Halloween: What Are We Really Celebrating? | Part 2

The Three Camps of Believers on Halloween

Why don't you get into the three camps of believers and what that looks like?

Yeah, so I think that we definitely have I mean, I've it's clear that we have three camps when it comes to believers when it comes to Halloween. You have people who are just uninformed. And some of that's intentionally, some unintentionally.

There's some people who are just like, whatever, this is crazy, but they don't actually take the time.

Yeah. I think that's the most dangerous place to be.

That's the most dangerous place to be. That I think that's the only unacceptable place to be. Um now, if you just never thought about it, that's fine.

But if you hear this podcast or you're going down the road, whatever, like if you hear something, then we you have to say, okay, I should learn about this because this is our history.

Like everything that we do as believers, like we are making a statement with our lives, whether intentionally, unintentionally, whatever. So, like if you're going to do it, do it with your whole chest. You know what I mean?

Be able because the Bible says that, like you're supposed to be able to make a call for everything that you do, defend yourself. And so, we need to be able to defend, okay, this is why I do Halloween. So, there's people who just don't know and they just participate in whatever.

But there's people who say, ah, I'm just not going to have anything to do with this. Like, I'm just going to abstain. Like, I I think we should just like set it out this year or whatever.

But you There's different There's different like religions and all that stuff, different practices everywhere in the US even. Like, places up north are probably way different than places down here in the Bible Belt, you know?

And so, you have to be able to act wisely in the place that you're currently living because it might be like, it is so demonic and so evil and it's all about witchcraft and all these things in your certain area that you're making a bigger statement by saying I you know we shouldn't participate in this.

And so there's people who just abstain. They're like you know what? I'm just not going to do this and that's good. You know, if that's what you decide that you want to do with the Holy Spirit leads you to you've got to ask him but there's also people who redeem it.

Yeah.

Redeeming the Holiday

And I think that that is just so powerful because that's what Jesus came to do. You know, he came to redeem things and by his blood like everything is clean. You know, and we can make decisions to say you know what?

I'm redeeming this holiday and I'm going to make Jesus known in a dark place.

Yeah.

Like that's what we're called to do. You know, at times you know act wisely but you can redeem it. You can you know, put a little scripture in with the candy bag that you're passing out.

That's good. That's a good idea. Yeah.

Or anything like

Instead of handing out candy hand out tiny Jesus.

Yeah, exactly. Like you can do anything to make it about Jesus but that's you know, we're we're not called to be ignorant.

Yeah.

Doing All Things for the Glory of Christ

We're called to inform ourselves and we're called to make a good decision on what we're going to do. But if we do something, you know, scripture says do all things unto the glory of Christ. So if I'm going to celebrate Halloween I'm going to do it into the glory of Christ.

If my children are going to go trick or treat, we're going to do it into the glory of Christ. If I'm going to sit here on this podcast I'm going to do it into the glory of Christ. If I'm going to drive to Walmart I'm doing it into the glory of Christ.

And that means maybe I don't flip somebody off. Everything that we do like from the biggest decision to the smallest decision should be unto the glory of Christ.

Yeah.

Yeah. So.

That's good.

Yeah, I think that it's important to make informed decisions about how we spend our time and how we celebrate holidays.

Spiritual Atmospheres: Salem and Morocco

That's good. Yeah, talking about different places I'm just wondering like when you get up closer to like Salem places like that where witchcraft was like so legit. I wonder what Halloween looks like when you get up there.

Great.

Well, it's a dark time.

Yeah. Have you been up there before? I think it still is very

It's very mm.

Yeah.

That's just the the area in general like is just a darker it and which you know, um the northeast really isn't it's very not Christian. It's not that there are no churches. There are churches up there.

The Lord is still there, but it's very much a different it's just a completely different culture than down here in general, but with places like that where it has just a history of crazy stuff.

Yeah.

feel the darkness there. That's a real thing, you know, that's a real thing for darkness to inhabit places that have had power

Right.

in that way for such a long time. And so it's kind of like when you go to countries that are predominantly Muslim, you can feel it.

