In Ephesians 6:12 it tells us. "We are not having fights with physical opponents on a human personal level, but against a master prince who is a world ruler of this present Dark Age and against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere." As long as we continue to function in our own fleshly ideas and in our own understanding of people's attitudes, strife will continue to win out in all of our relationships and walls of prejudice and offense will continue to take place.

Jesus told his disciples. "I have given you power to trample upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power the enemy possesses and nothing in any way shall harm you." This word scorpion in the Greek represents a sly cunning malicious person, meaning Satan.

The Apostles Paul reminds us that, "we should not let the devil take advantage of us, because we are to know his devices. He also states that, the devil goes around like a roaring lion trying to trick and deceive everyone." God has given us spiritual discernment through the Holy Spirit and we need to be functioning in the spiritual world. God's Spirit at work with in our mind has the ability to discover and distinguish subtle differences between; God operating in our thought life or us being influenced by others through their words and actions or the devils tactics and the way he wants us to think into believing his deceptive ways.

We need to have our skill of discernment find honed by the Holy Spirit daily if we are going to recognize the devils devices. The revelation knowledge of the Lord is what gives us this ability. The word of God tells us that, "we sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus and we have to start functioning in this place." Divine revelation is only revealed by the Holy Spirit and comes from God the Father but Only through Jesus Christ. This is the whole foundation and the true meaning of Christianity. Get an understanding of what I have said, without it there is no hope for mankind.

The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian church, "not to be amazed about the fact that; the devil masquerades as an angel of light." The devil knows human nature and has been harassing human beings from the beginning of whenever. He has been planning his work and working his plan for a long time. There have been people I have talked too over the years that will not even acknowledge that there is a devil and the fact that evil spirits might be influencing them because the subject scars them. However, we see that Jesus and Paul talked about it and they dealt with the devils devices even to the point of casting them out of people. Since God has already given us the power of discernment through revelation knowledge of His word, we already have the power to defeat him. Now we know through scripture that Jesus had direct contact with people and cast demons out of them on many occasions as I have said.

In Mark chapter five, we have the encounter that Jesus had in the province of Gerasenes. In this story, there was a man who lived in the tombs, who was possessed by demons. When he saw Jesus coming, he ran out to meet Him and fell down on his knees and worshipped Him. Now you understand that this man was possessed by many demons that were actually living inside of him and they had control of his thinking and behavior. As he came out to meet Jesus, he cried out with a loud voice and said, "What do want with me Jesus, there is nothing that we have in common. I beg you God; please don't torment me" and Jesus cast the demons out of the man and sent them into some swine grazing on the hillside.

When this happened, the swine went crazy and flung themselves over the cliff into the sea. We need to realize the power and authority that God gave us the day we became born again believers. Do you realize that the devil knows who Jesus is and even he falls down and pays homage to Him in worship? We need to realize, if the Spirit of God lives on the inside of us and we begin to know the devils devices, he will become intimidated from us. Did you ever think that we have the power to torment the devil and put him on the run?

We have people today talking to demons in the guise of talking to dead love ones and giving words to their families, who are still in grief over their passing. We have psychic readers and hot lines, tarot cards, ouija boards and I could go on. This is what's going on within the non-Christian community. If we are born again believers and still participating in these kinds of things after being saved by Christ, you will never discern what subtle conditional love themes that are being taught from some of the born again pulpits of today.

People have a fascination to explore spiritual things within and with out the Christian community. Now because of this hunger in people, the devil will be more then happy to participate in our searching and deceive us every chance he can in our spiritual pursuits because; this is his gospel; and it his sole purpose to keep our mind, will and emotions sick. He lost his place in the kingdom of heaven through pride and since he can no longer worship God with heart-felt worship and truth, he doesn't want us to worship God in this way either.
Jesus tells us, "The time has come when the true worshippers must worship His Father in Spirit and in truth" True worship has to come from within the heart of a believer who is actively hungering and thirsting after God. I think we have missed the true meaning of worship in too many of our church services. Our hearts should be in a constant attitude and condition of worship and thankfulness to God; because of the relationship we're enjoying with Him everyday. If our big choirs, elaborate loud playing, dancing, screaming and the raising of our hands doesn't come from a heart of true worship, God is not impressed.

