In his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul wrote:

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me. (2 Cor. 6:14-18).

Many people see this passage as primarily a directive for marriage.  Certainly, in the Old Testament, God was very clear that his people were not to marry Gentiles because they would inevitably be drawn into the idolatry and pagan culture of the unbeliever. In fact, that very thing happened on numerous occasions and Israel always suffered for turning their back on Yahweh end embracing other Gods.  Often, they still maintained their temple worship, but intermingled their worship and their sacrifices with pagan Gods.  In Deuteronomy 32:14, the writer clearly says that behind each of these idols and these “false gods” were demons who personally desired worship but also worked night and day to draw God’s people away from Him.

God also commanded his people to avoid making treaties or entering into other kinds of covenants with unbelievers. Moses wrote. “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same” (Ex.34:15-16).

Paul warned the church at Corinth against the same kind of yoking.  Corinth was a city full of idolatry. It housed numerous temples for the worship of Apollo, Aphrodite, Asklepieion, etc. Many of the believers had grown up immersed in idolatry and many still had friends and family that worshipped the pagan gods.  In response to that circumstance, Paul wrote, “Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he” (1 Cor. 10:18-23)?

The principal is that we are not to enter into covenants, agreements, treaties or, remain in relationships that influence us with those who belong to Satan.  That agreement opens us up not only to his influence but his presence.  We tend to think that the people who belong to Satan are the witches, warlocks, and satanists who actively pursue and serve the enemy.  But according to 2 Corinthians 6, whoever does not have the Spirit of God in them, belongs to the enemy and Satan’s  spirit operates in them.  “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature” (Eph. 2:1-3).

We think in terms of behaviors to determine whether a person is good person or evil.  Behaviors are important, but the best we can offer God still leaves us as wretched sinners when we are compared to his righteousness.  Our righteousness falls far short of any merited salvation (See Isa. 64:6).  Only the righteousness of Christ allows us to stand before God.  The seal of that righteousness is the Holy Spirit living in us.  When that happens, a great gulf is created between us and those who are not in Christ.

Paul compares that difference as light and darkness, Christ and Belial (Satan), the temple of God or the temple of idols, and believers versus unbelievers.  His point is that because of Jesus, we are essentially and vastly different from those who have not named Jesus as Lord. We see the differences in people as a matter of degree, but in the spiritual realm there is a marked, black and white, difference between the two.  You are either a child of God or a child of the devil.  You are either a citizen of the kingdom of God or you belong to the kingdom of darkness.  You are either alive in Christ or dead in your trespasses.  You are saved or lost, forgiven or unforgiven. You have the Spirit of Christ or the spirit of disobedience.

Because of that, God commands us to come out from among them. He is not saying we should isolate ourselves like monks in the desert, or we could never bring people to Jesus or be salt and light in the world.  But we are not to be yoked, tied, or bound to unbelievers. Moses commanded, “Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together” (Dt. 22:9-11).

In our culture, Christians frequently marry unbelievers. Sometimes those unbelievers present themselves as Christians because they attend church once in a while, but they have not truly made Jesus Lord of their lives and do not have the Spirit of God in them. In addition, believers often go into business with those who don’t belong to the Lord.  They spend more time with friends of the world than with Christian friends. These binding relationships can not only influence us and draw us away from the Lord but give Satan a legal right to afflict us because we have tied ourselves to those who belong to him. Because God takes unequal yoking seriously so should we.

Jesus declared we should be in the world but not of the world.   We should influence the world for good, but not join with the world in its sinful ways.  Too many times, believers join with unbelievers or casual believers as they partake in the things the world values and promotes. Amos 3:3 says that when we walk together with someone, we have come into agreement with them. Agreement with the enemy also gives him a legal right to afflict us. When Adam and Eve came into agreement with the serpent, they fell under his authority. 

This is a serious enough issue that we need to pray and seek God before entering into covenants, contracts, agreements or influential friendships with others.  The fruit of their lives should clearly display their active relationship with the Lord.  On a practical level, we should also be aware of their maturity in the Lord.  Unequal yoking, even among believers, can also hinder spiritual life. So often I see mature Christian women marry men who are believers, but whose spiritual maturity is far behind theirs and a hunger for God is not really evident. When married, she is forced to be the spiritual leader, not him.  That is not God’s design for marriage. Or a spiritually mature man might marry a lukewarm woman.  If he continues to grow and she does not, they will grow apart and the marriage will suffer. 

Satan attacks us through these unequally yoked relationships so be prayerful and wise before tying yourself to someone else. Even when our heart is to bring an unbeliever to Jesus, be sure you are evangelizing them, rather than them evangelizing you.