Even if you don't encounter a lot of angry Muslims or you know, like like the like Morocco is Islamic, but Morocco is Islamic the way that American was Christian back in the '60s where it's more of a social construct.

It's the further you get away from the epicenter of of Islam the like the I want to say like the lighter the Islamic effect is, I guess.

And um but it's still like when the call for prayer goes out, it sounds terrifying, you know, like if you don't know what you're listening to and it sounds very mechanical and it sounds very just it's very clear what is you know, what's happening in that moment.

Is it like kind of like our tornado sirens here? Like just like panic?

Except except it's a scary voice.

Yeah.

That's just just just doesn't stop. It just goes for the whole however many minutes it is and then it shuts off and happens five times a day, you know, and so

It's annoying.

It's

Even I knew it. We had that like from where I lived in the morning before you could hear anything, you would hear the Islamic prayer.

What time is that?

Um

I think the first one's 5 a.m.

of different ones, but

Yeah, it's yeah, five it's five times a day. I think it starts at 5 a.m. and then it just goes throughout the day. And so it'll be pitch black outside cuz the sun hasn't even risen yet.

And so like like and um in in Morocco because it's majority desert, you you put down these shutters so that dust doesn't like fly in at night and it blocks out all the light. So it's just pitch black room and you have that sound happening.

It's like it's a very and it was crazy because my husband and I were staying in a in an apartment at that time that was right next to a mosque.

Well then a couple of weeks later we had to switch and we moved over to a different Airbnb like in the middle of town and it was right near a Catholic church which was crazy.

And there was no you couldn't hear the call for prayer from anywhere and even my husband was like man this place feels different.

And I had to explain to him because you know he's a Christian but he's still learning a lot of that spiritual stuff you know and so I had to explain to him I'm like yeah it feels different because we don't have a call to a lower case G God happening right next to us.

I was like we have we have peace and there's a church that's sitting right right across the street from us and he was like I've never he's like I've never even thought about that and he said I don't think I've ever not heard the call for prayer and he's like we haven't heard it at all this whole time because you couldn't it was really far away from us and and so it was new for him.

He was just like that's what this feels like. I'm like yeah isn't it crazy how different it is. And so you know like you can feel those spiritual atmospheres like like it's a you know

I think that in scripture I could be wrong but it refers to Satan as the prince of the air. And how ironic that they literally send off this satanic demonic prayer into the air.

Very true.

You can feel it. You can feel atmospheres are a very real thing. There are atmospheres that are welcome to the whole welcoming to the Holy Spirit and there are atmospheres that aren't. Even like recently I was at a church and I felt like something was off in worship.

I was like something's not right here.

Like something not that the church was doing anything wrong but there was something in the atmosphere that was like just wrong you know and so I just started praying and the whole message was like a very very powerful message about the power of God.

Like literally all it was about was God being a consuming fire. And I was like, how ironic that that is what we're like no one was raising their hands and I'm telling you like something was off.

And anyways, there's more that I could tell you about that, but I just knew Satan doesn't like that.

He does not He does not want anybody to know that he's a consuming fire because there's a fire of God that will literally burn away that literally burns away the power of Satan in our life.

Yeah, discernment is such a such a key thing for everybody to tune into.

Yeah, we've been talking about that a lot lately.

Discernment and the Oklahoma City Story

It's Well, it's the reason why when you walk into a place, you are immediately anxious. And a lot of people go, "Oh, I just have anxiety.

I'm just you know, like I'm an anxious person." What What you don't know is that you are very possibly feeling the atmosphere of the place that you've just walked into. And if you learn how to tune into that and to really refine it, it can transform every place you walk into.

Um when I was first starting my ministry in Atlanta and we were traveling all over the country preaching gospel, leading worship all over the place, I would leave Atlanta, we'd get to these places and I would become a basket case. Like sobbing about everything.

