave you the means to stand spiritually when your emotional turmoil began?
 
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CaitM

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Can I ask you sister if you still recall what the pentecostal brethren shared with you that gave you the means to stand spiritually when your emotional turmoil began?

I'm not Pentecostal (I grew up Baptist/non-denominational) but do have Pentecostal influence from good friends who are Pentecostals. From them I began to learn about my authority in Christ and how to submit to God and resist the devil. I honestly don't think I can do that right now though. I'm too scared and broken. And feel like God is so far away and angry with me.
 
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rhomphaeam

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I'm not Pentecostal (I grew up Baptist/non-denominational) but do have Pentecostal influence from good friends who are Pentecostals. From them I began to learn about my authority in Christ and how to submit to God and resist the devil. I honestly don't think I can do that right now though. I'm too scared and broken. And feel like God is so far away and angry with me.

Yes I understood the relationship you have with the pentecostal brethren. I also understood that you were not a pentecostal. Of course in the Baptish church there is a general view that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is for today and an similar opening for the gifts of the Spirit. And what you have just shared sister seems to suggest [my authority in Christ and how to submit to God and resist the devil] that you had a way of grounding that authority one time. That may not essentially mean by using a gift of the Spirit - or else as sometimes helps to say it - in charismatic gifts - but rather it may suggest that they taught you a more basic truth concerning the finished work of the cross. Is that how you would see their help?
 
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CaitM

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Yes I understood the relationship you have with the pentecostal brethren. I also understood that you were not a pentecostal. Of course in the Baptish church there is a general view that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is for today and an similar opening for the gifts of the Spirit. And what you have just shared sister seems to suggest [my authority in Christ and how to submit to God and resist the devil] that you had a way of grounding that authority one time. That may not essentially mean by using a gift of the Spirit - or else as sometimes helps to say it - in charismatic gifts - but rather it may suggest that they taught you a more basic truth concerning the finished work of the cross. Is that how you would see their help?

Yes, I do believe in and cling to the finished work of Christ on the cross. I believe that Christ's work is done and to be saved all we have to do is trust in His finished work. But I didn't learn that from them.

I think from them it was more spiritual warfare that I learned. Like I said in a reply to one of your previous messages, I used to be quite afraid of Satan and spiritual warfare, but they helped me understand that because of my position in Christ that I have authority to resist the devil and tell him to get out. I was introduced to the ministry of Derek Prince a while ago and listened to lots of his messages when I was struggling earlier this year.

I don't have much understanding of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts, though I definitely believe in spiritual gifts, I'm not so sure about the baptism of the Holy Spirit though I believe we receive the Holy Spirit when we're saved.

What scares me is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit though I understand how blaspheming the Holy Spirit is not possible for a believer since we have already received the sacrifice and witness of Christ through the Holy Spirit. What scares me though is that is it possible to push Him away so much that eventually He leaves and it's like committing that sin? It goes against everything I believe about the Holy Spirit staying in you forever and never losing your salvation, but it still terrifies me. I can't seem to find Jesus like I used to.
 
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rhomphaeam

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I don't understand how you can know Christ and get into the occult in the same year.

I don't think that it would help you here if I tried to explain it. But I did write a comprehensive book to explain its deeper meaning. So perhaps sometime you may want me to PM you a copy. Not now though.

Yes, I do believe in and cling to the finished work of Christ on the cross. I believe that Christ's work is done and to be saved all we have to do is trust in His finished work. But I didn't learn that from them.

I think from them it was more spiritual warfare that I learned. Like I said in a reply to one of your previous messages, I used to be quite afraid of Satan and spiritual warfare, but they helped me understand that because of my position in Christ that I have authority to resist the devil and tell him to get out. I was introduced to the ministry of Derek Prince a while ago and listened to lots of his messages when I was struggling earlier this year.

I don't have much understanding of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts, though I definitely believe in spiritual gifts, I'm not so sure about the baptism of the Holy Spirit though I believe we receive the Holy Spirit when we're saved.

