You Have a Wrong Spirit

A little over a couple of years ago a minister of a church accused me of having, “a wrong spirit.”  He made the statement after reading a testimony of my experiences within his church.  Added to this, he said of the testimony, “It is rubbish.”  An elder of a church that I was a member of (at the time), told me that he didn’t believe it was God speaking through me, “in fact, I think it’s the enemy.”  A few weeks earlier at a private meeting I had strongly challenged the leadership for lying and deceiving the church on a matter and now, I was called before them to either recant my statements or leave.  The statements of both men echoed that of another minister years earlier, “You don’t have a direct line to God!”

So, what should one do when accusations are made?  In the case of these three men, each one immediately dismissed any response, one vehemently shaking his head with a resounding, “No” or “Nonsense” or similar.  I have tried not to do the same in my responses and even though I have sometimes failed, I have found that the greatest peace comes when one gives up the right to be right.  Once the challenge has been brought, one can expect some sort of retaliation, therefore, give it over to God and let Him take care of it.  One should always be open to the Holy Spirit to reveal if there is any truth in what has been said.

Years earlier, in preparation before for going out on to the streets to proclaim the gospel, God revealed to me that I was His servant in Whom He would be glorified Isaiah 49:3.  I didn’t argue with that or reason it all out, I simply took God at his word.  There is not one word of Scripture do I take to be otherwise.  In further preparation He revealed that He would be with my mouth and teach me what to say Exodus 4:12.  In addition to this, around the same time He revealed that people would assemble against me, but that they would fall for my sake Isaiah 54:15.  Plus – no weapon formed against me shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against me in judgment I shall condemn Isaiah 54:17.

Yes, I am totally aware of how smug, self-righteous and arrogant the above paragraph sounds.  “What’s this, ‘me and Jesus’ business?  Who do you think you are?!!!”  I know without a shadow of doubt that this is the question, or similar, that some Christian people will ask as they read this.  However, since I am unable to answer it to their satisfaction, I bless them and encourage that the question be redirected to God.  Why?  Because God loves all His people, He has no favorites.  If He did have favorites, I would not be among them.  Therefore, in their questioning, He may well reveal the same truths to them, for them.  Does this mean then that everything I say and do in the Name of the Lord is perfect and faultless?  No.

But what it does mean is that I have made Jesus Christ Lord and King in my life.  It means that I have settled the core issues of my life.  It means that my life is not about me, where I want to go, what I want to do or even what I want to say.  It also means that my life has been exchanged for God’s life to work in and through me.  In other words, I no longer have a life that is my own, I have been bought with a price just as the Scripture says 1 Corinthians 6:20.  This is the stand I took after my first encounter with the Lord (See my About page) and by His grace and enabling will continue to stand.  In the Scriptures we see that all who took the same stand were pretty much similarly accused – by the Lord’s own people!

What to do then?  Whenever I believe God has revealed something for me to say, I write it down and wait upon Him for confirmation, clarification or evidence that it was indeed Himself revealing it.  Testing the revelation is crucial 1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1.  This means waiting not just hours, but days, weeks, months and even years.  Sometimes God gives part of the picture and I have to ask, seek and knock for more of it.  In other words, tenacious prayer is called for.  Out of such praying, opportunities to examine motives, attitudes and other agendas arise.  If any should be out of order, it is a time to get them reordered or gotten rid of altogether.  That doesn’t mean the revelations change, but it may well mean character change.

Once this has been addressed, then prayer for sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and His timing is called for.  One can be right with the revelation, but wrong in the timing of when to move on it.  Should that be the case and I do move, then I am not being led of the Holy Spirit, but rather, I’m out in front of Him.  Praise God though, because it was on the streets where I first learned this through practice, which makes it less difficult today.  The next step:  Once the revelation and timing seem right, it is time to act.  Once one does act, then one can chisel it in stone – as stated earlier, there will be a reaction.  And when it’s God’s people who do the reacting, they will always do so using Christian-speak, and professedly with the view of glorifying God.