I was mad at everybody. I would snap at people. Like just terrible. And I was really horrible to be around and I knew it. I could feel it, but I could not control it. Like it was the craziest thing. I hated it.

And so one day we were in Oklahoma City and I was there and um I was having a bad time and I snapped at somebody and my pastor pulled me to the side and he he never really did this kind of stuff, but he was like he was done with it.

And I I didn't blame him cuz I was really was bad. And he was like he just sat me down.

He goes, "What is wrong with you?" And I was like, "I don't know." And I just cried and I was like, "I just feel crazy." I WAS LIKE, "ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT IS MY is like my my book of shadows from what I did with God. I think my dad got rid of it, but maybe he didn't.

It might be home and then I keep thinking about suicide. I just want to die." And I just And And I said all these things and he goes, "Well, do you feel this way when we're in Atlanta?" And I said, "No, I don't.

I feel so much better." And he was like and I could see it click in his head and he goes, "Maybe what you're feeling is not you. Maybe you're feeling what's happening there, like where we are." And when he said it, man, can I just I can't even explain the weight that lifted off.

Like it was just like I knew in that moment that that was the Lord.

And so he said, "I want you to He's like, "I want you to pay attention to it." He's like, "Listen to what your feelings are, like like whatever you're feeling." And he said, "Because maybe the Lord is using you to feel those things." So 25 minutes later the pastor of that church comes in and she's like, "Yeah, you know, um this this exact building used to be the epicenter of witchcraft in all of Oklahoma City." And my pastor looked over at me and he was like, "Oh my god." And I was like, "Oh my gosh." I was like, "Okay, we got a thing here.

I got to figure this out." That night we did worship and as I was leading, I felt like I felt that feeling of suicide just like like holding onto me super hard.

So I got brave and it was like my first time ever doing this, but I like stopped worship for a second and I said, "I feel like there is somebody in here who is dealing with with suicide so bad that you have written a letter and you're like ready to do it possibly tonight." And four people came down, but one woman came down with the letter in her hand and she was weeping.

And she said, "I was going to kill myself if I didn't see God tonight." And so, you know, now she's doing great.

So and then we had a bunch of other and so I started to realize that I'm feeling so when I'm getting overwhelmed or I'm getting anxious, I started to realize that it's not because I have anxiety.

It's because there's something in the in the area, something in the Yeah, and and there's something in that place that I need to recognize and start calling out.

And we saw God do wild miracles after we finally like our eyes were kind of open to that because we realized that the Lord is it says he's always working, he's always speaking.

And if we will just listen, it's not that he's not in the room with us, it's that our eyes and ears are not open to what heaven is doing. He It says he never leaves or forsakes us, which means that when we walk into the room, he's walked into the room.

So if our eyes and ears are open to heaven and to what he's doing, then we will have discernment in those moments and and these things these kinds of things like Halloween is this something our family celebrates or not? When you have discernment, those decisions are instant.

You could You're like, no, that I we don't believe in this, we won't do it.

Or, you know, you're like, you know what, we're going to we're going to support people, we're going to love them, we're going to give candy to the kids, but you know, we're going to the like that and so I think that discernment is just one of the most important things that yes, there is a gift of discernment, but there's also a discernment that everybody is

comes with the Holy

Anxiety or Spiritual Attack

is with it. Yeah. And if you're aware of that and you like feed into that and not into the anxiety because that's what that's what I think happens. I think I I do think that anxiety is a real thing. I think that people do There are some people who really do suffer with that.

It can be a chemical imbalance. But I also think that there are a lot of people who suffer with anxiety because they're just not opening their eyes and ears the right way. Like if they'll just stop for a second and go, why do I feel this every time I come here?

Mhm.

So then they can start to find and and it and it changes things. And so I think that discernment is She's right. Like it's just one of the biggest pieces that if you have that part

Yeah.

Well, it's like, you know, I I said the other night at a the small group that we had like I had an encounter with somebody and I thought that I had anxiety and I was really struggling and I was really low and I was taking medication and then I started seeing a therapist and she said, "This is not anxiety.

