How to Conquer the Religious Spirit that Offends God

Hey, this is Dr. Ray Self, welcome to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. Today I'm going to get into something very serious - it's the religious spirit. You say, “Well, what's it have to do with me?” It has a lot to do with you because it's a very prevalent spirit, it's all over the church world, and it is interfering with our relationship with God. Stay tuned, this is a very important show, this will give you freedom that you've never had before - that's my goal in the name of Jesus Christ. This show is sponsored by the International College of Ministry - that's the school I founded 25 years ago - a Holy Spirit-filled online bible college seminary, offering degrees in counseling, ministry, theology, even prophetic ministry, and now praise and worship. Check us out, get a free evaluation, go to icmcollege.org. Whoo, thank you so much I can't wait to get into the show, thanks for being a part of us today.

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Welcome to my show, Dr. Ray Self here. The religious spirit, why is it so bad, why is it so damaging, how can you avoid it, are you a victim of it? Let's talk about that. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this show today, this time your technology; I thank you for everyone listening to the show. I pray, Father, this show will be a blessing to them. And help us, Father, to walk in the freedom, completely in the freedom that Christ has won for us. We give you praise, we give you honor, we praise you, Father. In Jesus’ name, amen.

So religious spirit is a, is a term that gets thrown around quite a bit and…but what I want to talk to you about today is what is that spirit and why does it affect you and how can you avoid it because it is offensive to God. And, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to offend God and I don't want anything interfering with my relationship with God, and that's what this religious spirit does, and…let's, let's talk about that. Now, in the, in the scriptures - and I want, want to read this one particular verse from you out of Corinthians because it kind of explains it. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6, “...who…” now this is Jesus, “...also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Now, the letter he's referring to is the letter of the law. That is the rules and regulations and all of the requirements that God has had put upon us on– through the old covenant. There are about 630 laws and regulations, and obedience to these were required. And…but now, in the New Covenant, he says the letter which is legalism, this highly structured rules and regulations system that they came out of kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now, Paul also wrote- well, why did God give us the law? Well, Paul wrote in Romans the law - which is, you know, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, you, you read it - gave us knowledge of sin. The law pointed out our failure, okay? And gave us knowledge of our sin. It made us aware that we need a savior. We need a savior. So here comes Christ, and Jesus says, “Hey, I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill the law.” Now, what that means is that Christ, by His sacrifice on the cross, took care of those requirements for us, okay? And then He who knew no sin became sin that we might be made righteous. So what He's done is Christ took all these requirements of the letter, of the law, all these legalistic requirements and took care of them for us so by faith in Christ we have met those requirements, and now we are righteous, in right standing. 

Now, what happens with the religious spirit is it makes us kind of go back under the law. The religious spirit is a mixture of legal rules and regulations and formulas and traditions mixed with the grace of God; and it actually is offensive to God because what it does is it, it says to God that Jesus was not complete, His work was incomplete, He only partially fulfilled the law and that's why we need to avoid it because it really gets into the way. Now I want to talk about another verse that kind of explains this to– In Hebrews chapter 10 - kind of helps us understand what I'm talking about - Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1, “For the law, since it was only a shadow of good things to come, and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifice, which offered continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.” So the law was a shadow. It was, it was symbolic of, of what was to come, and that's important to understand, okay? Very important to to get that, you know, for your, for your health and well-being and your relationship with God. 

Paul writes in Colossians which I think will help you understand more what I'm talking about. Uh, Colossians 2:16. “Therefore, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink, or respect to a festival, new moon, or…” or “...sabbath day, which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” okay? So these things are shadows. The sabbath was a shadow, the sabbath is a picture of entering into God's rest. God rested on the sabbath day, the seventh day. Well, what is that? Well, the, the seventh day is symbolic of a time that was to come when through Christ, we can enter into the rest of God, into His rest, and the the book of Hebrews explains that. Let me look at that. So in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 1, “Therefore, let us fear, if while a promise remains of entering his rest, any of you have come short of it.” So there's a promise of entering into the rest of God. “For indeed we've had good news preached to us just as they also; but the word did not profit them because it it was not united by faith in those they heard.” Okay. “So he's talking about entering into God's rest. Resting from what? Resting from legalism, resting from having to be saved by your works. Now, we're saved by the grace of God, not by our works. So if you look at verse 9, Hebrews 4, “There remains a sabbath rest for the people of God.” Okay? “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from His. Let us be diligent to enter into His rest so no one will fall…” how do we do that? Through the gospel, through the gospel. He talks about that in verse two. They had the good news preached to them but it did not profit them because they didn't have faith. 

