Colossians 2:8 | Who Is Teaching You to Think?

In this powerful episode, Codie breaks down Colossians 2:8 and exposes four major categories of deception Paul warned the Church about: philosophy, empty deceit, human tradition, and the elemental spirits of the world.

This teaching calls believers to examine what is discipling their minds, who they are allowing to influence them, and whether their thoughts, relationships, churches, leaders, and spiritual atmospheres are truly according to Christ.

Codie unpacks the importance of the gift of discernment, the danger of man-made religion, the subtlety of demonic manipulation, and the need to separate from anything or anyone keeping you captive. This episode is a bold call to holiness, surrender, obedience, and a deeper relationship with Jesus.

If you have been feeling pulled, confused, controlled, spiritually drained, or surrounded by too many voices, this episode will help you come back to the only standard that matters: Christ.

Transcript

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Hey guys, good morning. Alright, we are actually live today. It is Wednesday. Um, sometimes we record before, but a lot of times we try to record um pretty accurately with the day of the podcast. Why? Because I want to make sure that I am giving you the Rhema word of God. The Rhema word of God is what is God saying right now, in this moment, in this time. We have the word of God, and so we can go back and look at what God has previously said, but a lot of times he will take a scripture from the word and he will actually say, Hey, this is what I'm highlighting right now. Many of you who study the Bible, you know that there's um times where you just study something and you're like, Man, that is like for me today. Like, wow, that spoke to me. That is called the Rhema word of God. Okay. So you can take scripture. Um, if you're studying the Bible, I would suggest that before you do, to even submit um your what you're studying, submit that to God and say, God, what do you want me to read? What do you want me to teach on? And that's what we do. Um, I asked the Lord, I said, God, uh, what do you want me to read? And he said, The book of Colossians. And I was like, Okay, wow, the book of Colossians. I haven't read that in a while. I actually couldn't really remember uh the book itself. And I opened my Bible and I was like, wow, I've actually studied this before because I had all my highlights and all my marks and all my notes and everything marked everywhere. But there was one scripture, guys, one scripture that hit me so hard in my spirit when I read this book, and it is Colossians 2.8. Okay, this is the Rhema word of God for today. Rhema 2.8 says, See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. So, guys, I want to break this down today, okay? Because he is giving you different categories of deception. He's giving you um, let's see, one, two, three, four different categories of deception that you need to really um, you really need to steward the gift of discernment, guys. A lot of people discern a lot of things, but we need to be asking for the gift of discernment. And I'm actually at the end of this podcast, I will release um that gift to you guys. That is a gift that um I had a radical encounter with God, and he actually gave me this gift in the encounter, and so I um just as Paul wants to give you whatever he has given me, so I will um pray a prayer of impartation for that gift of discernment. Guys, remember this gift, you have to actually learn how to use it, okay? It's just like learning to walk as a baby. You have to learn how to use it and you have to learn how to steward it well. You need balance with the gift of discernment, okay, because you're gonna see bad things, you're gonna see good things, you're gonna see things you don't want to see, you're gonna see things that you um do wanna see. And so, with that, you have to make sure that your heart posture is not um a heart posture of judgment. And so, we want to make sure that we're not calling um judgment discernment. Okay, I see that in the body of Christ a lot. So let's make sure that our fruits of the Spirit are actually being made manifest. People can actually see the fruit of the spirit on our life because that tells us if we are actually discerning properly, depending on our own heart posture. So let's go into this Colossians 2.8. Who is teaching you to think? That's my question for you today, okay? Who is actually teaching you to think? Colossians 2.8, it is not just a warning for believers about false religion, okay? Paul is exposing every system, mindset, influence, and spiritual current that slowly pulls people away from the simplicity, the authority, and the leadership and lordship of Jesus Christ. The danger is not always obvious rebellion. Sometimes captivity sounds intelligent, sometimes deception sounds compassionate, sometimes bondage even wears church clothes. Guys, I'm gonna say that again. Sometimes bondage wears church clothes. We have this sign um on the interstate where I live. And you know, it's kind of funny because it says, Go to church or the devil will get you. And deep in my spirit, I'm always like, Yeah, but the devil's in the church too. Because he is. Um, that's the place most believers think that he's not, but I would tell you, um, that's literally where Jesus saw him the most, where Jesus uh encountered him a lot, was in the the church. And so, guys, I'm not I'm not speaking against church. You need to go to church. I'm just saying, guys, we've got to get the gift of discernment. We've got to seek God, get on our hands and knees, cry out to God for the gift of discernment, not just discernment, but the gift of discernment. Okay. And in receiving that gift, you will go through refinement, your heart will be judged, you will be evaluated. Like David said, search me, oh God. You should be on a daily consistent, that should be a consistent prayer in your life. Search me, oh God. Why? Because that keeps your heart pure, that keeps your motives pure, that makes sure that you're not um teaching people from a place of wounds that you haven't dealt with. Um, you're not teaching people from a place of unrepentant sin that you haven't dealt with in your life. Okay. Evaluate yourself. Paul says, see to it that no one takes you captive. He doesn't say see to it that no devil takes you captive. We're called to set the captives free, right? Everybody thinks, oh, that's deliverance, oh, that's demons, you know, all that. Well, yes and no and yes, because people can deceive you. Why? Because they are actually influenced by the demonic. Okay. So we don't want to say, um, I think in the church we have overplayed grace and mercy. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't have grace and mercy for people, but I think that we have people who manipulate us, we have people who continually um stab us in the back. They come with this yo-yo, um, Jezebel type um approach where it's like stab, heal, stab, heal, stab, um, apologize, and then they stab you again, and then they apologize. And it's just like this yo-yo effect that is actually a tactic of the enemy to keep you captive, to keep you bound. And Paul says here, see to it that no one takes you captive. A lot of you are struggling with this in your family, and the reason you won't disconnect is because the devil's like, oh, well, they're your family, oh, they're your brother and sister in Christ. You, you know, you need to stay connected to them. No, you don't, because that is his tactic to keep you captive, because it's this constant yo-yo effect of stab heal, stab, heal, and and they they flow in this false humility, this this apology that isn't it's just a fake apology. They're not really sorry. They're not really why because you would if you if they were truly sorry, you would see repentance on their life. And repentance is not them coming to you and