Hebrews 13:7
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.
I rarely watch TV, but when I do, I might catch a movie or check out something on the Crime I.D. Channel. Now that's my channel! I'll binge watch a detective show with no qualms! So this channel currently has a docu-series called Cults that explores the different types of cults America birthed throughout the years. Of course there were episodes which touched on Jim Jones and the People's Temple, Yahweh Ben Yahweh and the Nation of Yahweh, and Dwight York and The Nawaubian Nation of Moors.
The stories were absolutely appalling! I felt so terrible for all of the people who followed these leaders in hopes of being a part of something greater than themselves only to experience nothing but nightmares on top of nightmares. The ones who were fortunate enough to leave before these cults collasped, I could tell were emotionally and spiritually damaged. They would have to rebuild their lives from scratch after having been brainwashed to death and violated. Some of them even tragically lost loved ones.
I sat in my living room in the dark after watching the last episode of the season literally stutter shook and tongue tied. Because I myself had to fight my way out of a cult-ish type of ministry. Though this ministry did not reach such a massive influence as those aforementioned, mainly due to a cancerous component that impeded its growth, it would in just a short span of 2 years inflict so much emotional and spiritual pain on me that every time I'm reminded, I have to purposely go into worship to keep from rehearsing the trauma. I, like the others, would also be forced to rebuild my life. I'm actually just now getting my life back on track.
Using my own personal experience along with the stories involving these historic cults, I was able to calculate the greatest common denominator to trigger the demise of these establishments. These leaders had the power and potential to sculpt a nation for the good and lead people to the God of all nations contributing to their rise. Yet all of them failed miserably.
I surmised first, that any leader who deviates from the true pure concept of God's portrait of love will be carried away by somewhat of a God complex. Matter of fact, it's the same complex that endorsed Lucifer's uprising in Heaven and ultimately is what led to his eviction.
Needless to say, the God complex is the aegis for perversion of every kind, witchcraft, and the egregious abuse of the word of God and biblical authority.
I also noticed that the people who fell prey to these leaders were people who were at their wits end, lacked a complete awareness of their identities, and desperately in search of legitimacy. I can attest to this myself without shame.
But it's just like the enemy to slither his way into the alleys and gangways of aimless hearts making them susceptible to these types of religious travesties and parodies of community, until they're zombies in a faith formed by the doctrine of demons! And it's just like the enemy to use the fearlessness of men and women of God finding the smallest strand of their human in order to unravel their innocent attempts to their pursuit of righteousness, molding them into evil, loveless, fear-mongering, machines!
How must we as believers keep ourselves away from falling for the madness of diluted religiosity and becoming victims? How must we as leaders steer clear of becoming the next generation's David Koresh and all the other hosts of these catacombs and blasphemous infamies in the supposed name of God?
Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
I must include that in my findings of what made these horrific leaders share a commonality, was their absence of the fear of God. Fear meaning reverence. Reverence meaning high regard. A sincere fear of the Lord separates a good leader from a bad leader. A sincere fear of God minimizes the chances of a good leader becoming corrupt.
Has anybody ever seen the movie the Book of Eli? I saw this movie probably a year ago for the first time and it has become a fav! If you're not one for a lot of fighting and violence, it may not be the movie for you though. Anyway, there was a part in the movie (without spilling all the tea) where the antagonist mentioned something about what this certain book was capable of and how much power he could have because of it. Here you have it throughout the movie two individuals, Denzel Washington the protagonist, fighting against this man with ill-gotten motives, to protect this book.
Ah! A perfect illustration of the separate natures of a good and bad leader. Good leaders will passionately fight to maintain their fear of the Lord and to uphold His word without any extra added preservatives. They will not use the word of God as an oppressive weapon on the people. They will pursue all opportunities to ensure that their Christ-likeness is updated regularly to maneuver around the changing seasons. And they will shun all appearances of evil. This does not mean they will not have human moments. Leading me to the final common trend I found; Accountability.
