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Discussion Forum : General Topics : Mike Bickle wants book about Catholic mystics to be "manual" at Ihop

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 Re:

Quote:
BY IHOP you mean International House of Pancakes, right?

I didn't expect this slapstick, LOL.

 2012/4/25 8:30









 Re:

And what is meant by mystic? God is appearing to moslems in dreams and visions. These appearances result in their salvation. Isn't't this mystical? John Bunyon was a dreamer of dreams? Woukd he not be described as a mystic?

Bearmaster.

 2012/4/25 10:04









 Re: The best I can do to fill in the blanks, Solomon.

Solomon101 asked a couple of questions addressed to me.They are:.........

1. Has anyone actually read the book , "Fire Within" that the article was posted on?

2. Very specifically, and in detail, please define exactly how you are defining the words, "Mystic(s)", and "Contemplative Prayer".

For example.... Contemplative prayer specifically means..... in exact detail it is...[?]

Please fill in the blanks for us, so to speak. Solomon 101............................................

I have not read the book "FIRE WITHIN", written by Roman Priest, "Father" Thomas Dubay. I see the Roman Popish church as a mortal enemy of the true church of Christ, supremely perverted and a Satanic Cult. Why would I want to read their convoluted teachings trying to support Papal worship and dominion and worship of another mediator than Christ Jesus, the omnipotent Mary, Satanic Queen of Heaven?

As far as to your demand to specifically define what Contemplative prayer IS, I leave you to the words of the teacher himself, Mike Bickle. Here, word for word, and line upon line, he answers your inquiry...................................BT



Contemplative Prayer—–Communing with the Holy Spirit who lives within you
I. Know He Lives Inside of You
II. Pray the Scripture
The goal is to search for the Spirit of Jesus in the Word and have depth, not necessarily length, in understanding the passage. Jesus is the Word (John 1) and we want to know Him, the Truth. In Him is life; it is His Spirit who gives life. The words of Scripture are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63). The entrance of the Word gives light and life (Psalm 119:130). As the Word of God enters your heart, the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal body (Romans 8:11).

Make sure you are searching for the Spirit of Jesus, not just searching for knowledge. Just pray the Scriptures. In simple terms, prayer is turning your heart toward God. In John 5:39, Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You do not have His Word abiding in you … you search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

Method #1

Choose a short phrase in Scripture.

Begin slowly praying the Scripture in silence.

Focus your prayer toward the Spirit who lives inside you (John 7:38).

Remain on the phrase as long as you feel the Lord’s presence on it. Then move with Him, slowly praying through the passage phrase by phrase.

Method #2
Choose a short story in Scripture.

Read through the story several times silently.

Close your eyes and acknowledge the Spirit who lives in you.

Use your imagination to imagine yourself as one of the story characters or as an onlooker.

Play out the story in your mind applying all five of your senses.

Method #3
We call this “Beholding the Spirit Within.”

The goal is to search for and feel God’s presence inside you, not necessarily to gain more understanding in God’s Word as with the first two methods.

Begin by gently praying a short passage of Scripture in silence while focusing on the indwelling Spirit. The Scripture is used to quiet the clamoring of your soul and draw you to God. It is the connection point, the springboard into the spiritual realm.

Once you feel God’s presence, focus on it in a concentrated way.

You will be able to notice His presence now; He has always been there, but now your attention is on Him within you. The outward senses are quiet and your surface thoughts are gone. You are beginning to be consumed by the Spirit.

In this time, feel the freedom to stay quiet. Silently ask the Spirit to show you a vision, or slowly and silently say to Him, “I love You. I love You. I love You.”

Overcoming Distractions


Your mind will have to be trained in practical ways to not wander and think on other things. To overcome a wandering mind, simply begin thinking on the Scripture you have been meditating on, and focus your prayer to the Spirit within you. The Lord sees your heart as it searches for Him, and He is smiling upon you. You may become sleepy during prayer. To overcome, sit up straight instead of slouching and do not lie down. You can also begin speaking the Scripture you are meditating on under your breath until you feel the drowsiness subside, then return to the silent prayer.

Diligence in Prayer
In time these methods of praying will become easy. You will find the Spirit who lives in you if you search for Him with all your heart, but it will require time and your whole heart.

Keys to Progress


Humility-the high and lofty One dwells with the lowly in heart (Isaiah 57)

Disciplined life of prayer, fasting, giving and loving your enemies (Matthew 6)

Total abandonment in love to Jesus and loving nothing of this life (Matthew 7:14)...............

Whew! Maharishi Yoga could not have done a better job in leading us to Nirvana.

