When I first started to go to church just over three years ago, I had a very distinct idea of what church was. It was a place where the good people go. The people who are perfect and don’t do any wrong. People quite the opposite of me: drug addict, tattooed, ex witch, etc. I knew that everyone was certainly nice and kind and loving. No one had any serious problems because once you became Christian you became perfect. Wrong.
It didn’t take long to realize those were all completely fabricated lies that I learned while growing up. There is no perfect person, in church or elsewhere. And being Christian doesn’t mean you have come to a place of a trouble free life; although there are certainly individuals who would have you believe otherwise. I saw my share of people drama at church and realized that I was actually no different than anyone else there. Messed up.
I still had the idea that no evil could ever reside in church. It was a place the devil was banned from; like in the movies. You know those movies where an evil being is chasing someone and they run into a Catholic church and the evil being can not get in? That’s what I believed it was like. So when I was sitting in church and I heard Satan tell me as clear as day that he was never going to let me go, I was confounded. How could the devil be in church?
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
Luke 22:31-32
Well the devil was in church because the devil had gained access to me years before I ever became a Christian. I was opened up to demonic entities during satanic rituals as a child and taught to do witchcraft. These are things that do not just disappear from a person when they accept Jesus Christ as Savior. Demons do not flee because a person is saved, they have rights that you have given them and they are not going to leave until you revoke the specific rights they have to be there.
In my case I had no idea I had demons within my being, let alone that I had given them rights. So even though I had renounced witchcraft and all my involvement in it (from what I remembered at that time), I still had a connection with darkness within me from my childhood. Yet because I had no conscious memory of these events, the demons were allowed to stay inside of me and torment me without my knowledge.
There are many people who have opened themselves up to demonic entities during their lifetime, either knowingly or unknowingly. Many people fall prey to the deceptive and seductive ways of the occult. It is hidden everywhere in our society, and it masks itself as good and helpful. It is hidden in things like movies, television, yoga, certain healing methods, and many other ways. When you allow the occult or witchcraft into your life through any of these means, then you are also giving it permission to come into your being.
He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. 2 Thessalonians 2:10
That means if you have allowed demonic entities into your person, you are now capable of doing witchcraft. Witchcraft is, simply put, a person’s intent combined with their strong emotion, being carried out by the harnessed energy of the demonic inside of them. It doesn’t take doing spells or rituals at an altar to do witchcraft. It only takes being angry at a person and wishing them ill will and having a demonic entity inside of you willing to use that against that person.
There are many people in our world right now who are doing witchcraft and have no idea. Often times people do not realize they have allowed any darkness into themselves, or they think because they renounced their past mistakes of witchcraft, they are free from it. The demons are very happy to keep you ignorant so they can continue to use you for their evil purposes. That is why it is so important to become aware of what witchcraft is and how it works. So you can gain freedom for your soul in this world as you learn who you are in Christ Jesus.
The devil loves to masquerade as an angel of light. After all, he was created as a beautiful being who glorified God Almighty. Yet when Satan decided he would rather be god than serve God, he fell from grace and from heaven. He hates people because we are created in God’s image, and remind him of his failure to be god. Therefore his highest goal in this world is to trick every one of us into falling for his lies and believing he indeed is god, or better than God. If he can’t turn us from God and to his kingdom, he rather see us dead.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
John 16:13
If Satan can lure people into the trap that his ways are good and right and pure, then he can trick many people into doing his dirty work for him without realizing it. One of his favorite ways to do that is to bring the occult in to the Christian church. I have read articles where some believe that the Charismatic Movement is actually witchcraft, but that is far from the truth. The real occult in our modern day church is hidden in plain sight.
The church brings the occult in by having yoga classes, Halloween festivities, meditation sessions, bringing in movies filled with the occult to teach Sunday School lessons, such as Star Wars, and more. This are just the obvious examples that stand out in my mind. Yet the occult is not something that is going to infiltrate the church in an obvious way. The meaning of occult according to dictionary.com is:
occult: 1) of or relating to magic, astrology, or any system claiming use or knowledge of secret or supernatural powers or agencies. 2) beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding; mysterious. 3) secret; disclosed or communicated only to the initiated. 4) hidden from view.
