04/07/10

Understanding spirits

Acts 16:13-18 [NIV]
13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.
14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.
15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.
16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.
17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved."
18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her.



When I talk about spirits (evil spirits in special) many take great interest to know what they are. Some have fear due to pass experience but spirits never fail to invoke reactions from man.

In today's scripture we read a woman possessed with a spirit of divination followed Paul to a place of prayer. If you read a few lines before there was a woman named Lydia who accepted Christ and was baptized and it happened when wanted to receive further blessings she invited Paul and his group for a prayer service at her place. It was at this time the woman with a evil spirit followed them and was provoking them.

This spirit was not lying but was telling the truth, yet we see it was called an evil spirit and Paul and his team members were disturbed with it. The interesting thing is the Greek name translated as divination actually is a mythological character (a snake god which protected an oracle).

In India too we have the same spirit but when inquired does not give a Greek god's name but a Hindu god's name. Are they cousins or just deceiving us? What may interest you is that there are 33,000 gods in Hinduism which is nearly exact 1/3 of 1,00,000. We also read in the Bible that when Satan fell he took with him 1/3 of the Angels from Heaven (that does not mean there were exactly 1,00,000 angels in Heaven before the fall, it is just indicative figures to give us clues).

The word 'spirit' means 'breath' which symbolizes life. Angels who are spirit beings are just living beings and they too have a body. Their body is not a physical body but a spiritual body. It is the character of this body they are grouped together as legions.

Jesus says when we die and enter Heaven we too will be like the Angels. In Heaven we will be in a body but not a physical body but a spiritual body like the Angels, a body without gender and without aging.

The Angels do not have eternal life like the God Head but yet live eternally. They have a limited life but when this life starts to nearly come to an end they renew themselves at the Tree of Life and thus live eternally.

When Adam and Eve were created in spirit they were (and we are) identical like the Angels but being made man and being put in a body of flesh which restricted us and thus made us lower than the Angels. Sin corrupted our spiritual body and therefore restricted our entering Heaven. Heaven is an incorruptible place and no corrupt things can enter it. The sacrifice of Jesus cleans this body and the Spirit of God builds it so that we may be able to enter Heaven. This body is our inner man or soul.

Angels are classified according to their soul and therefore we have specialized Angels who are keepers of time, jail wardens, mission specialist etc...

Evil spirits being corrupt angels are known by their corrupt bodies and take localized names of gods to give us an indication of who they are or which legion they belong to. They may use Indian name or names native to whichever location you are in; in reality they are the same according to their legion.

In the Bible their corrupt bodies are exposed to us by names of animals. When God created creation it is written He created things according to His kind and their kind. His kind refers to the nature of the good Angels and their kind refers to the fallen angels. Thus all creation being good yet God said not to eat certain animals or some animals are considered evil or behave that way. This is not because they are bad but the nature they symbolize is not good.

To give you an idea if you look at the stages by which Satan (Lucifer) fell and you list the most poisonous creatures, you will see their images in the same order to the worms which bought Lucifer down.

When God made us we were made in the nature of God, but after sin came in us it corrupted this nature and we started to deform into different natures that have corrupted us. So our fight after getting an entry pass to Heaven (by believing in Jesus Christ) is to remove this corruption so that we can really use this pass and enter Heaven. To remove this corruption we need to build the better part of us and this is done via building the fruit(s) of the Holy Spirit.

In the Bible when an (good) Angel appeared it is sometimes written that the Lord appeared. This is because the Angels like us too are made in the image of God. They are still as they were made in the image of God but we after sin came into us have deformed.

Always remember inside each child of God is an awesome Angel waiting to be manifested, the only thing holding back is deformation due to the lack of fruit(s). So let us build fruit(s) in us and in others as that on the Day which the Son of God (Jesus Christ) comes in glory we will all be together in our true forms.


[ Prayer Starter ]
Lord God, You made us very beautiful by making us in your image. The sin of Adam and Eve and the sin of our fore fathers corrupted this body and deformed us. Your love for us would not let us perish and You send your Begotten Son as man to be a sacrifice and by your Spirit You work in us and save us. Lord, help us see ourselves as the finish product as You see us even when we were in the worst state of our lives, so that we behave and be that finish product...

This prayer we make in Jesus' Name, Amen.


[ Reference Scriptures ]
Genesis 1:20-27
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Mark 12:24-25
24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?
25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

Luke 20:34-38
34 And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:
35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
36 Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.
37 Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
38 For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.

Hebrew 1:6-7
6 And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
7 And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.

Ephesians 4:22-24
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

1 Corinthians 15:51-54
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

The Word of God was given free to us, therefore we should also share it freely with others.
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