saying, I repent for hurting you. No, repentance is them actually not doing the thing that they've been doing, turning from their wicked ways. They stop attacking you, they stop wounding you, they stop making you, you know, offended, they they stop this yo-yo uh cycle of of keeping you captive. Okay, some of you guys, you need to let people go, you need to just let it go, you need to disconnect from your family. I I'm not, hey guys, you know, you can take it for what it is, and some people won't agree with that, but I'm just saying, guys, God told Abraham, depart from your kindred and never go back. He couldn't even go back to his his uh lineage, his family bloodline to get a um a wife for his son. Okay, like God was like, you cannot go back to that ever. Now there are times where God will take you out for a season and he will say, Hey, no, it's not time to go back. Hey, no, it's not time to reconnect with that person. It's not time yet. They haven't changed, they haven't repented. Guys, God knows things about people that we may never know or never see. And so we have got to make sure that we obey, like what Paul says. See to it that no one takes you captive. Some of you guys, these people that are hurting you, I don't know why the Holy Spirit is stuck here. I have a lot to teach today, but he's stuck on this. You need to quit texting these people, you need to quit responding to their text messages, you need to quit answering the phone call, you need to block them from Facebook. You know, a lot of people get offended when they when I block people from Facebook, but I'm sorry. Your your season, um you know, you I see that the enemy is using you as a vessel to keep me in this yo-yo place, to keep me in a season that God has called me out of and told me to depart from to never return again. And so, guys, I'm sorry, but if I disconnect from you, if I block you, if I um if you no longer see, it's not me, guys. If it were me, I would have everybody and I love everybody and I would always be connected, and you know, but I obey God over man, I don't worship man, I worship God, and so when you have uh the fear of God on your life, you do whatever he says, okay. Uh, you know, that that's on them if they get offended, if they get hurt, you know, that just means that there's a place probably in their childhood that they have felt rejected, and so that's something that you know they need to go deal with with the Lord. It's not my uh burden to carry. God didn't put it on me, He actually told me to take it off. So I want you guys to do the same. You need to seek God in every single area of your life. Who are you friends with? Who are you text? Who do you not text? Like this is um this is refinement, this is holiness, this is fearing God when every specific detail of your life is submitted to him. Ooh, and I feel a lot of warfare right now. I bind, I bind the devils right now that are lying to you in your ears. I break their hold. I plead the blood of Jesus over you to be able to obey the very first, in my opinion, commandment of God, which is to hear, oh Israel, hear, hear, hear. Paul says, See to it that no one takes you captive. No one. He's talking about people, guys. This phrase takes you captive. It paints the picture of being kidnapped, carried off as spoiled, or spiritually plundered. This is not passive influence, this is warfare over the mind. The Bible says that we need to renew our mind. Guys, we need to get deeper in the church. We need to stop being so afraid to teach people about how demons function and the manipulation and the perversion and all of the things and how the enemy works to manipulate God's people. It's probably the number, it is the number one tactic of Satan is to manipulate you. We've got to learn more about how he manipulates God's people, how he lies in their ears and tells them things that sound just like Jesus. They sound just like the Bible. He actually uses scripture to bind people and take people captive. And it's time for us as leaders and people in the body of Christ to begin to have our eyes open now in the name of Jesus and see these tactics, see these slithering snakes sliding around in people's ears and whispering lies. And we need to take them captive. God wants your uh offerings, he wants the offerings of dead snakes that you've conquered and you've helped people come out of. The enemy does not always attack with open darkness, guys. Come on, he's an angel of light, he appears himself to be something good, to be something holy, and it's not. Sometimes he attacks through ideas. We've got to get our mindset submitted to God. We we've got to get on our knees and not only ask for the gift of discernment, but we've got to say, God, help me to fear you better, help me to fear you more, and to ask you every detail of my life. We have to submit and surrender fully. There are people who love Jesus, but they still think through the lens of captivity. I'm gonna say that again. There are people who love Jesus, but they still are thinking through the lens of captivity. They pray but think like the world. They worship but reason through fear. They quote scripture, but still interpret life through wounds, trends, emotions, culture, and demonic influence. Guys, Paul warns the church here. Be careful what is discipling your mind. Because whatever shapes your thinking eventually shapes your life. Whatever shapes your thinking eventually shapes your life. And then Paul lists four major sources of deception in Colossians two, a philosophy, empty deceit, human tradition, elemental spirits of the world, and he says none of it is according to Christ. That means something can sound deep, spiritual, intellectual, loving, wise, or ancient, and still not come from Jesus. Let's break them down. Philosophy, the word philosophy means the love of human wisdom. Paul is not condemning learning or knowledge, he is confronting wisdom that exalts itself above God. Guys, if it shifts you out of focusing on God and Jesus, it's human wisdom. This is when human reasoning becomes the authority instead of Christ. So, what does philosophy look like today? It looks like follow your heart, your truth is your truth, manifest your reality, the universe will align. You are your own God. If it feels loving, it must be right. Science has replaced God. You don't need repentance, just self-discovery. The danger of philosophy, guys, is that it often sounds intelligent while removing dependence on God. It teaches people to trust themselves, their emotions, their own intellect, their own experiences. I hear people say all the time, oh, well, I know because I experienced. So what? You're not the other person. Like God may not minister to you the same way that He wants to minister to somebody else. So be willing to surrender your experiences because, first of all, I mean, us millennials, we can't even minister to the the Gen Z and you know all of this next generation, the way that we were ministered to, because to be honest, they're they're just they're just in a tip different um they're just in a different atmosphere than we were in. I mean, there's just so much that is so different. Now don't give, I'm not saying that, you know, us older people are our what we learned and our wisdom is not good. I'm just saying be willing to surrender your wisdom and ask the Holy Spirit, hey, what does this person need that I may not have experienced? Maybe I don't have the wisdom for. Like seek the wisdom of God over your own human wisdom. The serpent in the garden used philosophy in Eden, in the Garden of Eden with Eve. He said, Did God really say? Guys, it just starts with a question of doubt. He literally introduced human reasoning above divine instruction. God had given it a divine instruction, and the devil brought in, well, yeah, but what do you think? Well, yeah, but but according to what you know and what you're seeing and what you've experienced, did he really