Every church and believer can have their own religious spirits. Whether you are charismatic or not, Catholic or Protestant, contemporary or traditional, beware of religious spirits. Religious spirits seek to replace the work and power of the Holy Spirit with religion, works, self-righteousness, pride and religious activity. They want to keep us focused on the "wrong" in others or the "lack of spirituality" in us vs. focused on the leading of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ or the Cross.

Religious spirits tell you that you can't operate your spiritual gifts or that you must whether God is in it or not. They will either tell you that the Holy Spirit doesn't do that anymore and or that you must worship, or pray, or minister, or know more Bible, or preach better than other people do. (Warning: If you question a genuine new move of the Holy Spirit, He may just withdraw or He may do "it" to you!) Religious spirits will pressure you whereas the Holy Spirit leads you. They may push for more and more zeal but for the wrong reasons. Time for a motivation check!

Jesus warned us to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees that would puff us up, discourage us or cause us to compete and compare ourselves with others. If we focus on earning the approval of others, we may copy them and not even ask the Holy Spirit what He would do through us. Religious spirits will tell us to "just do what worked last time," tell us to try to outdo others, to boast about our great ministry results "evangelastically" (exaggerating the facts,) or to pray better than all the others.

Religious spirits will focus on other people's shortcomings, be critical of others, will tempt us to undermine authority, or to do whatever it takes to "look" godly, even if the power of God is not in it. Religious spirits will cause you to be self-righteous and to push others to do religious works, to do their devotions like you do, or to worship or pray your way. They will cause you to compare your denomination to others, negatively or positively. They may tell you to boast that your church is the one with the cutting edge.

Take this self-test and find out if you have symptoms of having religious spirits. Assess yourself and find out what particular religious spirits tempt you the most often.

Early Warning Signs of the Religious Spirit
- adapted from a sermon by Jack Deere