Forward with God

No longer looking back

2009-01-13T15:35:00.000-08:00

As I woke up this morning, this scripture came immediately to mind, so I know it was the Holy Spirit teaching me:

"No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62)

Then, right after that, I remembered the scripture about Lot's wife: "But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." (Genesis (19:26)

Then, I thought of this scripture in Jeremiah 7, the reference that this blog is named for: "...but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward."

Then this scripture came to my mind a few hours later as I was pondering the scriptures from my waking hours: "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead..."(Philippians 3:13)

Lastly, I remembered a prophecy I received in February of 2008 that was very fitting - this is the part that applies to this article:

I hear the Lord saying, “Do not look back, and do not wonder ‘what if’, but look forward – the answers are ahead.” You know, the enemy can cause you to have regrets, but God wants to cause you to have hope. I hear the Lord saying, some of these things you look back and wonder – they are spilled milk. It is over. He wants you to look forward and move on because He has answers, He has freedom, He has fulfillment for you. I see joy, I see a house with a family, I see love in your life. You know many changes are coming, but I hear the Lord saying there are some things you need to let go in your heart. Things of yesterday you hold onto and you look back at those things and God wants you to look forward, and your dreams are going to arise in you.

You see, I had been going through a period in my life where bad memories kept coming back to my mind time and again: failed relationships, failed marriages, regrets, the death of my brother, people who have been hateful to me and rejected me, and so on. I would spend time pondering the "what ifs" and the regrets, to the point that the memories were constantly bothering me and bringing me down.

I read a book called The Supernatural Ways of Royalty by Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton who are ministers at an incredible church in Redding California called Bethel. They really move in amazing supernatural miracles at that church. Anyway, the book was perfect timing from the Lord. (This has happened to me many times - that when I am going through a learning experience in my life, the Lord puts a book and/or scriptures in my hands so that I can defeat the problem.) In a nutshell, the book says that as Christians, we have to remember that we are the King's kids and when Jesus says we're forgiven, that means we're forgiven! When we make regretful mistakes in life, as long as we talk to Him about them and repent (which means to change our way of thinking), then he throws our sins to the bottom of the sea (Micah 7:19) and He removes our transgressions as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12) and He basically forgets about those sins. The author gave examples of Biblical figures who made mistakes in the OT, but in Hebrews (NT) their story was "re-written" and the errors they made were not mentioned.

Now, our Heavenly Father may be gracious enough to forget our sins/mistakes/blunders, but Satan is not. The accuser will constantly bring those memories back to torment you and defeat you so that you cannot move forward with God. Those memories will keep you locked in the past. But as you can see from the scriptures at the beginning of this article that God wants you to MOVE FORWARD. Forget about the past. He wants you to have hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

So the first thing I had to do when I put it altogether (with the help of the Holy Spirit) is to recognize that it was Satan that was doing that to me. So the warfare began. Once I recognized this fact, every time the thoughts would come, I would say out loud or in my mind, "No way. I know what is going on now, and I rebuke you Satan in the name of Jesus and I take every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (II Corinthians 10:5)

Wow, what peace and joy entered my heart when I finally figured it out!!! No more thinking about the past - no more wondering what if - no more regrets. I am done with that. We can't be effective in the Kingdom of we're constantly dragged down by these kinds of past memories. Put on your spiritual armor and fight the devil when he comes to accuse. Win the victory because Jesus gave you the power to do so! Grab hold of the joy and peace that comes from knowing Jesus, knowing His Word, and knowing how to defeat the enemy!

Now I look forward to every day. I wake up with anticipation of how I am going to make a difference in this world with God's help. My attitude now is if I make a mistake, I talk to God about it and repent, figure out how not to make the mistake again, and move on. Not mull it over again and again and again. It feels like a big weight lifted off my shoulders.

Thank you Jesus for your Spirit of Wisdom, Your Spirit of Understanding, Your Spirit of Knowledge, Your Spirit of Counsel and Might and the Fear of the Lord! (Isaiah 11:2)

Religious Spirits, Part IV

2008-12-29T18:30:00.000-08:00

Religious Spirits – the source of much heartbreak and torment in the Church

To review, we have seen very clearly the damage caused by religious spirits. We have seen examples of Religious Pride, Church Idolatry, and the Spirits of Control and Jealousy. Although I didn’t mention the Spirit of the Pharisees by name, all you have to do is read the stories of Jesus’ and the disciples’ confrontations with the Pharisees to see the anger displayed from those who have the Pharisaical, intolerant, know-it-all spirit toward those who speak the truth. You can also see the confrontations in the Old Testament between the prophets who were telling the truth and the religious leaders who in many cases had them murdered. I have given numerous examples of anger portrayed to me when I have spoken the truth. I also think there might be a spirit called “The Traditions of Men” that anchors itself in religious people.

The first time I read this passage in Mark 7 with understanding, wow did I ever understand that sometimes traditions are a very bad thing when they become a religious ritual. I think a religious demon enters again to blind one to the truth and the ability to get spiritual wisdom and mature in God:

1The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and 2saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. 3(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

5So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"

6He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'
8You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."

9And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."

You see, we have to be very careful of the traditions we adopt from the churches we belong to, and even the traditions our parents and ancestors pass down to us, because they may not be Godly and true. We have to ask the Lord about everything and study these traditions to show ourselves “approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”. (II Timothy 2:15)

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Now to turn to the last part of this message, the religious spirits in the pastorate and the laity as a whole.