say he's literally challenging divine instruction? Okay, that's philosophy. And humanity fell because they trusted an alternative perspective over the voice of God. So let's ask this: how do we discern philosophy? Let's ask ourselves these questions when we're we think that we might be on a path to being deceived by philosophy. Does this teaching produce surrender to Jesus? Not does it point to Jesus, does it produce surrender to Jesus? That's two totally different things. Does it exalt human wisdom above scripture? A lot of times it's gonna be mixed with scripture, so you're gonna have to really discern that one well, okay, because even Satan used scripture against Jesus. You're gonna have to really seek the Holy Spirit. You need to really work on your relationship with the Holy Spirit and being able to hear him because he will give you tactics of the enemy in the midst of deception. Does it remove the fear of God? Okay, does it make man the center instead of Christ? One of the number one ways that you can discern something is who is it exalting? Is it pointing me to man or is it pointing me to Jesus? But is it pointing me to surrender to Jesus? Okay, that's a deeper depth than just pointing to Jesus. Are we surrendering to Jesus? I always can tell when something has deception in it because I can feel in my spirit the exaltation of man. Because, guys, true wisdom does not dethrone Jesus, true wisdom bows to him. There's humility involved, there's patience, there's fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, all of those things you're gonna see in it. Number two, he talks about empty deceit. This means something that appears full but is spiritually hollow. It promises freedom, but leaves people empty. Guys, you need to pay attention to how do you feel after you've sat under a sermon? How do you feel after you've been around a teaching? How do you feel after you've had uh quote unquote spiritual counsel or mentoring? How do you feel? Do you feel like, oh my gosh, I have to go back and be around that person because if I'm not connected to that person, then I just not going to be able to make it in life. Again, that is the exaltation of man. It drew you back to man, it should draw you to get on your face before God and cry out and repent in your quiet time, in your secret place, in your in your prayer closet, in your car, wherever it is. Is that you have a moment to just be with Jesus? You should not be thinking about the minister. You should be thinking about Jesus and how it drew you to Jesus. Okay. It should it should draw you into the word. It should draw you um into to putting on some worship music and just to be honest, guys, if it's from Jesus, you're actually gonna be drawn to Jesus in a thankful heart posture. More of a um a thank you, Jesus, and that's exalting Jesus. That's not exalting man. Okay. It promises healing without repentance. Again, if you're not if you're not humbling yourself, you don't feel like you know, you want to humble yourself, even in a not even in a posture of like I did something wrong, maybe just a posture of of humbling yourself before Jesus and telling him how wonderful he is and and how thankful you are that he's a part of your life. It should draw you to that place. Okay. The power uh power without holiness, guys. If you're this this is something that I battle with. Um, I'm just like, you know, we got all these services where all these people, you know, they they wave their hand and they fall out in the in the spirit, and that's great and all. And don't get me wrong, I think people need freedom, they need breakthrough, and those are powerful moments, but guys, you need to be after that uh service, after that event, you need to be um guided and directed by that encounter into deeper holiness, into deeper reading your Bible, into deeper repentance, into cutting away friends and family, and and uh maybe quitting your job. I don't know, guys. You guys gotta you guys gotta get to a place where I know everybody's like all about community and fellowship, and I am too, and that is great. But guys, in these end days, we got we got more contamination in the fellowship and the community that we're involved in than God really, I mean, it's it's just suffocating God's people spiritually, all right. It might be doing something great for you in the natural, but it's really just um establishing your desire to seek man instead of God, it's really just continuing to establish that foundation of worshiping man instead of worshiping God because you can't go without it. And some of you are so addicted to fellowship in a community that you've actually made it an idol in your life. And so you use the word of God. Well, don't forsake the assembly of, you know. Okay, well, yeah, but if you are now idolizing that as um a place to get peace and a place to, you know, get your your dopamine fix for the week. And if you are if you are seeking that and and you're going home and you're not reading your Bible, you're not continuing in holiness, you're not spending time with Jesus alone, you're not um, you're not in personal worship, and your personal relationship with Jesus is not increasing, guys. You maybe church is your idol. Come on, Jesus. The Holy Spirit said maybe church is your idol. Maybe the assembly, maybe uh community and fellowship is your idolization of man that God is trying to break. So if we're seeing power, we need to be seeing holiness in our life. If you're seeing power without holiness, it might not be the Holy Spirit's power that you're seeing manifest as the Holy Spirit, it could be an angel of light pretending and deceiving you and taking you captive and telling you that that was the Holy Spirit, but there's no holiness, there's no repentance, there's no life change, you're still going to the bar, you're still sleeping around, you're still having sex outside of marriage, you're still all that. I would doubt if what you encountered was even the Holy Ghost. Because I'll tell you this, guys, when God touches you, you don't get to stay the same. You don't get to stay the same. You don't, you don't get a choice because when the finger of God touches you, read your Bible. When the finger of God touches you, everything changes and you go through transformation. Empty deceit. Okay, wait, one more. Identity without surrender. We've already kind of talked about that. Empty deceit is spiritual looking deception. Here's some examples that we see today. Motivational Christianity with no cross, deliverance without discipleship, prophetic words without accountability, grace preached without transformation. We've kind of talked about this. Social media inspiration, replacing intimacy with God, feel good spirituality that never confronts sin. Love that refuses truth. Empty deceit often appeals to flesh because it removes the cost of following Jesus. It literally says, you can have Christ without crucifixion. And I know the church would like, you know, they would be like, Yeah, and they would they would get all excited, they'd clap their hands with that quote right there. You can have Christ, you can't, uh, you can't have Christ without crucifixion. You know, everybody would cheer at that moment, but I'll tell you guys, probably 80, 90% of the church has never been crucified. Um, and you can see it in their daily life, you can see it in the way that they put on their mask and they go to church on Sunday, and they're oh holy art thou. And um, next thing you know, you you get on a personal level with them and they uh are cussing, you know, and it's like bro, you're fake. Um, you're fake Christian, and you're actually uh causing people to stray away from Jesus, and you'll be held accountable for it when you stand before uh the Lord on the white throne judgment. Uh that's just my take on it. Um I see way too many fake Christians, and uh I just don't have time for fake Christians. You know, uh we can say whatever