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becoming one, confusion, controlling spirit, demons, discerning the spirits, end time spirit, evil spirits, experience, false spirits, God's voice, light, listening, prayer, Satan, sin, the devil, wisdom
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.
Susanne, thanks for sharing this. For sure there are many confusing “prophetic” (more like pathetic) voices of people wanting to be God’s mouth piece as if they are Old Testament prophets over Israel. There is a great deception here in those deceived (both speaker and those who adhere to what is said), these are manifesting that they want to rule in other’s lives and want have a humans ruling over them. Just as Samuel found out, God is not pleased with this. The Book of Hebrews could not be any more plain about this shift from Old Covenant to the New saying as it starts out with,
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has IN THESE LAST DAYS HAS SPOKEN TO US BY HIS SON, whom He has appointed heir [of] all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the radiance of His glory and the exact expression of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power…” (Heb. 1:1-3)
Jesus told us that He would not leave us alone, but would come again in the form of the Comforter, His very Spirit!
Even in back in the Old Testament there were many false prophets who contradicted what the the true prophets sent by God were saying, so it is today as self-appointed “prophets” and teachers seek to usurp the voice of the Spirit in us. Our last blog was all about this very thing.
(see https://awildernessvoice.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/making-room-for-the-spirit-to-mature-others-in-christ/ )
We who truly serve the Lord should always be directing people to listen to HIM and not drawing attention to ourselves and our supposed titles and gifts. Christians fall into all manner of traps because they do not know what covenant they are of. John was dealing with many anti-christs (those who put themselves in the lives of the saints instead of Christ) in the churches as false teachers when he wrote them that they had NO NEED that ANY man teach them, but the Spirit in them would lead them into all truth (see 1 John 2:26-27). I find that the ones who resist the simplicity of this truth the most are the ones who claim exalted titles and want to lord over the saints of God.
So, dear sister, you do well to do all to stand against the wiles of the devil and his well meaning helpers who would come and take the place of the Holy Spirit in your life.
God bless and keep you always,
Michael
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You’re very welcome, Michael.
I know you and George wrote a lot of good stuff about the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant on A Wilderness Voice and I highly recommend the latest article you both wrote which you linked above. You also said so properly,
“I find that the ones who resist the simplicity of this truth the most are the ones who claim exalted titles and want to lord over the saints of God.”
Yes and amen to that. That is why I began to moderate comments in my last article and I already deleted three responses in which bloggers tried to do exactly THIS. No chance on here any longer for anyone who does not want to be a member of the body of Christ like any other. If someone wants to have a position or a “ministry” of his/her own, they might go and seek elsewhere where Satan can deceive their old and uncrucified self, even with VERY good feelings. Alas, there is so much power in the soul that does not submit to God’s Spirit. Indeed, those evil spirits that control these poor people want to rule always and claim a position for themselves by making others look smaller than they want to be seen. But alas, that behavior reveals which spirit they are of. The humble mind of Christ is all we need, don’t you think, my brother?
God bless and keep you always, too.
Susanne
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Yes, Susanne, in the plan of God Christ is our sufficiency in ALL things, Paul, Peter, Apollos and all the rest are only servants and ALL things are ours in Christ as we belong to Him alone. Christ has torn down the wall of separation between us all who are His and we have no place in our lives for those who do their best to build it up again as they try to sew up the veil of the Holy of Holies once again and maintain control.
Oh, what a blessing it is to finally see ourselves in the unity of the Father and the Son as children of God and to live accordingly as we boldly enter into their presence instead of living in Adam under our religious fig leaves any longer!
God bless you as you seek and yield to the fullness of Christ in you,
Michael
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Yes, God only wants to bless us since only He is good. The same to you, my dear brother! 🐱
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By the way, dear friend, thanks for the link to our website. 🐻
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You’re so welcome, my friend. 🙂
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I feel as though I myself have been guilty of this very thing but lately as I try to let go of that I am sensing fear within myself by allowing another voice to put me in fear once again. And I don’t want it. I want Love above all things. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Sometimes I admit that, that can be hard but to keep hearing the same things over and over is not helping me but hindering me and thus scaring me. I KNOW I am a child of God however imperfect that may be. Thank you Susanne for this post. May the love of God always encourage others to be able to discern. I don’t want to scare people into truth. God bless you!
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You’re very weelcome as to the post, Stacey.
It is so very difficult to love everyone, even impossible without God’s help. for it is written,
“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Rom 5:5 ESV)
The more we have received of His Holy Spirit, the more we are able to love.
I will be praying that this spirit of fear will leave you, dear sister.
God bless you, too! 🙂
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Susanne this is VERY good advice “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” ~ wayne
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Thank you, Wayne. That was very encouraging for me to read. 🙂
Every blessing to you and Nita,
Susanne
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Good morning, Susanne! You wrote:
“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?”