My mother closed our small church after my brother died, and ever since then we have visited numerous churches in the hopes of finding one to call home. But time and again we are disappointed. We rarely sense the presence of God’s Holy Spirit anywhere we go. Here are some of the things we are seeing:

• A “show business” like display by the clergy and the worship team and pastors at the center of the show
• Excessively loud music with a heavy rock beat, not really conducive to worship (in our opinion)
• An idolatry of the pastorate by the congregation
• An amazing overemphasis on money and tithing
• Phoniness
• Weird and crazy behavior being attributed to the Holy Spirit

First, the megachurches probably get the blame for the Show Business Spirit invasion. The smaller start-up churches are now copying the show business formula, where the worship team, many of whom are not believers but hired employees (believe it or not!) take center stage first, with all their acting/singing, glittery clothes, manicured hands to hold the mic, slicked back hair etc. As I visited some churches (not all) I noticed that this was not worship, this was “Look at me, I’m on stage, look at my facial expressions/acting ability, I’m wearing rhinestones all over so that the light reflects off me. Jesus who?”

We’ve also seen the show business “phoniness” among pastors and elders in one-on-one encounters. Wow, what charisma onstage, and what a change off-stage! What you see is not what you get, many times.

Really, we believe most churches are run like a business, not a ministry, not a calling of God. The very last time I saw Bob and Sandy, I mentioned this to them, to which Bob became very irate at me for having that opinion (again the religious spirit of control does not allow me to have an opinion). I stood my ground.

See, Bob is in the very kind of church that I am talking about, and the kind of church Jesus warned about in Revelation 1-3. I believe we are in this Revelation 1-3 church age. We cannot find a church where the pastor is equipping the laity to do “greater works” than Jesus did because they either don’t believe the full gospel, are cessationists, or they don’t want anyone “stealing the show”.

I think the Lord told me that these types of pastors are building their own little kingdoms, not God’s Kingdom. They give an appearance of building God’s Kingdom, but it’s really all about their kingdom, their power and authority, their control and influence. And about how much money can they bring in to build a bigger building, drive a nicer car, take a more exotic vacation, etc. At some point they may have started with God’s intentions in mind, but as the church grew, they lost their first love (see Revelation) and obtained Pastoral Madness.

We have an article written with more information about Pastoral Madness, a demon that enters a pastor who is given over to delusions of grandeur.

II Thessalonians 2: 9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

You’ve seen all kinds of pastors, evangelists and spiritual leaders in the news given over to Pastoral Madness, a demon that tells them, “Sure you can buy that Jaguar, the church will pay for it. Of course you deserve that Armani suit, you have to look good, don’t you? And since you look so good, a little hanky panky with the church secretary won’t hurt anyone as long as no one finds out. Need some extra cash for that expensive lunch? Just take it out of the church fund for the homeless” etc. etc. The list of fallen ministers who have been in the news can go on and on.

And have you noticed how much church marketing uses the photos of the pastors as a focal point of their advertising? I see it in billboards and print ads and websites. It just makes me sick. It just keeps screaming idolatry to me.

What’s just as bad is when the congregation idolizes the pastors and they “can do no wrong”. They don’t question anything the pastor does – nor does the pastor tolerate and questioning, for that matter. This is probably the case of the sheep not reading the Bible again. If you come to church once a week for a feel-good sermon, and the pastor never talks about sin, and the Holy Spirit never convicts you about anything, and you don’t see the manifestation of the spirit anywhere in an kinds of signs and wonders, healings, deliverances, etc., you can be sure you’re in a Laodicean, lukewarm church (see Revelation). The sheep don’t realize they are being led into the lukewarmness of a church that has only been established as a money-making business. “The better I make you feel with my feel-good messages, hopefully the more you will like me and give me money. After all, you do have to tithe, you know.”

I have been in churches that make a sermonette from 10 to 30 minutes long on tithing EVERY WEEK before the bucket is passed, another thing that makes me angry. I believe in giving, but only to a ministry or a church that DESERVES it, not because I am being pressured by a pastor. If I sense the church is in it for the money, they’re getting very little to none of mine. And if they have to give a tithing sermon every week, something is fishy. Either they’ve overextended themselves, buying things on credit with loans that are due, or they have big dreams to build bigger, fancier buildings, put photos and names in bigger letters and brighter lights, or who knows what else.

Another trend we’re seeing is preaching that doesn’t make any sense. It’s more like babbling. There is no point to the sermon, and we’re not sure what the message or the teaching is. The absolute worst case of this we’ve seen was at a conference at a four-square church this past year. The moderator of the conference was a married couple who were both into being “drunk” in the spirit - constantly drunk in the spirit – even during the preaching and teaching. The “drunkenness” produced a pointlessly long teaching (if you want to call it that) by the woman where she was continuously inserting screeching and other weird sounds into her talk. She would wobble around the stage with the mic in-had like she really was drunk. It was quite a show for about an hour. When she got to the part about traveling from conference to conference with something like 30 Bible translations in tow, I was convinced this was not the Holy Spirit, but religious spirits at work again.

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In conclusion, the religious spirits wreak a lot of havoc, destroying lives in their own unique style. Leading people into and holding them in deception. Taking away their salvation. Destroying friendships and relationships. Ruining churches with division and fallen and deceived pastors. If you read your Bible, you know this is actually nothing new. It is written about in the Original Covenant (OT) and the Amended Covenant (NT). It’s up to us, with help of the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to discern the religious spirits in ourselves and those in the church.

Religious Spirits, Part III

2008-12-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

Religious Spirits – the source of much heartbreak and torment in the Church

As I mentioned before, Bob had some pretty strong religious spirits, and when he married my friend Sandy, she became infected as well from the exposure of his spending years obtaining his PhD in Religion from a large university. I believe seminary today is one of the largest sources of religious spirits. From the stories he told me, the professors are for the most part godless, carnal, secular, and they do not believe the Word of God is real. The papers the students have to write in many cases having nothing to do with scripture but are about other religions or philosophies. One time he had to visit a Buddhist temple. No doubt he picked up plenty of demons from that experience.

Anyway, our long friendship started on its way to ending the day my mother told Sandy that she was starting a church. (My mother, an ordained minister, had left an 11-year relationship with a church and could not find a new church. So she decided to start a non-denominational, independent church, where she could teach about the deliverance ministry.)

