Encountering the Religious Spirit pt.1

After reading the previous and five-part topic on the religious spirit (The Spirit of Sheep’s Clothing), you should have a very clear understanding of its goals, methods, and characteristics. Now that you have all this knowledge, what’s next?

Well, you will encounter this evil and very subtle spirit, if you haven’t already and there are basically three ways to respond: do nothing, attack it correctly, or attack it incorrectly. The goal of this series on encountering the religious spirit is to help you understand when to do nothing and how to attack it correctly.

First, allow me to give you a quick background on my own experience with this deadly spirit.

Grace to Give

When a person has actual experience in the specific type of battle that he is teaching about, that person can impart to you a grace and understanding that God gave him to fight and overcome that particular battle. Otherwise the teaching is often simply quoting and explaining bible verses. I am not minimizing good and solid bible studies. It’s simply that when you want to learn about fighting a particular enemy, a soldier who has already fought and beaten that enemy has more to teach than the soldier who has only been stationed at the headquarters.

We should recognize that after we have walked through the valley of the shadow of death that we have experience and grace to give to others that are going through the same path in that valley. That way, each of us have something to give to another member of the Body. When it’s in our power to help and encourage others, we should do so.

Perhaps you have battled the religious spirit in your own life. You then have God’s grace to help others.

So, it is with great grace that I write about the religious spirit for I once allowed it to reign in my own life. I accepted it. I have been used by it. I have hurt others thinking that I was doing God’s will. I have been nearly destroyed by it. I was set free from it. And equally important, I have been healed from the wounds it inflicted.

Burned

A man who currently functions in the prophetic ministry said that not only has he been burned by the religious spirit, but so has nearly everyone he partners with. He said that it is almost a “prerequisite” to being truly effective in hearing God’s voice and in things pertaining to the prophetic. He went on to say that if you have not yet been burned, to actually go out, find a religious spirit, and get burned!

Many Christians walk more with the religious spirit than they actually walk with the Holy Spirit. And when they walk away from the religious spirit and give their will totally over the moving of the Holy Spirit, religious people will attack them. Guaranteed. It happened to Jesus, Paul, and Peter.

But no matter how painful the burning is, it is worth it and is a very good sign!

The Beginning of the Manifestation

A few years after I became a Christian (three decades ago), I attended and worked at a church where the power of God was very present and active: healings and deliverances occurred at almost every service and the Spirit of wisdom and revelation powerfully changed lives. I had one of the most wonderful times of my spiritual life during my first couple years at this church.

But, at what seemed the height of God’s presence and power, pride was allowed to manifest. Quickly, the presence and power of God was quenched. As comments were being made by the congregation about pride’s entry, the leadership responded defensively and unknowingly allowed the religious spirit to gain control of the church in the effort to stop the voices that were simply revealing the entry of the enemy.

Sadly, it was a picture-perfect example of the quenching of God’s Holy Spirit and the rise of the religious spirit.

The next issue details the hideousness of the religious spirit that I allowed to manifest through me.

With God’s grace and in His peace,

Gary

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