In the first century, the synagogue and the Rabbi’s were central to Jewish culture.  I want to quote from an article by Tim Kelly entitled The Dust of the Rabbi regarding those Rabbi’s and their disciples:

According to Ray Vander Laan, Jewish children – both boys and girls – begin their formal study of the Bible at age 5 by attending a Beit Sefer (house of the Book)  that was associated with the local synagogue and taught by a ‘rabbi’ – which was the respectful way of addressing the teacher. 

The teaching focused on the Torah, emphasizing reading, writing, and memorization.  Large portions of the text were memorized, and some students memorized the entire Torah by the time he or she reached the conclusion of their primary education at age 12 or 13.

At this point, a male child was allowed to go to the Temple and participate in the sacrifice of his family’s Passover lamb.  Though he was now expected to learn the family trade, boys who showed exceptional study skills were also allowed to continue their biblical studies in what was called “Beit Midrash”, which roughly means ‘the house of searching’, as in searching for the meaning of the scriptures.

In the Beit Midrash they would continue to memorize scripture while studying the prophets and the writings.  This would continue until about age 18 which is the age when young men were encouraged to begin a family.

Though 18 was the age for marriage, some gifted students were allowed to postpone marriage and continue their studies under a rabbi.  Most students sought to learn under rabbis with an exceptional reputation and whom they believed had a good understanding of the scripture.  Once they found that particular rabbi, they would ask if they could ‘follow’ him.  If the rabbi believed the student would be successful in learning and understanding what would be taught, he agreed to let that student ‘follow’ him and the student would become his disciple.

What we need to understand is that disciples of these Rabbi’s sought out the teacher and, having been evaluated and accepted by the teacher, essentially began to live with him.  They were not just interested in what the Rabbi knew, but actually wanted to learn how he lived. They emulated his dress, his habits, his daily routines, his approach to scripture. the way he prayed, etc.  Typically, this discipleship lasted about twelve years.  If he began at age 18, then by 30 he himself could become a Rabbi.  If the Rabbi was located in a town, his disciples spent as much time with him as possible each day.  If he were an itinerant Rabbi travelling from place to place, they travelled with him. We see that pattern clearly with Jesus.

Here is what was different about Jesus.  He did not establish a school and wait for the best and brightest to come to him.  He actually went after those he wanted to follow him and called them to come.  Clearly, he did not pick the best and brightest scholars from the synagogues.  He picked men from Galilee which was reputed to be the most Torah-illiterate district in Israel.  These were men who had not pursued studies after their initial schooling but had gone on to be fisherman and tax collectors.  They did not follow Jesus for twelve years but only for three.  At many times, they did not seem like promising disciples and on many occasions were sources of great frustration for Jesus.  But that should be a point of great encouragement for us.

In John 15:16, Jesus told his followers, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…” We do not have to approach Jesus with a resume, hoping he will accept us.  We do not have to be Bible scholars with well-developed theology. We simply have to be responsive to the call of Jesus and trust him to develop us as he sees fit. We don’t even have to believe in our own potential, because God believes in our potential.  These unlikely disciples of Rabbi Yeshua did not need twelve years of teaching from him because the Holy Spirit would be their teacher.  In many ways, they did not need to be experts in the Law and the prophets because Jesus said the Law and the Prophets were summed up by two things -love God and love your neighbor.  That is what we need to master

Satan loves to make us feel unqualified to be followers of Jesus.  But Jesus has qualified us and he has chosen us.  He sees great things in us that we do not perceive.  He has given us a teacher who will lives with us forever – His Holy Spirit.  Of course, he has given us the written word of God, but he continues to explain it to us by his Spirit.  Our part is to follow Jesus, our Rabbi, daily and to do the things he did which we see on the pages of the gospels.  Our part is to be teachable and obedient.  Our part is to spend time with him in prayer, contemplation, doing his will. and spending time with other believers. When we are 3with other believers he is in our midst (Mt. 18:20).  Our part is to have faith that Jesus has called us to be his disciple…that he wanted us, that he calls us his friend, that we are his workmanship, and we are not accidental or inferior followers. He has a destiny for each of us and will complete the work he has begun in us…if we continue to follow.

Being the disciple of a great Rabbi was a great privilege.  Being called to be a disciple of the greatest Rabbi is the greatest privilege.

One of Satan’s primary strategies against God’s people is accusation.  In fact, he is called “the accuser of the brethren” in Revelation 12.  He is shown to accuse us before God at every opportunity.  He also accuses us through hurtful people in our lives and he accuses us to ourselves in our thought life.

He accuses us in the sense that we often have thoughts that we are not worthy or not qualified for the things God is calling us to.  Perhaps, we have thought of volunteering for some ministry role but have quickly decided we didn’t know enough, weren’t gifted enough, weren’t spiritual enough, or whatever.  We quickly talked ourselves out of saying “yes” to an invitation to serve in an important role or of saying yes to a role that we simply knew was needing to be filled.