we want, we can put on our Jesus mask and go to church every Sunday. We can put on our our um our holy robe, you know, uh at Bible study or whatever, but I'm looking at your life. I'm looking at um what do you sound like? What do you look like? What's the fruit of your life when no when the church isn't around? What's the fruit of your life when when you get uh pushed to the edge? Uh can you control your anger? Do you have self-control? That's what I'm looking at because that'll tell me in about five or ten minutes um if you're fake or not. Guys, we got to get the fake people to really pick up their cross and die. The church, the church has the issue of uh they want to resurrect, but they never they never want to die. And so you can't have resurrection without without dying. Death is actually the doorway to life. So many of you are walking around, just like Jesus said in Revelation, you you all appear to be, uh you appear to be alive, but you're dead. You're dead. I watch church services that come across, and some of them I'm like, I I grieve in the spirit. I can't even watch it. I have to turn it off because I'm like, man, there's a bunch of dead people, and they're like zombies. It's terrible. We've got to actually um be crucified with Christ, and that's a process, and I promise you, um, he'll crucify your worship of man, he'll crucify um your need for everything, he'll smash every one of your idols, and and it's not a pretty process, and it's hard, and you gotta fight, and you gotta James 4 7 submit, resist, and then the devil will flee. And nobody wants to resist, they just want the devil to flee, they just want to use the name of Jesus, and they're like the sons of Skeva, and they're getting attacked and taken out. Why? Because they're not even they're not even picking up their cross or dying daily, and they're over here trying to cast out demons, and the demons look like laughing. So, anyway, let me get off of that. How did to discern empty deceit? All right, does this produce holiness? We've kind of talked about this. Does it lead people into obedience? Is Jesus guys let me say something about obedience, okay? Obedience is not uh teaching a Sunday school class, obedience is not uh getting into the worship team at your church. Obedience is not even uh that that are the obediences of mature believers. They should be, but we've got immature believers taking on these positions, and um they're calling it the obedience to Christ, but they've never crucified their flesh. They've never even done what what God is asking them to do in obedience on a personal level, on a one-on-one uh face-to-face, let God search me, oh God, judge my heart and deal with um these hidden sins that I got at home in my closet that nobody, you know. Um I heard one minister say, he said, um, he said, are your are your skeletons gonna bite me later? In other words, am I gonna partner with you? Am I gonna uh let you sing worship music to me up on stage and receive uh the anointing? Uh it's not really, well, it's an anointing, but it's a demonic anointing. And so the anointing on your life in my church service, and you know, am I gonna receive the word that you prepared, but yet you got skeletons in your closet that are gonna bite me later that you hadn't dealt with. This is the things, guys. If you haven't dealt with your own personal self, you haven't picked up your cross and died daily in a place of being in the wilderness with Jesus and letting him refine you. You don't need to be teaching a Sunday school class, you don't need to be um the the the prayer team leader, you don't need to be the worship leader or even in the choir. And people are like, oh, why am I I'm not leading? I'm not a worship leader, so it's okay if I sing in the choir and I still, you know, am sleeping with my boyfriend, and I'm still, you know, dabbling with darkness and in all kind of sin. Oh, it's okay because I'm not actually the worship leader. That is a lie from hell, and you need to get your butt out of that worship service, you need to get your butt out of that choir, and you need to go sit on the pew. Actually, you don't need to sit on the pew, you need to sit in the altar and you need to repent and say, search me, oh God. And you need to pick up your cross and die to your own fleshly desires before you even start trying to lead anybody else. We got too many leaders, and we're seeing it all over where leaders are being exposed. Yeah, you want to know why? Because they ain't never picked up their cross and actually died. They carried it halfway and they gave up, and then they said, Oh, I'm good, I'm gonna preach the gospel because the word of God in Matthew says that we're to preach the gospel to all nations. Yeah, you are, but you know what? When you truly want to preach the gospel and you want to serve Jesus, he's gonna crucify you. You're gonna get crucified. And half of these people that are being exposed, oh, they getting crucified. They get crucified by public humiliation, and and they ain't having a choice. Lord's like, uh, Peter says not everybody should teach because you're held to a higher standard. And you know, my husband sometimes he's like, babe, you're kind of harsh with some of these leaders. And I'm like, babe, they are held to a higher standard, and if they're held to a higher standard by God, then I'm gonna hold them to a higher standard. So, yeah, there are people that we need grace with, those people who are, you know, just baby Christians and they're just trying to fight to stay alive and they're resisting and resisting. Yeah, there is a different kind of grace for those people. But guys, for me, you if you're a leader and you're leading at any kind of capacity in the in the body of Christ, I will help hold you to a higher standard. Why? Because I'm held to a higher standard. I get convicted. If I do things, if I preach a message, the Lord's like, hey, uh, what about you? Hey, what about that? You have you hadn't brought to me yet, you hadn't laid down at my feet yet. And guys, believe me, before um a leader, either either before you you to be honest, you need to be getting crucified before you preach the message. Um, that's usually the order of God. But if you preach a message and you hadn't repented because you you've been Jonah and you haven't been listening uh and doing what you're supposed to be doing, he will he will crucify you. Don't make him break your legs. Don't make him break your legs on the cross. The people who didn't die, they had to break their legs so that they would die. Jesus never got his legs broken. There was not one broken bone in his body. It was prophesied before he ever even came to earth that he would never have a broken bone. Why? Because he learned to surrender. Learn how to surrender. All right, number three. Human tradition, this is huge, guys. Human tradition is when man-made systems become more authoritative than God Himself. This is the spirit of religion. Okay, Jesus confronted this consistently with the religious leaders. Jesus said, You make void the word of God by your tradition. In other words, you preach the word of God, but then you put your religion all over it and you put the Holy Spirit in a box and you don't know how to surrender, therefore, you void your own sermons. Therefore, you void your own uh guidance and counsel to the people of God. God don't void it because his word never returns back void, but you void it with your tradition. Come on, Jesus. Somebody needs to hear this. You make void the word of God by your tradition. Guys, you got to get out of the box, you got to get out of the religion box, you gotta crucify legalism in your life. The spirit of legalism is is everywhere, it's everywhere, and so we've got to make sure that we're not being legal, okay? Legalism is like, you know, oh, you can't paint your fingernails, or you gotta wear this long skirt, or um, you know, it's just all this stuff