In my last post, I explained my journey into the Charismatic movement and the profound effect it has had on my life. I am still working through disconnecting from the false belief systems I held and wrestling with other beliefs that have brought a lot of confusion.
One of those beliefs is the continued use of the gifts of the Spirit, or what some refer to as the “sign gifts”. These gifts are prophecy, healing, tongues, discerning of spirits, words of knowledge and miracles. All these gifts are listed in 1 Corinthians 14:11 as gifts given and empowered by the Holy Spirit for use of the body of Christ to speak to God, build up, encourage, console, learn, and as a sign to unbelievers.
As a follower of Bethel church and the Charismatic movement, I was enthralled by the various gifts and miracles I heard and saw, such as gold dust falling from the ceiling, manna from heaven or gold teeth appearing. I fully believed this was the work of the Holy Spirit and was severely disappointed these type of things were not happening for me personally. Even though I didn’t see these types of physical manifestations, I did have many other personal encounters with God that confirmed what I knew was true: God still works in signs and wonders today.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Matthew 5:6
I personally have the gifts of discerning of spirits and the prayer language of tongues. For me, discerning spirits means I can see in the spirit realm and I can discern between things that are of God and things that are of Second Heaven and the Kingdom of Darkness. I believe in part that gift is strengthened by the time I have spent in the occult and the deeper understanding that it gave me. I also am able to receive words of knowledge about people in order to know how to pray for them, and I believe that is an offshoot of my gift of discernment.
When I first got swept up into the Charismatic movement what was modeled for me was a version of Christianity that was bold for Christ through radical movements of prayer and healing. This meant stopping strangers to pray for them, praying for people to get revelations of how to heal them or cast out demons from them, and making this a daily lifestyle. This was the way a Christian life was supposed to look, and anything less was useless.
So I made a practice of seeking opportunities to pray for others healing and deliverance whenever possible. Not only at my own church, but at other churches that held hearing and healing conferences. At the same time, I was desperately seeking my own healing and deliverance, as well as a word from God. I saw prophets giving people a word from God and I became obsessed to have one of my own. It didn’t matter that I already had a deep connection with Jesus, I needed to hear from a real prophet.
“Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Luke 10:19-20
However, the more time I spent following the Charismatic movement and being involved in various powerful churches, the more my eyes began to be opened to the truth. I began to see things that truly disturbed me, such as portals being opened in paintings down during worship, worship bands who worshiped themselves, Christians who were also witches and doing Satanic rituals in church, prophecy being taught like fortune-telling, and much more.
It wasn’t until I actually saw Lucifer at one of these Charismatic conferences where people were deceived into believing he was Jesus that I got shocked into reality. While the Charismatic movement may look like an extraordinary move of God, it is really a counterfeit movement of Lucifer himself, and it is extremely dangerous, however, I believed that this was a church-wide problem, not a Charismatic problem.
It wasn’t until I separated myself completely from the church and took time to heal from all the traumatic experiences that I began to realize the horror I experienced was because of the false Holy Spirit moving within these Charismatic churches. That is not to say that Lucifer does not have his hand in the church at all, because he does. Lucifer will continue to find a way to try to corrupt God’s Word and twist the Gospel truth until Jesus Christ returns.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
It actually took me going to a traditional Calvinist church to come to a full understanding of how Lucifer has twisted the gifts of the Spirit to use them for his own devices. He uses them in the Charismatic church just like Pharaoh used his magicians to counterfeit God’s miracles, and he uses the same gifts in more conservative churches to completely misrepresent the gifts as dead. Lucifer does not want God’s people tapping into the true gifts of the Holy Spirit to use them for their intended purposes, because we as God’s children would be connecting with the power of God and walk in the call He has for us.
God has given us these good gifts because they will strengthen us individually and collectively as the body of Christ. When we see the power of God move within us we can’t help but be humbled and amazed by how mighty He is, and when we see His awesome power displayed to be used for the good of the church it will show the world how great our God is. There are many people who do not believe God continues to work miracles today, but I know that I am living proof of the power of His hand as He continues to deliver me from mind control programming and the Luciferian End Times Army.
At my return to the church, I was very confused about the gifts. The teachers in the Calvinist movement teach against anything related to the gifts of the Spirit, and from what I see in the world, they have a good reason too. The gifts are being corrupted by demonic power and there are many false teachers and prophets claiming the name of Christ. Not only that, but there are many people who do truly have gifts from the Holy Spirit, but those gifts are being tainted by the Second Heaven. I know, because I have been one.
For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
Matthew 24:24
It has taken me a lot of time, healing and prayer to distinguish what part of my gifts are truly from God and what parts are my dissociative alter trying to connect with outside power sources and it hasn’t been easy. As a matter of fact, it is very painful to come to the truth that the devil has used me so much. I was on the path to being a leader in the Charismatic movement myself, as Charisma magazine began propelling my ministry into overdrive by constantly writing articles sharing my posts.
I never even asked them to share anything, yet one day they began sharing my videos and blog posts and my ministry began to go viral. I thought for sure it was a move from God, but now looking back I can see it was always the devil luring me down a path of self-destruction to whore myself out to do his bidding. I had the opportunity to be interviewed on television by the 700 Club and I turned it down because through prayer Jesus revealed to me that they were going to come to my house and reprogram me.
If I hadn’t prayed earnestly to hear from God if I should do that interview, I can only imagine where I would be now. I cared deeply about becoming known and famous and had plans to travel for speaking engagements and do interviews and I was on a trajectory to shoot straight into the devil’s plan, but God stopped me because I was willing to hear His ‘no’. I can’t tell you how hard it was for me to turn down that interview and when Jesus said ‘no’ I was sobbing because I did not understand why.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:5
I am at the most stable point I have ever been right now, in my entire life, and I am 43 years old. Jesus has worked a miracle in me and He will continue to do so until He is finished. He may never be finished in this lifetime, and I am okay with that. I have to accept the truth of my life, that Satan had me deep in his End Times Army and was using me for his plans, but God turned all of that around and is now using me to expose Satan’s operation and bring the truth to anyone who will listen.
He can do the same for you if you humble yourself before Him and surrender everything inside of you to His lordship. It is not going to be easy, but it is so very worth it. The freedom I am experiencing now is worth this violent battle I have been in all my life, and I would never go back to the occult, not for one second. I am working towards understanding not only the truth of who I have been but also the truth of who God says I am. I don’t think I could really understand who I am in God’s eyes if I couldn’t see the truth of who I was in Lucifer’s army.
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:6-7