As soon as she said this to Sandy, I knew that it was going to be a big problem with her husband, and that I would be taunted and ridiculed (I wasn’t very happy with my mother about this). And I was right. Mr. PhD, who at one point had wanted to be a pastor (Sandy said she didn’t want to be a pastor’s wife, so that idea was abandoned after much struggle), couldn’t handle this. Every time I went to visit, I was grilled again about the church. At one point, I thought I heard him say under his breath, “This is how cults are started.” Another time I gave them a Lakewood CD and instead of enjoying the music, I got a short lecture on Lakewood’s faults (I didn’t even go to Lakewood, I just liked their music and I thought they would too).

Over the next few years, the relationship declined, all because of religious differences. As they were getting more and more involved in his new job with a very traditional denominational church, and I was getting more and more involved in seeking and searching and learning and growing in God about deliverance and all the supernatural ways and gifts of God, I could discern a growing disdain for anything I said that had to do with spirituality. An attitude of “we know what’s right and you don’t”.

But if they were so holy, one thing that really bothered me was their collection of R-rated movies. One time Sandy invited me over for dinner to meet a man she worked with. She hoped it would be a match. After dinner we sat down to watch a movie. Now, I’ll be honest – I am not a big movie-watcher, and I honestly had no idea how brazen R movies had become. Right off the bat there was a graphic seduction scene and I was mortified to be sitting in this room with a bunch of “Christians” watching this. I could not get the sex scene out of my mind and had to have the “flashback” demon cast out (and by the way, it DOES work, thanks to Jesus).

Anyway, there is a scripture in the Psalms where David says that he won’t look at evil. Christians shouldn’t be entertained watching evil. There might be some debate on what is evil in movies, but one thing I know, I shouldn’t have been watching that graphic sex scene. And why do these “holy” folks have so many R-rated movies with these kinds of pornographic scenes anyway? Things that make you go hmmmm.

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I’m not sure at what point they figured that my mother and I were in the deliverance ministry. I remember really working at them not finding out. But I got to where as I grew in my knowledge and faith, I wanted to talk to Sandy about the things I was learning.

One day Sandy came to visit me and as we hung out, I tried to broach the subject with a movie that was in the theaters based on a true story called The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Being the movie buff she was, I thought this would be a good way to try to put my big toe into the water to test the temperature. Well, it didn’t take long in the conversation before she started to get very uncomfortable. At some point I dropped it because I didn’t want to lose a friend.

I believe it was the last time she visited me that she brought a book by a well-known radio evangelist and author. She “accidentally” left it behind and encouraged me to read it. I was curious to know where she was coming from so I started to read it.

As I read it, the weirdest thing started happening to me. My heart started racing, I became tense, something was coming over me. The book was teaching lies and I couldn’t continue reading it. I had to be ministered deliverance. It was another lesson on the power of religious spirits. I promptly mailed the book back to get it OUT of my house and she communicated her displeasure at my not having read it. Because of course, you know, I had to learn the error of my ways from her and her husband.

The next few times I went to visit Bob and Sandy, I would tense up as I drove. I would pray in the car about the time we would spend together. I would pray for peace and for no debates and disagreements.

One time when I was planning for a visit, Sandy wanted me to visit the new church where her husband would be working. It was in another city and they hadn’t moved yet. This was going to cause a lot of driving for me, plus I wanted to be back to help my mother with her church. I emailed her and told her I wanted to come back and go to MY church. For some reason, she got all bent out of shape over that and told me off. This was the beginning of several times when she would pop off at me when it came to spiritual differences. This wasn’t really a spiritual difference – I just didn’t want to do all that driving. Her husband told her she was overreacting – which she definitely tended to do about many, many things – and she apologized. However, I knew there was trouble on the horizon. The spirit of control was really starting to show.

Another time that I was visiting, I did visit the local church they were attending, where Bob was teaching a class. At one point he asked for comments, to which I gave a comment. I don’t remember the question, but I remember I said something that I had heard from a TV evangelist – that the way to know our Bible is to study it so well that we can tell the lie from the truth, just like when FBI agents study real currency and know it so well that they can detect the counterfeit when they see it. I got no thanks for my comment, no support, only a scowl from Bob.

One time I sent a mass email to a bunch of Christian friends to witness about an amazing story on the power of the Holy Spirit. To make a long story short, I had lost about $1,000 in cash and checks that had been entrusted to me. Before panic set in, I told the Lord, “I’m not going to stop praying until You tell me where that money is!” As I prayed in tongues with my eyes closed, the Lord showed me my blue recycle bin in the garage. I walked over to it. It was full to the top with newspapers, ready to be dragged to the curb. I started fanning through the papers looking for a blue folder which held the money. I went through a couple of times – no folder. I was about to give up as I fanned again, and there was a flash of blue. I recovered the money, started jumping up and down in my garage praising God and telling Him that he was a very present help in time of trouble!! (Psalm 46:1). I heard back from several friends who enjoyed reading this story, but not from my “best” friend. I think the Lord told me, “Spirit of Jealousy”.

As our friendship was nearing the end, Sandy and Bob started to have a lot of career problems which led to marriage problems. Lots of fighting and sleepless nights and unhappiness. Sandy was unloading a lot of these problems to me after many phone calls, and that was fine, I was there for her as a friend. But when she started to tell me the absolutely hateful things she was telling her husband, her consideration of divorce, and especially the fact that she was going to have a nervous breakdown – she said it with such assurance – I couldn’t stand it anymore. I tried to tell her about spiritual warfare, and I quoted her the scripture that the enemy comes only to kill and steal and destroy. “Sandy, you’ve got to learn how to fight those thoughts – that’s the enemy coming to destroy your marriage, destroy your health and ultimately kill you.” This just made her angrier.

At some point during our last phone conversation, she started arguing with me with such an ugly attitude that I knew I couldn’t take much more of this “friendship”. She started to say something to me that I knew was meant to inflict pain on me, but she trailed off. “When your brother died, I just knew…” something about how it would change my religious beliefs….but she said she just wouldn’t “go there”. Twice she said something like this to me. The first time was right after my brother died.

