Relegating To Religion, Or Clinging To The Cross?

Jesus dealt with various wicked spirits during His ministry on earth, but the last one He tangled with on the day of His death was the religious spirit. The same one that mocked Him and spit in His face because He would not forsake the cross. 

You cannot argue with this spirit because it will argue Scripture with you nine ways to Sunday, just like the religious leaders during Jesus’ earthly ministry. It is devoid of genuine meekness, confident in its understanding and teachings and perception of religious things. It compels human beings to use God’s word to create divisions and factions, deceiving them to believe that they are teaching righteousness and serving God— when in reality, they are being used by the enemy to provoke division among believers. 

You will never be religious enough to suit them. The cross is conspicuously absent from their teaching. The focus is more on how we can be righteous by our “right understanding of this or that teaching”, rather than what it means to die in Christ, to glorify His work on the cross, and to join in His sufferings. It is subtle and deceptive, seducing us with the illusion of our own righteousness instead of our dependence upon Christ’s. It is the amassing of pupils and inculcating hope in religion, rather than pointing people to their only Savior and hope, Jesus Christ. 

Beloved, I know this may sound harsh, but I am sharing this by compulsion of the Spirit. What God wants His people to understand in this late hour is that He hates our religion. He hates the religious spirit that Christ battled throughout His ministry. It is this Antichrist spirit that led to his crucifixion— the religious spirit that is full of pride and arrogance and self-righteous certainty. The spirit that puts itself “in the place of” Christ. The spirit that people follow “instead of” Christ— religion instead of Christ, our righteousness instead of His, our works instead of His work: the cross He died upon to show us the way. 

The time is coming, and now is, that we will be called upon to make our stand. And when we do, His glory will rise upon us because it will be shown that the only thing we are standing upon, the only thing we teach and proclaim— is Him. 

(Matt 5:11-12) Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.

(John 15:26-16:3) When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—He will testify about Me. And you also must testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning... They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father or Me.

(Posted on Facebook 12/16/2020 Talitha Koum)