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  1 John 4:1 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

Chapter 4

Testing the Spirits. ¹ Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

In my teens I looked forward to reading my horoscope. I was born in early August, which meant I was a  Leo.  I liked astrology and  what it represented: Leo’s were outgoing, Leo’s were loyal, and Leo’s were leaders. As I got older and wiser, I started to outgrow the desire for astrology. I married young and was too preoccupied to seek  advice from the stars, but it was still very much with me. From time to time, out of curiosity, I would dabble back into reading my horoscope. I read my husband Mike’s as well. I remember reading in Mike horoscope one day, that he would lose something of value. On that same day Mike lost his wedding band. When this happened, I started reading horoscopes again.

The Open Door

This was the mid-70’s and Cosmopolitan Magazine had an entire page dedicated to astrology. I gleaned what I wanted from the reading, never really took it to heart; but I was still intrigued with the excitement of what was in store for me that month. I had taken a sabbatical from the Catholic church and found a new, non-denominational fellowship. Unaware that I was serving two gods, I was told very firmly by fellow Christians that horoscopes were demonic. At first I believed that these people were overreacting, and I continued to read my horoscope. After all it was just for fun. But astrology was an open door to Satan and a personal invitation to allow Him access to your spirit.

Deuteronomy 18:10 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

¹⁰ Let there not be found among you anyone who causes their son or daughter to pass through the fire, or practices divination, or is a soothsayer, augur, or sorcerer,

Cold Turkey

I was growing by  leaps and bounds in my new-found “Born Again” religion, and the closer I came to understand Scripture, the more I understood the dangers in this practice of astrology. We are all searching for God, or some type of meaning for our existence, but some of us take different directions to reach our destination. The highway I traveled included this “New Age” passage. When you stay and visit, you become familiar with the company you keep and want to stay longer or return for another visit. That how’s it was with astrology and me. I thank God that I made a clean break. This seeming innocent practice is treacherous because it leads to other occult practices. Palm reading, fortune telling, psychic readings, mediums, and many other avenues also lead to the occult.

Fighting the Demons

During that time, I took a  short trip to New Orleans to visit family, and wanted to visit St. Louis Cathedral located in Jackson Square. There were so many obstacles in the way before you could reach the doors to the church. Tarot card readers were stationed in several different locations. I decided to fight against these demonic forces.  As I passed each card reader, I was silently  praying against their evil spirits. I felt great victory and thought myself a valiant warrior for doing God’s work against these demons. I walked into the church with great pride, and continued to pray. I was a baby Christian and believed that this battle was over.

When I returned from the trip, I became deathly ill. I had never been so sick. I was bedridden for a week before I decided to seek  medical attention. It took an entire month for me to finally recover from this mysterious illness. I realized that the illness was caused by praying against the evil spirits of the  all those tarot card readers. These demonic forces had strength in numbers, and I fell into their boiling pot because I was not equipped to fight these demons on my own. that was when I made the connection of how these attaching spirits are controlled by Satan.

New Age

The New Age umbrella is disguised as a feel-good religions. You are your own demi god and live in a world of confused people. This type of belief leads to relativism. Nothing can go wrong in your world because you control your own destiny. So many religions fall under this New Age banner and many are being led astray, including many well-meaning Christians. New agers engage in meditation techniques, Zen, Hinduism, Sufishism, and Indian religions. These groups mix philosophy with their own beliefs. To reach an altered state of mind, they use crystals, hallucinogenic drugs, yoga, and breathing exercises.

The following information is from Father Mitch Pacwa, an expert on New Age:

1. Monism. Everything in the universe is one. This includes all forms of life–material things and even angels. “There is no difference between us and the air, us and the rocks, and so on.”

2. Everything is God. God is in everything. God is everything. This is pantheism, the belief that everything is in the one divine nature. “We are God, the lights are God, the chair I sit in is God.”

3. We need to be enlightened through humanistic psychology. We must be made aware of our oneness and spiritual power. This is where many Catholics veer off course with things like the enneagram, a system of numerology intended to make a person perfect, better and whole by understanding personality types. “The way it is taught,” says Father Pacwa, “people try to save themselves instead of depending on the grace of Christ. People go from enneagrams to Eastern meditation to get out of their “personality types.”