When my brother was dying from an undiagnosed, mysterious disease over a period of a few weeks, I shut myself off from just about everyone until the end. Then I slowly began talking to people again. Sandy was furious at me that she wasn’t included in this part of my life. I didn’t include her because I was trying my hardest to have faith that he would live, and I didn’t want her religious opinions interfering. Anyway, she was wildly angry at me. I thought to myself, “Wait a minute, whose brother just died here? Where’s the sympathy?” Instead a received a long, very religious email about the suffering of Job – and her philosophical viewpoints about the differences in our belief structures, etc. That was my condolence card from her. I couldn’t read it and I still can’t read the whole thing to this day. See, the religious spirits at work again to damage and cause pain, even at a very low point in my life.

Anyway, after this last telephone conversation with her, I didn’t hear from her in a while, even after I left her a voice message. She didn’t return the call. I sent her a birthday present and never received a thanks. Then one day I received an email – a belated thank you for the gift , but the tone was cold, not at all like her – and I sensed a distancing.

I was about to become an ordained minister, something I was very excited about. With the exception of my brother’s death, I had always shared all my plans and stories with her. But I knew, that I knew, that I knew, if I told her I was becoming an ordained minister, that was going to be the last straw. I thought about it for several hours, and I just felt absolutely compelled to tell her. I wonder if it was the Holy Spirit. I was tired of the criticism, the control and the abuse. I told her.

I received another grilling via email with question after accusing question about the ordination, and again this distancing tone. I didn’t reply to the email and have never received any more correspondence from her. And she never did return that call. Even after Hurricane Ike came through Houston two months later, she never called or emailed to see how I fared. This told me it was the end.

to be continued

Religious Spirits, Part II

2008-12-29T18:20:00.000-08:00

Religious Spirits – the source of much heartbreak and torment in the Church

Undoubtedly, you have seen religious spirits at work in “church people”.

• The holier-than-thou church man or lady, usually has arched upraised eyebrows, looks down their nose at you
• The person who has to “pray” about every request, usually inconsequential things
• The TV evangelist name-dropper (here is where the idolatry spirit comes in – this religious spirit causes the person to overly revere the TV evangelist or the pastor or the minister, etc.)
• The critical and controlling Christian who puts down what other Christians say or do or think
• The needy, pity-party Christian who wants everyone to pray for their slightest distresses
• The chest-beating Christian who delivers testimonies or talks about mission trips with an attitude of “Look what I did” (remember, all our works are as filthy rags)
• The glamour woman Christian who wears her flashiest jewels and brightest clothing to church to say, “Look at me, look at me!”
• The jealous Christian who envies another Christian’s success with their teaching or ministry or prayer life or revelation or whatever
• The argumentative Christian, who, when presented with a new doctrine or idea or scripture or revelation from a fellow Christian, sees it as an opportunity for a debate with all the theatrics
• The know-it-all Christian who say things like:
- “I've heard ALL the teachings.”
- “I know what my Bible says better than anyone.”
- “You can't tell me something I don't already know.”
- “I went to Bible College” (seminary, etc.)
- “I never missed a Sunday school class all my years growing up.”
- “I watch Christian television 24/7.”
- “I'm special. My parents (grandparents, etc.) were missionaries/pastors/evangelists.”

Story #1. A friend of mine, who before becoming a Christian, was a control freak, and after becoming a Christian, continued to be a control freak, but with a religious slant to it. When she became born-again, she totally immersed herself in all things Christian – the good and the bad. She watched Christian television night and day and was constantly quoting things that this evangelist or that evangelist said, and she would say it with such an awe that I started to get a funny feeling. She was very dogmatic in her beliefs, and again, if I gently tried to state another viewpoint, I would be soundly rebuffed. She seemed to idolize her church pastor, and had an unusual way of referring to him: “Well, Pastor said this” and “Pastor said that”, almost like, “Well, Dad said this” and “Dad said that”.

Unfortunately, as I rebelled against the control that she exerted toward me, that friendship temporarily ended with her telling me we just could not be friends. Later she came to us for deliverance, but there was none, as we believe the strongholds she had would not allow the Holy Spirit to work on her. The strongman of Control was in charge. When the deliverance did not work, I believe this is where the friendship ended, perhaps because she felt we were discredited? I don’t know. I’ve tried to contact her, but she is not interested.

Story #2. I have written at length in my blog about a man, the son of pastors, whom I dated for only a few weeks. This guy has a twisted perversion of the gospel in his head. He can quote the Bible at a drop of a pin, he believes he is saved, and yet he believes he can sin in whatever way he wants in order to please himself, because, hey, we’re saved by grace, right? Once saved, always saved, right? Wrong! Self–idolatry combined with deceptive religious spirits in the highest form.

Story #3. Whenever I was with the aforementioned Bob and his wife at mealtime, She would ask him to say grace. What he would do was just weird to me. He would take a deep breath through his nose, and then there would be a few moments of silence as we waited. It was like he was trying to command some kind of awe of what he was about to pray. Then he would say something that sounded very religious. It always left me with a, “What was that?”

Here are some religious spirits in the workplace stories:

Story #1. One of my earliest encounters with the religious spirit at work was in a middle-aged woman in an office where I worked. I found her behavior a little peculiar in an office environment. She was constantly humming and singing all day. Now you might ask, what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that the joy of the Lord coming through? Well, yes, BUT, I sensed that it was more than that. When this kind of behavior extends past a certain point, then I become suspicious. A little humming and singing is one thing, but all the time? It felt like she was working overtime to show everyone what a happy Christian she was. She was constantly sending around cutesy emails – you know the kinds that have the tear-jerking stories and the, “If you love Jesus you’ll send this email to ten people and if you don’t such and such will happen to you.” She also had a little bit of the patronizing holier-than-thou, and would spend a lot of time on the phone talking to her Christian friends. It just seemed like her mind was not on her work, and you know the Bible says we are to work as unto the Lord.

