I once worked with a man that was a non-believer. His god was this man that wrote a book that he read like it was his bible.
The foundation for his “spiritual” beliefs were the things the author said in his book — not what God of the Bible says.
He would say, “I’m not a religious person, but I’m very spiritual.”
When we consider what kind of spiritual person we are our what kind of spiritual appetite we have, we have to understand that there are other spirits that can lead you, other than God’s spirit.
And when this happens, our spirituality becomes rooted in things other than the word of God. This disqualifies us from having the faith that pleases God. The faith that pleases God is rooted in His Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Not in sage.
Not in the universe.
Not in crystals.
Not gods and goddesses.
Not zodiac signs.
Not in horoscopes.
Not in your ancestors.
Not in your inner-self.
But the faith that pleases God is established, founded and rooted in His Word.
We need to understand that the devil is a deceiver.
These things may seem harmless because they help us feel better about ourselves and may even give us a sense of community, belonging and individuality. They may even help us feel connected to a higher source of power.
The thing about these pseudo approaches to faith, is that they don’t require you to repent or change your ways. They don’t expose you to the parts of your heart that displease God. Only God and His Word can do that.
As a matter of fact, they have you believing that you are good within yourself. You’re beautiful. You’re powerful. You’re strong. You determine the path for your life.
And while this sounds great in this era of self-love and mental health awareness, this is extremely spiritually dangerous.
It’s dangerous because it draws people further away from relying on God, to relying on our own perceived strength and abilities. In essence, we don’t realize that following these pseudo forms of faith provokes us to become our own god.
We’re trying to look within ourselves for our own sufficiency.
Paul said it’s in God that we live, we move and we have our very being.
We don’t have the ability to give ourselves life. Neither do we have the ability to guide our own lives.
The devil sends these deceptive spirits all the time. And if we’re not rooted in the Word of God, which empowers us to discern these ungodly, deceptive spirits, we’re going to fall prey.
Whenever and wherever there’s Word deficiency in our lives, there is a faith deficiency in our lives.
This made me think of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron in Leviticus 10. They offered up what the Bible calls “strange fire” to the Lord.
The fire was strange because it wasn’t approved or authorized by God.
Leviticus 10:2 says that as they offered up this unauthorized worship to God, fire came out from the presence of God and consumed them and they died.
This communicates a few things to me.
God determines what He wants us to offer Him. We don’t get to determine what pleases God.
God determines if what we offer pleases Him. We can’t assume that just because we offer it, that God is pleased.
The unauthorized thing that we offer to God, can be the same thing that ends up consuming us.
And this is exactly what happens. These pseudo faiths are consuming and destroying us because they’re pulling us further and further from trusting in the true and living God.
Nadad and Abihu were consumed with fire on the spot. We won’t necessarily be consumed this same way, but we will still be consumed in other ways. Mentally, emotionally, physically, financially.
And more importantly spiritually.
The bible teaches us that warning comes before destruction.
One way that Satan deceives us is to make us think that we are weak in the faith when we’re actually strong because we’re rooted in the Word of God. And he does this when we’re consumed by how we feel, and not by what we know what is true about God.
The flip side of that is…
Then he deceives us by making us think that we’re strong in the faith, when we’re actually weak because we’re not rooted in the Word of God. And he does this when we’re consumed by how we feel.
And the scariest part of being driven by how we feel is:
We can feel saved when we’re not.
We can feel like we’re walking in God’s will when we’re not.
We can feel like we’re pleasing to God when we’re not.
We have to understand that we are only as strong as we are committed to studying the Word of God. No Word. No strength. It doesn’t matter how strong we feel.
Every other source of strength is a pseudo strength.
It’s serious in the Old Testament and it’s serious in the New Testament.
1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…
It’s interesting that we want to know when the news reports are telling the truth. We want to know if the statistics and all the facts are legit. So we verify the information to know if it’s true or not.
Hopefully, we’re not too quick to believe everything we see and hear in the media.
Nowadays, we call this “fact checking”.
Theses things aren’t as important as our souls. So we should be just as diligent, if not more, in checking the facts and verifying information when we choose to buy into certain things that are spiritual in nature because they can be spiritually detrimental.
How do you test a spirit?
We test the spirit by the Word of God.
We ask ourselves does it align with the Word of God?
Not does it align with how you feel or how I think.
Not does it align with how I personally choose to express my faith.
Not does it align with popular culture.
Not does it align with what others are doing.
But does it align with the Word of God?
Be not conformed to this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Rom 12:2
In order to experience this transformation, you need the right information. And the right information comes from the Word of God.
If you don’t have the right information, you will not have the right transformation.
Therefore, by default, you’re still conforming to this world.
Meaning, the world is still programming your thoughts, your ideas and your understandings.
And if the world is programming your thoughts, it is programming your life.
You must realize that Satan is going to make sure that it doesn’t dominate you with any major degree of feelings or emotions that will provoke you to have any urgency to repent. In other words, he does not want you to feel bad about being outside of God’s will.
And he’s going to make sure that you have plenty of company.
And another thing is, he’s going to make sure that these wayward beliefs don’t interfere with you advancing in this life.
What profits a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?
So we can be worldly successful and still have spiritual failures.
We don’t just need life goals. We need eternal life goals.
This is what this faith journey is all about. We need to make sure that the fire that we offer up to God is approved and authorized.
**Tressa Jo
BeyondSeeLevel 