What scares me is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit though I understand how blaspheming the Holy Spirit is not possible for a believer since we have already received the sacrifice and witness of Christ through the Holy Spirit. What scares me though is that is it possible to push Him away so much that eventually He leaves and it's like committing that sin? It goes against everything I believe about the Holy Spirit staying in you forever and never losing your salvation, but it still terrifies me. I can't seem to find Jesus like I used to.

I would like to respond to this post sister in some detail but can I ask you to listen to this nine minute video narrative of an incident that happened in the Hebridean Isles in 1950. The boy referred to by Duncan Campbell [who is the narrator] is called Donald Macphail. I knew Donald on the Island when I was in ministry there in the early 1990's. This is a Calvinist community.

 
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CaitM

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May I ask if you were benefitted by the ministry of Derek Prince?

It's hard to say. I spent about a week and a half fasting and praying/studying the Bible and listening to his messages just before Easter earlier this year because I really needed God to turn my life around... it was headed down a bad road. I guess the main thing that helped my understanding was his teaching on curses and how to break them. I prayed the prayer to break curses several times with the video but I didn't experience much lasting breakthrough... I don't know why. Maybe that wasn't the problem? I do know my parents have benefitted from his teachings in the past, as have good friends of ours.
 
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rhomphaeam

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It's hard to say. I spent about a week and a half fasting and praying/studying the Bible and listening to his messages just before Easter earlier this year because I really needed God to turn my life around... it was headed down a bad road. I guess the main thing that helped my understanding was his teaching on curses and how to break them. I prayed the prayer to break curses several times with the video but I didn't experience much lasting breakthrough... I don't know why. Maybe that wasn't the problem? I do know my parents have benefitted from his teachings in the past, as have good friends of ours.

So the Derek Prince teachings' on generational curses and curses arsing from ones own sinful behaviour were ineffectual - but as you say that may not have been an issue.

On the other hand the Pentecostal brethren benefitted you one time because they gave you a way to stand against the devil.

Your Baptist upbringing gave you a reformed understanding of the finished work of Christ at the cross.

Can I ask if you have an ability to read Hebrew or Koine Greek?
 
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CaitM

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Well, at first it seemed that it might have worked, I had reason to believe that may have been the issue but then I was also desperate to try anything (as I still am).

Yes, my Pentecostal friends taught me how to stand against the devil and cut off his attachments in my life and for a period of time I actively (albeit fearfully) practiced this because I was aware that I was in a spiritual battle and thought that much of my struggle may be coming from spiritual oppression.

I don't know whether it is reformed or not. I grew up in a pretty interdenominational community and knew people from lots of different denominations, so I have drawn things from many different places (including reformed). Thus I prefer not to label myself with a particular denomination. I think my understanding of the finished work of Christ came gradually through reading books by 19th century preachers and missionaries like Hudson Taylor, and through listening to Eric Ludy's sermons.

I can read Greek (as in I taught myself the alphabet years ago and can pronounce and write it) but I can't understand the words! So no, not so that I can understand it!
 
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rhomphaeam

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Well, at first it seemed that it might have worked, I had reason to believe that may have been the issue but then I was also desperate to try anything (as I still am).

Yes, my Pentecostal friends taught me how to stand against the devil and cut off his attachments in my life and for a period of time I actively (albeit fearfully) practiced this because I was aware that I was in a spiritual battle and thought that much of my struggle may be coming from spiritual oppression.

I don't know whether it is reformed or not. I grew up in a pretty interdenominational community and knew people from lots of different denominations, so I have drawn things from many different places (including reformed). Thus I prefer not to label myself with a particular denomination. I think my understanding of the finished work of Christ came gradually through reading books by 19th century preachers and missionaries like Hudson Taylor, and through listening to Eric Ludy's sermons.

I can read Greek (as in I taught myself the alphabet years ago and can pronounce and write it) but I can't understand the words! So no, not so that I can understand it!

Thats pretty cool. So if I gave you an English text with greek references you should be able to extrapolate the meaning quite easily.

