"and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
John 8:32

     It is not the knowledge of the truth that frees. It is the living out of that truth that liberates. To "know" the truth one must not simply be "aware" of it but be intimate with it personally. "To know" is a Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse. It goes even deeper than this, when might you "know" your wife better, after your honeymoon or after twenty years of marriage? Here's the point, superficial knowledge of the truth is the type of knowledge that puffs up

     In speaking of Biblical topics, I think we can safely call this type of knowledge; Religion. Some only think of religious knowledge in traditional terms, we point fingers at many of our brothers and sisters in more fundamentalist or orthodox churches and judge them as Pharisees because of their traditions. Having been around Charismatic, New Wine, River, Word of Faith and Pentecostal churches for a long, long time, I can tell you we're just as guilty of religious knowledge and tradition as anyone else. Perhaps even more, because most of us, if we're honest, consider ourselves superior to non-Pentecostals

     Sorry boys but this two-edged sword of truth cuts both ways. If you want to "go after a religious spirit" you had better look behind the buttons on your own shirt first. If you don't, you'll find yourself in a place of pride and the God you're so sure your defending will be working against you.  You'll hurt and destroy people and be deceived into thinking you're doing God a favor.  This is not theory.
     The issue at hand is this: Is our heart broken and humble before God or isn't it. Cohabitation with the truth, marrying it, applying the truth to your own faulty personality, produces humility. Why? (Remember humility is taking the proper view of one's self, not too low or too high, while preferring your brother.) Internalization of truth, or living it out, discloses the actual condition of your mind, spirit, emotions, personality, or soul
     Truth reveals what you are, not what you wish you were or what you think you are. Some of us Pentecostals are so intent on discovering "who we are in Christ" that we deny the ongoing, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. There's even some who say it is impossible for the Christian to sin.  Garbage.  Some non-Pentecostals are stuck in worm theology and refuse to believe what the Bible says about who we actually are in Christ. They too sidetrack the Holy Spirit's availability to their souls.

If you want to "go after a religious spirit" you had better look behind the buttons on your own shirt first.

     Superficially acknowledging the truth denies the reality of your own bondage. "Knowing" truth or accepting the facts concerning your condition opens the prison doors of deception. But you're not out of the prison yet. One must have a deliverer. We have no more power to deliver ourselves than a quadriplegic has to walk out of a wide open prison cell. This is where humility is produced. We must now abandon ourselves to God for help. Being aware of truth but not "knowing" it denies the need for help. "Knowing" truth recognizes your condition, and with it your utter helplessness to change, then calls upon the Spirit of God for His most certain deliverance.

Jim Waldron

 
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