Story #2. Another place I worked, the owner was a deacon at a prestigious church in town. Everyone in the office talked with reverence about his devotion to God, and how there had been Bible studies every week in the office (for some reason they had stopped). But try as I might, I couldn’t detect the Holy Spirit anywhere, and especially not in this guy. He was mysterious, secluded, and had a volatile temper.

One day I was discussing spiritual matters with one of the professional women in the office. She was involved with a small Methodist church. We were discussing water baptism. She said her church sprinkled, and I pointed out that the Bible says we are to be immersed – Jesus was immersed. She exploded and snarled at me and telling me in no uncertain terms that it didn’t matter which way it was done, it was just a ritual.

Well, I could digress into a long story about the fact that it DOES matter, and it is “not just a ritual” as she put it – and I may very well write that story as well when I am done with this task. But the point, once again, is the anger which explodes from the person bound by the religious spirit when the TRUTH is ever so calmly pointed out to them.

Story #3. A customer of mine had a thriving business. He was an elder at a church, and beat his chest about his company’s devotion to God throughout his website and printed collateral. And although there were Bible studies at the company, etc., I once again was detecting a mixture of some Christian love and some phoniness. As a vendor, I, more so with these folks than any of my other customers, felt mistreated, was threatened that they would remove their business, and experienced other unreasonable behavior that most non-Christian business people wouldn’t do. I also know of cases of employee abuse as well. I don’t know if they felt they were somehow entitled to behave this way since they were “special” children of God and also, I suspect, giving a LOT of money to their church (I believe they were founders of the church).

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Back to religious spirits at work in the church and a highly controversial topic. I am not a pork-eater. I don’t think it’s scriptural. But hey, I’m not going to shove that teaching down your throat--pun intended. What you eat is between you and your God.

However, when the topic comes up, wow are there explosions! Wanna have some fun? Just tell a holier-than-thouer that eating pork isn’t scriptural!

I was involved in a Bible study through the Methodist church when I was married. One day we were studying the passage in Acts 10 where Peter has the open-eyed vision:

9 The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. 10 Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance 11 and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. 13 And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”

14 But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.”

15 And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” 16 This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again.

17 Now while Peter wondered within himself what this vision which he had seen meant, behold, the men who had been sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate. 18 And they called and asked whether Simon, whose surname was Peter, was lodging there.

19 While Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are seeking you. 20 Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them.”

21 Then Peter went down to the men who had been sent to him from Cornelius, and said, “Yes, I am he whom you seek. For what reason have you come?”

22 And they said, “Cornelius the centurion, a just man, one who fears God and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house, and to hear words from you.” 23 Then he invited them in and lodged them.On the next day Peter went away with them, and some brethren from Joppa accompanied him.

24 And the following day they entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them, and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I myself am also a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many who had come together. 28 Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. 29 Therefore I came without objection as soon as I was sent for. I ask, then, for what reason have you sent for me?”

I have highlighted the key points here. You see, Peter did not, as most of us have, assume that with this vision, it is now ok to eat the animals that God called inedible in the Torah. The scripture says that Peter wondered what this vision meant. He KNEW that it DID NOT mean we could eat whatever we wanted. He finally figured out that it meant that God’s grace was available to not only Jews but also non-Jews. (Read Matthew 13:10 to understand why God sometimes speaks to us in parables.)

After studying this passage, this light bulb went off inside me and I got it. I finally got it. We are really not supposed to eat the things that God said not to eat, IF we want to be obedient to God, please God and obtain His blessings. At our weekly meeting, I started to comment that I didn’t think we were supposed to eat pork, and I didn’t get very far when the woman who ran the Bible study – an always very calm, serene, demure, lady – uncharacteristically exploded and disagreed violently with me. My eyes just flew open at this display. Wow, there is something to this religious spirits stuff, I thought.

Another time, I was at Bob’s house visiting him and his wife Sandy, who had been a very close friend of mine for over a decade. She was like the sister I never had. Bob was cooking omelettes for us and he asked me what I wanted in the omelette. I made my selection and declined the ham. The religious spirits in him prompted him to question me on why I did not want ham, to which I simply replied that I was no longer eating pork products. More questions. I really didn’t want to get into a religious debate, but it seemed unavoidable around this couple. Many times I went for a visit, the pork debate would present itself – not from me, from them.

to be continued

Religious Spirits, Part I

2008-12-29T18:16:00.000-08:00

Religious Spirits – the source of much heartbreak and torment in the Church

I knew something weird was going on when he greeted me with what appeared to be two Bibles under his arm.

A friend of mine was trying to find his way back to God after what was apparently a long period of separation – years, in fact. Bob asked me to take him to church. He showed up with two Bibles, proudly letting me know that one of them was a Greek Bible – he preferred to read the New Testament from the original Greek.

You see, Bob had obtained a master’s degree from ORU at some point in his life. Although he wouldn’t talk about his past, all I knew was that he was divorced, childless, and had run a successful small business for years. I surmised that he had some kind of clerical past and had become apostate.

His proud attitude about his ability to read Greek gave me pause to consider. In our short friendship, I had seen some aspects of his personality that I found peculiar, and a recurring pride was one of them. Now I was seeing religious pride.

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Religious spirits. I hate them. If you have been in the church-world at all, you have encountered them whether you know it or not. After you read this, you will start to discern them.

They are demons that inhabit professing Christians and turn them into obnoxious, holier-than-thou, know-it-all religious control freaks. Doesn’t sound very Christ-like does it? Because demons bring the antithesis of Jesus’ character into a person. We owe it to ourselves, our family, our friends and our God to study the religious spirits, so that we can better discern if we ourselves need them cast out.

