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And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Is 30:21 ESV) Picture taken from https://confessionsslp.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/shutterstock_106645070.jpg

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Is 30:21 ESV)
Picture taken from https://confessionsslp.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/shutterstock_106645070.jpg

Do we know how easy it is to confuse Satan’s lies with what God has been telling us? I do know how often that happened to me in the past and I am glad to have received continued access to the heart of God so that I immediately sense another spirit in whatever someone tells me. Without even thinking about it, I immediately feel a sort of uneasiness, even a strong feeling of disgust at times, depending on how evil the spirit was who talked to me through others.

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (Jn 8:42-47 ESV)

Just think about it for a moment… If someone of us is indwelt by God’s Spirit the same way Jesus was and is not loved by his Christian brothers and sisters, instead, they reject out of hand what the true believer says to them, are those other Christians not of the devil? I know these words might sound hard to some. However, didn’t Jesus tell us that Satan would sift us like wheat?

Imagine God told you something about another person and you confront them with what He told you by always speaking the truth in love without mentioning that God was the author of the information you had about them. However, these people try to convince you of the opposite to be true, even declaring what they proclaim and do was the very will of God (in case of Christians only, of course). In doing so, they approach you in a seemingly friendly manner while beating you round the head with Scriptures, yet in a moment of sleepy inattentiveness of yours, the evil behind their smiling mask tries to inject its poison into you by manifesting a controlling spirit that claims to always speak for God. Remember, although you did not say you spoke for God – yet you knew it was true – the evil spirit urges them to add something like, “The Lord has said…”, “The Holy Spirit has commanded me to tell you”, or to state they were an appointed mouthpiece of the Most High God as if we still lived in Old Covenantal times.

This kind of evil spirit often manifests in trying to discern current events on earth, whether politics, natural disasters, wars, fatalities, murder – whatever which is bad (and that is a lot!), he takes it for a sign he personally got from God to tell the (Christian) world that the end was near.
Um, well…. That is not really a new spirit since it reappeared in almost every century since the early beginnings of the church in the 1st century. What lies behind this kind of spirit is a mindset that is basically full of fear, both regarding life and death. While not realizing what kind of fearful abyss is inside their own hearts, they project their fears and shadows on all which can be seen outside of us. The controlling spirit knows that and whispers in their ears that they have nothing to fear about the future if they, instead, preach a frightening “end time gospel” which is a ridiculous distortion of the real gospel which has been given to us in order to set us free.

Actually, there is also a worldly version of this controlling spirit which manifests by criticizing others regarding almost every area in their life. These persons are always suspicious and offer advice to any problem THEY perceive in your life. Sometimes they do not “offer” advice, instead, they try to impose their will on you and if you do not “obey”, they get mad at you because they think they are always right. It is very difficult to deal with such persons. However, what I have learned lately is that we need to resist the spirit that is in them by immediately seeking the presence of God through prayer. His guidance can be VERY unpredictable since in one case he might say, “Ignore what you heard,” in another case “Tell them to stop speaking about it,” or He helps you listen to their stuff without getting entangled in their reasonings. Listening to God in every case is key; there is no other principle to be followed. We need to only seek His will in all things and ask Him to adjust our will to His, more and more, so that eventually God’s will and ours are completely ONE.