Contemplation

Be Still and Know I am Your God

Bethany Prayer

Psalm 46.10. He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’

There are many ways to learn to be still.  The enemy of our souls does not want you to learn to be quiet and still before the Lord. Great intimacy and a very powerful union with God will come out of this type of prayer. It can make you a saint, if you practise it diligently. You will be walking in the presence of God. Look at the world we live in, it is anything but peaceful and quiet. It is so noisy and chaotic. All the inventions just about are so noisy that you cannot hear yourself think. Where there is unrest, your mind is not on God. Noise helps to prevent you from being in a state of calm. When you are calm you can see things more clearly, as God wants you to see. You will be able to relate to God more easily, because you are in peaceful state of being. When you learn how to practise the silent prayer, the peace which comes from Gods presence will carry you through all the stress and noise of this world.

Distractions

Satan will try to distract you like crazy, sometimes it may take thirty to sixty minutes, just to quieten down. One woman asked a nun ‘how many different ways is there to practise contemplation?’ And the nun said ‘as many as there are people in the world.’ Contemplation is another word expressing to ‘be still before God.’ There are many different ways people express it. Some call it the silent prayer, others call it going into the secret place, or garden, where basically you are alone with the Lord. God is in you and being silent before God is just like when you are enjoying somebody you love being present. There is no talking with one another you just enjoy their company or another way of putting it you, just want to be with them.

You don’t always feel His presences especially when you are just starting out and lot of people give up, because you feel like you are wasting time. You think nothing is happening, but I think God is training you about many things. One thing for sure it takes perseverance, patience, humility, faith and loyalty to keep at it. So you are definitely growing in virtues.

Interior Castle

Saint Teresa has written books on her contemplative experiences, for example her classic book ‘Interior Castle’ is so difficult to understand. When I first read it I couldn’t understand it but I felt the presence of love so strong in her words. She was so advance only a few can really understand her. She even explains it that it can be like reading Greek if you don’t understand it. Because basically spiritual things of God is so impossible to use ordinary human words to describe them. You know when people try to translate a sentence for example in another language and you can’t always do it that well, you lose something in the translation, well how much more is that true when you are trying to explain spiritual things. 

Mark 4; 39.  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 

We can do this too, because when we are quiet within ourselves we are connected to God and His power.  Now there are many ways to connect to God and we need to practise them all. We are not always quiet before the Lord for example, what about the times when we are singing to Him on top of our voices. We have to know the times when God is calling us to do absolutely nothing and just rest in Him, so that He can do His wonderful work in us. Being quiet also can be practise when we choose to quieten our emotions to serve God, for example instead of practising being irritable, because things are not the way you want them, try to be gentle and loving or sometimes you can try to be cheerful instead. It works. Love works. And people either like you more or love you more. Do not go overboard with cheerfulness, sometimes people need you to cry with them too.  

Psalm 37: 7. isZJPOFTZOBe still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. 

If we are in a state of worry, it is a good indication that we need time out with God and learn to be quiet and still before Him. Really we should practice being quiet before Our God every day, sometimes it is not always possible but ideally we will feel a great deal better and more able to cope with life if we do. All prayers quieten you down to some extent. I am a quiet person by nature, probably due to the fact that I live a pray life. Being still before God, I have practiced it off and on throughout my life and I am just only now doing it more persistently than ever before, through necessity. This prayer demands a great deal more discipline then all other prayers and it may also require a great deal more faith, because you basically do nothing. And you know what humans are like. They want to do things for God, not just sit around and do nothing.

God Works on Your Soul

This is a time when God is doing all the work, sometimes secretly and other times He may let you know what He is doing. It is a time of healing, of being cleansed, being refreshed, being strengthen and growing in the knowledge of God, are only a few things that can take place. So you can imagine why the devil hates it so much. And why he is trying to make this world such a noisy place to live in. He is trying to stop people from hearing God.

