Heaven will always confront man-made spirituality. The best place for the enemy to hide is always in the guise of something spiritual. He masquerades as an angel of light. As we saw in the time of Jesus, he was constantly opposed by religious people who are fronting a system that they themselves had developed over many years.
In one confrontation with Jesus, he spoke to them about the fact that they transgress the Commandments of God for the sake of their tradition – Matthew 11: 3. Religious leaders invalidate the word of God for tradition sake. He called these leaders hypocrites who honor God with their mouth but not their heart, teaching their rules as though they were God’s word.
The Pharisees were offended, but Jesus was unperturbed calling them blind leaders of the blind. Matthew chapter 23 is a comprehensive direct attack on a religious system and the leaders who uphold that organization with all its practices and procedures.
If we are not leading God’s people into direct encounter with him, what is our leadership about? If people are not personally growing in Christ and fulfilling his kingdom call, what are we developing? If our ministry is not raising up warriors and soldiers to fight the good fight, what type of believer are we producing? If our leadership is in control of how the church operates but it is not being effective in warfare, what is our control really cultivating?
Paul was faced in Corinth with people who wanted his ministry, seeing it as a title, a position, and a place to usurp. He talked about the need to cut these people off from the opportunity to be regarded as leaders and ministries.
He called them false and deceitful workers disguising themselves as apostles, and compared them to the devil, who also masquerades as an angel of light – 2 Corinthians 11: 12 – 15. The enemy loves to dress up and go to church. The best way to damage the people of God is to infiltrate their ranks and bring deception into their midst. If he cannot successfully overcome the people of god openly, he will seek to overcome them subtly from within. The enemy cannot stand against the truth of Jesus so he must undermine it with false doctrine of his own
The age of Enlightenment in the last millennium gave him the perfect opportunity to develop a rational, reasonable way to approach God. The supernatural was phased out as a part of dispensationalism. In this way, apart from salvation (which he knows he cannot control) people were guided away from hearing God’s voice, taking steps of faith, and the delights of personal intimacy. God becomes less sovereign, more distant, intangible, and unknowable. He is regulated to being a mystery and a deity whose presence is really only felt by anger and judgment.
Introduce into that a legalistic, performance-based spirituality in an atmosphere of doubt, fear, and dullness. The church universal is captured by a sanctuary – driven spirituality that centers on meetings, studies, and activities that do not provide direct encounters with the God of grace, love, power, and magnificence. People live by measure, not fullness – supposedly believing in the Bible but actually living powerless lives below the level of Christ’s identity and privilege.
Jude wrote about such infiltrations in his epistle.
For certain men have crept in stealthily (gaining entrance secretly by side door). Their doom was predicted long ago, ungodly( impious, profane) persons who pervert the grace(spiritual blessing and favor) of our God into lawlessness and wantonness and immorality, and disown and deny our sole Master and Lord, Jesus Christ ( the Messiah, the anointed one).
But these men revile (scoff and sneer at) anything they do not happen to be acquainted with and do not understand; and whatever they do understand physically (that which they know by mere instinct), like irrational beasts – by these they corrupt themselves and are destroyed (perish).
These are hidden reefs (elements of danger) in your love feasts, where they boldly feast sumptuously (carousing together in your midst), without scruples providing for themselves alone. There clouds without water, swept along by the wins; trees, without fruit of the late autumn gathering time – twice(doubly) dead,(lifeless and) plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, flinging up the form of their shame and disgrace; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of eternal darkness has been reserved forever.
These are inveterate murmurers ( grumblers) who complain(of their lot in life), going after their own desires parenthesis controlled by their passions); their talk is boastful and arrogant,(and they claim to) admire men’s persons pay people flattering comments to gain advantage.
It is these who are () agitators setting up distinctions and causing divisions – merely sensual parenthesis creatures, Col., worldly minded people) , the void of the Holy Spirit and destitute of any higher spiritual life.
Clearly, some of these people were unregenerate in their behavior, and others were more subtle in their desire to develop a spirituality more earthly and natural.
The New Testament churches constantly had problems with false teachers, prophets, and wrong doctrine. This continues today in many forms.
The system must be directly confronted through the Holy Spirit. the people trapped in that system need to see what is oppressing them. There is a difference between religious leaders overseeing a churchgoing system that pays lip service to Jesus. A liberal approach to Christianity that robs people of personal engagement is easily recognized.
Then there is the more dangerously subtle version of church that majors on one person in the Godhead, misunderstands another by making him in their image, and resolutely denies the ministry of the third member of the Trinity. People are not taught to hear God, ask for healing, power, or provision. They are not equipped to fight, worship, or develop on earth the lifestyle of Jesus. Theirs I is an earthbound spirituality, not a heaven based relationship.
Consequently these people do not have a personal revelatory experience of God that empowers them to live a life above their circumstances or see God as incredibly magnificent. Trapped in a functional paradigm of church, they are taught to serve but not encouraged to become the sons of God. They are not trained in the glory or sovereignty of God; their joy is circumstantial, and their peace, often unsubstantial. They are more prone to experience doubt, anxiety, and fear before faith, courage, and breakthrough.
