The following response refers to blog:
Works, Not Feelings by Pastor John
December 18, 2021
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Good morning,
I have read the recent blog a few times now, and just wanted you to make it clearer.
I believe I am stumbling taking this in because I keep thinking, “God judges our hearts.” The spirit of lust is a spirit, just as depression, fear, doubt are spirits, and Jesus said if a man even looks on a woman to lust after her he has committed adultery.
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Jesus did say that, but as JD and I were just discussing, to “look with lust” is an act; it’s not just a feeling. There are lustful demons abroad in this world, and there are lustful people around us, and we can feel them, but that is not a sin. Jesus also felt the spirits that were around him; that’s how he knew what they were. The sin is when a person is moved by a lustful spirit to want to do evil and he makes a way to accomplish it. As my father taught me, “If the only reason a person has not sinned is that he lacked the opportunity, he is guilty of what he wanted to do.”
So, God does judge the heart, Beth. But everything in Scripture requires balance, and only the Spirit enables us to “rightly divide the Word of truth”. The great benefit to knowing that we will be judged by nothing, but our deeds is that it gives us the upper hand in dealing with the spirits we are around in this world, and we will not then condemn ourselves for feeling them.
On the other hand, the great benefit to knowing that God will judge us as having done evil if we desire to do it, but haven’t had the opportunity, is that it keeps us from becoming like the Pharisees Jesus described in Matthew 23:25, 27: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! Hypocrites! You make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but inside, they are full of greed and injustice…. You’re like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear to be so very lovely, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”
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I know that when Jesus comes in and removes those spirits, they are gone. The first thing Jesus did for me was to kick those things out so I could be clean. I feel [that for them to make us do something,] we have to open the door and let them back in. Jesus took so many things off me, including a dark depression and a paralyzing spirit of fear. I can’t imagine being right with Jesus or walking in the spirit with them back in HIS house.
Those spirits have often whispered to me, trying to get back in, and Jesus has told me how dangerous it is to spend a moment holding hands with one of them. Jesus told me it’s only by his mercy we are ever restored back to right thoughts and feelings, and I understood he didn’t have to do it.
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Yes, but there is a big difference between sensing, or feeling, those old, evil spirits (they are all around us in this world) and embracing them and acting under them. That is the sin.
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Wouldn’t this be the same as coming to the meetings or filling tract envelopes just as a deed but not spiritually fit to be doing it?
With a sincere heart, and only because I know those spirits personally, I think we should run to Jesus for help if we have even one of them. Jesus removes them; he did it for me. I feel it is dangerous not to. The longer we carry them around with us, the more comfortable they become, and the more friends they invite over. They can do a lot of damage in a short time. It makes me think of —— and others no longer here, who let something get in and hang around until they lost everything Jesus wanted to give them. That almost happened to Jerry, too.
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Amen.
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You told me recently when I said I struggle with a spirit of not fitting in “Well, don’t struggle with it; just ignore it and it will go away.” Is this just saying persevere until it goes away?
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Yes.
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I am probably just missing the whole point of what is being said, and I don’t want to. Can you help make it clearer for me?
Elizabeth D.
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I think you are looking at it rightly, Beth, but from only one side. It is an angle of the issue with which I did not deal in my blog, so I am glad you wrote. As I said, the truth of the matter requires a right balance, which the Spirit alone gives us, and I think now that we have it.
Thank you for your response; it was good. I hope this answer helps clarify things.
Pastor John