He is not interested in mere lip service. All that this mounts up to are religious antics and a deception of the devil. God does not look at the outward appearance; He judges by the attitude of our heart. It's only true worship that empowers us to get His divine revelation and attention. This is the kind of people that God is looking for to worship Him today. Our result when we interact with the Holy Spirit is; we begin to start functioning in the authority of Christ, because we have God's revelation of (His truth)."

Jesus was rebuking some people because they did not understand His teachings. He said that, "their ears were shut and they couldn't understand the truth. Because of this condition, they were having a relationship with the devil. This was happening because they were manifesting the characteristics of the devil and this was allowing him to be their father. They had a murdering spirit and there was no spiritual truth in them. He went on to describe the devil as being a liar and there was no spiritual revelation knowledge in him and it was a natural thing for him to lie, because he is the father of liars."

He also said. "The thief comes to steal, and to kill and destroy, but I've come; so that you may enjoy life and have it in abundance, till it overflows." Who in their right mind would want to be associated in any way with the devil and be put into this dangerous category? It's obvious to me if Jesus said this to these people, He must have known that we could be deceived and fall prey to this also.

In Jesus travels with His Apostles; He came to a Samaritan village and the people did not accept Jesus with the grandeur that the Apostle felt appropriate, and when James and John observed this, they said "Lord do you wish us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, as Elijah the Prophet did in the Old Testament." However, Jesus turned and rebuked them and severely explained His disapproval of this statement and said "Don't you realize the sort of spirit operating in you to make that kind of statement. I didn't come to destroy men's lives, but to save them from the penalty of eternal judgment."

I find this bit of Scripture very revealing. First, we see that, these Apostles were being deceived at God's ways of dealing with people. They were following the Lord and trying to live the Christian life, yet still able to be deceived. In spite of this, they accepted God's reprimand, received God's revelation knowledge of the truth, and went on to be all that God intended them to be as His children. Another interesting thing, they knew that they had the power to call fire down from heaven with out any doubt. We in the body of Christ don't even recognize yet the power we have, to do the works of Jesus on the earth because; we to busy having church.

There are many of us in the body of Christ that recognize the weak areas that afflict many people, and the need to teach and empower people to do the work of the ministry. Let me remind you that we are not fighting people with different doctrines or fighting denominational religions, and their different interpretations of scripture. Jesus is not denominational. Some believe one way and some believe another and this should not be so. Religion means a belief in a certain sect of denominational beliefs. I think we have been very subtly deceived. Religion and Christianity have nothing in common. Christianity is a relationship with a living person who we can talk to any carry on a loving conversation. It is not us being told how to live by law type rules and regulations and behavior modification.

With all the denominations we have, we have people worshipping every conceivable thing on the planet in this age. The point I am trying to bring out is that; all the deception that is taking place is a flat out ignorance of God's word. If you are not determined to make a total dedication of your being to seeking God with all your heart, soul and all your strength, you are being deceived. This happens because one is unskilled and doesn't have a trained spiritual ear to communicate with the Holy Spirit the way one ought to. In turn, you cannot discern true and false teachings and determine the truth of these teaching, by the Spirit of God working on the inside of you.

Religion in its true sense is a spirit of anti-Christ which depicts teachings against Christ's true word. There are too many of us letting our pastors and leaders doing our reading and praying for us. When we sit under a pastor teacher or expounder of the gospel, we must learn to discern the difference between what the Holy Spirit is saying through this person or what they are saying through their own private interpretation in their own fleshly thinking. I have heard the clique for years that there are no perfect churches or leaders. Now that's true, but let's focus on what's important.

God is not looking for perfect people or perfect anything.

