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Although I have been posting articles about discerning the spirits for almost 27 months now, I have come to realize that it is often times not possible to explain the difference between these emotions that move our soul habitually and, by contrast, those tender ‘nudges’ or even stronger impressions of restraint in our hearts by which God leads our spirits. Actually, we can only recognize what we have come to know ourselves, right? So, I simply want to tell you today what God’s leading is NOT about.

Important to know is that we as human beings tend to project our natural thoughts and feelings onto God. As we feel compassion for someone who is hurting or someone who was offended, attacked or rejected, we might confuse our feelings with God’s unconditional love. An honest answer to an acid-test-question might help us along here: “Do we feel love for our enemies just the same?” If we are all in tears because of having listened to a wonderful song, it must have sprung from God’s heart as well, we might believe. Also, if we basically know the difference between wrong and right Christian teachings and behavior, we feel we can discern the spirits. Brothers and sisters, this is all wrong! Our soul with its old nature (the flesh) is like a ‘little god’ walking on this earth, still trying to be like God without His intervention into our lives. As for confusing our soul life with God’s reality, we read in the Old Testament that God said,

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is 55:8-9 ESV)

We must be cautious if someone tells us they know God’s thoughts and feelings. We must also be careful if we hear someone say they know what God is going to do in the future (esp. with ‘the church’). Everything we need to know about these things was written down by the prophets of the Old Testament, in the gospels, and mainly in the Book of Revelation. We do not need further revelations, esp. no detailed descriptions about how horrific the end times will be. We ought to be suspicious of people who claim to know something “new” that was not written in the Bible at all. That does not mean that God does not show us the things to come through the Holy Spirit (in dreams or visions, for instance). However, we ought to be very cautious when we hear or read something that contradicts the Bible.

Now I want to share with you what I experienced this week regarding my topic of being led by God or driven by another spirit. At Christmas I got a gift I did not really like although I did not admit it and I won’t do it, either. Why hurt someone who only wanted to bless me? Well, this gift has been a daily calendar, a fat book basically, in which there is not much room to jot something down. Instead, you find sayings by famous Christian authors, prayers by more or less famous people, (religious) life stories and a lot of advice as to how to live the Christian life. Dear reader, I really tried hard to find something I could LIKE… You might know that I have not read any book during the last 10 years since I lost interest in anything God has not put on my heart before. However, in this case (since it was a gift from a loved one), I tried a long time to understand their message or to find at least ANYTHING which might have come from God’s Spirit. Alas, it was as I had presumed before. This book calendar deals with how people can become better Christians by doing their Christian duties, by following the liturgical year and by being focused on Christianity, not on Christ.

Brothers and sisters, I know it is not their fault that these people do not have eyes to see, yet. But it grieves me to what large extent Satan has blinded the Christian world! It seems they are even content with what they do, whether they are more liberal or conservative. This is not important. However, they do not know the Living God! This makes me so sad. 😦 Just a few hours ago, I checked out another blog as the words of a commenter there jumped right into my face. You know, one of these self-appointed end time preachers who love to tell people if they do not listen to them, they will land in hell. Yuk!! I left this blog rather quickly and thought I won’t come back that soon due to the presence of wrong spirits. A blogger who allows the wrong spirits to enter his blog, will be driven by the wrong spirits sooner or later as well. In fact, if we do not block such responses, we will unknowingly submit to Satan by whom the commenter is driven. You might think I am overstating it here, but I have learned this lesson the hard way. As I had begun with publishing articles on Entering the Promised Land, I was happy to get ANY comment and ANY blogger like. It was not so important for me who these people were. The main thing was that I saw the number of comments increase and the blogger likes, too. However, this only happened if I myself had liked other blog posts and commented on their blogs as well. One hand washes the other, huh? 🙄 No, not so in the kingdom of God! This is worldly stuff, dear brothers and sisters. These times are over, and I am glad they are, since I cannot count my anxieties, those sleepless nights, my fear to be attacked by commenters and so on and so forth.

If you’re interested, here is another observation I made this week. About two or three days ago I had the idea to search for other bloggers who might be led by the Spirit of God in their writings. Not that my expectations were very high, but I had a little hope as I was browsing the net. Maybe, I could find only ONE blog where the writer listened to God’s leading before publishing something. Well, I found eight different spiritual blogs which is not much. Their blog names contained the compound word ‘spirit-led’ in one form or another. The first two blogs were written by women. Both of them listened to angelic voices and their gut feelings, thinking that was God’s voice. Number three and four were written by men who were convinced that sharing their convictions, creeds, teachings and doctrine was God’s will and leading. You see, women tend to confuse their emotions and intuition with God’s voice and men their intellect and reason. But I do know that there are exceptions like intellectual women vs. emotional men! The more blogs I checked out, the more my heart was sinking low… and lower… and…. There was only one woman on the eighth blog who had some spiritual insight. But alas, she adored her pastor who would tell his congregation how they could be spirit-led. Big sigh… :-/ Submitting to someone else and to God also does not work, but only causes confusion. This is so sad!! Indeed, if all people were spirit-led, we would not need any of this Old Covenantal stuff like churches with congregations, regular home church meetings, not even all these writings in books and on the internet! I am really dreaming of these days when what was written in Hebrews will have finally become reality for all of us.

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Heb 8:10-13 ESV)