4. Expect a New Age to dawn. It will rise “out of the ashes of the Western world view” (cosmic evolutionary optimism). They wish to displace Christianity with a great “collective unconsciousness,” where all “archetypes” dwell (that’s what New Agers perceive angels to be).

The High Priestess of New Age, Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is the new spiritual icon of this age. She has been working overtime in promoting her New Age agenda. The books that she shares with her students are all New Age: The Secret, A New Earth, and  A Course in Miracles. Oprah has millions of followers, and is making a killing in her webinars. She is feverishly turning many Christians away from God with her New Age beliefs. It is difficult to discredit this powerhouse, but with God nothing shall be impossible.

Luke 1:37 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

³⁷ for nothing will be impossible for God.”

Celine Dion

Last year Celine Dion launched “New Order,” a gender-neutral children’s fashion line. She has partnered up with Nununu, a New Age theme type of clothing company. Celine believed  it was important to introduce this new fashion to the world. She shared a video to launch her debut; it was not only creepy and weird but diabolical.  In the video, Celine walks into a hospital of newborns and blows some type of black magical iridescent glitter on the babies. From that point everything is transformed into a twisted type of fashion. You can forget about pink for girls and blue for boys because this line of clothes has no real color, mostly blacks and greys. Do parents really want to put their newborns in  onesies with skulls?

Celine Dion’s gifted voice has awarded her unlimited income, and her singing is a gift from God. She was raised Catholic but her clothing line has deep roots from the dark side. We need to pray for her to return to her Catholic faith.

Now let’s address the name of her company “New Order.” Sounds like something right out of the Bible, something that Satan will be in charge of, “The New World Order.” Her publicist, whoever he is, was not in any way attempting to hide the blatant fact that the name is connected to Satan.

Revelation 13:16-18 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

¹⁶ It forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to be given a stamped image on their right hands or their foreheads, ¹⁷ so that no one could buy or sell except one who had the stamped image of the beast’s name or the number that stood for its name.

^18 [a]Wisdom is needed here; one who understands can calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number that stands for a person. His number is six hundred and sixty-six.

Mattel Toys

Mattel Toys recently introduced a new line of gender-neutral dolls, calling it the Creatable World. These new dolls can either be a boy doll or a girl doll, depending how the child feels that day. Mattel tested these new dolls on 200 families and discovered that some children were being excluded. “There were a couple of gender-creative kids who told us that they dreaded Christmas Day because they knew whatever they got under the Christmas tree, it wasn’t made for them,” said the head of consumer insight Monica Dreger.  So for these couple of kids, Mattel introduces Creatable World Dolls. I can’t wait to see the letter written to Santa. “Dear Santa, I’ve been a good girl/ boy this year. Can you please bring me a gender-neutral doll?” Mattel may consider this “politically correct,” but is your business plan to bring your stock out of the gutter at the expense of children?  Sorry Mattel, but what you have created is a doll to further confuse children.

The name “Creatable World” gives the child permission to create who he or she want to be. News flash, only God can do this.

The Parents

Parents are allowing their children as young as 10 years old to take puberty-blocking drugs. These  drugs are referred to as “Chemical castrators.” This is the same drug given to sex offenders, and is now being used on gender-confused children. This drug’s main purpose is to stop developmental changes like facial hair or growing breasts until the child can identify which sex he or she wants to be. Are parents not made aware of the side effects of these drugs? According to the FDA, the drugs given to “trans” children will cause fatal blood clots, suicidal behavior, lower IQ, brittle bones and sterility. What parents in their right mind would allow their children to be subjected to this type of health risk?

With all the hype on “trans” children, many parents tend to overreact. For example if a 3 year-old boy wants to wear a dress, this is normal behavior that their child may soon outgrow. My heart aches for those misguided parents because if they would be patient and understand that “all” children go through phases. According to Dr. Meg Meeker, author of many “child rearing” books, children tend to imitate the parent that they spend the most time with. But it is how the parents maneuver this phase to help navigate their children into a normal life of growing into the the gender that God created them to be.

