When I first became Christian about 2.5 years ago I started reading the Bible right away. I have to admit my husband and I didn’t go about it quite the right way. Once we started going to church it took time for God to start helping us make positive changes in our lives. One of those changes that was yet to be made was our addiction to smoking pot. So the first time we actually sat down to read the Bible we were high on pot and tried reading the KJV. As you can imagine it made very little sense to us at that moment. Yet we did not give up! We sat there for about an hour trying to read and make sense of the first chapter of Genesis. We deeply wanted to know what God had to say! We were just still bound to sin and death and had yet to experience freedom from drug addiction. God is much bigger than even that, and He can touch anyone, no matter where they are or what they are doing!
While we did smoke pot, it was not a daily thing for us anymore. So it was not a normal hindrance between us and the Word of God. A friend recommended to me to read a different version of the Bible, such as the NLT or the Message, and to start with the Gospel of Matthew instead. So we went out and bought 2 new Message Bibles (I would very loosely call these a Bible since they are paraphrased versions of the Bible). Yes God can truly speak to anyone through any version of the Bible, or in any way He chooses to for that matter. I opened up that Message Bible and started reading Matthew, and I could not put it down. I had never really known much about Jesus – He was just that guy in the white robe with long hair. But now I began to see the beauty and love in Jesus and I fell madly in love with Him. I was amazed and in awe at Jesus – where had He been all my life!!
From there I grew a great passion to learn more about God’s Word. I wanted very much to know what God had to say to me and I saw the Bible as a great guidebook for life. I felt that it held the keys to every question I had every asked during my life, like what am I here for and why do I exist? Some of the Bible was very complicated and confusing for me, but some of it spoke to me in wonderful ways. Soon I was moving up to reading the NLT version and my Message Bible was gathering dust on it. I would recommend the Message for anyone who is very new to the Bible and has a hard time understanding it, because truly God can teach you His truth through it. It’s like training wheels, but that does not mean everyone needs to use training wheels before learning to ride!
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
Galatians 3:24
The more I read of the Bible the more I began to be confused in some ways. It seemed that in the Old Testament God was mean and harsh but in the New Testament Jesus was loving and wonderful for the most part. I also read many of the letters from the Apostle Paul and felt that there were many rules to live by as a Christian. Rules on how to act and not act and how to dress, rules about sex, alcohol, money, and so much more. At that point the Holy Spirit had done a mighty work in me and I had done a complete 180 on how I was living my life – no more drugs, drinking, swearing, or watching horror on TV and that was just the start. So I felt pretty good about myself as I read the Bible as a list of rules to follow. If reading the Bible were like taking a test I would be getting a really good grade!
That just led me to start dissecting the lives and behaviors of everyone around me. If the Holy Spirit was convicting me to make changes, then surely He would be doing the same for all other Christians. As I looked around I just saw Christians living a life that seemed very contrary to the Bible though. It confused me and pained me at the same time. Why was I so convicted to make changes while the other Christians at my church were watching TV shows with horror, violence and sexual immorality? Didn’t they understand they were going against God’s Word? So it became very easy for me to be judgmental towards my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It was not that I wanted to judge people – I truly wanted to love them and be like Christ. I just couldn’t get past the rule bending going on everywhere around me.
I grew up in a very strict household. If I broke a rule I got a very harsh punishment, no matter how small the rule was. So I learned quickly to assimilate and follow the rules. It became quite important for survival you could even say. So when I began to see the Bible as a rule book for life it was very important for me to be sure to keep straight and follow them as best I could, lest God punish me for breaking them. I wanted very much to please God and do what was right in His eyes. What I didn’t understand was that unconditional love God gives to all of His children, no matter how far they stray from Him. He is the most amazing father that way.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
John 1:17
It went on this way for about two years, that is until I had my deliverance from demonic oppression this past summer. During my deliverance session I found out the many ways the devil had gotten rights and access to me during my life, and even before I was even born through previous generations. Through ancestral and generational curses the devil had been able to cause me many problems and pain during my life with demonic oppression. There are many types of demons and each has its own job. One of the demons that was oppressing me was a religious spirit. A religious spirit’s job is to keep people from having a close relationship with God, but instead seeing Christianity as a set of rules to follow. Here are some signs that you might have a religious spirit:
You judge others by their appearance, you try to earn God’s love and salvation, you always criticize other people’s walks with God, you desire position and honor in church over honor with God, you have an outward lifestyle of Christianity but inwardly have not changed, and you are involved in ministry but have no passion for God.
If you struggle with any of these problems, you most likely are suffering from demonic oppression at the hands of a religious spirit. Since I had my deliverance and am free from demonic oppression my walk with God and my understanding of the Bible has changed greatly. I no longer see the Bible as a set of rules, but am gaining a new freedom in my relationship with God. My deliverance partnered with inner healing to help with my past pain and trauma has allowed me to see God not as a task master and ruler setter, but as a loving Father who adores me and wants me to just be close to Him. God has not written the Bible to tell us how to act or how to be, but He has written the Bible as a testimony of His love for us.
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
Romans 8:14
I believe wholeheartedly that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, but I know that when man reads the Bible, it is his own interpretation that he is getting, unless he is led by the Holy Spirit when reading it. That is not to say that I did not have the Holy Spirit before my deliverance, but the demonic oppression was keeping me from full revelation of the Word of God as I read it. The devil would love nothing more than to keep God’s people down by having them believe the Bible is a set of rules that are impossible to follow and we are doomed to fail and displease God. That way we would not want to read the Bible and would not want to follow God. It is seeing the Bible as a set of rules that has caused many people to condemn non-believers and tell them they are going to hell, which only turns them away from God and straight into the arms of some other “religion” such as New Age and Witch Craft. It is seeing the Bible as a rule book that has caused many people to see it as outdated and not practical for this day and age, causing them to fall prey to the deceptions of the world that led us to sin and death.
It is recently as I was reading Galatians again that I came to a wonderful revelation of a life lived by the Spirit. When we live by the Spirit we produce the fruits of a spirit filled life, such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Believe it or not I thought the fruits of the Spirit were more rules to be lived by! Now I see that I was constrained by trying to live life by the law, which left me to be enslaved to it! I was trying to be justified by works and by pleasing God, but it was impossible to do. I believe this is a common trap that many fall prey to, and I hope that if you see yourself in these words, that you would seek to get help to be free from this oppression.
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
Galatians 5:17