Ludy is a reformed believer just for the record. One of his favourite pastors is Charles Spurgeon - who was a rank Calvinist and a Baptist Minister. He also likes many others but they all are to a man and women reformed believers. It's not so much a matter of labels because they are nothing more than a label - its more to do with the foundation of the reformed doctrines. I am a Messianic Jew - but a Reformed Calvinist by doctrine. Yet to my friends they would not know how to label me and would more than likely say that I am a Christian.

Anyway - can I post a passage of Scripture in Hebrew, Greek and English on the nature of the man God created in Genesis 2:7? I want to try and show you how to separate spiritual meanings from personal thoughts.
 
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CaitM

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Thats pretty cool. So if I gave you an English text with greek references you should be able to extrapolate the meaning quite easily.

Ludy is a reformed believer just for the record. One of his favourite pastors is Charles Spurgeon - who was a rank Calvinist and a Baptist Minister. He also likes many others but they all are to a man and women reformed believers. It's not so much a matter of labels because they are nothing more than a label - its more to do with the foundation of the reformed doctrines. I am a Messianic Jew - but a Reformed Calvinist by doctrine. Yet to my friends they would not know how to label me and would more than likely say that I am a Christian.

Anyway - can I post a passage of Scripture in Hebrew, Greek and English on the nature of the man God created in Genesis 2:7. I want to try and show you how to separate spiritual meanings from personal thoughts.

Well, I'm not sure about easily but I can try.

I've heard Ludy say that reformed Christians think he is reformed and pentecostal Christians think he's pentecostal... I think he's a conglomeration and can sound like both. I don't think labels matter that much as long as we believe the Bible and centre around the gospel (finished work of Christ) and Jesus.

Sure go ahead.
 
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Well, I'm not sure about easily but I can try.

I've heard Ludy say that reformed Christians think he is reformed and pentecostal Christians think he's pentecostal... I think he's a conglomeration and can sound like both. I don't think labels matter that much as long as we believe the Bible and centre around the gospel (finished work of Christ) and Jesus.

Sure go ahead.

"And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7) καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν. (Genesis 2:7 Septuagint) וַיִּיצֶר֩ יְהוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֗ם עָפָר֙ מִן־הָ ֣אֲדָמָ֔הוַיִּפַּ֥ח בְּאַפָּ֖יו נִשְׁמַ֣ת חַיִּ֑ים וַֽיְהִ֥י הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּֽה׃ (Genesis 2:7 Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia)

Spirit, Soul and Body

Pneuma (πνοὴν) the spirit, refers to breath. This word from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 derives from the root word pnoe (πνοή), and signifies the breath of life.This same word is used in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) and is the word πνοὴν in Genesis 2:7. (Above).

Psuche (ψυχή), the soul, or life, is translated heart in Ephesians (6:6). It is the same Greek word used in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 for the soul. It denotes the seat of the personality as well as the power of volition (choosing). It is the individual.

Soma (σωμα) is the physical body. The Greek word for body in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 is different to the word dust in Genesis 2:7. This is because Genesis is dealing with the original material from which the body was formed. Whereas Thessalonians is a conception of the body as a living biological entity after God breathed into the form of man, the breath of life. Genesis 2:7 is a narrative of how the body came into existence as a biological entity, as well as an explanation of the original material used. Whereas, 1 Thessalonians 5:23 is a concern for the living.

The Apostle Paul, prayed for the Church at Thessalonica:

"And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it." (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

"αυτος δε ο θεος της ειρηνης αγιασαι υμας ολοτελεις και ολοκληρον υμων το πνευμα και η ψυχη και το σωμα αμεμπτως εν τη παρουσια του κυριου ημων ιησου χριστου τηρηθειη πιστος ο καλων υμας ος και ποιησει". (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). Novum Testamentum Graece

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5-8

“απεκριθη ιησους αμην αμην λεγω σοι εαν μη τις γεννηθη εξ υδατος και πνευματος ου δυναται εισελθειν εις την βασιλειαν των ουρανων το γεγεννημενον εκ της σαρκος σαρξ εστιν και το γεγεννημενον εκ του πνευματος πνευμα εστιν μη θαυμασης οτι ειπον σοι δει υμας γεννηθηναι ανωθεν το πνευμα οπου θελει πνει και την φωνην αυτου ακουεις αλλ ουκ οιδας ποθεν ερχεται και που υπαγει ουτως εστιν πας ο γεγεννημενος εκ του πνευματος” John 3:5-8 Novum Testamentum Graece.