What He is looking for are humble people, who He can begin to learn how to walk in holiness before Him. We need to lovingly function along with some of the fine pastors and leaders called by the Lord, that minister in their gift however, we were never intended by God to put ministers on a pedestal and worship them. God never intended for us to be weak and blind followers and just show up at church when necessary, to save face and get a word, so we could have some kind of belief and fit into a congregation. Our pastors and leaders, if they are true leaders called of the Lord, need to be lifting up the Lord and equipping all the saints under their influence, to do the work of the ministry in their market places of the world.

I know that we all have a need to find some safe place within ourselves and with others to rest from our every day battles, but let's get real. Do you think that the devil is afraid to go into the Christian community and church settings? Some of his choice and strongest henchmen are religious spirits at work in the Christian churches of today. This deception that the devil causes is his daily routine on all Christians. We are all going to be affected by his tactics.

The Apostle Paul puts the importance of what really counts in our walk with the Lord when he says, "he heard that there were contentions and wrangling among the people. They were making statements that some of them were followers of Paul, some of Apollos, who was a teacher of that day. Some were following Peter and some were following Christ. Paul goes on to say. Did you people divide Christ into parts? When I came to you, I did not baptize anyone in my name. For Christ sent me out to evangelize by preaching the glad tidings of the gospel, not with eloquence words, but with the anointing of God working on the inside of me through spiritual discernment."

If we are reading God's word and claim to understand Christian living, why are so many people building churches on every corner and bigger churches, when the power of the gospel is in every one of us and we are suppose to be doing the works of Jesus on an every day basis in our arena of life. Aren't we doing the same thing they did back in Paul's day and following different denominational assemblies? Paul brings out in his writings that the only thing he was going to preach was Jesus Christ crucified and nothing else. I ask you in the church that you attend, are you assembling in Christ name or in your own agenda.

Paul clarifies this when he says. "Let no man act as an umpire, declaring you unworthy, and disqualify you for all God has for you. By telling you that; you have to live the life of self abasement (the feeling that you can't measure up) and the worship of angels, taking their stand on visions they claim that they have had, and vainly full of pride and unspiritual thoughts and fleshly elaborate ideas. These people are not holding fast to the Head from Whom the entire body is supplied and knitted together and whose growth comes directly from God.

If you have died with Christ, don't look at life from a materialistic way and teachings of external behavior and making new resolutions in your own strength to change. You are no longer to belong to this type of worldly thinking. Stop submitting to rules and regulations and religious ways of living. Such practices have indeed the outward appearance (that popularly passes) for wisdom. These things promote self-imposed harshness of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severe strict discipline of the body. These things have no value in stopping the desires or whims of the lower nature of our flesh. None of these things honor God."

If perchance you're thinking that this is not going on to some degree in your church, you're fooling yourself. Religious spirits are always at work in all settings. Even leaders called of the Lord who teach great anointed messages can be deceived and don't rightly interpret God's word correctly at all times. Anointed words and non anointed words come out of our mouths as we grow up in God. We must recognize and understand that, the key to our domination over spiritual wickedness is a humble and broken spirit before God, with a passion for His presence. This is what holiness is all about. The more time I spend with the Holy Spirit in conversing with Him in the word, the clearer my vision gets and the more deception I see and how to deal with it. There is much more to say on this subject and this battle will not end until the return of Jesus to this planet.

David the King who was a man after God's own heart said this. "God prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies, He anoints my head with oil, my cup is running over. (The wisdom of God is making me rich.) Only goodness, mercy and unfailing love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord for ever." The Oil he is talking about represents the wisdom and counsels of God.

Let's remind ourselves that we are the house of the Lord. The Spirit of God lives on the inside of us; once we have become born again. What are we putting in this house that we live in with God, lies or truth? The devil knows that informed Christians are a danger to him. The table that God has prepared is His word and when you read and meditate on it. It's like sitting down at a smorgasbord.

11Cor. 2:11
11Cor.11; 14
John 10:10
John 4:23
Eph.5:9
Luke 9:53-56
1Cor. 11:20
Col. 2:18-23
Psalms 23:5-6
John 8:8