So the gospel of Jesus Christ allows us rest. Prior to the gospel, you have the old covenant and everything– there was just stuff you had to do. You had to wear this, you had to do this, you had to uh, achieve this, you had to practice this, you had to practice that. The festivals, the feasts, the rules, the regulations. Be sure enough to do this, be sure not to do that, and so there was no rest, there was a lot of work that had to be done. Then on the seventh day, you, you, you didn't do anything. Well, the seventh day is actually a prophetic picture of Christ because through Christ we can enter into His rest. Hebrews 4:10, uh, and 4:9, “There remains a sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who's entered His rest has also rested from his works as God did His.” That is relating to Ephesians which says we're saved by grace not by works. In other words, our works do not save us, our works are not going to give us God's grace. We're saved by our faith through faith by God's grace. So in other words, all these things that the, the old covenant required us to do were simply symbols; they were types and shadows which the Bible talks about, the types and shadows of things that were to come; and that is mentioned in the book of Hebrews chapter 10. “For the law, since it was only a shadow of good things to come, and not–” “merely forms of things that could never by the same sacrifice offer…” and then he rebukes people for worshiping types and shadows and copies. Now what– how does that apply to us? Well, so many times we have these things that we think we have to do to please God and it's symbolism. I mean, I know people– “I– I have to wear my prayer shawl,” and, “I have to– I have to make sure that I, I go back and to– and, and worship God on this feast and practice the, the Passover and the, and the day of atonement, and I got to practice all this kind of stuff.” In other words, “I, I believe in Jesus but there's still all these things that, that I need to do to make sure I'm on the inside track with God,” and actually that's offensive to God because what they– you're, doing is you're saying Jesus did not fulfill the law, there's still things we have to do. What do we have to do? We have to be– have faith that Jesus is our savior and He has fulfilled all these legal requirements for us. I don't have to go back into a mixture of…of, of old and new. Paul was– in the book of uh, Galatians Paul was explaining this and he was, he was really upset with the Galatians as a matter of fact, in, in chapter 3 of Galatians he says, “Oh foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Through whose eyes Jesus was…” publicly crucified– crucified– “...portrayed as crucified?” Chapter– verse two, Galatians 3, “This one thing I want to find out: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law?” are you… “Or hearing by faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” He was rebuking them because what had the Galatians done? They had gotten that religious spirit. Yeah, they, they knew Christ but all of a sudden they started mixing in the law, especially circumcision. They started mixing the law with…uh…with the New Covenant. They were mixing the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. 

Well, even today it is a natural tendency for us to look for formulas and things that we need to do to get on the inside track with God; and it doesn't– it doesn't work. Um, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to have faith in Jesus Christ, believe that God’s Grace has saved us, and by the– we have the Holy Spirit who is everything. Those that are led by the Spirit are the sons of God. What does God want me to do? He wants me to be led by the Holy Spirit. What's require– required of me? The Holy Spirit is directing me. The entire– everything that God requires and needs of us is inside of us because we are the temple of God by the Holy Spirit. 

So what the religious spirit does, it starts putting all of a sudden these other requirements on you. “Well uh, don– don't cut your hair, don't don't wear makeup–” I'm talking to the ladies here– “make be sure you don't wear jewelry.” Um, “Make sure that, that on Saturday You, You, You observe the sabbath on Saturday, you have to observe– you have to observe the sabbath on, on Saturday.” Um, you know, “you have to uh, observe this feast, you have to observe this festival, you got make sure you're doing your first fruit offering and make sure you tithe legalistically.” You see, all this is going back into religion. It's a, it's a spirit of religion. It's the religious spirit and the result of that spirit is two things. I believe it's offensive to God because it's saying that it's not the grace of God that saves us, it's our works that save us. You see, the New Covenant we can rest from our works, okay? And now, we live by faith in the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We live by faith in Christ and that faith in Christ has redeemed us and Justified us and saved us; it's not about our works. 