Churches often need people to step up and serve in roles they have not served in before – camp counselors, marriage mentors, small group leaders, coordinators, table leaders, etc., but no one steps up because they don’t feel qualified.  At other times, we may feel prompted to talk to someone about Jesus, but that little voice tells us we don’t know enough Bible or we won’t know what to say, or we will embarrass ourselves and Jesus.  At other times, we feel prompted to talk to someone about the destructive direction of their life, but then the voice convinces us that our own life is such a mess, who are we to talk to them about their bad decisions?

The voice of the accuser constantly insists we are not enough, we don’t know enough, we aren’t spiritual enough, and are doomed to fail.  His goal is to limit us, discourage us, and disempower us.   But God has always called the weak, the unlikely, the inexperienced, and the reluctant to greatness. One of my favorites is Gideon.

In Judges 6, Israel was under the boot of Midian.  Because of their rebellion and idolatry, God had lifted his hand of protection and left them to the oppression of their enemies. Because of their suffering, Israel called out to God for deliverance.  God answered and the text says:

“Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior” (Judges 6:11-13). Then the Lord said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of the hand of Midian. Am I not sending you?”

The angel of the Lord called Gideon a mighty warrior.  As we read the text, it is clear that is how God saw him, not how Gideon saw himself. In response to God’s call, Gideon described himself as a man whose clan was the weakest in Manasseh and he was the least in his family.  In other words, ”I’m not qualified to be a warrior or a leader.  I’m a nobody.”  There is no indication that Gideon was a leader among his people or that he had any training in warfare.  God just showed up and told him to go deliver Israel from Midian.

It’s important to note that he told Gideon to go “in the strength he had.”  He didn’t tell him to wait until he was ready or until he had years of leadership training.  In essence, he was telling Gideon to go as he was and God would make up for whatever he lacked. 

God most often picks the inexperienced and the uncertain because those men and women are forced to depend on God, not on themselves.  They will listen to him and often use God’s unorthodox methods because they don’t already have their own way of doing what God is calling them to do. In our weakness, God gets the glory.

Another important point this text reveals is that we don’t always have to be full of faith to be used by God. Gideon was cautious. He was uncertain…not about God, but about himself.  He asked for signs to confirm it was God who was talking to him rather than Satan or his own imaginations.  In the same chapter, the angel who had brought the word of the Lord to Gideon, touched an offering Gideon has placed before him with the tip of his staff and it burst into flame as the angel disappeared.  Gideon cried out that he had seen the face of the Lord.  He apparently expected to die, because God immediately spoke to him saying, “Peace. Do not be afraid. You are not going to die” (Jgs. 6:23). 

God’s first command was for Gideon to tear down a nearby altar to Baal and the Asherah pole that was next to it, build a proper altar, and sacrifice a bull to the Lord.   Gideon took some men and went to do as the Lord commanded, but did so at night because “he was afraid of his father and the townspeople.”  So he obeyed the Lord, but he did so in the face of his own fear.  God did not rebuke him.  Gideon was going in the strength he had.  When we feel nervous and insecure as we try to follow God’s leading and his call, the enemy will rush into to rebuke us for a lack of faith.  But God was pleased with is obedience, even though his faith was not fully formed.

After that incident, Gideon asked for another sign that God was truly going to use him to deliver Israel from Midian.  He determined to place a wool fleece on the threshing floor at night.  He asked God to see to it that in the morning the fleece would be soaked with dew and the ground would be dry.  In fact, that is what God did.  But, just to prove this was not meteorological anomaly, he asked God to reverse the procedure the next night.  In the morning the fleece was dry and the ground was soaked. 

Then, as Midian and Israel camped across from one another and the first battle loomed, God said to Gideon, “If you are afraid to attack, go down to their camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying.  Then you will be encouraged.” Again, God took note of Gideon’s insecurity and met his need for encouragement.  As you read Judges 7, you will see the unorthodox strategy that God used to defeat the Midianites. Gideon goes on to be a judge of Israel and grew in confidence as God gave him future victories.

My point is this.  When we sense God’s call on or lives or feel his prompting to let him use us in some way, we need to recall that, in most cases, willingness, even when coupled with fear and insecurity, is all God is asking.  Then he steps in and makes up for our lack.  The adventure of faith is seeing God come through, but we will never see it if we never place ourselves in uncertain situations. 