That is indeed a hard word, but still the truth. Lately I’ve been giving thought to John 10 and hirelings, thieves and robbers, who come to steal, kill and destroy. Your post and that passage from John 8 are helpful and timely.
The “nice guy” in me, the one who has been taught “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”, is loathe to call a hireling a hireling (or a thief a thief, etc.) For several months now, I’ve been wrestling with what I believe the Spirit told me about the pastor of the small country church the Lord sent us to briefly. When we first visited that church and met the pastor, I told him that I did not need a pastor, I had Jesus, but I value a friend. It didn’t take long for his true colors to emerge, rejecting truth for money, which sometimes amounted to preaching the law to the free sons, or preaching partial truths, which is the same as lying by omission. When finally I asked the Lord what the pastor was, the Lord said he was the “destroyer”.
That of course threw me for a loop and the Lord ultimately led me to John 10 and now I see the passage from John 8 above. The question you raise above, “Didn’t Jesus tell us that Satan would sift us like wheat”, is similar to what I have often asked myself and others, concerning the ‘end of the age’ and the deception that will be so prevalent (Matthew 24, Mark 13), that if the days were not cut short (Mat. 24:22, Mk 13:20) even the elect might be lost. These passages beg the question “since the gospel speaks of wide-spread deception as the end of the age approaches, how can you be so sure that you are not in fact, deceived?”
“I’m sure” say they, scurrying off to their man-made temple, to worship a God who does NOT live/abide there, to pay tithes, etc., to feed the hirelings and the thieves who robbed them of their inheritance in Christ Jesus and effectively murder the Spirit-life in them. Lies so often repeated, or carried out by the rote obedience of legions of adherents, I can scarcely stand to listen or watch any longer.
The truth has made me a hermit of sorts, insulated from the reality of the world, numbed by the heartache from what I’ve seen and heard. How often has this worlds reality given me to pray “Lord, where are Your people?”
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog Susanne, and Michael’s. Thanks for posting this – it tracks with what the Lord has been leading me in these last few months.
Jack
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Good evening, Jack! 🙂
You might remember that your latest comment on my blog dealt with people pleasing, the “nice guy” thing, you know. Your words were a real eye opener for me and I experienced that God indeed can give us the fear of Him into our heart that then seeks His approval more than man’s and woman’s. Also, He shares His power (read authority) with us so that we can resist those false spirits that work in them in order to influence our behavior. To be honest, on my own, I was NEVER able to do so.
As for your latest church experiences, well, I can only say that there were times when the truth had begun to dawn on me while I was still part of the church system, yet I could not leave it although I wanted to do so because it was as if there had been invisible chains around my feet that kept me there. Just recently I realized that these controlling spirits are more evil than I would have thought. As soon as we open up our hearts toward someone who has such a controlling spirit, we are quickly captured and submit to something that will keep confusing us and finally capture our soul. All those revelations we might have had from God before begin to shake like a nutshell on the ocean. Satan injects the poison of doubt and the fear of making a mistake by rejecting a person who was also made by God – like you and me.
How can we reject someone for who Jesus also died? How could we NOT love them or even perceive them as our enemies? However, it is not about rejection. It is about judging truth and lies. And Jesus told us we would have a lot of enemies, both in the world and in the religious system if we began to follow Him alone. No one who is part of a hierarchical church, esp. someone who lives from tithes (pastor) is interested in a believer who only relies on Jesus. So, if someone tries to seduce us to believe a lie although God told us the truth before, it is our very duty to RUN! Even as fast as possible!!! I am not kidding here, Jack, since I saw lately how very dangerous it is to get involved with such people who seem to be spiritual at first, yet merely host legions of demons inside because they are in the dark about their own pride and selfishness.
I am glad you enjoyed reading Michael’s and my blog, dear brother, and you are very welcome as to the posting. I was happy to hear that God taught you similar things in the last few months. There can never be two contradicting truths – ever. You see, one spirit!
May God bless you and keep you,
Susanne
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“As soon as we open up our hearts toward someone who has such a controlling spirit, we are quickly captured and submit to something that will keep confusing us and finally capture our soul.”
That is OH so TRUE! I was shocked at how quickly we were sucked into the whirlwind of religious busy-ness. Time and again, I asked my wife, and she me, if that ‘church job’ we had just volunteered for, was God’s leading, or something else. Finally, it came to our wedding anniversary weekend when in years past we’ve always gone away together to celebrate, but we could not because between the 2 of us, we were signed up to perform 4 church jobs on our anniversary.
Realizing our predicament, my wife cried “we’re trapped!” “Oh NO we’re NOT” I said and promptly fired off 2-3 emails to the taskmasters resigning from every church job. As soon as we got untangled, peace returned to us.