"The goal is to search for and feel God’s presence inside you, not necessarily to gain more understanding in God’s Word as with the first two methods."...MB.........


"Close your eyes and acknowledge the Spirit who lives in you.

Use your imagination to imagine yourself as one of the story characters or as an onlooker.

Play out the story in your mind applying all five of your senses.".....MB..............

"You will be able to notice His presence now; HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE???..., but now your attention is on Him within you. The outward senses are quiet and your surface thoughts are gone. You are beginning to be consumed by the Spirit.".......MB

This is at the root of the methods of Transcendental Meditation, that numbs the soul and the conscience to transport you into the cosmic realms...BT

"It is the connection point, the springboard into the spiritual realm."...Mike Bickle.......................................

Granted, as all of the mystics do, this ancient mind-set to attain another consciousness is veneered with bible quotes to bond it to orthodoxy as a means to present palatablity to the naive. It is far from Biblical Holy Doctrine, and as can be easily discerned, is couched deep within the heresies of Roman Papal Dominion. BT



 2012/4/25 10:16
Solomon101
Member



Joined: 2008/4/1
Posts: 536
America's Flyover Country

 Re:

@ BT

You stated :

Quote:
As far as to your demand to specifically define what Contemplative prayer IS, I leave you to the words of the teacher himself, Mike Bickle. Here, word for word, and line upon line, he answers your inquiry





You are then saying that you agree with the definition you posted that are apparent quotes from Mike Bickle, correct? YOU are saying that YOU are agreeable to using the words from Bickle that you posted as YOUR workable definition for "contemplative prayer". Correct?

Lastly, can you provide a link, or some source that can be verified, for what was posted as quotes from Mike Bickle?

Thanks!

 2012/4/25 11:03Profile









 Spinning the bottle.

The quotes I used are direct quoted from Mike Bickle that I personally read on the IHOP website, presented as a teaching on prayer. The article created such a firestorm, and and revealed just how steeped in Roman Mysticism that he, and IHOP were, that many Protestant orthodox flinched in horror.

As a result, the article was pulled, and deleted from Bickle's teaching/IHOP page, but not before several websites had copied, and or embedded it. Not only did I read it on IHOP's page, but also on other sites. This is in no way "MY" "workable" definition. This is a teaching verbatim directly from Mike.

"You are then saying that you agree with the definition you posted that are apparent quotes from Mike Bickle, correct? YOU are saying that YOU are agreeable to using the words from Bickle that you posted as YOUR workable definition for "contemplative prayer". Correct?" Solomon101

Not Correct; The indisputable opposite. Here is one of many.


http://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/ihop-openly-promotes-contemplative-prayervisualization/

So, I take it that you support "Contemplative Prayer", and IHOP's methods? Believe what you will. This will be my last post directed to your inquiries, and, you are welcome!

 2012/4/25 12:02
murrcolr
Member



Joined: 2007/4/25
Posts: 1839
Scotland, UK

 Re: Spinning the bottle.

Quote: Norman Grubb is/was a mystic also. He wrote the bio about Intercessor Rees Howells. Mystics sound very convincing

Yes of course they do……….

Norman Grubb, The Central Secret of Union

The great cry of the hearts of the saints of the ages was union. They expressed it in a certain terminology (which is impressive to some of us), describing the way to union as purgation, illumination, and finally union – three phases which to some extent resemble the little children, young men and fathers of John’s first letter. It doesn’t exactly correspond, but it’s somewhere near.

----------------------


The journey to mystical experience, almost universally, involves three stages: purgation, illumination and union so what are they.

Purgation

Purgation is the cleansing stage which begins with self-examination and penitence and leads to a holy life. Sixteenth-century monk, St. John of the Cross, is best known for his description of this stage which he called the “dark night of the soul.” During the dark night the soul of an individual feels abandoned by God, spiritually dry and at the point of despair. John saw this as a way in which God purified the soul by suffering, for only when the soul has been purified is it in a position to experience a rapturous union with God. This purgation involved detachment from the things of the world including material and physical desires; and mortification, the building of new paths to replace the old ones now rejected.

