Satan Induced Feelings.

For the last few days I've been very under the weather so today I'm going to study what I posted yesterday. May God bless us only with His truth, opening our hearts and minds to all His love.

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Mat_24:24  For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

DO we believe that Satan can perform miracles? We'd better.

Col_2:8  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Anything that is NOT of Christ, but fabricated in any other manner is not necessarily the truth as our Lord would have us know it. Yes, there are scientific proofs and such but there are miracles that go beyond scientific proofs time and time again.  Mankind loves to boast, and will do all it can to put itself first before Christ and that is all Satan's doing.

Luk_8:14  And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

The cares and riches, the pleasures of THIS life we now have can CHOKE us! The senses, our feelings can CHOKE us, they can choke the spiritual life right out of us!

Excerpt  The Spiritual Man  - by Watchman Nee

(My thoughts in parenthesis)

'He wants to eliminate every obstacle to our spiritual walk. He wants us to live in Him, not in our feelings.

(Our Savior doesn't want a single obstacle in our way of walking spiritually with Him. Truly He wants to live in us and us in Him! If we are caught up in whether or not it FEELS like Christ is living in us, or us in Him, then we will be DECEIVED. Faith is NOT brought about by a single feeling, but rather a SURETY of HOPE found in CHRIST ALONE and that is FACT not FEELING!)

Another danger may arise for those who live by sensation rather than by the spirit through the will: they may be deceived by Satan.

This is one matter about which we ought to inform ourselves. Satan is skillful in counterfeiting the feelings which come from God. If with diverse kinds of sensations he attempts to confuse Christians who aspire to walk wholly after the spirit, how much more will he play his tricks on those who desire to follow their feeling. In their pursuit of emotion they fall directly into the hand of Satan, for he delights to supply them with all kinds of feeling which they assume to be from God.

(Remember this verse- Mat_23:27  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

The suppose high ranking religious men in Christ's own religion- Jewish- appeared beautiful outwardly. How many people live by the feelings that beauty provoke? How many love to have the good feelings, the wonderful feelings? I'd be lying if I said I didn't like to feel good, but would I choose feeling good and living falsely over feeling nothing if that's what I'm called to feel and be Christ's? I'm not saying that's what I'm called to do, or that you're called to do, I'm saying that feelings have their place and they should NOT be the gauge of our Spiritual life in any way!)

 The evil spirit is able to excite or to depress people.

Once a person is misled into accepting Satan-dispensed feeling, he has yielded ground to Satan in his soul.

 He shall continue to be further deceived until Satan has gained control over nearly all his feeling. Sometimes Satan will even induce him to experience supernatural sensations of shaking, electrifying, freezing, overflowing, floating in the air, fire burning from head to foot and consuming all his uncleanness, etc. When anyone has been beguiled to this extent his whole being comes to thrive on feelings, his will is totally paralyzed, and his intuition is entirely surrounded. He exists altogether in the outer man; his inner man is completely bound. At this stage he follows Satan’s will in almost everything, for the enemy merely needs to supply him with some particular feeling to goad him to do what he wants him to do. The tragedy is that the believer is not aware he is being tricked by Satan; he instead pictures himself as being more spiritual than others since he enjoys such supernatural experiences.

(It's a TRICK, it's a TRAP! Living by feeling invoked within us! Satan truly CAN inspire those feelings and will do so at EVERY opportunity. You don't believe that's true? Then why can evil cause so many to sin? If there were no pleasure in sin, would it be so appealing? If a person can find an amazing feeling in committing evil they are going to be tempted to commit it quite often and Satan loves trapping people in their feelings. Satan will even use RELIGIOUS guise to induce the feelings people crave, and deceive them mightily! God help us NOT to be deceived!)

Supernatural phenomena such as those described damage the spiritual life of many a Christian most severely today. Countless numbers of Gods children have fallen into this pit. They consider these supernatural occurrences—which give them a physical feeling of the power of the spirit and render them happy or sad, hot or cold, laughing or crying and which supply them with visions, dreams, voices, fires and even inexpressible wonderful sensations—as most definitely bestowed by the Holy Spirit, and thus represent the highest attainment of a Christian. They are unable to recognize that these are but the works of the evil spirit. They would never dream that the evil spirit as well as the Holy Spirit could perform such work.

 Totally ignorant are they of the fact that the Holy Spirit operates in the spirit of men. Whatever induces feeling to the body proceeds nine out of ten times from the evil spirit.

Why have so many fallen into this snare? Simply because they do not live in the spirit but love to live in their feeling! They accordingly provide the wicked power opportunity to play his tricks. Christians must learn to deny their sensational life or else they shall give ground to the enemy to deceive them.

Let us seriously warn every one of God’s children to take note of their bodily feeling. We should never allow any spirit to create any feeling in our body against our will. We should resist each of these outward bodily feelings. We should not believe in any of these physical sensations. Rather than follow them we should forbid them, for they constitute the enemy’s initial deception.

 We ought solely to follow intuition in the depths of our beings.

A careful observation of a Christian s life of feeling can uncover an underlying principle in such a life—which is none other than “for the sake of self.” Why is joyous sensation so sought after? For the sake of self. Why is barrenness so abhorred? Again for self’s sake. Why seek bodily feelings? For self. Why crave supernatural experiences. Also for self.

Oh, may the Holy Spirit open our eyes to behold how full of self is a so-called “spiritual” life of feeling! May the Lord show us that when we are filled with joyous emotions our life is still centered on self. It is the love of self-pleasure! The reality or falsity of spiritual life can be gauged by the way we treat self. '

(Please Lord, please help us to surrender ourselves to you fully! Help us to learn to live in the spirit and NOT in the self! Please! Without you we have no hope at all whatsoever! You are our hope! You are our truth! You are all things! Help us to seek YOU and NOT the 'good feeling' we may be tempted to feel in seeking YOU. Help us to seek YOU in ALL areas, in ALL ways, in ALL feelings of our life knowing You are there during them ALL! Please, Lord. Please. All in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!)