Sometimes you can feel God’s presence and other times you cannot. Naturally when you feel His presence it is a great deal easier then when you cannot. It is a time of great relaxation, the deeper you go the deeper your level of peace you enter into. Hours can feel like only minutes. If you are like me it is hard work staying still. Everybody has to finds what works best for them, with some people they find God in the garden, others during fishing, Saint Teresa would look at a picture of Jesus, with me it is music. They call it soaking music. Quiet gentle music that is praising God. Other times I meditate on Jesus Crucifixion and can feel God’s presence that way. You have to find what works with you we are all different.

God’s powerful Presence

Bethany Christian Living , ,

isOI1ZI7NWOn Saturday while I was driving home, I looked up into the clouds and thought of the time when Jesus will be coming down riding on a horse with His whole army of angles. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off the clouds, because I felt a little of His presence with His army of angles. I saw a video the next day about the rapture that they are saying He is on His way now. That He is approaching the earth now. Remember it takes time to get to one place to another, but He is actually on His way to collect us. Then it dawn on me, the experience of what I saw the day before was actually seeing Jesus in a small way, His coming. That is why I felt His power. I don’t know how to explain it that well. One of the things that I felt besides wonder was fear. Fear of His Majesty and Power.

Jesus is so Kind

So it worried me, why do I feel so much fear about His presence, when I am on His side. Then I started meditating on How big and awesome He is and yet He left His place of honour to come to earth and lived a very humble and poor life for me, often being hated for my sake and then crucified in a most cruel way for me. And every day I eat the bread of life, because of His great infinite love for me. God is so huge and yet so selfless when it comes to loving His children. All the things He has ever has done for me is incredibly generous. Despite how powerful and Majestic He is, He loves us so much. I think it so important to meditate daily especially when the day of the rapture is getting closer and closer to remember God is infinitely powerful that it is frightening but His love for each and every one of us is equally powerful.

If we forget to look at His love for us, we may instead look at how unworthy we are due to our sins, and forget that Jesus has paid the whole price for our sins. All we need to do is believe it and love Him without fear that He will chastise us. Satan is going to try very hard to make us look at our sins and keep our eyes off the love God has for us. If we do that we won’t be able to stand up joyfully and welcome Him with any confidence that He will take us.

A Vision I had of the Worst Sinner in the World

I had a vision when I was in my late teens I think. I was meditating on the worst sinner I could think of, which to me was a priest that served Satan. I was meditating on this person that he only had a very short time to live and he was searching for somebody to teach him about Jesus. He asked this women about Jesus, but she refused to teach him, because in her mind he was so evil that he was too unworthy of being saved. Then in my meditation I said that not only did she turned her back on the sinner, but she turned her back on all the suffering Jesus suffered for him to save him. And then at that moment, Jesus took over my meditation and now it was like I was sitting upstairs, looking down onto the stage where Jesus had one knee kneeling on the ground and the other leg sweeping behind Him, with arms wide open to the imaginary sinner begging him to look at Him.

The sinner was looking at his feet in complete despair and hopelessness. I saw the women that refused to help him, walk past with full of self-righteousness. I noticed that Jesus did not judge her, but His whole attention was on saving and trying to convince the sinner to just look at Him. I was also given the knowledge, because the sinner was looking for Jesus, his life was extended for that reason. Jesus just kept begging the sinner to look at Him. Eventually I said to Jesus he can’t see you. Jesus ignored me and still kept begging for the sinner to look at Him. Years after the experience I realised what Jesus was doing! The sinner was looking at his feet, in other words he was looking at the lowest part of him, HIS SINS. He wasn’t looking at how kind Jesus was, how loving and forgiving Jesus was. The sinner only had eyes for his own misery and sinfulness that it prevented him to look at Jesus through the eyes of faith. So that he may believe in Jesus willingness to forgive all his sins and forget them as if they never had happened.

Trust Jesus With all your Heart

Now my belief is that all Christians need to repent of all their sins with confidence that Jesus has not changed. He is still a very loving and forgiving God, despite of our great and many sins. But we must believe and prepare ourselves to keep believing, because when we see the angry Jesus coming with His army of angles to judge the earth of the many unrepentant sinners, we may mistake us as one of them. Forgetting our sins are wiped out completely, because we not only have repented of all our sins, but Jesus has wiped them all out of His sight through the power of His blood. When we look at His majesty and think of His power we will then believe in the power of His blood is most definitely strong enough to wash away all our sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus love for you and not on your sins. Praise Him for His goodness and love and believe in Him. Look at His love not your sins.