Now, but there's still people that are thinking that if I do these certain rules and regulations and I follow these certain requirements - usually people are pulling scriptures out of context - then I'll really be right with God. And there's some churches that say you have to do this, I mean– and listen, no offense to anybody but the Catholic Church has got a lot of traditions that you have to do to be right with God; and I'm telling you, these things are offensive to God because they're saying that the grace of God is not sufficient. And I'm, I'mma step on some toes here, I think a lot of the Messianic Christian movement is, is saying the same thing. The, the grace of God is not sufficient, the blood of Jesus Christ, that sacrifice is not sufficient. There's still some, some methods and formulas and things I have to do to really be on the right track with God. And so, instead of living by the Spirit and living by faith, we start living by rules and traditions and Paul said…he said– to the Galatians, that's what they were doing. He, he called them bewitched. He said, you know, “Look, how did you start off? Was it by the works, by, by these works or was it by hearing?” You know? “How did you get saved?” Well, we get saved by hearing with faith. We get saved by the, by, by having faith in Jesus Christ. And now all of a sudden, people want to go back into all these other methods and formulas and, and things to do. I know I'm, I'm maybe rambling a little bit here. What I'm trying to get you to understand is Jesus has fulfilled the law of God. What pleases God is our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and being led by the Holy Spirit. And I was talking about this earlier to my class last night: tithing. Well, some people make tithing this legal requirement and it's, it's, it's not a legal requirement. It's, it's a great principle, great principle, but we should be giving by the Holy Spirit. So some people are giving out of condemnation and shame and rules instead of giving from their heart. “Let each one give as they purpose in their heart,” Paul wrote about that, okay? 

You know, the principle, the Old Covenant teaches us a lot of things, teaches us a whole lot of things but it doesn't make us right with God. What makes us right with God is Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished for us and so that's freedom- Freedom comes from knowing that we are right standing with God, not by doing all these things that the church requires us by…You know, there's so many– I've seen so many– so much religion, I mean, like…used to pick on women a lot, “Don't– don't you dare show up in church with pants on,” you know, “Don't you dare show up at church with makeup on, don't you dare cut your hair,” um, “make sure that your head is covered,” and all these kind of rules. The– these things you have to do. Now, what you have to do is believe in Jesus Christ as your savior, be led by the Holy Spirit, amen; and these things please God. So all these things that are copies and shadows; Paul was upset that people kept– wanted to go back into worshiping a symbol. And so so many times, churches do things that are symbolic of Christ…and…he…Paul is saying you don't worship– don't think a symbol is going to do anything for you. We don't need a symbol, we have– we can enter boldly to the throne of grace, we have a, a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Now, one way of explaining it is, you know, I, I love my wife very, very much but I don't love a picture of her; and I've got some pictures of her in my house, in my office. I want to have a relationship directly with my wife. I– I don't want to uh, read about my wife and just look at pictures of my wife and, and look at her accomplishments and uh, you know, study all about her, I want to have a relationship with her. Now, the pictures are beautiful, the things she accomplished are nice and I have some of her letters, I have her pictures, I have her memorabilia, but I can go to my wife and I can just talk to her directly. I don't have to have these, I'm not worshiping and in love with a picture, I'm in love with my wife; and so, what these symbols do - all these religious things the church puts on us - they are symbols of Christ and they're not Christ, and we're not to think that a symbol is going to win us any brownie points with God. I hope that makes sense to you. 

Paul says in Romans and in Galatians, the righteous man shall live by faith, this is how God wants us to live. Live by faith in Jesus Christ, not live by trying to follow rules and regulations and uh, methods in order to get on the inside track with God. I, I had a church member come up to me some years ago, said, “Dr. Self, I, I found the key to the blessing with God.” This was like, around January 1st, I'll never forget it, “The key to being blessed with God is we have to bring our first fruit offering and so here is my first paycheck of the year and I want to give it to the church because that's the key to our– that's why the body of Christ is not being blessed because we're not giving the first fruit offering.” Well, I looked at them and I said, “Did the Holy Spirit tell you to do this?” “Oh, yes sir, because see, that's why the church isn't blessed because we're not giving the first fruit offering.” Listen, folks. Here– that's a typical of a religious spirit. They found a trick, they found a, a method, they found a formula for getting something from God. And maybe that's what I need to say today. The religious spirit gives you formulas, rules, regulations, things you should do, things you ought to do, things you have to do to get right with God, and to get His blessing. To get His blessing, you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you believe He has accomplished it all for you, and you're led by the Holy Spirit. Now, let me say this to be careful, the Book of James says faith without works is dead. Now, if we believe Jesus Christ is our savior and we're walking in that freedom, we're able to rest from our works trying to follow all these regulations to please God. But if we truly believe Jesus Christ as our savior, we will do good things, we will have good works as the fruit of that. But our good works doesn't make us right with God or give us some inside track with God. 

