Try the Spirits

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     First  John 4:1-3 says, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.  Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”

     It ‘s sometimes interesting to notice how things you don’t like end up being in something else and you don’t even notice it.  Take for instance, anchovies.  I don’t like the little fish on my pizza and don't like them on a sandwich or any other way.  When  you look at the ingredients of one of my favorite sauces, Worcestershire sauce, you find t hat anchovies are one of the ingredients.  If you can dress it up with enough cheese, it will taste good.

     It is equally interesting how some things have crept into our society as being good but apparently few people know what they are dealing with.  I find a lot of advertisements for “yoga” these days even from the Veterans Administration  to help reduce the pain that many Veterans are suffering.  While there are many different types of yoga which originated in India, there is the popular one that is used here in Western culture.  One source says of it,’ “The term "yoga" in the Western world often denotes a modern form of Hatha yoga and a posture-based physical fitness, stress-relief and relaxation technique,  consisting largely of the asanas; this differs from traditional yoga, which focuses on meditation and release from worldly attachments. It was introduced by gurus from India after the success of Swami Vivekananda's adaptation of yoga without asanas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Vivekananda introduced the Yoga Sutras to the West, and they became prominent after the 20th-century success of hatha yoga.  If you are promoting religions of India, then yoga is for you but it is not for me.  The asanas are the different postures that are used in yoga and have their roots again in Eastern religion.  The passage for today exhorts t he believer to be aware of the spirits that are in the world today and to be about as far from them as they possibly can be.  Any spirit that is running around lose needs to be compared to the Word of God in order for its true identity to be determined.  The key is in the confession that the Lord Jesus Christ is the jSon of God.  If they can’t say that, then avoid any association with it. While Mormonism is trying to gain respectability in the world, their belief in Christ is, “Mormons see Jesus as someone who worked His way up to godhood. In fact, to Mormons, Jesus is merely one in purpose with God the Father.”  This is far from the teaching of John 1:1.  We can praise God for His Holy Word and our need to stand firm on it rather then the teachings of the world no matter how religious they sound.