“The Anointing”?

 For a short period of time, my husband and I attended a church we had thought was teaching from scripture, until one of the leadership began passing out excerpts from one of Bill Johnson’s books. They had also began to have “exercises” which were focused on opening up oneself to the spirit realm…they had nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, or the nature and character of God. We promptly left, and I felt compelled to do some research into their source material, as many years ago I had numerous experiences with new-age practices, meditation, yoga, and suffered the consequences. Had I not been relentless to find truth in my life, what I had been involved with would have destroyed me. God heard the cry of my heart, and saved me out of all of it…He is the faithful One. I was nothing less than appalled when I discovered what Bill Johnson actually is involved with.

In Bill Johnson’s book, When Heaven Invades Earth, he states he was on a personal quest for increased power and anointing, and traveled to Toronto to receive impartation. Then he describes an experience he received in the middle of the night, (pg. 113) that was identical in every detail to what I had experienced years ago while practicing a yoga type meditation, and had what is called in Hinduism a “kundalini awakening.” (I had this experience numerous times over the course of a few years.) He states,
“I went from a dead sleep to being wide awake in a moment. Unexplainable power began to pulsate through my body, seemingly just shy of electrocution. It was as though I had been plugged into a wall socket with a thousand volts of electricity flowing through my body. My arms and legs shot out in silent explosions as if something was released through my hands and feet. The more I tried to stop it, the worse it got. I soon discovered that this was not a wrestling match I was going to win. I heard no voice, nor did I have any visions. This was simply the most overwhelming experience of my life. It was raw power…it was God. He came in response to a prayer I had been praying for months–God, I must have more of you at any cost!”
To say that I was appalled at what I read is an understatement. BJ is a pastor of a large church in CA, and travels giving seminars on School of the Supernatural. A master of twisted scripture, many in churches all over the US and England are exposed to this and more, as they are being taught to access the spirit realm, and learn manipulation. I am not exaggerating in any way when I say that this “electrifying” experience is demonic…it happens when one is accessing the fallen spirit forces. It has nothing to do with a Holy God! It is not related in any way to God’s true character and nature…God’s presence for the believer is one of Holiness, or it is not God. I am afraid one way that this experience is brought about is through lust…simply through a desire for power. The yoga teachers themselves describe how the lust for power can open up a meditaters’ mind and body to the kundalini force. Yet Bill Johnson is convinced that he was given a “new anointing” through this experience!
It is an experience of the soul, not the Spirit of the living God. It is the worship of oneself that is the very basis of humanism, opening the door to occultism, and every demonic, fleshly practice that Jesus came to redeem us from. Bill states that he “must passionately desire life-changing encounters with God, over and over again. I must cry out day and night for them…and be specific. I must be willing to travel to get what I need.”
The Bible I read says that God loves a contrite heart and humble spirit, and that does not mean one time some years ago. The presence of a Holy God will undo us, shatter our preconceived notions of what we think we “must have”…show us what we lack through our arrogant, self willed endeavors that elevate our position in life.
If we allow Him to take us through such a process, the grace and love He pours upon a broken heart is beyond description… it is only then that we can proclaim He is HOLY…He is separate, completely removed from any taint of our abilities to demand or manipulate. The true presence of God is never separate from His Holiness.
The flesh show that is prevalent in these kundalini infested programs are a sham, a counterfeit, a doorway to every lying and deceiving spirit.

God shut every door to the occult and when he delivered me out of that stuff. There was a literal seal put over my mind and spirit that is what every believer will have if they belong to Messiah. 
I no longer had attacks from demonic spirits, or did astral travel, as the fallen realm is inhabited by lying spirits…and yes there are religious spirits there that work in and through those who embrace the false. (a great book on seals in the Bible, Sealed Unto His Coming, by CR Oliver…a great scholarly work on one thing…who the sealed are.)
 
Ephesians  1:13  In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Ephesians 5:11  And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
 
Did you know that the aim of the new-age adepts is to invoke this sort of electrifying-light-energy experience en masse to the populace…so they will experience the ”oneness with the eternal,” that this is considered the height of the Luciferian initiation?

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Anatomy of Deception-My Morningstar Experience

The following is an experience I had concerning Morningstar, in 2008. It caused some very real changes to take place within me, as I realized the hard way I was asleep at the helm. Our God will do whatever it takes to refine us into being His legitimate sons/daughters. I need to add that I had quit reading any material from Rick Joyner some six years prior, as the overall tone was increasingly Gnostic. But I was not well informed about NAR, (New Apostolic Reformation) nor was I aware of the philosophy that compels them.

In April of 2008, before I had seen any sort of video from Lakeland, a friend of ours sent us a link to Rick Joyner’s Morningstar ministries as it said there appeared to be a revival going on. As I viewed the video, my first response was, “this is great! At last there is revival happening there.” I passed the link on to some friends of mine. What I did not do was go into some serious prayer time, ask the Lord if this was of Him, and undergo the appropriate research that would help establish the fact that what was actually happening was in truth a revival brought about through the move of God’s Holy Spirit. I acted quite presumptuously, and what followed was a lesson that I hope never to repeat.

