Controlling Spirit

I am doing research on an article when I ran accross this snippet. The author was writing about disfunctional churches and in this part of the text, controlling ones in particular. I do not know the author but when I read it I was floored.

The give and take is the same dynamic that happens in an abusive marriage. There is the ebb and flow of grace or the carrot and the stick. The person is drawn in by the compassion that comes from the burden bearer but then is clubbed by the controlling spirit that seeks to choke out the spirit of god in the person’ life. This causes a self doubting and a slow degredation of a person’ discernment. One may think something along this route, “they care so much for me, that’ why they are pointing these things out.” The problem is that they will always have something to point out. You will never measure up.

The controller themselves have convinced themselves that they are flowing in the will of God. Their ego blinds them from seeing the lack of fruit in their ministry. They will deal with this challenge either by self promotion, “The Lord has called me to a higher role.” Or by constant criticism, the people are immature, emotional, or have a wrong spirit. Either way the common trait is that the person functioning in this spirit believes that their judgement is true and that they are called to make such judgements. As if God is the teacher of an elementary school class and they are not among the students but rather the class helper, not quite the teacher, but certainly not among the students.

It is this spiritual overseer status that is the most dangerous. While the bible teaches very clearly that there is to be government and accountability it is not to man, rather it is men keeping one another accountable to God. The man who thinks he has been called to keep others accountable yet does not feel an even greater need to keep himself accountable is the man that the enemy has already found a stronghold in.

This was written so well I could not find a better way to write it.

• Railing Against the Prophetic Again - with 6 comments
• We say no to yoga - with 4 comments
• Signs, Wonders, and Evangelism - with 0 comments