And so all these things that are– people are doing, mixing um, the Jewish customs, they think, well, you have to wear your prayer shawls, you have to, you have, have to practice this, make sure you practice the Passover, and all this kind of stuff that's really going to get you a blessing with God, it's not! Now, if you want to do this stuff because it helps you remember God or it reminds you, um, and it's something uh, historically that you enjoy, yeah, go for it. But if you think it is winning you favor with God by going into Old Testament copies, types, and symbols, it does not. We're to live by faith, by the Holy Spirit, and if we have that, the fruit of that is going to be forgiveness and love and kindness and fulfillment and all these great things, okay? Th– these will follow us naturally. We're free. We're free from all these stressful requirements that churches– you, you've got to do this, you have to do that, you know; and if you don't do this you're, you're not right with God, and if you don't do this, and there's a lot of them. I could go on and on and on about all kinds of stuff that rules and regulations and methods and formulas - all that stuff is actually is offensive to God because again, it's saying Jesus is not enough. I know, I've kind of been…I don't know…maybe too much coffee today, and maybe I'm too excited today. I maybe want– I just want us to– What God wants us to understand is Jesus on the cross took all the stuff, took all the stuff upon His body. See, we have failed at God's law, we failed at the law, we didn't make it. We, we violated God's law but Jesus fulfilled it for us, took care of that violation. And now we live by the faith that Jesus has done this for us. He's made us in right standing with God because we believe in Him. And now because we believe in Him and we have the Holy Spirit, our life shows the fruit of that and that's how we live. Amen, amen! Little preaching today! Hope this was okay for you, okay? 

Heavenly Father, I thank you, Lord, for our savior, Jesus Christ who's won for us everything. He accomplished everything we need at the cross and through the resurrection, Father. And Lord, help us um, not to be caught up in that spirit that Apostle Paul warned us about repeatedly, Father - that religious spirit that wants to go back into the old when Jesus paid such a heavy price for the new. Lord, I pray that this show could maybe set some people free. Not be confusing, Father, but know that we're free through Christ, okay? He who knew no sin became sin that we be– might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Father, we are in right standing with you. We have your favor and your blessing only because of your son, Jesus Christ, and our faith in that, our faith in Him, amen. So Lord, we thank you for your Holy Spirit which is guiding us and leading us in everything that we need. Father, we thank you, Lord. I bless everyone listening to the show today. In Jesus’ name. Amen and amen.

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Hey, thanks again for listening to my show. You know, what I'm trying to say is that Jesus Christ is everything. Don't, don't add a method or a formula or a symbol or a type, or type and shadow, you don't have to be all religious. What Jesus has done for us has given us a relationship with God. Now look, on the Sabbath thing, if, if you want to rest on the Sabbath and you– Saturday's your Sabbath, go ahead and rest but I want you to know the rest - the Sabbath rest - is a picture of Christ. We've entered into a sabbath rest through Christ, we’re resting from our works through Christ. Is a sabbath day good to take a day off and, and rest, yes it is but it's all a picture of Christ. Christ has fulfilled the requirements of God for us and because of that, we can have peace, we can have absolute peace and know that the Holy Spirit is directing us and leading us. There's nothing else we need to do other than have faith in Jesus Christ and be led by His Holy Spirit and that will produce the fruit, amen. I pray this show has been a blessing to you. Hey, if you'd like to uh…have any questions for me, email me at drrayself@gmail.com, email’s in the show notes. Don't forget to uh, if you think there's a call of God on your life, enroll now at icmcollege.org. Uh, also I got a new book out; it's called The Call and it's a very powerful book. You, if God called, you answered, this is what you need to know. That book talks about teaching, preaching, integrity, flowing with the Holy Spirit, counseling, a lot of great topics, I think you'll enjoy it a lot. It's a– it took me several years to write it, so again, through my heart, I just thank you so much for listening to today's show. I pray the Holy Spirit will bless you and Father, anything that I may have said today that is incorrect or displeasing to you, Lord, just let it fall to the ground and forgive me, Lord. But Lord, we just submit this show and all the listeners to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.