Recently, the Lord reminded me of how James and John addressed an issue in a Samaritan village:
“And He sent messengers before Him; and they reached and entered a Samaritan village to make [things] ready for Him; But [the people] would not welcome or receive or accept Him, because His face was [set as if He was] going to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John observed this, they said, Lord, do You wish us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elijah did? But He turned and rebuked and severely censured them. He said, YOU DONT KNOW OF WHAT SORT OF SPIRIT YOU ARE, For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them [from the penalty of eternal death]. And they journeyed on to another village” Luke 9:52-56
How many modern-day James and Johns do we have in the Body of Christ today? So many who don’t know how to discern their own Spirit, let alone discern the spirits operating in someone else?
How I used to be able to relate with James and John, their zeal for the Lord, and also their inability to recognize the Holy Spirits’ operation in their own lives, let alone within the lives of others. How many have been accused of having a Spirit of Jezebel, Leviathan, or Kundalini spirit while operating under the influence of the Holy Spirit?
While I am not denying the existence of these things (because they are all real), I’m suggesting that we need to be able to properly discern the Holy Spirit within ourselves before we jump to conclusions about what someone else has going on inside of them.
The Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the prince of demons and yet Jesus pointed out the obvious thing when He declared,
“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matthew 12:24).
Many in the Body of Christ are immature but powerfully gifted. All too often, they show their immaturity through the things they do or say. So many right now are devouring one another within the Body of Christ, making broad accusations of other people while being under the influence of another spirit themselves. Meanwhile, the enemy is manipulating them to be like a cancer cell eating away at the Body because of their own ignorance and personal identity problems.
How many of us want to be like Elijah? To call down fire upon those around us instead of heeding the counsel of God and seeing the activity of the Holy Spirit in our own lives? While I will agree that there are definitely other spirits at work in this earth, we need the proper use of the gift of the Discerning of Spirits to navigate our understanding. This always runs through the filter of the Love of God and the shed blood of Jesus Christ and will enable us to discern correctly what spirit it is that’s in operation in every situation.
If we continually remind ourselves of what Jesus said to James and John, maybe we will really see the Heart of God in it all and start knowing each other after the Spirit instead of the flesh.
“Consequently, from now on WE ESTIMATE AND REGARD NO ONE FROM A [PURELY] HUMAN POINT OF VIEW [in terms of natural standards of value]. [No] even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a man, yet now [we have such knowledge of Him that] we know Him no longer [in terms of the flesh].” 2 Corinthians 5:16
If our only reference for knowing someone within the Body of Christ and judging what is happening upon the inside of them is strictly based upon what we see in the natural realm, it would be better that we would just pray for them as opposed to accusing them of operating under the influence of a wrong spirit.
Featured Image by Захари Минчев from Pixabay
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