The Life of Christ or Another?
One day, on our way to the place of prayer, a slave girl ran into us. She was a psychic and with her fortune telling, made a lot of money... She started following Paul around, calling everyone’s attention to us by yelling out, "These men are working for the Most High God. They’re laying out the road of salvation for you!" She did this for a number of days until Paul, finally fed up with her, turned and commanded the spirit that possessed her, "Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her!" And it was gone, just like that.
That is the account of one of Paul’s companion in the book of Acts 16:16-18 (GNT).
Imagine with me for a second, what a successful business that woman ran! The spirit's fortune telling accuracy was top notch, considering even it's ability to testify of the work of Christ. No wonder her owners were quick to attack Paul.
Although, I am much more curious about why Paul casted out that spirit when it was clearly helping people (remember it's accuracy), made money, knew God and even recognized Him as the Most High. Let's not forget it's attempt to preach the Gospel alongside the Apostles.
Neglecting the Holy Spirit’s gift of discernment, one would say that servant girl was of God. She caused no harm and was what you’d term "good". This spirit killed no one, it didn’t even harm Paul and his companions. She lived the life most of us do or desire to live- she provided value to her community, secured the bag, made her "parents" proud, knew God and even "helped" in advancing the Kingdom of God.
Why then did Paul cast this spirit out? The Bible says, a house divided against itself will fall (Matt 12:25–26), so we know for certain that spirit wasn’t of God.
Let’s attempt to makes sense of this: Through the scriptures we know that there is no one like God- He is the only one of His kind. Now, the Spirit of Jesus is called Holy. So if He’s called Holy we know there is none other that is HOLY; for there is only one of Him.
This knowledge alone helps us to understand the reason behind Paul’s response to the possessed slave girl. Because ANY spirit other than the Holy Spirit of the Living God taking hold of a person will eventually lead them to eternal damnation.
The Bible says without holiness no eye shall see the Lord (Heb 12:14). Meaning, whatever form of unholiness i.e whatever is not of God, that’s in you separates you from God. But we know, yet again, from the scriptures that it is not the will/desire of God that ANY should perish. That is why the slave girl was freed from the oppression of that spirit.
It’s not oppression only when the spirit makes bad things happen. But because it’s presence alone separates you from God. It oppresses you by keeping you away from Truth, Light and Life!
This also helped me answer the question of why Christianity is to be preached to those of other religions, even though their god already answers their prayers, gives them all they need and they do good.
The Bible says, what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? (Matthew 16:26) ONLY JESUS SAVES! Acts 4:12 confirms it when it says, "... There is NO OTHER NAME under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
Doing good doesn’t save us- Jesus does! Knowing about Christ doesn’t save us- having Him as our LORD does! Tagging along, knowing fully well that you aren’t in union with Christ won’t save you- realizing how far you’ve fallen from the tree of Life and confessing in accordance, as you believe in Christ’s finished work on the cross, and submitting to a life that brings you ever so close to the nature of your Saviour will!
And that’s the Truth of scripture. I hope it brought you as much light as it to me! I was filled with awe at the wisdom and perfection of our Father. He is so beautiful. He is so holy.
Thank you for reading today’s post, I hope you learned something about Jesus. Also, feel free to reach out to me if you just want to talk about Jesus or have any questions. I don’t know it all, but the point is that we figure it out together. You may send a mail to favourjemirin@gmail.com
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Till... Tomorrow! I’ll be sending out a letter, so don’t forget to subscribe for free here if you haven’t ❣️
