In the past, I have mentioned how a follower of Jesus Christ might be lead astray from the truth. This is an account of my own experience with the “voice of a stranger.”
I was 33 years old when I put my faith in Jesus, believing that He is the Son of God, therefore, I called out to Him and received His gift of reconciliation purchased for me. In that instant, I was born again in the Spirit and obtained right standing with God, and His Spirit came to live on the inside of me. (John 1:12-13, 3: 3-8)
When I accepted His love I immediately had a desire in my heart to love Him back. But after a period of time I allowed the passion for my Lord to grow cold – with the demands of job, family and worldly pursuits taking my attention, and time away from Him. (It was my responsibility to continue in His word and surround myself with other believers who could disciple me.) Soon without the constant/daily word of God sustaining me, I became the “seed lost among the thorns.” (Matthew 13:22)
That is such a dangerous place to be!
Our reasoning can become darkened, and we start to lean on our own understanding. It is like being estranged from your spouse. As if you got married, and you went to live in another household with someone else. I went to live in the world.
I hope you are able to understand what I’m trying to convey here. I lost intimacy with my Lord. The Knowing of Him.
The good news is we can change our minds (repent), when we determine to begin walking in the spirit again by putting God first in our lives, and taking steps toward Him. Reading the Bible with purpose, attending a Bible based church, praying and seeking Him.
I turned off the television unless it was tuned into a Godly message inspired by scripture. I began spending less and less time with people who were not encouraging me to focus on Jesus. In the car I listened to Bible based teachings, and Christian music only.
Of course Satan was going to use this opportunity to try to deceive me in my weakened state when my defenses were down.
Right away, he put a person in my path who started lifting me up with praise as soon as she heard my declaration to submit myself to God. She said, “Wow, sounds like you are on fire for God!! You are exactly the type of person our Bible study group is looking for. People like you who are hungry for God.”
(Note: Be careful when someone exalts you, and not Jesus. Question and investigate, “test the spirits” at all times.)
Because I was not attending church at the time I was very excited to be a part of an actual Bible study group. I felt I was taking the right steps in meeting other Christians who could help me grow in the knowledge of God. For the first couple of meetings everything was great, they seemed very spiritual, and expressed a keen sense of Biblical understanding.
Then I started picking up on some small things they said that didn’t seem quite right coming from God’s children. Very soon I was invited to attend an intense study course they offered to “only a select group of people who really want to know the truth.”
Now THIS did not set well with me. In fact I remember responding with, “A select group? But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is free to anyone, not just a select group, or individual.”
I started questioning this “intense course” and would not commit so one of the study leaders called me up one day, and during the conversation she made this startling statement, “You do know that we believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but we do not worship Him as God.”
HUH?? Inside of me the Holy Spirit hit the brakes!
What this group was doing was attempting to diminish the deity of Jesus Christ. It was the spirit of the Anti-Christ that was leading them. I will not give details here of her exact wording /strategies they used to try to validate this lie but right away I felt physically ill at even the suggestion. I was feeling an “unction” from God’s Holy Spirit inside of me warning that they were WRONG!!
Now remember, my mind was still very vulnerable to outside influences because of the worldly garbage that I had been feeding it over the previous years. I had grown hard of hearing to God’s voice so I wasn’t sure why I was becoming so upset. At one point I broke into tears and told them, “to think like you do, I feel like I am getting a divorce.”
Her reply? “Oh, yeah, we all went through that at first. It’s because you were told a lie all of these years about the Trinity and who Jesus was. You’ll get over it, we all had to go through it and this course will teach you, and change your life!”
Obvious to me now, they were part of a cult. “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:11-13)
I started praying and asking God to reveal the truth to me. I was being drawn strongly to read His word.
(Here is a side note on how important the Bible is to us.) This is exactly what Jesus told the disciples of John the Baptist when John was sitting in prison facing death. He began to allow doubt, and discouragement to affect his faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and Jesus steered him back to the scriptures for confirmation.
“John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?”
Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, ‘God blesses those who do not turn away because of Me.”
Jesus was quoting prophetic scripture from Isaiah 29:18 about the coming Messiah because he knew John would know these verses by heart and “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”)
So I began searching, and the Lord took me back to 1 Timothy 3:16.
“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:
God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.” Also I was lead to John 1:1-5, 10-14 “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”
” He came into the very world He created, but the world didn’t recognize Him. He came to His own people, and even they rejected Him. But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. So the Word became human and made His home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”
When I read these verses I leaped to my feet and shouted, “YES!!” The Holy Spirit confirmed them within me and I “let the peace of God rule my heart.”
Instantly I broke all ties with those people.
“Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here. But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.” (1 John 4:1-6)
I believe these messages of faith are reaching those who want/need to hear it like I do. And … “it is the knowledge of the truth that sets you free.” John 8:32.
Have a Happy and Safe 4th of July everyone!
Contact Brenda Groves at: bkgroves1996@yahoo.com