I have lost friends who were overwhelmed by religious spirits. They ended up rejecting me as a Christian sister and a friend because they disagreed with my personal Biblical beliefs, and I would not allow them to control me or force me into believing their way. At no time did I try to force my beliefs on them; in fact, I tried to avoid conversations of a spiritual nature with religious friends because I knew it was a volatile topic. However, conversations would arise anyway where the differences would become apparent. For some reason, THEY were the ones who were uncomfortable enough with the differing views that THEY were the ones who washed their hands of me. Why? Most likely because the religious spirits in them KNOW I am speaking the truth, I am quoting scriptures, I am exposing the wiles of the enemy – and the demons want to keep their subjects in lies and deception. So, they had to cut off the word of my testimony.

Some of the religious spirits we will be reviewing are:

• The spirit of the Pharisees
• Religious pride
• Spirit of control
• Traditions of men
• Spirit of jealousy
• Pastoral madness
• Pastoral idolatry
• “Show business”

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Long before my heartbreaks of losing friends to religious spirits, the Holy Spirit, unbeknownst to me at the time, was teaching me about religious spirits.

My parents sent me to a private Episcopal school for my education. Although they were not religious people, they knew this school would give me a good education. I had to attend a ½ hour chapel service every school day for almost my entire childhood up to graduation. It was the same routine every day – a rigid ceremony of Episcopal traditions. I recited “The Lord’s Prayer” every school day of my life for a decade.

One fine day when I was in my teens, my mom became a born-again, spirit-filled, on-fire-for-Jesus, tongue-talking, miracle-working type of crazy Christian. She insisted on taking my brother and I to church – but not any old church, oh no – a Pentecostal, hand-raising, prophesying, slain-in-the-spirit type of church where they didn’t sing the ancient medieval hymns that I was used to. I freaked. I thought my mother had lost her mind and that the church she took me to was some kind of satanic church – certainly not of God! They didn’t do anything here like the church at my school.

A few years later, my mother became interested in the topic of deliverance – the casting out of demons, the breaking of curses, ridding the house of accursed objects – stuff like that. When this new interest came into full force, some supernatural things began to happen – but that’s another story. Anyway, I really freaked out then.

“Who does she think she is, telling you all these crazy things and dragging you to that church?” my thoughts would say to me. “After all, YOU are the one who has been going to church all your life – YOU are the one who has been through numerous Bible studies at school – YOU are the one who knows better,” the thought would continue. Then, a softer voice entered my mind: “But she is my mother and I know she’s smart and I know she loves me – she wouldn’t mislead me?” I realize now that the voice – that “accusing” voice – was a demon – and the softer voice was the Holy Spirit. I was infected with a religious spirit – the know-it-all. The religious spirit – really all demons – talk to you so subtly and are so intertwined with your soul that you think it’s your thought. But in this case, the Holy Spirit stepped in and showed me what was going on, although I really didn’t understand it at the time.

But even then, as a child, I would look at the clergy of the school/church and the teachers who were members of the church, and I would feel this coldness from them – something that just didn’t feel Christ-like to me. I particularly remember the head rector and his alcoholic wife. The man had an undeniable arrogance about him – it was visible in his face and demeanor. Other clergy members seemed sad, no joy of the Lord. I thought this was the way it was supposed to be – this was my “paradigm”, my model. That’s why going to a spirit-filled church was such a culture shock to me.

Later in my adult life, I could never find a church home because I could never get comfortable anywhere – If I went to a denominational church, I felt a dryness, a dissatisfaction in my soul, a boredom. If I went to a Pentecostal church, I couldn’t deal with the raising of the hands, the speaking in tongues, the manifestations of the spirit. I couldn’t participate – I couldn’t raise my hands – I didn’t know why, I just knew I couldn’t - I would get discouraged and frustrated and I would leave.

When I finally decided to study the deliverance ministry and the ways of demons, I finally put two and two together and realized it was the religious spirits that wouldn’t let me have my freedom in the Lord. The Bible says we have to worship the Lord with joy and gladness and singing and dancing and clapping and shouting AND raising of the hands. When Jesus set me free of those spirits, I was free indeed to worship the Lord with my heart and my soul and my strength, in Spirit and in Truth!

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I believe that religious spirits enter Christians primarily when the Christian has been taught a supposedly Biblically sound teaching that is a lie, or a half-truth, or a false doctrine, or a perversion of the truth. If the Christian believes and embraces that teaching, a religious spirit might come in to anchor that deception in that person. It keeps the person in a sort of spiritual bondage and might prevent that person from hearing or studying or understanding or searching for the truth. How many times did our God – both in the Original Covenant (OT) and the Amended Covenant (NT) tell us that we have eyes but don’t see and ears but don’t hear? The demons come to plug up our senses and keep us from Truth.

This is why it is so important to READ YOUR BIBLE and invite the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Understanding, to guide you into ALL TRUTH. You have to be able to discern the truth from the lie, the holy from the profane, so that you don’t go into bondage from bad teachings. If you KNOW what your Bible says, and you are walking with the Lord, you have a better chance of not being deceived. You have to be like the Bereans (Acts 17:11) whenever you hear or read anything your pastor says, an evangelist says a TV evangelist says, a parochial school teacher says, a nun says, the Sunday school teacher says, etc. etc. etc.

One day I was reading my Bible and I came across the scripture where Jesus teaches,

Matthew 6:7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

The thought occurred to me that perhaps another way I opened myself up to religious spirits was when I said “The Lord’s Prayer” every school day of my life during chapel service. I could say it without thinking about it. It became meaningless to me. Isn’t that what Jesus is talking about here? What about Hail Mary’s and rosary beads? We’re as good as heathens when we do those things, and we’re disobeying what Jesus told us to do, which is a sin, which opens the door for a demon to reside in you.

to be continued

Don't Kid Yourself About the Gospel of Grace, Part 4

2008-07-07T15:30:00.001-07:00

So, here I conclude, at least for the moment, this story about this man who was leading me to believe he wanted a serious relationship, but in reality was courting me for nothing more than sex. (The thing I can't get over is that I got the impression that he wanted a God-fearing woman to have sex with--that not just any woman would do. There seems to be something twisted here....)

