When Your Faith Becomes Force
Ye Shall Not Be as Gods
The reality we face is 2 Peter 2. I can unequivocally say that false teachers have increased at a ratio of 100 to 1. They have turned faith into a force and they say our success in life is based on our ability to use this “force.” Following Jesus by denying self has been replaced with exalting self with spiritual powers. Nearly everything in the Bible has an opposite meaning taught by those who claim to be representing Him in this way, but they really are Gnostics, mystics who use the pulpit for fame and fortune. These are the ones Jude warned about.
They wrap their own teachings around God’s Word and make disciples to follow them, instead of teaching people to follow Jesus.
~Bible In Context
But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.
In the book of Isaiah, we read “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” ~Isaiah 14:13
It seems that the condition of mankind is to desire to be like God, or if we’re super delusional, to be gods. It’s the hottest new thing, although the Mormons have predicated an entire religion on the original sin for ages now, it’s catching on all over afresh. If you never actually proclaim “I AM God” like Steve Furtick, then you might have to settle for believing you are on par with Him. Satan is laughing all the way to the bank as he watches people joining into the original sin while proclaiming it a new wave of God.
Giving grace and granting rights to God (??)
That’s how we get sermons wherein the pastor states repeatedly that we must sometimes “give grace to God.” It’s also how we get books like Operating in the Courts of Heaven subtitled “Granting God the Legal Rights to Fulfill His Passion and Answer Our Prayers.” Bethel Church in Redding, California is chock full of people believing they can earn or buy their way to supernatural power. It’s why we have teachers literally declaring that our words can create reality, which they can indeed if your reality is a hellish mess.
Do Our Words Create?
The idea that speaking positive or negative words somehow causes something to take place in the spiritual realm comes from the occult not from the Bible.
“Inseparable from magical speculation about words is the theory of vibrations, which supposes that certain sounds have a powerful acoustic impact on the spiritual and astral worlds. Like the spiritual world and astral plane can in some circumstances be affected by sound, so that verbal magic may be said to derive its power not only from the idea contained in certain words, but from the peculiar vibrations these words create when spoken”. (Magic: an Occult Primer, pp. 74-75)
This grasping at power-filled authority is a contagion and the path for it is enhanced by the teaching that it’s cutting-edge Christianity, not ancient sin.
But there are difficulties for these yearning ones, and these difficulties are, when you look at them squarely, insurmountable.
The real God is infinite, and every little creaturely aspirant to His throne, is finite. The distance between the infinite God and the finite creature is, and this is understating it, large. The idea that the creature, any creature – from a roly-poly bug up to one of the seraphim, could inflate himself up to divine proportions is a proposition that can be modified by many adjectives – risible, preposterous, ludicrous, outrageous, and monstrous being chief among them. That chasm cannot be jumped, it cannot be bridged.
But, let me hasten to add, it can be redefined, provided you have already lost your mind. The sides of the north are glorious, majestic, and infinitely serene, and at some point it becomes clear that we and our army of roly-poly bugs are not going to be successful when we storm the ramparts of Heaven. ~Douglas Wilson
Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. ~Ephesians 1:15-22
Thank you for digging into The Word….it is a difficult task when the enemy gets the best of pastors, teachers, and really anyone, to help them see the deception they are speaking to others….
I’ve been contemplating this having been accused of being in rebellion. When is it right to confront and separate from a pastor who believes his authority to declare right and wrong is higher than the standard of biblical accuracy?
I know my outspoken nature was offensive but I still couldn’t bring myself to submit to the corrective measures imposed by a pastor who accepts false teachers and promotes them in his church. The church doesn’t belong to him.
To this day, I have seen very few willing to take the time and effort to dig into the WORD. You are the most dedicated person I know who lives their life for Jesus and continues to battle the unbelievers!
Marry me.