that's like this is what makes you holy. I mean, I've seen where people have stepped outside of a rule and literally been banished from the church for years because they didn't follow the rule. Like, guys, this is legalism. Okay, we could go deeper into that, but I'm not preaching on legalism today. Just make sure that you yourself, as a leader, as a minister, that you aren't voiding the word of God because of your tradition. You want to know why your congregation isn't growing, you want to know why your people aren't being transformed, why they're not stopping their sin, why they're not actually learning to surrender. Well, maybe you're preaching a sermon and then you turn around and you void it with your own tradition. Maybe it ain't the people, maybe it's you. I remember a time where I was in a church and they were so frustrated because the people, it was like, it was like the congregation was like zombies. Like it's like they were hypnotized and they they would hear the sermon and they would, you know, agree with it and they'd walk out and you know, the Holy Spirit, quote unquote, would would, you know, move in the room. But like the people never changed. They never changed. They just like it's like they were just zombies coming in there and going out and coming in and going out. Like it was weird. It was like this weird um hypnotized type atmosphere, and it was just terrible. But but I always used to think, well, what are we doing? Like it's like literally the word that they're being preached, they don't even hear it, and it's voided. And literally, Jesus said, You make void the word of God by your tradition, your human tradition. Tradition becomes dangerous when culture overrides scripture, religion replaces relationships, systems silence the Holy Spirit. Come on, Jesus. Your systems, your programs. Guys, I'm not saying don't have order because God is very much a God of order. Just be willing to surrender order at any moment. Okay? And people defend habits more than truth. Human tradition can look like God can't move that way. These are really just thoughts in people's heads. I don't think people, I mean, some people probably say this out loud, but I believe these are thoughts that the enemy puts in our heads. God can't move that way. Women can't preach. Oof, I'm not even gonna go to this one yet. I mean, uh, maybe another day. Women can't preach because our denomination says so. Guys, human tradition, you are making void the word of God. And yeah, I'm gonna preach it because I'm a woman and I preach the gospel. And the Bible, Mary was literally the first woman to ever evangelize after the resurrection of Jesus. So don't tell me that women can't preach. Don't tell me that women can't evangelize, don't tell me that women um don't carry the word of God. Because to be honest, if some men would actually listen to the women that God sent them, they would see crazy uh fruit of the Holy Ghost in their ministry. But they're so proud that they are like, oh, well, my denomination, uh, women don't get to go that high. There's a ceiling. I've had to deliver so many women from legalism because of this, it's terrible. Um, healing and deliverance ended with the apostles. Church must happen only inside a building. You must look spiritual instead of actually being transformed, prioritizing appearance over purity, protecting religious systems over protecting people. Oh, that one right there, people say, Oh, I'm protecting the sheep. No, you're just manipulated and you're working um under a spirit of control. That's all. We can call it protecting the sheep if we want to. Um, but to be honest, I see a lot of um ministers use that lie from hell to actually keep the control that they have over the congregation. They say, Um, oh, I'm protecting the sheep. Yeah, you actually are protecting the sheep from the Holy Ghost, from breakthrough, from transformation. You are protecting them um just uh with darkness instead of light. The Pharisees knew scripture intellectually, but miss the Messiah standing in front of them. Come on, guys. The Pharisees literally, we have so many Pharisees these days. People think that the Pharisees are are not a thing anymore. They actually are very, very common. Um, the Pharisees knew scripture intellectually. That's human wisdom. We already talked about that one, but they miss the Messiah standing in front of them. Why? Because their human tradition made the word of God void. Why did they miss him, guys? Because tradition made them unable to recognize God when he moved outside of their expectations. Human tradition is like is like being spiritually blind. The enemy has spiritually blinded many of you. And you need to just you need to just seek God and say, God, open my eyes to truth and let the truth be whatever he wants it to be. Some of you are so scared of getting deceived that you actually are hindering yourself from the truth. I'm gonna say that again. Some of you are so scared, your fear of deception is actually blinding you from seeing the truth. It's a very smart tactic of the enemy to keep you blinded and in the name of holiness, in the name of truth, because you're like, oh well, I have to protect the sheep, and so therefore, I have to stand against deception. No, Jesus says the elect will be deceived, and I'll tell you this, guys: deception is part of your process. Okay, deception. I'm gonna say that again. Deception is part of your process. You Jesus said the elect will be deceived. The elect that means the chosen ones, the ones that He divinely chose. They were called and they answered the call and they became chosen. He says they will be. Deceived. Deception is part of your process. Think about Jacob. Okay. He was his name meant deceiver. That is why God changed his name to Israel because he no longer wanted him to walk walk in that identity anymore. He birthed the 12 tribes of Israel. But what happened the first seven years? What happened the first seven years? He was deceived by Laban. Guys, you seven years. Seven years he was deceived by Laban. The next seven, he expanded. And then the next seven, he literally walked in purpose. Deception. I'm gonna say it again. Deception is part of the process of refinement by the fire of God. Don't be so scared of being deceived. God wants to give you literally the gift of discernment, but a lot of times you get that through deception. Because you got to be able to be a lot of people talk about the wolf in sheep clothing, but what about the sheep that God puts in wolves' clothing to blend in with the deceiver? And the deceiver don't even know that it's really one of God's anointed there. Think about David with Saul. He put David in a pack of wolves. Why? To learn how to be king, to learn the deception, to learn, hey, David, I'm gonna put you in a pack of wolves. You're actually a shepherd, but I'm gonna make you look like them. Not because uh I'm gonna, you know, he told Peter, Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. And don't worry, I have prayed that your faith will not fail. So there's times where God is gonna put you in a pack of wolves and he's gonna say, stay there. And you're gonna say, God, these are people are all wolves, and he's gonna say, That's okay. I want you to study them. I want you to study the manipulation of the devil. I want you to learn your enemy. I want you to be an insider and pretend like you're part of them. But actually, I'm just gonna teach you all about the spirit of religion. I'm gonna teach you all about Jezebel. Why? I'm gonna put you under her. I'm gonna actually let her be your mentor. So many of you guys have these mentors, and it's like you're seeking for this righteous mentor, and this mentor that's just gonna be like, oh, like this Jesus in your life. And you just want you worship man so much that you seek these mentors to be your God, to be your Jesus, and to make sure they're leading you in the right direction. But