Anyway, I pulled out a number of scriptures in Part 3 that, to me, show that "saved by grace" does not in any way mean that we can deliberately and willingly sin and then say, "Oh, well, I'm saved by grace". I don't think that the Lord's grace is intended for us to be so cavalier, casual and comfortable with sinning. To me, the scriptures are very clear in that we have to live holy lives. We have to obey God's commandments so that "things will go well with us" (read the book of Deuteronomy).

As I finished reading the New Testament during this time after our relationship ended, I was reminded again about how we as Christians have to be "overcomers". The same theme continues to be repeated in the last book of the Bible: we have to conquer our selfish sin nature, obey God and repent about anything we have done contrary to God's will. As you read below, note that once saved, NOT always saved. Your name CAN be blotted out of the Book of Life. Read it. Don't fall for that erroneous "once saved, always saved" teaching since we are "saved by grace". It depends on how you live.

Revelation 3
1"To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him (Jesus) who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. 3Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. 4Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. 6He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

14"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation (Jesus). 15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. 21To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Revelation 21
6He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

22I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Revelation 22
14"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

Don't Kid Yourself About the Gospel of Grace, Part 3

2008-06-13T11:20:00.001-07:00

As you have read in Part 1 and 2, these posts are about a so-called Christian man whom I had just started dating who wanted to "make love" 5 weeks into the relationship. When I told him that I abided by God's wishes that sex be saved for the marriage bed, the relationship ended.

I discovered in our last meeting that he considered himself "saved" even though he wanted to live life his way carnally, not God's way spiritually. I know the "gospel of grace" is big among Christians, to allow a looser translation of sin and a less guilty conscious about sin because, hey, we're saved by grace, right? Well, I'm not so sure we can have such a cavalier, care-free attitude.

As I mentioned before, I had my bookmark in Hebrews and James as the relationship ended. I continued to read the New Testament and I found these scriptures that make me question the gospel of grace, as many Christians today interpret it. There are a lot of scriptures that follow, and I think they could make many people uncomfortable. Can we really be so casual about how our God defines sin, even in the post-resurrection era, after reading these? Can you agree with my former suitor that I've taken what the Bible commands to an extreme?

I Peter 1

14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

II Peter 2
13They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. 14With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.

17These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. 18For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. 20If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit,"and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."

II Peter 3
10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. (NOTE: This scripture is particularly ironic to me since I mentioned earlier that he is so certain he would be raptured.)

I John 1
5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

I John 2
3We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

I John 3
4Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. 7Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

I John 5
3This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome...

II John
6And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

Jude
3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

16 These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. 17 But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. 19 These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.

So, I see three recurring themes throughout the above scriptures. We need to take these seriously if we really want to call ourselves Christians, by the "book". The first is that we have to keep God's commandments.

John 14:15

If you love Me, keep My commandments.

John 14:21

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.

John 15:10

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

The second theme I see is that we have to live holy lives. Keeping the commands, precepts, laws and statutes of God will naturally produce holy lives.

The third theme is that we have to live our lives with love - love for God first and then love for other people - the two greatest commandments per Jesus. (Matthew 22:37-40). It's a matter of your heart - it's a matter of subjecting love of self in favor of love of God and love for people.

So where does that leave those who want their eternal life insurance policy, but who also want to "push the envelope" with their interpretation of grace while we're here on this earth?

To be continued

Don't Kid Yourself About The Gospel of Grace, Part 2

2008-06-11T09:49:00.001-07:00

So, in Part 1, I gave you the set-up of a man I was seeing who, so it seemed to me, was pretending to be someone he was not in order to get what he wanted from me. A user, a manipulator, a dishonest person. I probably don't need to tell you what God thinks about this kind of person (Proverbs 6:16-19):

There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

Anyway, I mentioned that I was wondering why a professed Christian, the son of pastors no less, who could quote scripture to me, would deliberately sin when he knew better. I was reading Hebrews during the week that the breakup began happening, and this jumped out at me:

Hebrews 10:26-31
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 13: 4
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

So, after reading this, I started praying for his soul. I became very concerned about his salvation.

A week after the fateful night described in Part 1, I contacted him to find out what was going on. I hadn't received complete clarity on the situation, and I wanted closure if it was over. He came over to my house to talk.

The bottom line was if there was no sex, there would be no relationship - this is what I had to discern, because he absolutely would not be forthright with me. He was like a politician, circumventing the issue. I told him, "You know, the Bible says we can't do that - that 'making love' is for the marriage bed." His answer was, "Well, you can take things to the extreme, you know." I was amazed. To the extreme? What extreme? The Bible says not to do it, so you don't do it. That's how I look at it, anyway.

As we continued the conversation, his guard came down, since he realized he wasn't going to get his way. Then the truth started to come out. In short, he had pretended to agree with me or at least be open to many of the spiritually-based topics we had discussed (or really, I had discussed) only to find out in THIS conversation that he didn't agree on many things with me. He was just going along (to get what he wanted). I can't stand lies and hypocrisy like this.

What I now believe is that he wanted his "eternal" life insurance policy of being "saved" and was sure he would be raptured if Jesus came any minute (he actually brought this up), but he wanted to live his life the way he wanted to, regardless of God's laws, judgments, precepts and commandments. He was perverting God's truths and God's laws in his mind to suit his own will and desires. He basically was making up his own god and his own religion loosely based on the Word of God.

I just finished reading a book by a man named Stan Telchin (the premise of the book has nothing to do with this article), but in it I found a couple of aptly worded statements that do apply to what I am talking about here:

"You will note that I put quotation marks around the word Christians. I want to emphasize that using the word Christian or claiming the name of Christ does not necessarily make one a true disciple of the Lord Jesus. Simply performing acts in His name does not mean that those acts are extensions of His will or Person, or that the people performing those acts truly know Him or are acting within His will."

