There are certain words in the church that have often inflicted fear and uncertainty for years — words like psychics, new age and horoscopes. But should believers be scared of these evil schemes? Should we run from the things we don’t understand and hide from the deception of the evil realm?
The challenge is that much of the Western Church does not discuss the reality of the spiritual realm, but rather soothes the uncertainty with greater intellectual intelligence and furthers spiritual incompetence. They make us uncertain of what to do and confuse us with how much power they actually hold. Fear is not our destiny nor the solution to the problem.
I understand the fear that can surround the tactics of the new age movement and divination — the deception can be crippling and the disillusionment convincing. Maybe you have fought a spiritual battle that has been riddled with lies of the enemy and tied to demonic power. But the truth is the devil is not a creator; at best he’s a duplicator and the power of God is far more powerful than any plan of the enemy.
Even before I was a believer, the spirit realm was apparent to me. When I was a freshman in high school, I had an encounter with a fortune teller. One day at school, we had a substitute teacher in history class. Instead of teaching history, this substitute decided to read the palms of all the students in the room. I was young and did not understand the significance of what was released through the practice of divination (modern-day witchcraft), so I stood in line to get my palm read with the rest of my fellow students. When it was my turn, the teacher looked at my palm, sighed deeply and refused to read it.
I left the class distraught. My head was spinning. All I could do was think, “Why wouldn’t she read my palm?” At the end of the day, I went back and begged her to read my palm. She reluctantly grabbed my hand and began to tell me what she saw in the lines and wrinkles on my palm. “Your lifeline ends early. That means you will die very young,” she said in a timid voice.
The sheer reality of the spirit realm and utter disturbance that plagued my soul could no longer be denied as I crashed into a nervous breakdown the year after I got married. The extreme terror and irrational fear that filled my life from that experience was crippling and I had not met a Christian at this point in my journey that had words for what I was experiencing — not a psychotic episode but a demonic seed that had taken root in my life and germinated in my soul for years.
At that time, I didn’t know that when God speaks, He speaks to edify, exhort or comfort. Though there was power behind my experience with the spirit realm back in my freshman year of high school, it was only mimicking real power and was not actually the Lord speaking. There are often supernatural acts performed by new-age people that are identical to God’s, but the source is still bent in deception because the thief is lurking with evil intent in the background.
Are You Spiritually Intelligent?
It is apparent that the world is searching for spiritual understanding and seeking supernatural significance. Even believers are haunted by the sense that there is more but don’t know how to break through or, worse yet, have allowed fear surrounding deceptive spiritual experiences to limit the life that Christ paid for on the cross.
Jesus did not die on the cross just to forgive your sins but to give you access to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit changed everything; in an instant, we went from sinners to saints, Spiritless to Spirit-filled, from strangers to friends. We are supposed to be led by the Spirit — John 3:5 says: “I tell you no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and of Spirit.” What I am getting at is we were born by the Spirit but often the only thing we’re feeding is our intellect.
Reducing the gospel to something we can wrap our heads around, this is not the fullness of the gospel. Ephesians 3:20 says: “God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all we can ask or think.”
Let me be clear: The Bible is our roadmap; it is Truth and vital to our lives. But we were not given scriptures to have a relationship with the Bible but to have a relationship with the author through the power of the Holy Spirit. So how do we grow in our spiritual intelligence and hear the voice of God in our lives? I can’t even begin to count the times I’ve been asked, “Why can’t I hear God’s voice?”
First and foremost, you have to have faith that the Lord wants to speak to you and believe that you can hear His voice. The Word says, “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27). However, if we only have faith that the Lord will speak to us in an audible voice or through the Scriptures, we might miss the countless other ways the Lord is communicating with us. Do you have faith you will hear Him in your heart or in your mind? Now, let me be clear: We all have seasons in which it feels like the Lord is silent, but the truth is the Lord does not punish us with the silent treatment.
Rather, He is often crafting His finest work in our lives. In Genesis 1, God speaks all His work into existence but I want to point out His finest creation, Adam and Eve, were crafted without words. I want to encourage you, if you feel like you haven’t been able to hear God’s voice for a while to go back to the last thing He told you. Sometimes, we move on hoping He will move forward with us but we actually never completed what He asked us to do.
I also want to encourage you, if you have been in a spiritual battle or maybe are aware of lies and divination that have been exposed in your life to speak the truth of God over yourself. We can be so consumed with fear of the evil schemes of the enemy that we freeze in response or run away in fear of any spiritual encounter.
But we are triune beings: body, soul, and spirit, and we need to care for each part of our being, including our spirit. If you have been filled with fear around the new age movement, terrified of an attack of the enemy or battling irrational fears, I want to encourage you to soak in the truth that has been spoken over your life. Pull out your prophetic words and link them to faith or write out three declarations about the good plans God has for your life and repeat them out loud throughout your day.
When I realized the evil that had been spoken over my life through my encounter with the fortune teller, I broke it off in an instant. If you or someone you know have also had an encounter with divination, I encourage you to do the same. Call up the person and lead them into freedom.
Remember, the battle has already been won. Freedom is available — simply speak the blood of Jesus over your life or your loved one and cancel the schemes of the enemy because no weapon formed against you shall prosper! And just remember: Darkness is powerless to light. Where we welcome light, darkness has to flee.
For more resources on the spirit realm, check out the free Spirit Wars devotional here. {eoa}
For the original article, visit krisvallotton.com.
Kris Vallotton is an author, international speaker, culture leader and, most of all, a spiritual father to this generation. As the senior associate leader of Bethel Church in Redding, California and co-founder of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry and Moral Revolution, Kris has helped thousands of believers over the last 20 years realize their identity as sons and daughters of God.
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