to be honest, it's only just the idolization of man, and and really you're just seeking man because you haven't dealt with your childhood traumas that you know that where man hurt you or where you were rejected by the church or whatever it is. And um, there's so much we could keep going on, but the thing is, is guys, God's gonna put your butt under a mentorship that is demonic. I'm gonna say that again. God is gonna put you, Obadiah, under the leadership of Jezebel and Ahab so that you can actually, for real, save the sheep, so that you can actually rescue sheep from the hands of Jezebel and Ahab. He's gonna send you in there. He's even gonna deceive the devil and the spirits and make them think that you're there to help them. And because of the goodness of your heart, you do, because you care about people and you love the person, but we don't have to love their demons. We love people. Because why? There are brothers and sisters in Christ, and it says to love your neighbor as yourself. We do love people. But guys, a lot of these people ain't even they ain't even there. They're literally just vessels that Satan is using to manipulate God's people, and so we gotta see the devils before we can even rescue the person. So don't be scared. And many of you have come out of deceptive ministries and deceptive mentorships. Good. Good. Don't don't condemn yourself for having gone there and think that you're so holy that you can, you know, guide your own steps when you've been called by God and you think, oh, well, I went there, you know. Did I miss God? Did I not hear God? Did I make the wrong choice? You ain't that powerful. You're not that powerful, okay? The Holy Spirit, you surrendered to him, you asked him to teach you and train you, and he did. He did, Obadiah, by putting you under the leadership of Jezebel and Ahab. So take what you learned, and he sent you there to teach you what not to do. Yeah, you got some things to do. You got good and bad. He turns it off for good. But don't beat yourself up because you went to a place that was full of deception, and maybe now your leader is being exposed and you're like beating yourself up about it. So what? You learned so much. You got so much impartation, you got so much um impartation of the gift of discernment. Don't worry about it. Don't beat yourself up. How do we discern human tradition? We ask ourselves, is this rooted in scripture or merely culture? Guys, you've got to know your word. You've got to know the word of God to be able to discern properly. Don't tell me you're discerning something and you don't even read your Bible. Don't tell me that. Are people defending God's word or protecting comfort? Come on, Jesus. Oh, I would say nine times out of ten, people are gonna protect their own comfort. All right, because they don't want to get uncomfortable, they don't want to submit, they don't want to humble themselves. They they claim to be holy, but they when God really tests them to humble themselves, it's in a way that is outside of their comfort zone, and people don't want to do it. Me and my ministry partner, Abigail, I know a lot of you um know who she is, but we we constantly, when we when we travel internationally, we always joke about it, but I think we probably it's probably really gonna happen. We we talk about how we're gonna write a book on no excuses because you would be applauded at the amount of excuses that we get when we ask people to serve uh in ministry internationally. And I know a lot of you pastors and leaders, you hear a lot of excuses, but guys, we've got to crucify our excuses. Um Jesus, he will he will just come by. It's just like the wedding invitation, you know. He sent out a lot of invitations and he he called a lot of people, and everybody's like, Oh, I want to be chosen. But then he comes with the invitation, and they're like, Oh, I can't get off work, or oh, you know, I can't, um, yeah, no, I can't do that. That that time doesn't work for me. And it's like you literally just missed an opportunity to encounter Jesus. And wow, like you denied the wedding invitation. And it wasn't, it wasn't us as leaders and pastors, guys. When your pastor or your leader or somebody asks you to do something, you need to understand that majority of the time you're not telling the leader or the pastor no, you're actually telling God no. Um, so just keep that in the back of your mind uh to help you more crucify your flesh. Does this produce intimacy with Jesus or dependence on a system? Oh man, I have tried to build systems previously, and there's systems that even God told me to build, but He always comes and smashes them. Always. He always comes and says, Hey, that system is expired. That vision, it expired. That um, that word, yeah, it's expired now. Don't continue to keep idolizing your revelation and your word and uh what I have given you because that's expired now. I need you to shift. God will always shift you, even in how you hear your voice. I hear a lot of people say, Well, I used to hear God's voice really good like this, maybe through journaling or just sitting in the presence. And they're like, But I don't really hear him like that anymore. And I'm like, Well, he's waiting for you to shift because now you've done made an idol out of it, and he wants you to shift to a different um way of hearing his voice. So you need to expand yourself instead of hearing him through journaling or just sitting in your prayer closet with worship music. Maybe you need to go cut the grass and ask him to speak to you. Maybe you need to go take a walk and ask him to speak to you. Maybe you need to go grocery shopping and ask him to speak to you and to be with you while you're grocery shopping and to give you a word, okay? Guys, expand yourself, like submit to expansion, get out of your comfort zone. Is the Holy Spirit allowed to lead? That that pretty much sums up what I just said. Not every tradition is evil, guys. Some of your traditions, they are good and they are holy. They're just expired. They just that it's expiration day. You don't eat food in your refrigerator that's been expired. Your milk, guess what? If you don't use it in the right time and you don't finish it before that date, what do you do? You pour it out and you go get another fresh gallon of milk. Some of you just need to clean out the the expiration of your spiritual food and your spiritual revelations. You need to, you need to just get rid of the expired stuff and let God give you a fresh new rhema word. But any tradition that overrides obedience to Christ becomes dangerous. If we could just get people to be obedient and really understand obedience, that's just a whole nother teaching. Um, you need to really just focus on your relationship with Jesus because when you have a relationship, a true relationship with Jesus, um you you be you all all of that automatically comes natural. Like obedience comes natural, fear of the Lord comes natural, um, your discernment is just comes natural, but you can't just go build a relationship and then abandon it. You know, you've got to continually keep it um keep it fresh. It's just like in your marriage. I mean, if you come home and you do the same thing every day and you cook food and every single minute of every hour you're doing the exact same thing, like your marriage is gonna get lukewarm. Your your spouse is gonna get bored with you if you just if you have your intimate time the same way every single time. It's like, man, can we like spice this up a little bit? Can we do something different? Can we go on a vacation? Can we like plan to book a cruise? I don't know, like just change it up and don't make everything so traditional and like that gets boring. That that is dangerous ground for being lukewarm in the body of Christ. You gotta do something different. Elemental spirits of the world. This is probably the deepest part of this verse, in my opinion. We're seeing all