This is a spiritual attack." and it just left.

Mhm.

Just like that.

Yeah.

It's the wildest thing.

do you think think Jesus named had the demons to name themselves? Because the second that their name comes out, then you can have authority over it.

You know, the power removes and so it will not doesn't remove, but you know, like like the second that there's a name, you're allowed you can take that name and say, "In the name of Jesus, Leviathan, you have to return to hell." "Oh, please let us let let us go into those pigs instead of going back to hell, that'd be great." You know, like like that kind of thing.

So

Talking With Someone Who Practices Witchcraft or New Age

So I have a question. So if someone is practicing Halloween or they're practicing witchcraft or new age or whatever and their argument is I'm doing this because I enjoy it or it helps me or something to that effect.

Like, how do you have a loving, educated conversation with someone?

I think that first you have to discern their spirit.

Mhm.

Um I don't think that there's any point in arguing with someone about what a Christian should do if they're not a Christian.

Mhm.

If they're not one, you know, making sure that they are born again believer and if they are then every believer should be open to learning.

Mhm.

So, I think it's about asking questions like, do you know Well, just say, "Hey, like, do you know what the Bible says about fear? Do you know what it says about darkness? Do you know what it says about death?"

Mhm.

Do you know how Halloween started? You know, that shouldn't make you mad if I ask you that.

And if it does then that's already a part where you're like, "Ooh, like, why did that make you mad?" You know, if I ask you like, "Why did your son Why do you all have a PAW Patrol birthday?" Like, that's going to make you mad.

Yeah.

Convicted.

Make you mad if I said, "Why are you having a Halloween party with skeletons and vampires?"

What Not to Say, and When to Rebuke

So, also what would you say not to say to someone in that situation?

You shouldn't do X, Y, Z because you are not their Holy Spirit.

Yeah. Just go immediately into like attack mode.

I mean, it's obviously discernment but we are supposed to call out the sinful things that we you know, like we're we are supposed to like keep each other accountable, help each other.

So, if it's somebody that's claiming to be a Christian and they're they're going off of the Reiki and the you know, the the rocks and the the crystals and all that stuff. That is that's very clearly not

Mhm.

the Lord.

Right.

so like so sometimes rebuke is something that does have to happen but I mean, you know, doing it obviously in love and in patience and not in a judgmental way

Yeah.

but just like I like it when when something like that's happening to call somebody out. If I have a relationship with them, I'm pretty bold. I'll just be like, "Are you or are you not?" But if I don't have a relationship with them then I'll ask them questions that help them think

Yeah.

about what they're doing. So, like I'll look at them and say, "Why would you Why would you use rock rocks for, you know, for healing or for power when you have the Lord

Yes.

who is the God of the rocks? He's the God of those things. So, what So, what What do you mean that that's going to give you some kind of power?

Right.

And that makes them think, you know, that makes them stop and go,

Oh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Meeting People Where They Are

Now, somebody who isn't saved, you know, obviously I I would just want to have a conversation with them. I would want to understand. Jesus never rebuked somebody until he he allowed them to cry on his shoulder.

The woman, you know, the the woman that he called a dog, that's that's an exception, but it was a That's a whole different conversation. But But he was very I mean, like even the woman who who was caught in adultery, he saved her

Mhm.

physically before he ever told her to turn from her sin and follow him.

Yeah.

You know, the woman at the well, he sat and listened to her whole story, told her her whole story, like talked to her before he said, you know, like "Turn from your sin."

Yeah.

So, like we have to remember,

Mhm.

you know, with something like that, you know, I want to know the person. I want to create safety and relationship with them before I'm just like, "Girl, that's fake and you're sinning."

Right.

Like that's that's ridiculous. You know, like I want to be able to let them know that my love is there first before I'm like, "Okay, cool. Now, please turn from these things and walk the other way cuz what you're doing is crazy."

Right.