Illumination

At some point the purgation stage bleeds over into the illumination stage in which the mystic begins to experience inner voices and visions. The goal of illumination is to know genuine spiritual truth, but such truth cannot be found in conventional or even rational ways. The true mystic has come to the conclusion that the secret and “deep” things of God cannot be understood rationally. They can only be understood through the experience of illumination. One of the earliest Christian mystics, who is known today as Pseudo-Dionysius, taught that to achieve the ultimate prize of union with God, “The soul must lose the inhibitions of the senses and of reason. God is beyond the intellect, beyond goodness itself, and it is through unknowing, and the discarding of human concepts, that the soul returns to God and is united with the ‘ray of divine darkness.’” The means by which mystics achieved illumination was through fasting, long seasons of specialized prayers known as contemplative prayers and by following various spiritual disciplines of which the best known today were designed by the Catholic monk and founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola.

Union

The ultimate goal of the mystic is unmediated union with God. This point, at which the soul attains oneness with God, “was the mystical ecstasy in which, for a brief indescribable moment, all barriers seemed to be swept away and new insight supernaturally imparted as one gave himself over fully to the Infinite One.” The ancient mystics would frame this experience in romantic, even sensual terms. John of the Cross “describes the union in terms of spiritual betrothal, where the soul, conceived of as feminine, is married to Christ as the bridegroom. In other places he may say… ‘The centre of the soul is God.’”Bernard of Clairvaux (12th-century), who managed to turn the Song of Solomon into an erotic love story between God and man, described this moment of union as the time when the believer is “kissed with the kisses of His mouth.” Similar depictions are common in mystical literature.

But there is one little problem. If this is how God wanted His followers to connect with Him why didn’t He bother to say so in His Word? If contemplative prayer is the key that will unlock this greater dimension of spirituality why didn’t teach them that when they asked teach us how to pray

The heart and soul of mysticism, any type of mysticism, Christian or otherwise, is the art of meditation or contemplation. Its origin is not the Bible but Eastern and Christian mystics. It should be mentioned that contemplative prayer (often simply called meditation) is the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism and is practiced virtually identically to the Christianized form.

The constant theme of the mystic is that union with God is possible through contemplative prayer, and that union with God is found within us. St. Teresa of Ávila states, “As I could not make reflection with my understanding I contrived to picture Christ within me.” She is quoted as also saying, “Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself.” Such statements show why the mystics were accused of pantheism. Silence is a noted feature of contemplation. Catherine de Haeck Doherty writes, “All in me is silent and… I am immersed in the silence of God.” Francis de Dales notes, “by means of imagination we confine our mind within the mystery on which we meditate.” Imagination is highly important to the mystics. As Teresa informs us, this is not an endeavor that comes from their understanding. Mystics are hung out in thin air, so to speak, and must make contact with God through imagination rather than through the rational use of their minds. The power of such experience becomes evident as Foster tells us, “We are to live in a perpetual, inward, listening silence so that God is the source of our words and actions.”

So, through contemplative prayer the person is to empty his mind (detach) then fill it with imaginative experiences with Christ (attach) who we will find in the silence of our souls, resulting in God becoming the source of our words and actions.

Edited for spelling


_________________
Colin Murray

 2012/4/25 13:59Profile









 Re:

I will attempt to answer your questions Solomon101. I am not familiar with the group recommending the book, but I was received into the Catholic Church this past Easter and it is written by a Catholic Priest, based on two mystics of the Church, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila.

1. Yes I have read the book, but not thoroughly as I would like, there's a lot to take in.

2. A mystic is someone who practices 'mystical' often called contemplative or infused prayer.

3. Christic contemplative prayer is described as a deep love communion with the triune God. It is a knowing and loving we cannot produce but only receive, which is why it is described as infused. It is a gradual process which is barely perceptible at first and develops usually over several years.

There is no "process". It is infused and usually doesn't come without serious growth in virtue and a regular mental (meditative) prayer.

It's quite involved how contemplation develops, it can be a quite painful process at times, which the book goes into. I meditate on the scriptures, but have not experienced contemplation.

I hope that helps :)

 2012/4/25 23:09
murrcolr
Member



Joined: 2007/4/25
Posts: 1839
Scotland, UK

 Re:

quote: I meditate on the scriptures

Here is one to meditate on..

Rom3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law


_________________
Colin Murray

 2012/4/26 13:50Profile









 Re:

I prefer to read USA Today at IHOP. If I have to start reading Catholic Mystic books at IHOP then I am going to start going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.

As far as Mike Bickle... who cares?

Krispy

 2012/4/26 14:36
TMK
Member



Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

Trekker wrote:

"She had a good heart
(as did Mother Teresa and Princess Diana--two people obviously not saved)"

I am just curious how you can make such a statement. At least add "in my opinion." I for one will be a a tad surpised if I do not meet Mother Teresa in heaven. But then again, perhaps I am "obviously not saved."




_________________
Todd

 2012/4/26 14:46Profile





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