Walking in the Light

Some great quotes from a book I'm reading "Walking in the Light" by Neil T. Anderson, who also wrote Bondage Breaker, great book also! :)

"Hinduism and Taoism are metaphysical, relying on mysticism for divine guidance.  The Eastern mystic sees the mind as the problem.  If truth is to be known, the mind must be bypassed."  oh dear :( lol  A good book on this topic: "Don't Check your Brains at the Door" by Josh McDowell and "Love the Lord Your God with All Your Mind" by J.P. Moreland

"The Church of Religious Science....teaches that we are creating our own day-to-day experiences by the form and procession of our thoughts. (like the book Oprah raved about "The Secret")  They teach that man, by the way he thinks, can bring whatever he desires into his experience.....this is New Age thinking."  (This is somewhat like things Joel Osteen speaks about.  However it is biblical to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."  Our thoughts do somewhat dictate our destiny, but we cannot create things necessarily with our thoughts.  Will Smith talks in this way and seem to have adopted this New Age psychology sadly. :(  Pray for him.)

"The New Age movement is not seen as a religion but a new way to think and understand reality.  It's very attractive to the natural man who has become disillusioned with organized religion and Western rationalism.  He desires spiritual reality but doesn't want to give up materialism, deal with his moral problems or come under authority."  (This is spirituality apart from the Bible, the word of God.  We all need to worship something.  This causes one to worship the self rather than God, since it says that the self can achieve anything one wants to achieve.  The person becomes a god in a sense and thinks they have the same power as God.  No bueno. :(  God help us. 

"New Agers create their own reality.  They believe they can determine reality by what they believe, so by changing what they believe, they can change reality....There are no moral absolutes because there is no distinction between good and evil."  (This thought has somewhat infiltrated the church and many popular evangelists.  We need to be careful of thinking this way.)

Anderson quotes John Wesley, "Do not hastily ascribe things to God.  Do not easily suppose dreams, voices, impressions, visions or revelations to be from God.  They may be from Him.  They may be from nature (as in our own conscious).  They may be from the devil.  Therefore, do not believe every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be from God."  (How do we try the spirits?  Does what they say or do match up with Scripture?  If yes, they are of God.  If not, they are not of God.  The Bible is our litmus test for all supernatural activity etc.)

"In our culture, if a person is hearing voices or struggling with his thought life, it is assumed to be a psychology or neurological problem.  But I have personally counseled hundreds of people who are hearing voices and most situations, if not all, have been demonic."  (Satan talks to us all the time.  But we can choose to listen to him, or choose to not listen to him.  When we listen to him he establishes a foothold in our minds.  We need to refute his thoughts in our minds with the word of God as Jesus did.  Amen. :)

"Mental health experts define a mentally healthy person as someone who is in touch with reality and relatively free of anxiety.  From a secular perspective, every person harassed by deceiving spirits would be mentally ill. (Because Satan causes fear and anxiety in a person.)  The secular counselor would conclude that the voices people hear or the images they see are only hallucinations. (Hallucinations generally are people seeing the spiritual world, angels or demons.)  From God's perspective, it is the secular person who isn't in touch with reality.  The spiritual world is very real."  (Amen!  All cannot be explained by science.  "Our battle is against...spiritual forces.")

(Ignorance is bliss, except when it comes to understanding how Satan works.  We are to be "as wise as serpents but as innocent as doves."  Satan does talk to people; he does cause people to see things.  These things are not imagined or not really happening.  They are not someone going crazy.  They are Satan trying to defeat a person and break them down.  If you ever hear or see something strange say "By the power and blood of Jesus Satan be gone!" and the thoughts will leave you or the visions or "hallucination" will be over.  We have power in Jesus' name, more power than we realize.  If anything causes fear in any way it is of Satan, not God.  You can have authority over that.  Amen.)