Do You Want to Climb the Ladder of Holy Love?

Bethany Christian Living , ,

I have found a great book, it has been around for at least forty years or more. It is called ‘The Flame of Love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ What is the flame of Love in Mary’s Heart, it can be no other than Jesus her Son’s flame of Love in her. God is Love. Love is a Spirit and that Spirit is the Holy Spirit. So when we admire somebody, because of the greatness of their fellowship with God, we really are admiring God’s work in them. So there is never anything we can boast about ourselves at all. We can only boast in what Jesus has done for us. This book is a spiritual diary, easy to read and understand. Jesus teachers her how to grow in His likeness. So it is for the serious student of holy love, who genuinely wants to serve God on His terms. It is very encouraging, because she does stumble sometimes and Jesus gives her encouraging words when she does.

Deny Your Yourself For Jesus  clip_image00412

Luke 9:23 – 24. Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

The problem is many Christians think, to be saved, God is not asking them to be His disciple. Jesus has made it clear, you are either for Him or against Him. There is no grey. It is black and white. The problem becomes clear when we look at ourselves, we immediately see how impossible it is for us to be as generous as to give up everything for God. That is because you are not looking at what God can do. You still think you have to do everything by your own strength. I do not know why we have such a problem realising only God is God. We are totally helpless without Him. He told Gabrielle Bossis that desire is a bud and we all know plants cannot bear fruit without it being a bud first. God will work on us if we let Him.

Promotion

If we get a promotion at work it always acquires more responsibilities and more of our time and a great many sacrifices. Many people will make strenuous sacrifices for money, but not for God. I believe some promotions are not worth it. Especially if it is going to distance you from your family. People need love more than material goods. Making sacrifices does not always feel like a sacrifice if it is done out of true love. When you love somebody you are not thinking about yourself at all, it is all about the other person. When God is calling us for promotions in being more like Him, it always means more sacrifice. And God loves a generous giver, who will give Him everything with a smile. The more you give to God without counting the cost, the more joy you receive. You have learnt to put your complete trust in God and love and faith just grows as a result of sacrificing yourself to Him.

I remember reading about a contemplative that spent hours of her time contemplating, because she enjoyed the presence of the Lord so much that she neglected her family needs. In other words she was not serving God but herself. God wants us to serve others, especially the people God has placed in our lives. So you have to watch yourself all the time and ask yourself ‘am I doing this sacrifice for my own glory or for God’s glory.’ We fall many times, we have such a problem with the spirit of pride and it used against us by Satan all the time. So keep asking God to for wisdom and discernment in what He is calling you to do, and He will open your eyes, if you pray in faith.

Luke 23: 26. As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.

Simon from Cyrene

I imagine Simon complaining ‘why me.’ And all the time if he only knew how privileged he was and that he would even go down in history as the man that helped Jesus carry His cross. Wouldn’t you like to go down in history for doing that? Can you imagine the holy pride he now feels in heaven, now that he understands who the man was that he helped carry the cross. It would not be a secret in heaven. I believe there would be holy jealousy in heaven over it. Well Jesus did say how we treat the least we have treated Him. It is not poetry either, because Jesus lives in those who have surrender to Him. The more we have surrender to Him the more we become Christlike, because Jesus truly lives in us.

Slient Prayer is Contemplation

Bethany Christian Living, Prayer , ,

Psalm 46.10 is(19)

He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’

There are many ways to learn to be still. Satan does not want you to learn to be quiet and still before the Lord. Great intimacy and a very powerful union with God will come out of this type of prayer. It can make you a saint, if you practise it diligently. You will be walking in the presence of God. Look at the world we live in, it is anything but peaceful and quiet. It is so noisy and chaotic. All the inventions just about are so noisy that you cannot hear yourself think. Where there is unrest, your mind is not on God. Noise helps to prevent you from being in a state of calm. When you are calm you can see things more clearly, as God wants you to see. You will be able to relate to God more easily, because you are in peaceful state of being. When you learn how to practise the silent prayer, the peace which comes from Gods presence will carry you through all the stress and noise of this world.