All of us that are born of God’s spirit have a full time job in the continuance of being transformed by His Word, through the guidance of His Holy Spirit. Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

What Paul is admonishing us to do is not a one time event, but the ongoing process of sanctification in the life of a believer. But we are always free to act upon our own thoughts; and as we evaluate and decide what to do with the general input of the world into our minds through media of all sorts, as believers, we are always admonished to be …bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 2Corinthians 10:5 As I superficially assayed the “revival” at Morningstar, I had decided in my mind that this was a good thing of God, after all, they appeared to be experiencing His weighty presence.

That night, after prayer, I was about to be asleep and detected God’s spirit in a most pronounced way, as if an extra helping of peace had just been afforded to me. I felt as if a blanket was being pulled up over me, clear up to my neck. I knew the presence of the Lord was there, and I felt quite secure. As I prayed, I was wondering why this was happening, as it felt like a covering of protection…but I had no idea from what. I did not receive any answer concerning it as I prayed, but I fell asleep at peace. The next morning, I went to talk to my husband at his desk, and we immediately got into a confrontation, that I started. I seemed to be paranoid and on the edge concerning issues in our life, (and this had nothing to do with hormones or low blood sugar before breakfast) but I was not dealing with it from a place of walking in the Spirit. Later, I went into my room and cried over the feeling of paranoia and oppression that had fallen over me. I tried to pray, to worship, to do all that I knew was true and right before the Lord, but felt like there was a brick wall before me that I could not get around. This continued for several days…my life and walk in the Spirit before God seem to have “shut down,” and I could not regain my peace. I cried several times a day, and told the Lord that I cannot live this way, and cannot continue on the way I was, and if He had somehow “put me on the shelf for good” then I could not live like this, so please just take me home. I had no idea why I was experiencing such despair. My husband and I had another confrontation a day later, and it was the worst one ever, as I questioned whether or not our marriage was going to survive. Sometime that week, a friend of his sent us a link for a youtube.com presentation of Patricia King, Bob Jones, and Todd Bentley. She said she was quite disturbed by what she saw…and said it truly is a sign of the times, with the open new-age practices and plain and simple witchcraft. I watched the video myself, and knew full well why she was upset. It was true…it was a mockery of God’s Holy Spirit and certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination…a “quick and easy way to the third heaven” as Bob Jones and TB were conveying. I knew I was watching no more than a barrage of deception and new-age hype.

I knew without any doubt whatsoever why I had fallen into such despair and could not find my connection, my peace, with the Lord. I immediately went back to my room and onto to my knees, and repented of what I had done, what I had let in. I had opened myself up…in my mind, …to this “deceiving spirit” that was operating in Morningstar. This “spirit” that was reported to be connected to the “Lakeland revival.” As I got before God, I was freed of the despair and loss of connection, and loss of my peace, in my walk with Him. I felt like I needed a shower…first spiritual and mental, and then I took one. I felt like I was washing off sewage.

A little while past this experience, I still had some questions in my mind and heart about just what actually happened to me during that time of “disconnection.” I have struggled with it over these past months, because I knew there was something still that was not clear to me, something I could not define but needed to. I know God honors our desire for clarity and understanding. (I was not losing sleep over it, as I had total peace about the repenting…there was something else though that I needed to understand.) What I needed to understand was clarified for me just at the beginning of the year, which coincided with reading The Latent Power of the Soul by Watchman Nee. (It reads as if it was written just this past year, and acted as a confirmation, and an enhancement, of what I have written on the subject myself.) What finally came into focus concerning that difficult time after opening myself up to that so-called “revival spirit” is this: being “covered” by what I perceived to be a sort of blanket was God’s protection, although hindrance, over me.

Psalm 119:75 I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are right, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me. 76 Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort, According to Your word to Your servant.

God does things always for our own good if we truly belong to Him, so as frustrating and hurtful as the experience was, it confirmed once again to me that He is jealous over us…and is very serious when He says that we are to pursue holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Heb. 12 :11 He was saying to me that He could not accept, at His table, what I had attempted to bring before Him…the “revival spirit” was not HIS Spirit, and He could not accept it in my life, and I could not expect Him to bless what I was seeking to bring before Him. It was not clean. 1 Corinth. 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons. That Spirit that was born within me, the Spirit that dwells within me….Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. …was not in accord with what I had believed in my mind. I was in effect ascribing a work of the flesh to God’s spirit, which was a deception. The two are not compatible, for what I was really seeing was a sham, a sensuous counterfeit, a spirit that many the world over will embrace as part of the global outpouring of the so called “Christ-consciousness,” that is being heralded as the great unifying power ultimately bringing all faiths together in the coming new world order.

I had been involved with new-age practices many years ago, some of which mimic the power and “presence of God.” I have been appalled to see that very thing within so called “Christian movements.” Those few short days were a quick reminder that I needed to be on my guard, and examine everything. (HE was the one that was faithful!) How amazing it is that those who were doing just that and attempting to bring attention to the aberrant display on the stage of Lakeland were called trouble makers, fault finders, and those who “opposed the work of the Spirit.”

The true glory of God is never separate from His holiness.

Lora Uptegrove

Psalm 138:2….For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.