They do not live a life of celebration because they have never been taught the dynamics of ascended worship. They praise sporadically, giving thanks weakly, and rejoice intermittently. They love God on their terms, not his. They live in the shallow places of Christianity because they have never been shown the deep places in Christ.
There is a difference between someone overseeing a religious system that binds people, and a person trapped in a place of spiritual mediocrity because they do not know that something profoundly better is available.
The first must be directly confronted as Jesus did with the Pharisees of his day. The second must be confronted indirectly and in a way that inspires them to see and know Jesus as Lord, not just as Savior. Such people are living under an atmosphere generated by a religious spirit.
A religious spirit dictates what people can believe and therefore experience. It controls the environment to create a resigned, unimaginative, and submissive spirituality that has little passion or energy.
One of the signs of a religious spirit is passivity, where people cannot rouse themselves in their own spirit and therefore allow themselves to come under something inferior.
The roots of it are in low self-esteem, performance mindset, a feeling of unworthiness, and a sense that nothing much will change. There is an air of defeat and an atmosphere of powerlessness. People believe that Jesus Christ is Lord but have little experience of Majesty.
In these circumstances, people mostly want magic, and impartation of God that will release them into freedom without them having to do anything in the process. Of course process is as much a part of our life as impartation and anointing. They form a paradox; a both/and, not an either/or solution to our dilemma. Our problem is that we have stopped responding to the Majesty of God’s love. We are not making ourselves vulnerable to his loving kindness. Goodness still needs to get hold of us, and the joy of the Lord in working with us still needs to permeate our spirit.
If we go against the religious spirit directly we may find ourselves fighting on its terms. We draw attention to the religious spirit, and it becomes more entrenched. A religious spirit looks for an offense so that it can erect a barrier and hunker down behind it.
A religious spirit disempowers people. Passivity and hopelessness travel together. When attacked, it can have the effect of people feeling – got at; this makes them more weary and resigned, and the atmosphere hardens even more. The enemy loves docile believers. He works to render people compliant and inactive. When leaders in ministry do everything for people, they deliver them to a passive lifestyle of dependence on another source than the Holy Spirit. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free – Galatians 5:1.
Many people have gotten used to being no one and doing nothing. They are children tossed to and fro – Ephesians 4; 14. A religious spirit creates the environment where people can look to someone other than their own relationship with God, and then it’s subtly makes it their fault if breakthrough doesn’t occur – not enough faith, too little repentance, need for deliverance, gave up too soon, didn’t pray hard enough, too weak, too passive, unbelief, double minded! These are just a few of the excuses that are banded around.
We are subtly turned around again to face our own performance as Christians, which further debilitates us. A religious spirit wants to control people’s experience of God. Churches develop systems and structures that create an illusion of going somewhere but actually deny people the permission and the place to develop their own lifestyle, ministry, and relationship to hear God and obey. To move in the spirit and grow up in Christ, we must restore people to the beauty of a radiant relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
We attack a religious spirit indirectly by proclaiming who Jesus is for us and declaring who he wants to be for us in our present circumstances. We must talk about glory. When we do, the drudgery of the religious minded becomes apparent to them. The antidote to spiritual dullness is astonishment. When people open up to the radiant nature of Jesus, they begin to shrug off complacency. Like a flower cannot resist opening up to the sun, we cannot resist the joy and love of God.
Jesus is irresistible; and when we magnify him, we create space for glory to descend. We must talk of God in superlatives so that our testimony in teaching impacts people and creates hunger.
A religious spirit cannot fight glory and radiance. It retreats into the shadow of rationality, a secular perspective without power. When we talk about the beauty of God, the hungry it creates to know him in that way, begins to stir up desire. As people are set free to long for God again, passion begins to rise up. A determination to know God fully and a craving for his presence can be established. If we accompany that with wisdom, then a pathway will open for people to follow. Wisdom is the understanding of how God thinks, perceives, and likes to work with us.
The beauty of our walk with God is that it is a relational process. It involves closure, conversion, and commissioning. We learn the pleasures associated with the cross and its power to cause breakthrough. We learn the joy of simple change in the discovery of God’s provision each day. We come alive to wonder, and we learn the authority that is part of identity.
We learn to be present – future and develop a lifestyle of celebration as we take charge of our surroundings. We see through the religious paradigm and move in the opposite spirit.
It’s fun, throwing a religious spirit into utter confusion – fighting it on the terms permissible by the Holy Spirit, who is a compelling genius at this level of warfare.
Assignment – without passing judgment on your church experience, what must you take personal responsibility for in your spiritual walk with Jesus? Define your own passivity regarding your relationship with the Holy Spirit as a tutor, comforter and equipper for ministry. What will you do to become more aware of your spiritual surroundings, and how you can upgrade the spiritual experience of your fellow believers?
Commission – it is time to take your relationship with the Holy Spirit to a new level. sit quietly over the next several days, allocating some meaningful time to thinking about what you want from the father and what you sense he wants to provide regarding your fellowship with him. Write a crafted prayer that fully expresses what you feel you want most from the Lord regarding a deeper encounter. Ask, and keep on (joyfully) asking!