Sometimes It Takes Time To Settle Down

Satan will try to distract you like crazy, sometimes it may take thirty to sixty minutes, just to quieten down. One woman asked a nun ‘how many different ways is there to practise contemplation?’ And the nun said ‘as many as there are people in the world.’ Contemplation is another word expressing to ‘be still before God.’ There are many different ways people express it. Some call it the silent prayer, others call it going into the secret place, or garden, where basically you are alone with the Lord. God is in you and being silent before God is just like when you are enjoying somebody you love being present. There is no talking with one another you just enjoy their company or another way of putting it you, just want to be with them.

You don’t always feel His presences especially when you are just starting out and lot of people give up, because you feel like you are wasting time. You think nothing is happening, but I think God is training you about many things. One thing for sure it takes perseverance, patience, humility, faith and loyalty to keep at it. So you are definitely growing in virtues.

Spiritual Language Can Be Difficult To Understand

Saint Teresa has written books on her contemplative experiences, for example her classic book ‘Interior Castle’ is so difficult to understand. When I first read it I couldn’t understand it but I felt the presence of love so strong in her words. She was so advance only a few can really understand her. She even explains it that it can be like reading Greek if you don’t understand it. Because basically spiritual things of God is so impossible to use ordinary human words to describe them. You know when people try to translate a sentence for example in another language and you can’t always do it that well, you lose something in the translation, well how much more is that true when you are trying to explain spiritual things.

Mark 4; 39  isWNUVGOVL

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

We can do this too, because when we are quiet within ourselves we are connected to God and His power. Now there are many ways to connect to God and we need to practise them all. We are not always quiet before the Lord for example, what about the times when we are singing to Him on top of our voices. We have to know the times when God is calling us to do absolutely nothing and just rest in Him, so that He can do His wonderful work in us. Being quiet also can be practise when we choose to quieten our emotions to serve God, for example instead of practising being irritable, because things are not the way you want them, try to be gentle and loving or sometimes you can try to be cheerful instead. It works. Love works. And people either like you more or love you more. Do not go overboard with cheerfulness, sometimes people need you to cry with them too.

Psalm 37: 7

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

If we are in a state of worry, it is a good indication that we need time out with God and learn to be quiet and still before Him. Really we should practice being quiet before Our God every day, sometimes it is not always possible but ideally we will feel a great deal better and more able to cope with life if we do. All prayers quieten you down to some extent. I am a quiet person by nature, probably due to the fact that I live a pray life. Being still before God, I have practiced it off and on throughout my life and I am just only now doing it more persistently than ever before, through necessity. This prayer demands a great deal more discipline then all other prayers and it may also require a great deal more faith, because you basically do nothing. And you know what humans are like. They want to do things for God, not just sit around and do nothing.

This is a time when God is doing all the work, sometimes secretly and other times He may let you know what He is doing. It is a time of healing, of being cleansed, being refreshed, being strengthen and growing in the knowledge of God, are only a few things that can take place. So you can imagine why Satan hates it so much. And why he is trying to make this world such a noisy place to live in. He is trying to stop people from hearing God.

God’s Presence Is Not Always Felt

Sometimes you can feel God’s presence and other times you cannot. Naturally when you feel His presence it is a great deal easier then when you cannot. It is a time of great relaxation, the deeper you go the deeper your level of peace you enter into. Hours can feel like only minutes. If you are like me it is hard work staying still. Everybody has to finds what works best for them, with some people they find God in the garden, others during fishing, Saint Teresa would look at a picture of Jesus, with me it is music. They call it soaking music. Quiet gentle music that is praising God. Other times I meditate on Jesus Crucifixion and can feel God’s presence that way. You have to find what works with you we are all different.