True enough. Later in the book, I found this (recalling that the Lord had told me this man was double-minded - see article 1). I was amazed because this is exactly what I had been thinking about this guy:

"We need to resolve to have a whole heart, a heart that is wholly focused on the Lord and His Word. Why? Because there is tremendous danger in having a divided heart. Some time ago I heard a message by Pastor Scott Young at the Church of Hope in Sarasota, Florida. He was teaching about Hosea and listed three things that happen when a person or a church has a divided heart. First a divided heart corrupts the truth. Second, a divided heart makes its own god. And third, a divided heart breeds conflict.....Then we see a new religion being formed....

"And think about the truth that a divided heart makes up its own god (see Hosea 10:2). When we feel that we cannot reach the standard God has set, we make the decision to lower the standard. And in effect we are making up our own rules and our own god. Hosea 10:13 speaks of this: 'But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception.'

"We have to hold God's standard high. We cannot compromise God's Word. We are not to have a little bit of God and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. When you see that happening in your life, you have to know that you have allowed your heart to be divided. You are relying on your own strength, your own warriors, your own definitions and your own idols and you are veering from God and His Word.....A divided heart lies very easily...The people are not honest, loving and gracious toward one another. They wink and nod and rationalize with one another, keeping their own counsel and not living their lives in accordance with God's Word...."

When I also realized in the conversation that we were at an impasse, I switched the conversation back to spiritual things. I didn't come down on him in any way, because I believe it's the love of God that brings men to repentance (Romans 2:4), but I did give him a few things to think about. One thing that popped out of my mouth was that I have learned that we have to constantly "re-examine our paradigms". I hope those words will haunt him, because his paradigms are based on his self-deception about God's truths.

That night as I was going to bed, this scripture entered my mind for some reason and it just stuck with me as I drifted off to sleep:

Psalm 24: 3-4
Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully.

The next morning when I sat down to read my Bible before going to work, my bookmark was in James. Here is what I read:

James 4: 7-10 and 17
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

James 5: 19-20
My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

First of all, the Holy Spirit brought the "clean hands and pure heart" to my mind before I went to bed because He knew I was about to read it again in James. Over and over the Lord was reconfirming to me how this guy really was - whitewashed on the outside and full of rotten bones on the inside (Matthew 23:27). Also, when I turned the direction of the conversation, I had tried to do what James 5:10-20 said. I pray that one day, he'll remember this conversation and repent.

To be continued in Part 3

Don't Kid Yourself About the Gospel of Grace, Part 1

2008-06-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, I had quite a learning experience briefly getting to know a man who told me that he had grown up in a spirit-filled, Pentecostal-type church as the son of pastors. Being a Christian myself, I was delighted to have met him and hopeful that this would be a special relationship.

My first warning sign was when he emphasized several times to me that he didn't want any of our mutual friends to know that he was the son of pastors -- he didn't want to be a "stumbling block" to anyone. Hmmm.

We went on a couple of dates, and I started to fall in love with him, which I shouldn't have without knowing more, but I was mesmerized with his charm and personality. One day he promised me when he came back from yet another trip, he would call me for coffee so we could discuss our God-experiences. I was elated and I waited all day by the phone for him to call. He never did, and I was crushed. As I walked by my neighborhood creek in the cool of the evening, the Lord told me, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8) I ended it.

Fast-forward two years later and I run into this man again. We start dating again against my better judgment. Immediately I take up where we left off, discussing scripture, my personal experiences with the Lord, what I have learned over the years, my spiritual areas of interest and goals, etc. While he seemed to affirm what I was saying, I noticed that he didn't contribute much to the conversations that were of a spiritual nature. I wondered.

I remember a few comments he made that would, after the relationship was over, come to have a new meaning to me. In one instance he told me that he wouldn't be with me if I weren't a spiritually-minded woman. He was adept at quoting scripture. He told me he enjoyed our spiritual conversations. He told me that he felt a relationship between a man and a woman worked best when Jesus was at the top of the "triangle". I told him that if there came a time that he didn't want to see me anymore, that I would just tell myself, "Well, God is my Rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my strong tower...". He became excited and said, "I LOVE it when you talk that way!" I said I'd never met a man who got so turned on when somebody quoted scripture! I mistakenly took all these conversations and comments as a good sign.

Another time he said that as close as he and his father were, there were doctrines they differed on. After he told me this a couple of times, I remember thinking, didn't Jesus say a disciple is not above his teacher? I suppose if his father were clearly wrong on some issues, that would be one thing. But my gut feeling was that that was not the case. I think my friend was creating his own religion with his own doctrines, creating his own god with his own rules--rules of convenience. I'll explain later.

The relationship ended in only five weeks when he suggested we "make love". I told him that the Bible says we are not to "fornicate" - that making love was to be saved for the marriage bed. That word just popped out of my mouth and it caused him to drop me like a hot potato (I guess it was like a bucket of cold water on him - LOL!). He completely turned in a matter of seconds from hot pursuit to a dead stop.

Once again I was crushed and confused. Could this man who had been courting me so aggressively over the last five weeks and leading me on to believe he was a child of God be a fraud? Had he been deceiving me with his professions of love and commitment to me just so he could get me into bed? Would he deliberately sin even though the Bible warns against sinning, especially deliberate sinning?

I had been praying frequently to God during this short 5-week relationship that the Lord would show me the truth about this man. Now the truth was really being revealed and it was breaking my heart.

A week went by before we spoke in person again. During that week I happened to have my bookmark in the book of Hebrews, as I read my Bible every morning. As happens so many times to me, that whenever I am going through a trying time in my life, wherever my bookmark happens to be in my Bible, I find answers and revelation that pertain to that specific problem. It's absolutely uncanny, and it just makes me love God more that He is so faithful to help me understand, support me and teach me during those times.

I was reading Hebrews, and you'll see what I found...to be continued in Part 2.