So while the occult is going to come in to the church in the obvious ways of yoga classes, which many people believe are just good healthy stretching exercises, it is also going to come in to the church in ways most people will never even guess. Satan is very clever, and he is going to use Christians themselves to bring the occult into the very place we believe we are safe from his devices.
But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Matthew 16:23
Adam and Eve believed the very same lie we are believing today: we can find a place where Satan cannot infiltrate. Yet he was there in God’s garden, in disguise as one of the animals that Adam and Eve had charge over. They loved the animals and would never have thought that one would cause them any harm. Why else would they have taken the advice of one? (Which bears the fact that they must have been talking to animals in the first place if it wasn’t strange to talk to a snake in the first place).
There are many people in this world that have already connected with darkness in one way or another. Whether it be from past dalliances with witchcraft as I have, or just being drawn in through the likes of Star Wars or other such main stream avenues, the demonic have made a presence in Christians today. Leaders of our churches are as human as we are, and have the same temptations to fall prey to the darkness of this world. They are the ones who are making decisions on our behalves and implementing programs such as yoga or bringing movies about witchcraft into children’s programs.
We can be angry that this is even a real issue, but the truth is, human anger never produces the righteousness God desires. (James 1:20). This is not a battle we can fight against each other, but instead with love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. This is not a battle between flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12) We are not going to win going head to head with church officials or even the world at large. We are going to win on our knees.
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Colossians 3:14
Only God’s love has the ability to transform any person’s heart. We can condemn people for their beliefs or unrealized alliances with the occult, or try to force change in our churches, but that is exactly what the devil would love. That is not the way love moves. Love does not use fear or hate or anger to bring people into righteousness. Love uses forgiveness to allow people grace, and mercy to allow people freedom from their bondage, because that is what the occult brings: bondage.
I was afraid to come to a church because I believed I was going to be condemned and looked down upon for the way I had been living my life. Yet Jesus Christ welcomed me with open arms. He was not angry at me because I was aligned with darkness; He loved me right where I was because He saw my heart. He sees each one of our hearts and knows that there are many people who have made wrong choices, but that does not make them evil.
Yes there are absolutely evil people in this world, and I do believe we even have some evil people running churches, but that does not change the facts. God is sovereign over all and He has a divine plan in place that will not be wavered by any evil, ever. We need to not walk in fear in light of this truth, but instead surrender ourselves continually over to God. Each one of us has to begin to be responsible for our own selves and our own hearts. That means stop pointing fingers at everyone around us and start allowing God in to show us where we need to come into submission.
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8
We are always going to have parts of ourselves that we need to surrender. We are sinners and constantly wrestle with the flesh. There is always going to be temptation and evil around us. We may not be able to avoid it, but we can begin to learn how to walk with Jesus Christ and allow Him to lead and guide us through this world. That means beginning to find new depths into a relationship with Jesus. Allow Him in, allow Him to show you who He really is. We have so much to learn about God. We can never know all of Him in this world. There will always be more of Him to know and love.
Once we begin to know more of God, we can learn to trust Him more. And with that trust we will begin to feel safe in allowing Him into these dark places in our hearts and minds that we have clung to so tightly. He will bring His light and truth into those places, and then we will begin to truly experience the freedom that He desires for us to have. We will begin to live out of a place of knowing who we are in Christ, not who the world has tried to shape us to be.
I invite you to allow Jesus in right now, to help you in how to digest these truths. We must bring everything before the throne of God for His truths and how He sees them. It is there we will find love, and it is that love that we desperately need to bring into this world. It is love we need to fight with and it is love that we need to bring anyone else into the light. Without love, we are only making noises that no one wants to hear. Once God reigns in your heart, you can bring His Kingdom into this world.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their lifef will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
Matthew 16:24
