The most dangerous spirit in the church today is the spirit of religion, because any spirit and ungodliness, any carnality or ungodly thing can throw on holy garments and spiritualize itself to make it seem as if it’s godly! And because we live in a world where people only look at the surface level of things, we are easily fooled.
A form of godliness is the most deceiving thing. People in the world will be fooled by anything because they are of the world and have been made blind. Yet how much greater deception is it for those who have had the blindfold removed only to be deceived again in another way with their own beliefs. The devils know the Word and tremble. Those who have had their eyes open are the ones the devil is out to deceive.
Everybody else is automatically deceived until they have had their eyes open by the light. And this is why religion is the biggest killer. The Word has sin very clear and able to be seen. Yet we live in a generation where the devil has spiritualized sin so that he would deceive those who are spiritual.
He has made sin look like the light. He has taken scripture and perverted it so that we would believe and be deceived. So that the deception would be so great that even the elect might be deceived. You think we’re going to be deceived by plain old worldliness? Wrong. Christians are going to be deceived by worldliness that’s looks like godliness. It says that the anti-Christ will sit in the temple of God, claiming to be God. He is going to pretend He is the God written in your scriptures. Don’t you see the Jews already preparing for Him? “The Messiah.” Sin is being made to look like righteousness, but if we can’t see past the outward appearance. We will be blind and deceived!
The devil can get you to sin and make you think you are holy. The devil will use your lust for power to become a pastor so that you can become a church dictator. The devil will use your lust for a spouse to go after a spouse you weren’t called to. The devil will use your scripture and knowledge to justify your pride. The devil will use your lip service to show you how to cover your pride with false humility.
The devil can use your greedy heart to rob people of money with the Word of God. The devil can use any sin, you name it. The devil will spiritualize sin and then put divination on you so that you would think you’re doing God’s work. Yet later to be called a worker of iniquity.
He’s going to call those who did works, cast our devils, healers of the sick, cleansers of the leapers, workers of iniquity because they didn’t know Him. Why was it iniquity? All those things were good yet they never did it in His name or His Spirit. They did it for their own name and by their spirit for their own glory.
God used them, yet God uses everything for His plan and purpose. God even uses evil to bring fruit for His plan and purpose. All things work for the good of those who love God and are called to His purpose. We need to wake up though. Just because it’s good doesn’t mean it’s God!
God uses the good and bad of that evil tree to turn us to the tree of life. Yet religion can never be good because its mouth is in alignment but its heart is far from Him. God searches the intentions of the heart. He’s digging for a heart of gold and if He can’t find it then our lips mean nothing. Our praises are meaningless. We don’t praise God to get something from Him, we praise Him because He is good and we have tasted of His goodness. It’s a natural reaction. Yet religion teaches you to praise Him to get something from Him.
“Ask, but you do not receive because you desire to spend it on your own lusts. Praise but you don’t receive because you are praising looking for My hand instead of My heart!”
Many of us are praising God, doing religious activities so that God can fulfill our own lusts. That’s not Jesus, that’s Baal. The gods of old wanted to be praised and bowed down to, and in return, they would give you things. What is our religion worth if it’s really all about lust. Then that religion is in vain because it’s all about self. And lust means covetousness, meaning to desire something strongly. And that something can be anything, not just sexual. It can be a car, a house, a family, a job, a lifestyle, praise of man, platforms, anything that concerns the earth below! And our religion is in vain because we savor the things below instead of the things of God.
Pure religion is to visit the widow and take care of the orphan and to be unspotted from the world. In other words, to save the lost! For me to save them requires me to sacrifice and lose my life to bring them to Christ. My time, my effort, my focus. And to be unspotted from the world requires me to kill ALL of my lusts!
That’s pure religion, that I would do everything I can to be a servant of all. That I would do everything that I can to be pleasing to God. This isn’t about us, this is about God's plan for the world and for those who would believe in Him. For us. This is our main purpose, to work with Him that we would give birth to His purpose. God has impregnated His true church with His purpose and we are to give birth to it. For our personal lives and for the corporate body. To do that we must lay down everything spiritually and carnal to make sure it comes to pass.
Or else we will be counted as a worker of iniquity. Iniquity is immoral or grossly unfair behavior. So iniquity is inequity, lack of fairness or justice. What is equity in the kingdom? Equity means fairness, and according to God’s command, His fairness is that we lay down our life. In return, He gives us life. We work iniquity by wanting Him to give us life without laying down our life.
In this, we are being unfair. In this, we are unqualified for the crown and the high calling. We’re only fooling ourselves by doing this kingdom walk without laying our lives down for the King. And then we justify it because, “Hey, look at us. We’re doing things for God,” but at the end of the day, deep down, it’s for us and about us and not about Him. And we may be doing things for God but it’s not from God!
This is a worker of iniquity, the one who has works of God but doesn’t know Him. In order to know Him, it requires us to lay down our lives. This is a worker of iniquity, the one who does works of God but is their own God. These are fools in the kingdom because they are only fooling themselves. Making themselves think that their works are going to give them permission for eternal life, yet He will say to them, “Turn away from me, you workers of iniquity.”
By Joe Pinto
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