Holding on to tightly to the past can be a dangerous thing.  Especially when the Spirit of the Living God is trying to move you forward!

I speak especially to those people who have ‘left the church,’ per se.  But the church has NOT left you.

Oh, you do well, you write well, you blog superbly of how you have left the institutional church. But you speak of Her more like a spurned lover than you do of a healed, delivered WARRIOR.

I used to be that way.  I spoke of my past and wore it like a tattered garment.  A LOT!

But I stopped doing that when I got DELIVERED!  FOR REAL!

You see, what you have to realize is that the Word says to FORGET THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND AND P R E S S!

No, you wont forget the stuff literally.  You WILL forget how much it hurt you.  Or angered you.  Or disappointed you.  Or frustrated you.

How can you tell you are still wearing the garment of religiosity, even though you left ‘the church’ 10 years ago?

Classic tell tale signs are:

1) Anger, frustration, depression, remorse or guilt that won’t go anywhere when you hear of something else going on in the church.

You will understand that the closer we get to the end times, the worse this institutional church is going to get.  You are prepared for that.  You accept it.  So when you hear of another scandal, another child being raped, another devout woman contracting HIV from a preacher, you will know that all of these things are plagues of the end time institutional church.

2) A strong desire to return.

If you find yourself missing ANY aspect of the institutional church (i.e. the service, the praise and worship, the covering, etc.) , there is still some religion left in you.  You just got to find a reason to go there.  That religious demon still has its hooks in you.  That’s not a condemnatory statement; it is the truth, in love. I  love enough to tell you the truth…that ultimately SETS YOU FREE!

3) All of your time and resources are spent exposing things going on in the institutional church.

Now, I am a proponent of exposure.  And I wholeheartedly do believe that things not of God should be exposed.  But ALL of my time, resources and energy are no longer spent on exposing the fakes.  I mean, come on!  If I spent all that time exposing the fakes, I would have no time to do what it is I am CALLED to do….point people to the REAL JESUS, help people recognize the voice of God for themselves and help them in their transition OUT of the church, when they are ready.

4)  Pride/Inability and Unwillingness to be Taught

Religion and pride goes hand in hand.  People with this trait use the excuse that because ministers and leaders in the institutional  church have abused their authority, consequently that in and of itself is supposed to eradicate the necessity to be taught by another.  A trick of the enemy is to get folks to get huffy and puffy and refuse to be taught based upon the fact that there are false teachers out here.  Remember, there would NEVER be a fake unless there is a REAL.   A fake anything is only a cheap replica of the real!  Without the real, the fake could NOT exist.  Your job is to discern that which is fake and that which is real!

5)  You rehearse trauma, abuse and mishaps suffered in the church….over and over again.

And you do so with a victim’s mentality.  You are not a victor, but a victim.  And God cannot use a victim.

6) You are sort of the Rhona Barrett, the Wendy Williams, of the church.  You may or may not go to church, but you sure got all the news about whats going down there.  You are obsessed with reporting the latest on what’s going down in ‘the church.’  

Instead of focusing your energies on helping the REAL people of God heal from abuses suffered in the church, you are still moaning, crying, reporting, complaining, and getting frustrated  over what is happening there.  You left, like Pam said in the video, but its really like you never left to begin with!

You have left the church, but the church has NOT left YOU!!!!!!

7) You have this hero mentality.  You believe that God has ‘called’ you to rescue folks out of the clutches of the I.C.

This is one of the last things the enemy will deceive folks who have come out with…that it is your job, your calling, to snatch folks out of the I.C.  The enemy has you deluded with grandiose perceptions of yourself being a savior of some sort.  Super Christian!  With the big ‘S’ on your chest!  You can leap skycrapers in a single bound…and snatch innocent people out of the clutches of the satanically-driven I.C.

And you are SO deceived with this perception of yourself that you will even DISOBEY GOD and go back to church, under the guise of rescuing souls out of religion!  Or out of a plague-ridden church.

THAT is a trap of the enemy.

I remember this movie, one of my favorite, Superman II, where Superman was in this fight with some villains from his old planet Krypton before it was destroyed.  There were three of them, two men and a woman.  One of the men was called Zod, he was the leader.  In this fight scene, Superman was going toe to toe with all three of the villains in the city of Metropolis.

The villains were winning the fight, per se, because Superman was on the WRONG turf.

Superman wisened up and took the fight to HIS turf, his pad in the North Pole.  THERE Superman whipped some villain booty!!

Superman realized what a lot of ‘christians’ have not: you cannot go into a den of demons, somewhere where GOD IS NOT and expect to win ANY confrontation with evil.

The VICTORY IS IN JESUS CHRIST.  And if JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH is NOT with you, then the fight won’t be won.

You cannot go into a corrupt, condemned, plagued, sin ridden entity that GOD HIMSELF HAS JUDGED AND GIVEN OVER TO THE ENEMY and expect to do any real damage to the kingdom of darkness.

That luring that you feel to go back and ‘fight’ for souls is a T.R.A.P. set up by the enemy for your destruction!

You no longer walk in the power of God when you are in rebellion, or disobedience.  You may feel ‘a power’ with you while you are in there.  But it is NOT the HOLY GHOST POWER.

It is a false, demonic, wicked, religious demon that empowers those who follow it…straight to their demise.

If this is you, don’t feel bad.  I was once there.  But I thank GOD for deliverance, and for bringing people like Pamela Sheppard into my life to help me!

If you are looking for help/deliverance, just call 518-477-5759.