That’s the pattern.  It happened to the prophets, the Lord Jesus, the apostles, the martyrs of the church and it will continue to the end.  Personally, I get no pleasure out of saying and doing the hard things.  It often comes at the cost of severed relationships. But, the alternative is to let sleeping dogs lie and I want no part of that.  Truth in the inward parts Psalm 51:6, or no truth at all is my take on the matter.  But also, that Scripture promises that in the hidden part we will be made to know wisdom.  No matter how big of a fool my brothers and sisters in Christ think me to be, it is absolutely nothing in comparison to the fool that I was in reality before I met the Lord Jesus and His truth.  Until that encounter, I had spent my entire life feeding off lies, half-truths, superstitions and deceptions.

In the book of Exodus we read of God telling Moses that if the people obey His voice and do all that He speaks, then He will be an enemy to their enemies and an adversary to their adversaries.  For us today that means if we want the Lord Jesus Christ to be always in our midst individually and corporately, then He has to be more than simply acknowledged, He must also be obeyed.  If we disregard His precepts we forfeit His promises, it’s as simple as that.  So far as my own interest is concerned I have no enemies, but truth and righteousness do … and I stand for those.  That being the case, enemies will always be part of the deal for me.

Since being given those promises from Isaiah 54 twenty-four-odd years ago, the out-workings of them have come to pass three times in churches and many times outside of them.  A variety of posts on this blog give account of some sorry events that happened as a result of my stand for the Lord, but what I haven’t mentioned is, they were in fulfillment of those Scripture promises.  It was my unpleasant duty to tell those elders who lied and deceived their church that if they did not repent of their sin, then they as leaders would dry up spiritually as would the church.  That’s what happened some time after and now, three and a half years later I hear the pastor is gone.

I get no satisfaction from hearing this.  It is not a time to gloat and say, “Aha, I told you so.”  On the contrary, I find the out-workings of these promises to be most sobering to say the least.  I know what my own heart is capable of and if it were not for the great mercy and grace of God it would be someone else writing this post about me!  Am I praying for these people?  No, not specifically.  But I am praying for all God’s leaders who confess their love for the biblical Lord Jesus.  These men may well be confessing the same to the Lord in their prayer.  If so, both theirs and my prayers will be answered and one day there will be reconciliation.  Truth divides, but more importantly, truth unites.  Praise God for the Holy Spirit Who can bring this about.

The closer one decides to stick with God on a moment by moment basis, the greater He will reveal to us that we are done with guilt, shame and condemnation.  We do not have to be ever digging and asking God to, “show me my fault” or similar.  If anything is there, it will simply show up during prayer and worship.  If it does, then we acknowledge it, give it to God, plead His blood over it and move on.  This is God’s way of leading us into spiritual freedom.  We must know who we are in Christ, but also we must know Who He is in us.  On a deliverance session once with another minister, a demon spoke through a woman to me, “Aha, I know your secret sin.”

It was a great blessing to be able to respond with, “No you don’t.  In Jesus’ name be quiet and come out of her.”  That demon obeyed the command of the Lord and did indeed come out.  On the other hand, if there had been a secret sin within me, the demon would have exposed it and any words of God I did use, would then have run the risk of simply being just that – mere words.   Not only that but by knowing and naming my sin, the demon would have known it had a legal right to stay in that woman.  “I know your secret sin” – “You have a wrong spirit” – “I think it’s the enemy speaking” – “You don’t have a direct line to God” – all such accusations could be true.  The question is … Are they true?  Best we find out before we follow through on our stand for truth and righteousness.

God may not reveal all the ins and outs of the revelations He gives, but I have found He will give enough for each situation.  If that is faithfully acted upon then we know our part of the deal has been carried out.  Therefore we can rest in that.  A couple of things I’ve noticed about resting – the quality is far greater when we: One – come to terms with the fact that we are only instruments of God’s revelation and not the owners of it.  Two – that we always seek the approval of God and never the approval of man. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1.  “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” 1 John 3:20.