of the UFO, all of that kind of stuff on online. God, God it's just God wants his people to stay focused on uh his son. And and he literally says, seek first the kingdom. This is just a distraction, guys. That's all it is. Literally, President Trump, I saw a post that he put out, and he's like, I've released the UFO files. Have fun. And I thought, man, that was literally the voice of Satan through him, literally directing all of the people to go seek UFOs and aliens and try to figure out what it is. I love what my husband says. He says, you know, I don't want a God that I can understand. If I can understand everything about God, then he's not really that almighty. Like he's not really, he's not really that amazing to me. He doesn't amaze me if I can understand and figure out everything about him. So my husband is always like, I like not understanding everything, I like not knowing everything. I like actually just walking by faith and trusting God because it it takes the burden off of us and it truly makes the burden light and the yoke easy when we don't understand everything. So, guys, don't get so deep into trying to figure out everything. I mean, people even come to us with dreams and visions, and they're like, you know, I want to just know exactly. And I'm like, well, have you asked God? Like, have you actually waited upon the Lord for Him to give you the revelation? Because I promise you guys, God is not gonna give you a revelation or a word from Him and not dissect it for you. Now, He might make you wait just to see if you worship Him or you worship man, if you worship the knowledge of man and the wisdom of man over you receiving the spirit of wisdom yourself, but He's never gonna not give you the understanding. Like that is one of the seven spirits of the Holy Spirit is understanding, counsel, wisdom. The Holy Spirit's not gonna be like, oh, well, you're just gonna have a piece of me and not the wholeness of who I am. Now, it might take time and it might take some healing and deliverance on your part, but he will reveal himself to you, I promise, if you just wait upon the Lord. The phrase can refer, this is elemental spirits, okay? The phrase can refer to spiritual forces, demonic systems, or governing spiritual influences behind worldly patterns. Paul literally is exposing that some mindsets are not merely psychological or cultural, they are literally spiritually energized. I've talked about this, how people we love the people, but we don't have to love their demons. And how literally these people aren't even there, they're not even functioning, they're not even no, they're not showing the fruits of the spirit. Why? Because they literally are demonically influenced and the they have opened doors to the devils that now can oppress and manipulate their actions. Okay, this is what Paul is talking about about they are spiritually energized. Um, energized. I don't really love that word. Um, it does talk about you know the energy of God in the Bible. I read it the other day and I was kind of shocked because I know a lot of new age uses this, like, oh, the energy of the atmosphere, whatever. But the thing is, is um there is a divine and holy energy, and it's called the Holy Spirit. So this includes fear systems, pride, lust, control, materialism, false spirituality, occult influence, identity confusion, rebellion against God. The enemy builds invisible structures that normalize darkness, and people participate in those systems without discerning the spirit behind it. Some modern examples, obsession with self-worship and self-exal exaltation. We see this a lot in the new age. Um, hyper-independence that rejects submission to God, sexual confusion celebrated as enlightenment. We see that with um the transgenderism, the uh homosexuality crowd, witchcraft repackaged as energy or manifestation. Again, that's what I was talking about. Um, when people use the word um the energy, um, again, there's only one energy, it's called the Holy Spirit. It was when God said, Let there be light, that is the original holy and pure energy of this world. But they um the witchcraft, Satan, when he fell from heaven, he did not get all of his knowledge and wisdom removed. Okay, he knew the ways of God, not all of them, but he did know what God had allowed him to know, and so he took all of that and he basically just perverted it for darkness. So a lot of what you see Satan do, there is an original, um, pure and holy um original creation of it because Satan cannot create anything, he can only just pervert what God does. Entertainment that glorifies darkness, guys. This is um porn, this is um, this is guys, even movies where you you you you're letting your kids watch these movies where people are making out and stuff, guys. That is porn. The body of Christ needs to understand that, you know, we all want to condemn people for watching porn, but it's like, bro, you're watching porn when you sit there and watch, you know, the notebook. And don't get me wrong, I've watched it, I've had to repent of it. And um, you you sitting there watching the notebook, and the girl walks out with a blanket around her, and it's like, oh, well, yeah, but this is a beautiful love story. Okay, so what? It's soft porn, it's still pornography, it is still a spirit of perversion. You're putting those lustful desires into the minds and the hearts of your children and even yourself, okay. Um, I could go deep into that, but guys, entertainment, um, music, you know, the all these girls with these bathing suit bottoms that are now thongs, you know, they they call them bathing suit bottoms. I'm like, yeah, you don't even your your butt cheeks are hanging out. I literally can see your entire butts. You're naked, in my opinion. Soft porn, okay. I can look at somebody and and when when that happens, and I'm like, man, they they got a darkness on them of a spirit of perversion because they partner with it. Um, I remember, you know, my dad just he just never let us wear short shorts. He, I mean, bathing suits, it was like he really didn't even like um uh two pieces, you know. Remember when you went to youth camp and it was like you had to wear a one piece? Why? Because, guys, it's you're literally putting images in people's, you're you're being a stumbling block for other people, and so you can't do that. It's soft porn. The body of Christ needs to get a little bit deeper in the refinement of what porn is. Addiction cycles normalized by culture, chronic offense, and outrage culture, consistent anxiety fueled by media or fear narratives. Come on, Jesus. Some of you got anxiety, and it's because of what you watch, what you listen to, the people that you're around that you need to disconnect from. Um, just so much. Paul is saying, this is a deep teaching. I probably need to go into more. We're already at an hour. I'm trying to wrap it up here. Um, Paul is saying, there are spiritual currents operating underneath worldly systems. This is what he's saying. He's saying, guys, open your eyes to what is sitting behind the person, to the demon that is literally using them as a puppet. Um, when you begin to see the spiritual realm behind the person attacking you, you truly do love the person because you know that it's it's a spirit that's controlling them. So it's easier to forgive because they're demonically influenced. Believers must discern what spirit is behind what they are consuming in everything. How do we discern elemental spirits? What fruit does this produce? Does this draw me closer to Jesus or away from him? Does this produce peace, purity, humility, and truth, or confusion, pride, obsession, fear, lust, rebellion, and ex self-exaltation? And I want to say this, guys, confusion. Sometimes, if you got a lot of lies in your head and you got a lot of demonic oppression that you haven't dealt with, you're gonna actually feel uh a little bit confusion when God comes in with his fire. Because