Another reason is because these well meaning programs only center on our surface problems, symptoms, and do not get to the heart of our problems which are causing the surface symptoms. Going through a religious program is like going out in a forest and finding yourself a skunk to make for a pet. You take the skunk home, you clean him, comb him and perfume him and give him the name Old- Spice. Now on the surface he looks better and smells better and because of your love and support, he momentarily behaves right; but if you were to corner and frighten him, his true nature would quickly come to the surface and you would realize very quickly, as you were breaking a new world’s record in the hundred yard dash in the opposite direction of the skunk, that all your, so to speak, religious efforts to make him a better looking and smelling Old- Spice did not change his true nature which was still a skunk.

Only Jesus knows the true nature and heart of our problems, the symptoms, we see on the surface and so only as we look to Jesus to change us in His strength and his power can we expect to have any real change take place in our lives with lasting results. Jesus did not command us to overcome in the flesh, but "Finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might" (Eph 6:10). Even in the Old Testament they were not commanded to overcome in their own strength. God commanded over and over "Seek Yehovah and His strength, seek His face continually" (1 Chronicles 16:11, Psalm 105:4).

Religious programs do not focus on the heart of our problems, they focus on the symptoms, the surface problems caused by a deeper problem hidden in the heart which only Jesus can see.

Only Jesus knows what is truly in man’s heart.

I have a Christian friend who used to have a physical problem that is not very pleasant. He used to have regular seizures. For a while, whenever he would have these seizures, Satan would condemn him and tell him he was having these seizures because he was not being spiritual enough or because he was too happy in Jesus. As a result, always after a seizure, he would become over serious about life and proceed to force himself into a religious program of his own design. Because he could not live up to his self-imposed standards he would become critical of others and condemn them for their weaknesses for the purpose of unconscious self-justification. In other words, seeing how bad they supposedly were helped improve his already bad self- image and made him think that he was, quote unquote, more spiritual than they. I myself was the brunt of much of this attack and so it concerned me.

After much time in prayer seeking Jesus about this brother’s problem with seizures, the Lord did not show me what the root of the problem of his seizures were, but He did give me some insight as to how to counsel the brother about what was happening to him whenever he would have these seizures. I wrote to him in a letter and said the following,

"What is happening when you have seizures? Satan is at those moments taking advantage of your weakness in the area of the shield of faith. What I mean by the shield of faith is your ability to fight off the fiery darts of the enemy (Eph 6:16). The fiery darts are the condemning accusations that Satan throws at you to make you think you are having seizures because you’re not spiritual enough. When you accept these accusations this then leads to self-analysis and self-introspection. The self-analysis and self-introspection then leads to a bad self-image because even if the claims that the enemy makes about yourself are true, there is nothing you can do in yourself to change it, but because Satan has you convinced that this is the reason why you’re having seizures you proceed to try any way. This leads to getting your eyes off of Jesus and your freedom in Him, the solution, and on to yourself, the one Satan is condemning, the problem. Your bad self-image then leads to an over-serious attitude about life which then leads to legalism. The legalistic attitude comes about because you cannot change yourself so that supposedly what is bringing about the seizures will stop bringing about the seizures. The inability to meet up to your self-imposed standards leads to a critical attitude; a critical attitude toward yourself and then a condemning critical attitude toward others to justify your false image of yourself."

As it turned out, several months later he had a stronger attack than ever which led to brain scans and psychological investigation. It was concluded by the physicians that there was no physical reason for his seizures, but that rather they were brought on psychologically because of over-anxiety. Instead of these attacks being seizures they were anxiety-attacks brought on by an over demanding life-style and was as quickly cured by changing his life-style to fit within the bounds of his humanity. The Psalmist wrote, "It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for he gives to His beloved even in his sleep."

As well meaning as religious programs are they do not bring about inward change and a lasting solution. This is because they stem from the soul and there is no ability of the soul to give spiritual life to bring about Change. Only the Holy Spirit has creative make alive power to bring about change in our lives. Religious programs actually do more to keep us from the solution. They do this by keeping our eyes off of Jesus, the only one who knows the heart of our problems and their solution.

Self-imposed religious programs only lead to frustration, confusion, self-righteousness righteousness, intolerance of other’s weaknesses, and lack of love because others do not meet up to the man made standards of the program.

As we discussed earlier in this Section, Jesus freed us from the enmity which was the law of commandments contained in ordinances in order that our peace and righteousness might be found only in Him. He also freed us from the Law so that our focus would only be on Him to bring about the change in our lives necessary to be what He created us to be and to be like Him. The basic problem of the Christian, though, is, "How do I know when I am being led of Jesus and being Jesus-dependent through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in what I am doing and when what I am doing is out of religious self-strife.?" That is what walking in the Spirit is all about, learning to be Jesus-dependent and discern what is truly Jesus’ voice in our lives.

In the first section of this school of Evangelism, "Relationship with Jesus the Key to Effective Ministry," we learned how to approach Jesus with our concerns and how worship and praise frees us of ourselves and self-strife and focus, so we can get our eyes on Jesus, the only one who has the answer to the things that are concerning us. What we want to deal with now are different concepts of Scripture which help us determine that what we are receiving from Jesus through worship and praise and in Spirit and truth is truly Jesus-dependence and Jesus’ voice to us.

The Bible gives us several different guidelines and principles to help us determine what is truly Jesus-dependence and His voice to us. Looking at just one of these principles would not be adequate enough to know for certain what Jesus was truly saying to us, and is indeed the cause of much imbalance within the church, focus on a formula or concept instead of balance through the whole council of God given in Scripture. For example: When one comes to an intersection that has a green light, one does not just shoot through because the light is green. Someone coming through the intersection from his right or left may not be as observant of the light ahead and come rushing through the intersection the same time you do. For this reason the concept of going or stopping solely based on whether the light ahead is green or red would not be adequate to determine whether you could pass through the intersection safely without an accident. In order to be sure, you would need to bring in other concepts such as turning and looking to the right and then turning and looking to the left to make sure that your passage through the green light can be made safely. The Apostle Peter tells us,

"Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you." (2 Pet 1:10-11).

Scripture provides many checks and balances to help us determine that our decisions are truly motivated out of our relationship with Jesus through our spirits rather than through our souls. All should be taken into consideration before we decide it is safe to go through what seems to be a green light of go. Peter tells us that if we do this we can be assured of Jesus’ abundant provision in whatever He truly leads us to do.

We are going to cover at least seven different concepts of what it means to walk in the Spirit that will help you to determine what is truly Jesus-dependence and what is truly Jesus’ voice to you. These are as follows: Jesus-dependence as related to the Word and fellowship, Jesus-depend-ence through love motivation according to Galatians, Jesus-dependence as related to Romans 1, Jesus dependence as related to Romans 7 and 8, Jesus-dependence as related to fear, and Jesus-dependence as related to our prayer language. In the next chapter we will start by talking about how this relates to spending daily time in the Word of God.