In the Bible you will see how David was held accountable by Prophet Nathan. On the flip side, I don't recall hearing any of the wicked leaders including Jezebel having any accountability. She had a whole husband, Ahab who was useless so he could never fit the bill. Saul, he had no accountability whatsoever after Prophet Samuel died. In waking day, the monsters of these religious cults had no accountability either.
Beside every GOOD leader will be great accountability made up of other men and women. Accountability creates a force field around a leader and blocks the devices of the enemy from penetrating. Because all the enemy really needs is a small opening. If accountability is weak or there is none...
From an individual believer's perspective, some of the same rules apply. Every believer should have a clear concept of God's love. We should be able to readily identify what is God's love and what isn't God's love. This is ONLY possible when you've spent time in the word of God to rightly divide the word of truth. Moreover, Jesus is the blueprint of God's love. We should be able to take Jesus as our blueprint using it like a metal detector in our encounters.
#Sidebar- We are not looking for perfection we are looking for love. In as much so, we will be able to put a true definition behind the fear of the Lord so we can without hesitation avoid any of it's false representations and duck all chances of these false reps potentially being projected onto us.
The only difference in the rules between one who is platformed to a leadership position and one who chooses to follow the leader, is identity. The follower must have some sense of who they are on their own. This can only be found in the One in which we were created in the image of. Where a leader can assist in directing you to purpose, God operates the headquarters of your identity. Seek Him and He will be found as well as a beautiful revelation of who you are.
When I walked into that church a few years ago, I did not know who I was, I had a toddlers grip on what God's love looked like, and I barely understood what the fear of the Lord was. I was fresh bait! By the time I found out any of this, I believe I'd already spiritually flatlined twice. Thank God for His resurrecting power! I shouldn't have made it. #Grateful
In closing, the ultimate One we all should be following is GOD and as we aspire to be more like Jesus on a daily basis we are empowered to lead others to God with pure hearts while recognizing and submitting to good leaders in order to follow them in humility. This is what our Heavenly Father desires. It's these kind of people He's searching for.
I rarely watch TV, but when I do, I might catch a movie or check out something on the Crime I.D. Channel. Now that's my channel! I'll binge watch a detective show with no qualms! So this channel currently has a docu-series called Cults that explores the different types of cults America birthed throughout the years. Of course there were episodes which touched on Jim Jones and the People's Temple, Yahweh Ben Yahweh and the Nation of Yahweh, and Dwight York and The Nawaubian Nation of Moors.
The stories were absolutely appalling! I felt so terrible for all of the people who followed these leaders in hopes of being a part of something greater than themselves only to experience nothing but nightmares on top of nightmares. The ones who were fortunate enough to leave before these cults collasped, I could tell were emotionally and spiritually damaged. They would have to rebuild their lives from scratch after having been brainwashed to death and violated. Some of them even tragically lost loved ones.
I sat in my living room in the dark after watching the last episode of the season literally stutter shook and tongue tied. Because I myself had to fight my way out of a cult-ish type of ministry. Though this ministry did not reach such a massive influence as those aforementioned, mainly due to a cancerous component that impeded its growth, it would in just a short span of 2 years inflict so much emotional and spiritual pain on me that every time I'm reminded, I have to purposely go into worship to keep from rehearsing the trauma. I, like the others, would also be forced to rebuild my life. I'm actually just now getting my life back on track.
Using my own personal experience along with the stories involving these historic cults, I was able to calculate the greatest common denominator to trigger the demise of these establishments. These leaders had the power and potential to sculpt a nation for the good and lead people to the God of all nations contributing to their rise. Yet all of them failed miserably.
I surmised first, that any leader who deviates from the true pure concept of God's portrait of love will be carried away by somewhat of a God complex. Matter of fact, it's the same complex that endorsed Lucifer's uprising in Heaven and ultimately is what led to his eviction.