In hindsight, there were just 3 things the Lord led us to do there before releasing us to leave. We gifted the church a foot-washing pitcher and basin to help them through a serious forgiveness issue involving their former pastor who fell into sin, played and sang Don Francisco’s “The Traveler/Joy” for their ‘easter’ service and sent a letter of correction to the new pastor and board of elders.
The doctrine and teachings did not fool us, in fact, the Lord used them to kindle righteous anger in me and renew my passion for writing. What did catch us by surprise, is just how gossipy and manipulative people can be in trying to carry out their religious vision, which as often as I’ve seen it, supplants God’s vision.
One of the lessons we learned, Susanne, is just how subtle and seemingly innocent and loving manipulation can be. Emerging from 15 years in the wilderness with the Lord, where we were at times lonely for human fellowship, we met a number of people at that church who on first impression, were loving and friendly. One of them who became fast friends with my wife, was especially bubbly and enthusiastic about a new church-job she was heading up and my wife in affirming her enthusiasm for the job, got caught up in it herself. That initial feeling of excitement over a new friend with a new church-work, seemed positive, even mimicking the joy of the Spirit – but it quickly turned sour as the drudgery of vain church works manifest. It was hard for my wife to disengage from it, because the person was both friend and co-worker. To disengage from the work, ended a friendship.
Where I got caught up, was in trying to apply reason / logic to church-jobs. I am a life-long guitar player and sound engineer. So it was only logical that if we were going to be a part of that church, I should use my talent(s) to serve. In fact, even as I was resisting the temptation to get involved, the Bible study we attended looked at 1 Peter 4, where verse 10 convinced me to use my talent: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (ESV). I played guitar for worship twice and the piano player, who had been there for 8 years quit twice, the 2nd time for good. And as soon as I got involved running sound, down came new more demanding requirements. And where I did something once, well, there was no end of requests (pestering to nagging) to perform again. It all soured very quickly.
So, where we thought we were trained in the school of the Holy Spirit for 15 years, that we were wise to the ways of religion and determined not to become ensnared again, we were quickly taken in by emotion (Karen) and reason / logic (me).
I’m somewhat embarrassed by it all and definitely humbled. There is only one safe passage in this world and that it to lean on the Lord. Human emotion and understanding can certainly mislead us.
Jack
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Thanks so much for sharing another part your of journey so openly with us on here, Jack.
Yes, that is typical that we as women tend to be caught up by emotions and men by their reason, though there might be exceptions. Also, that was exactly what I felt too, loving people were a hindrance for me to leave earlier although I knew there was something VERY wrong. “The spirits might be wrong, but where is the “guilt” in the deceived believers?” These were my confused thoughts as I was not yet able to leave the Christian cult Paul and I joined for more than five years (BTW, I played piano 😉 )…
Yes and amen! Very well said!
Every blessing to you and Karen,
Susanne
I am glad that the Lord helped you two out of that spiritual mess!!
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Yes, Jack, when we are hungry for “Christian fellowship” we are extremely vulnerable to any false and controverting spirit that comes along. What is worse I found, was that when the Spirit DOES use us in a “service” and the people feel the Spirit in what we do or play, THEN the controlling spirits in that place get all jealous and stirred up against us. The outcome is the opposite of what we had hoped as a result.
Sooo my brother after seeing this over and over, I have had to conclude that the Antichrist spirits control any venue where men love the pre-eminence. See 3 John. Some time you have to let the blind guides lead the blind and let God’s appointed ditches do the REAL work of ministry in their lives.
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Same here as of late.
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Well said, Susanne. 1 John 2:26-27 especially, “the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you” is profound and applies well.
All in good humor, but that concept can frighten some people, along with the idea that one might speak to God personally and not need their words. It makes you unshakable, unable to control, not easily influenced by others. Those who seek control are ruled by fear, but perfect love casts out fear. So when we truly know the love of Christ, we have no need or desire to try to manipulate or control other people.
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Excellent, Gabrielle. Could not be said better! ⭐
Thank you very much for your response! 🙂
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Yes Sue that is what the battle is all about–control–what happened in Paris is an example–go in and terrorize them and they will fear us–thus we gain control over them–When someone speaks to me about Spiritual stuff I listen to them and then I say ok I will talk it over with Father and follow His advice as to what to do with it–then they leave me alone and later if they ask me what Father told me I tell them—if they don’t like it I really don’t care or I will say to them that they need to ask Father for themselves and I like to finish it with the question–Jesus does live inside of you and monitor your thoughts does He not ?
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The way you deal with others is very good, Ken! ⭐
Indeed, I had exactly the same thoughts about the Paris disaster today. People tend to sit for hours in front of their TV screens – spellbound by Satan who increases their fears of the future and their suspicion toward possible terrorists – and the pictures they see follow them all day long… and much longer… even into their dreams aka nightmares. What an ugly game the devil plays with our minds and hearts if we let him! 😦
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