the fire is actually it's not the fire that's causing the confusion, it's the demons running around freaking out because a fire of God just hit them, and now they're all running around scattering. Like if you set a forest on fire, what's gonna happen to all the animals, right? They're gonna all run and go crazy. That is what you're feeling. The effects of freedom and deliverance can sometimes feel like confusion, but it should always rest to a place of peace. Okay, so I want you to pay attention to the end result because if you have a lot of um human wisdom, if you have a lot of tradition, if you got legalism, religion, all of that, yeah, it believe me, you're gonna feel confused because you're not gonna know what to do. You're gonna be looking like a deer in headlights when the Holy Ghost hits you. You with the fire of God and gets rid of all those demons. You're gonna. I heard somebody this week that I took through deliverance. Uh, she said, I just feel I feel like empty. I feel like it was like she was like a deer in headlights, and she was like, I just there's just nothing. Like, I don't feel anything, it's quiet. And I'm like, Yeah, that's called deliverance and and healing. And now, because God actually cleaned all that crap out, you can actually receive the spirit of God, and you can receive truth now because there's space for it. So test the spirits, not every influence is neutral, guys. The center of it all, and I'm gonna end here. Paul says in this verse, Colossians 2, 8. Not according to Christ. This is the measuring rod. But you can't measure it with this rod if you one don't know Christ, if you don't know his word, if you don't know how to get into his presence, okay, you're not gonna be able to measure it. You're gonna have to have man to do it for you. Why? Because you haven't picked up your cross, carried it all the way, not halfway, not three-fourths of the way. Jesus' cross fell off before he got there. But what happened? Somebody came and helped him finish. God will send somebody to help you finish carrying your cross. It's not gonna look pretty. They're not gonna tell you all the cupcakes and rainbow things. They're gonna tell you, get up, keep going, don't give in, resist. The enemy will flee, but you've got to do your part. Get all the way to the cross. Lay down. Let the nails go through your hands, let the nails go through your feet. And I know some of you like, oh, well, Jesus already did that for me. No. He made it available for you to do, he made it easier for you to carry your cross. Believe me, you don't want to go through the crucifixion that Jesus went through. You can't even, you'd be dead. You'd be dead after the first public humiliation. Most people are. But the thing is, is no, he just made it available and easier for you to do, for you to crucify your own flesh. He crucified his so that yours wouldn't be so harsh. According to Christ, not according to trends, not according to emotions, not according to influencers, not according to culture, denominational comfort, intellect, experiences, not according to any of those things, but according to Christ. Christ is the standard. Does it look like Jesus? But if you don't know what Jesus looks like, you can't even ask that question. Does it sound like Jesus? If you hadn't read the word of God, you ain't gonna know if it's sounding like Jesus. Does it produce the nature of Jesus? If you haven't been in the presence of Jesus and you're not around leaders who are manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, you're not gonna know if it produces the nature of Jesus. Does it align with scripture? Again, if you don't know scripture, there's no way you can hold up that rod and align with scripture. No, you can't because you don't even have it put in. He can't pull out what you ain't put in. Does it magnify holiness, truth, humility, and obedience? And to be honest, guys, if you go back to the first one, does it look like Jesus? If you don't even know what Jesus looks like, if you don't know what he feels like, if you don't know what he sounds like, if you don't know any of those things, you are not going to be able to know if it magnifies holiness, truth, humility, and obedience. Why? Because those are the character traits of Jesus. Every single sermon that I preach, I end with the fact that you need and you better in these end times have a divine marriage relationship with Jesus. Get rid of all these spirit spouses, get rid of all these people that you've connected with through sexual sin. Get rid of all of the some of you spiritually have so many wives and so many husbands, spiritual spouses, that Jesus, even if he walked into the room, you wouldn't even know it. Because you got so many other people. I want you to see yourself right now standing in a circle or standing in the middle of a circle, and you got so many people that are pressing in on you. You got so many people connected to you, so many people laying hands on you, so many people speaking into your ears. You're reading all these things on social media, it's just loud, and you need to say, be quiet. And until you hear that piece, you're not gonna have a relationship with Jesus. Why? Because he can't even get in, he can't even break through because there's too many voices, there's too many people in the way. Consecrate yourself before the Lord. Get rid of these people that are speaking into your ear, all of these voices, all of these demonic hands that are coming in the name of Jesus, in the name of help. They're all laying hands on you at church to help you. No, they're making it worse for you because their hands are unclean. Get rid of all of this and consecrate yourself before the Lord. And divorce every spirit spouse in your life. Divorce every voice, divorce every snake, every lie of the pit of hell, divorce all of this demonic influence that's speaking into your life so that you can actually become the bride of Christ and marry your one true bridegroom, Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, Yeshua, the King above all kings, the Lord above all lords, the only one, the great I am. Step away. Some of you I see right now, you're looking back and you're you're walking away just like Lot did. God says, Don't look back, leave that place and never return again. Get out of that church, get out of that community, get out of that fellowship. It's demonic, and you don't even know it. I'm trying to call you to myself, but I can't because you have worshiped man, because you have worshiped your preacher, because church has become your idol. And I can't even speak to you. I can't even draw you unto myself because you were so drawn by the legalism and the human tradition and the spirit of religion who has taken you captive.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:42

And this day, says the Lord, I am releasing you. I am setting the captives free. I am releasing my people. Come, come out of your Egypt, and come to me. Seek me.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:06

Seek first the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of church, not the kingdom of religion, not the kingdom of tradition, not the kingdom of darkness that hides behind false holiness, false anointing, false mentorship, false stewardship, false humility, all of the false gods fall now in your life in the name of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

Step into freedom, says the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:08

I'm calling you out. But you must take the first step. You must lock eyes with me. The eyes of fire. Because it is only my fire that can truly snatch you from darkness.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:32

Come. Seek me, says the Lord. For I am the one that can fulfill all your desires, all of your needs, everything that you need.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:45

I have it. Come follow me.