Needless to say, the God complex is the aegis for perversion of every kind, witchcraft, and the egregious abuse of the word of God and biblical authority.
I also noticed that the people who fell prey to these leaders were people who were at their wits end, lacked a complete awareness of their identities, and desperately in search of legitimacy. I can attest to this myself without shame.
But it's just like the enemy to slither his way into the alleys and gangways of aimless hearts making them susceptible to these types of religious travesties and parodies of community, until they're zombies in a faith formed by the doctrine of demons! And it's just like the enemy to use the fearlessness of men and women of God finding the smallest strand of their human in order to unravel their innocent attempts to their pursuit of righteousness, molding them into evil, loveless, fear-mongering, machines!
How must we as believers keep ourselves away from falling for the madness of diluted religiosity and becoming victims? How must we as leaders steer clear of becoming the next generation's David Koresh and all the other hosts of these catacombs and blasphemous infamies in the supposed name of God?
Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Has anybody ever seen the movie the Book of Eli? I saw this movie probably a year ago for the first time and it has become a fav! If you're not one for a lot of fighting and violence, it may not be the movie for you though. Anyway, there was a part in the movie (without spilling all the tea) where the antagonist mentioned something about what this certain book was capable of and how much power he could have because of it. Here you have it throughout the movie two individuals, Denzel Washington the protagonist, fighting against this man with ill-gotten motives, to protect this book.
Ah! A perfect illustration of the separate natures of a good and bad leader. Good leaders will passionately fight to maintain their fear of the Lord and to uphold His word without any extra added preservatives. They will not use the word of God as an oppressive weapon on the people. They will pursue all opportunities to ensure that their Christ-likeness is updated regularly to maneuver around the changing seasons. And they will shun all appearances of evil. This does not mean they will not have human moments. Leading me to the final common trend I found; Accountability.
In the Bible you will see how David was held accountable by Prophet Nathan. On the flip side, I don't recall hearing any of the wicked leaders including Jezebel having any accountability. She had a whole husband, Ahab who was useless so he could never fit the bill. Saul, he had no accountability whatsoever after Prophet Samuel died. In waking day, the monsters of these religious cults had no accountability either.
Beside every GOOD leader will be great accountability made up of other men and women. Accountability creates a force field around a leader and blocks the devices of the enemy from penetrating. Because all the enemy really needs is a small opening. If accountability is weak or there is none...
From an individual believer's perspective, some of the same rules apply. Every believer should have a clear concept of God's love. We should be able to readily identify what is God's love and what isn't God's love. This is ONLY possible when you've spent time in the word of God to rightly divide the word of truth. Moreover, Jesus is the blueprint of God's love. We should be able to take Jesus as our blueprint using it like a metal detector in our encounters.
#Sidebar- We are not looking for perfection we are looking for love. In as much so, we will be able to put a true definition behind the fear of the Lord so we can without hesitation avoid any of it's false representations and duck all chances of these false reps potentially being projected onto us.
The only difference in the rules between one who is platformed to a leadership position and one who chooses to follow the leader, is identity. The follower must have some sense of who they are on their own. This can only be found in the One in which we were created in the image of. Where a leader can assist in directing you to purpose, God operates the headquarters of your identity. Seek Him and He will be found as well as a beautiful revelation of who you are.
When I walked into that church a few years ago, I did not know who I was, I had a toddlers grip on what God's love looked like, and I barely understood what the fear of the Lord was. I was fresh bait! By the time I found out any of this, I believe I'd already spiritually flatlined twice. Thank God for His resurrecting power! I shouldn't have made it. #Grateful
In closing, the ultimate One we all should be following is GOD and as we aspire to be more like Jesus on a daily basis we are empowered to lead others to God with pure hearts while recognizing and submitting to good leaders in order to follow them in humility. This is what our Heavenly Father desires. It's these kind of people He's searching for.
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