I understand that this is a very sensitive subject but I  strongly believe that people need to be informed so that we can pray about these matters. I do not profess to have any right answers. I am not an expert in gender confused children, but these types of stories need to be exposed.  I would never want to come across as offensive or judgmental; I just want to do what is right before God.  We must continue to pray for our future generations.

Matthew 5:13 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

Become the Salt of the Earth 

There are many phrases in our everyday language that are derived from the Bible. People use these terms without knowledge of their origin. In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus speaks to us about being the “salt of the earth.” Salt of the earth people are down to earth, and easy to get-a-long with. These salt of the earth people are the real deal; they are not impressed with new cars, or expensive jewelry, nor do they care if you have a bigger home. Salt of the earth people celebrate your blessings and are not jealous of what you’ve gained. Salt of the earth people see with the eyes of reality; they gain wisdom in understanding the big picture of life.

If Jesus called us to be the salt of the earth, what did He mean by this? Jesus gave this message right after He taught the beatitudes. We are to be the salt of the earth because we are all called to preserve mankind. If salt loses its taste it is useless, and so are we if we lose our fire to serve. If you follow the beatitudes you come to the understanding that you matter. Just as salt preserves, we as Christians preserve what is good in this crazy world we live in.

If you want to be used by God, you must be the salt in your workplace, in your home, and wherever the Lord plants you. You will not be accepted with open arms when you give the right advice, or speak the truth to those who are unwilling to listen. God did not call us to be popular; He called us to be holy. We are to  touch the lives of others and make a difference in their walk by our living example.

Go the Extra Mile

The closer you draw to God, the better you can hear Him. The more you serve Him, the more He instructs and entrusts matters into your hands. We have to go that extra mile. This  means you must work with not only your mind but also with your heart. A perfect example of this is when you have experienced a falling out with someone who is near and dear to you. You, being the spiritual person, must understand that even if it was not your doing, you must take into account that God prepared you to respond in a loving manner. In spite of every part of you believing that you were NOT in the wrong, God tugs at your heart to apologize.  You may say, “What do I have to apologize for, I did nothing wrong!” Yes, you did! Keeping this resentment in your spirit is allowing room for the Enemy to slowly creep in and side with the fact that you are right to stay angry with the person who feels offended by your actions. Emotions are genuine; they may want to hold on to their pain, but don’t allow yourself to be dragged down into that state of mind. The gentleness of the Holy Spirit will comfort them through your prayers. The longer you wait to apologize, the more difficult it becomes to resolve. Five simple words suffice: “I am sorry, forgive me.” That’s simple, but yet we stand our ground…for what?

Matthew 5:41 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

41 Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.

Read the Writing on the Wall

Sometimes it takes “the writing on the wall” to convince others of their wrong. The writing on the wall was a hand-written message from God in the Book of Daniel to King Baltassar, which read: mene, mene, tekel, peres. The pale faced king knew something was terribly wrong when he witnessed the hand writing on the wall. He was at a loss, and no one could interpret its meaning. The king called for Daniel; being the salt of the earth type of guy, Daniel tells the king the meaning of the words.  Mene meant that his days were numbered, tekel  meant that he was found unworthy to live or to reign any longer, and peres meant that his kingdom would be divided. King Baltassar was so busy celebrating his wonderful life that he lost sight of his real existence. He failed to learn from the lesson of his father King Nebuchadnezzar and continued to worship false gods.  The king was using sacred goblets that his father had plundered from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem for his celebration. God had had enough, and he used the writing on the wall to set the king straight. The king was worshiping the god Bel in Babylon as the supreme deity. Every day his kingdom would spend twelve large measures of flour, sixty vessels of wine, and forty sheep on the god Bel. And every day the king went to adore this god Bel.

Daniel was the greatest prophet of his time; he already knew the meaning of the message. He didn’t wants any material riches the king offered because he was anointed and served the true God. When you serve the true God, He will supply all of your needs.

You must be sure to check everything out with God before moving on any  important decision, especially when it comes to your family or career. We can no longer take things for granted and expect to make the right choices without including God. God has to be the focal point in our lives if we want to attain success. There are two types of success: one gained by man and the other bestowed by God because of our faithfulness.

During this time the Romans paid soldiers with salt. The word salary means salt. Be the salt of the earth and do what is expected of you, but do it in the name of Christ!