Don’t let the accusations from the enemy keep you from saying “yes.”  Ask for some kind of confirmation, if you like, that God is calling you to that moment or to that ministry.  God will not be offended because we want to be sure we are following his leading not the leading of the flesh. But don’t let the devil talk you out of your destiny that God established for you before the creation of the world.  Make up your mind.  The next time God calls and we feel totally unqualified, say “yes” anyway.  You will be saying “yes” to God and “no” to Satan.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” Ephesians 3:20

I have served as an associate pastor in conservative, Bible-believing churches for over forty years. Much of my ministry has been devoted to counseling individuals and married couples from my congregation and community. In the first twenty years of ministry, I consistently struggled with two issues in the life of my church and my own life: the level of brokenness in the Body of Christ, even among longtime believers, and the powerlessness I felt on too many occasions to truly help. In counseling sessions, I could accurately identify the issues and give people insights into their struggles, but I had no tools or techniques to reachthe deeply wounded places from which all their destructive behaviors continued to spring. Many of the people I worked with were sincere believers who had been in and out of counselors’ offices for years but had never truly gained victory over their “issues.” Even the Word and prayer could not seem to overcome the brokenness in these individuals, which eventually seeped like toxic waste into their relationships…especially marriages.

Deep inside, I sensed a huge disconnect between what I saw on the pages of the New Testament and what I witnessed in my church. What I saw in Scripture were radically changed lives. I saw the Apostle Paul, miraculously transformed himself, writing to once profoundly broken people in Corinth who then seemed to have been truly set free to grow in Christ.

There was no mention of professional counselors or even “trained therapists” in the church or any expectation that people would need to “manage their issues” over decades. There was no suggestion that addictions required residential programs in mental health facilities followed by years of support group involvement. There was no hint that homosexuals were hopelessly locked into an identity shaped by genetics or that a myriad of psychological and emotional struggles could only be managed with drug therapies. What I saw in Scripture was the Body of Christ and the Holy Spirit doing life together and people being truly set free and transformed.

Paul wrote, “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:9–10).

Here Paul lists the same issues that torment us today: sexual immorality, gender confusion, substance abuse, perversions, materialism, criminality, and more. But he declares that through Christ, lives had been changed and identities transformed. Brokenness was relegated to the past, and those believers now walked in newness of life. They were, indeed, new creations. Ragtag fishermen stood before governors as ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven, sleazy tax collectors became radical philanthropists overnight, and the Mary Magdalenes, once demon-possessed, were now fully possessed by God.

For me, there was a great gulf between what I read and what I saw. In my heart, there was always a longing for more. But I had been trained not to expect “more” and if I did see “more,” I was taught to be suspicious. My church’s theology presented a gospel in which God, in an orderly universe, had ceased dispensing miracles and radical-life-change long ago. The pages of the New Testament were full of promises and stories that truly did happen, but only in the days of Jesus and the apostles. I sensed, however, that if you jettison the miracles, you also jettison the power and in doing so, you quench the Holy Spirit and neuter His ministry. I needed that power in my own life just as much as the wounded people I served.

Eventually, God called me out of that fellowship of believers.  These were good people who loved Jesus and loved his word.  But they had essentially been taught to love God, lead a moral life, and do the best they could until Jesus called them home.  But in many cases, they were in bondage to something they couldn’t shake and yearned for “more,” but were not certain what that was.  Numbers of good people left that fellowship as well looking for whatever the “more” was.

I found “the more” when I found the supernatural power of Jesus displayed through his Spirit. I saw people transformed in a few weeks or even in a few hours – truly set free from whatever bondage they had been shackled to…anger, pornography, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and more.  What’s more is that they did not relapse into their old conditions as many do after secular counseling.

Scripture is clear that there is a supernatural realm surrounding us that intersects with our lives every day.  That realm operates on power and authority. Paul declared emphatically that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12).  The gospels illustrate encounters not only with angels but also demons.  These unclean spirits torment people in all kinds of ways.  Scripture names many…a spirit of fear, a spirit of heaviness (depression), a spirit of divination (witchcraft), deaf and dumb spirits, spirits of sexual immorality, a spirit of bondage, and more.

Many churches send their members to secular counselors or counselors who are Christians but who have not been trained to deal with the spiritual realm in their counseling.  If an issue has a spiritual root but they do not deal with the spiritual forces of evil, the best they can do is help people manage or cope with their issues, but they will never get real freedom.  I have counseled several believers who were once members of witch’s covens.  When I asked them what drew them to witchcraft, they said their lives were out of control and the church could not help them…so they were drawn to the power they saw in witchcraft.  If they had seen Christ’s power in the church, they would not have run to Satan.

Many believers are looking for “more” in their walk with Jesus.  They don’t know what it is, but they sense something critical is missing.  That missing component is the power and authority of Jesus displayed through his people! Paul said, “For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power (1 Cor. 4:20).  In these end times, Satan is and will be ramping up his activities in ways we have never seen before.  Believers who try to withstand the enemy without the power of the Holy Spirit and divine weapons for spiritual warfare, may well be overwhelmed.  If you are looking for “more,” let me encourage you to find a church that believes in and walks in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Be sure there is a good balance of Word and Spirit.  Word without the Spirit is powerless and Spirit without the Word tends to get weird.  But pray and ask God to lead you to that church.  You are going to need it.