A RELIGIOUS SPIRIT

Trying to keep the law is a declaration of independence. It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge.

Trying to keep the law means that you do not have to rely on the Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you. It means that you do not have to hear from the Holy Spirit because you have a course of action already set out, so personal direction is superfluous.

The nature of religion is that it uses the law to empower itself and control the people who they need in order to survive. Religion masquerades as the agency of God to reflect his nature and character but that is far from the truth as Jesus came to fulfil the law, not keep imposing it upon those who have trusted him for salvation thought his sacrifice on Calvary. Having fulfilled the law for us, we can now live by the grace of God not the laws of the old covenant.

Religion is more interested in how many meetings you attend, how much money you give to the church and how much you support the professional leadership and their experience of God.

Religion has no concept of body life and the priesthood of all believers. It concentrates its efforts on giving credence to a chosen minority that are seen as more spiritual than the others and have certain credentials to perform various rituals.

One would like to think that the evangelical arm of the church is different but that is not the case. It has its religious structures that in the main ignore most of what the bible says about the church. It has a leadership system that is nowhere to be found in the scripture. It conducts activities that never happened in the New Testament Church. It ignores most of the commands that are given to the church in scripture in favour of denominational tradition.

Is there a reason for all this? In all probability from what I have read and heard we are talking about a ‘religious spirit’ that has taken control of institutionalised religion. This spirit’s main aim is to maintaining the status quo. It does not want any church to put the word of God in a place of prominence. It wants people to be content with what they have.

As someone has said “The religious spirit always tries to get people to camp in one place. It will hold on to that which is familiar and comfortable rather than moving on from glory to glory.”

It gives people the impression that they are more special to God and therefore have more right to a ministry. It closes people’s eyes to the fact that the church is a body and every member is part of it. They would rather have a select few who are ordained by man to run everything so that they can sit back comfortably and enjoy the efforts and activities of others.

The religious spirit endeavours to keep everyone stagnant and unaware of the call of the Holy Spirit for change.

My experience of two revivals is that when the Holy Spirit moves, change happens. Nothing is set in concrete as the Holy Spirit can and will do what he wants to do not what we want to do.

The Holy Spirit will not give us a supernatural New Testament experience until we are prepared to move out of the way and let him do the thinking and let Jesus have all the glory, which he will not share with another.

Is your church one with a supernatural ministry? Is your church one that sees different things happening every week? Is your church one that God adds to daily as he did in the New Testament church? Is your church one that puts the word of God before denominational tradition?

If its not, do not be surprised that you are bogged down in the status quo. Do not be surprised if a religious spirit is in charge. Do not be surprised in there is no spiritual growth in the church. Do not be surprised that you are irrelevant to the world.