Jesus has told us plainly; ‘That which is of the flesh, is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit’ (John 3:5). Having once been born of the flesh according to the will of the flesh, we express the life of the flesh. Likewise, having been once born again of the Spirit, according to the will of God, so we also possess a renewed spirit.

The five keywords that we are seeking to understand from John 3:5-8

Are:

water – born – flesh – spirit – Spirit

The Greek says for water in John chapter 3: 5-8, υδατος, which comes from the root hudor (ὕδωρ). It is used in several ways, but it is always literally representative of the elemental substance, water. The English word hydro comes from the Greek root. Contextually it may be used to denote the fact that whilst still in the womb we were sustained by water. In a similar sense, the physical heart is surrounded by amniotic fluid, so we see that when the Lord was pierced, blood and water (John 19:34) flowed through the wound, speaking that His amniotic sack had been pierced to pierce His heart for our sakes. It is also used in the context of the Lord's baptism with water, by John. It is the same elemental water which was used when we were baptised with water after we believed.

There are five references to being born in this passage from John chapter 3: 5-8. The 1st (v5) γεννηθη, comes from the root gennao (γεννάω), and means is born. The 2nd (v6 i) γεγεννημενον, is what is born. The 3rd (v6 ii) is also γεγεννημενον. The 4th (v7) is γεννηθηναι and means to be born. Finally, the 5th (v8) is γεγεννημενος, translated, who is born. All of these usages are derived from the root with morphological variants, which being semantically implicit in English usage, are not necessarily carried in the English translation. The root, however, is gennao (γεννάω) and means to beget. In this passage, the semantic domain is carried in the term, genesis, and alludes to the beginning of something as well as something after the likeness of its beginning. This does, of course apply to individuals, but its contextual and semantic emphasis means that we could say, all humanity is of the flesh of Adam, but to enter the kingdom of God a man also needs to be born of the Spirit of God.

There are two references to the word flesh in verse six. The first usage (v6 i) is σαρκος, which comes from the root word sarx (σάρξ). The second usage (v6 ii) is the root σάρξ itself. Although the word sarx (σάρξ) is used to denote the physical body, it is also used morphologically (v6 i) to denote the likeness of flesh. This is the first usage here and semantically carries not only an implication of the physiology of the body (v6 ii) but the very nature of a man (v6 i). So that a literal translation of this verse would be that which is of fleshy Adam is flesh after Adam's flesh.

Just as the word flesh is used flesh begotten of flesh, so the word spirit is used in this same way.

There are four references to the word Spirit/spirit. The first is πνευματος and comes from the word pneuma (πνευμ̂α). This first reference (v6 i) speaks of the Holy Spirit. The second usage is πνευμα, which in English would simply read spirit (v6 ii). In a prepositional form, this would be written: to be spirit. The Greek says, πνευματος πνευμα εστιν and would be translated Spirit, spirit to be. To make rational sense of this one would have to give the greek and the literal translation as follows: το γεγεννημενον εκ της σαρκος σαρξ εστιν και το γεγεννημενον εκ του πνευματος πνευμα εστιν (v6) "what is born of the flesh, flesh is, and what is born of the Spirit, spirit is" (v6 i & ii). The third (v6 iii) reference, to spirit, is πνευματος. This is the same as (v6 i) in meaning and speaks of the Holy Spirit. The fourth usage is also πνευματος (v8), and that too speaks of the Holy Spirit.
 
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