And I've like the most salvation that I've seen with people who are unsaved has been people that I have poured my heart into and loved them as they were and not with an expectation of them to be something that they

should

Yeah.

or shouldn't be in my opinion. You know, and so I think I think with um so to answer that question, I think that if they're a Christian, I think that we should be able to look at each other and be like, "Hey, that we don't do We don't

Yeah.

do crystals. Crystals is not That's not of the Lord. That we don't do that." You know, um but if it's somebody who isn't saved, I want to understand why they've they've sought out crystals.

Right.

What has it their experience been that that that they're looking for something cuz obviously they're looking for something. That's the beautiful thing about people who believe in new age things is they're hungry for something.

You know, it's So, that's a beautiful thing about Buddhists or or anything like that because they're hungry for something.

There's something there that is saying, "I want something supernatural." And so whatever got to them first sometimes is usually what kind of pulls them in, you know, or they've tried five or different six different things and this is the only thing that didn't make them feel like they were the worst human on the planet, you know.

Or they found community and

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's the other thing.

Taco Tuesdays bringing in a lot of people, you know, so like so there's that's why cults are so that they happen so easily because that the and that's why Jesus loved people exactly as they were because he knew just like uh Gary Chapman says in the five love languages, the the greatest human need is the need to feel appreciated and seen.

And Jesus knew that about us. So he saw people. He saw people when everybody else thought they were invisible.

You know, we never knew the Centurion's um name, but he was he was a Centurion who probably was one of thousands of Centurions and the Lord saw him, knew what his heart needed, said exactly what he and he believed, went home and his son was healed.

So, you know, or his child, I don't know if it was a son or daughter, but um his child was healed. So, you know, meeting people where they are first, you know, and then when you have that door open, you can, you know, start to talk about it.

Be like, "So what do you think rocks have power?"

Christian Witches and the Pull of the Tangible

Yeah. I've seen I've seen a lot of people like in my generation that are calling themselves Christian witches. Where it is a I'm going to have my cake and eat it, too. I want a little bit of this and I also want to be able to do this. I want to be able to

Just kind of create their own thing.

own power, but then also have the Holy Spirit or God. And I think that that's kind of like you were saying, it's just At that point, I wouldn't straight up be like, "You're being dumb." But I would be like, "Why Why don't you feel"

But like rocks rocks are tangible. I can hold I can hold a crystal in my hand and feel something. You know, the herbs and the the oils and those things, those are tangible. Jesus, though he is tangible in a spiritual sense, physically he isn't.

So, when I can hold something and feel power or convince myself that I feel power or whatever, it makes it more safe. It makes it more reliable because Jesus, though we as those of us sitting in the room, we understand that we can touch the the hem of of the of his garment.

We know that he that he he meets us.

Yeah.

It's that when you're new in faith or you're just coming into spiritual things, that doesn't feel like enough. It feels like there should be more. You know, we don't worship at a statue.

It's easier to worship at a Buddha statue or at at um you know, some of the other gods a Hindu a Hindu statue

Yeah.

than it is to just trust that there's a god of the you know,

Yeah.

god of the universe that's listening. You know, so like like sometimes those things draw people in because it's tangible.

Right.

You know, so why not why can't I hold a crystal and trust the crystal's giving me healing power while I'm reaching out to the Holy Spirit?

Right.

the difference is is that those people want power for themselves.

Yeah.

But being Christian is giving power.

Yeah.

Our power over

Idolatry and Worship

I think it's an idolization thing, you know, you you want that and I think like there's a fine line between understanding with rocks, like God created rocks. God created some herbs that we see in scripture that that we can look at them and find a beauty within them.

But when you start prioritizing that over him and what he says about them, you know, that's when it becomes a really fine line.

it with people, too.

Yeah.

We we trust the word of a of a pastor or that we're really into over what the Lord is saying, you know, because it we make idols out of thing it's humans want something to worship.

Right.

something to worship. So, we make idols out of the wildest things, even people.

Even you know, I I had a friend who showed a concert uh he showed a video of people and he's like, "Look at all these people worshiping." And he you know, and it looked very passionate, very beautiful. And then he put the sound on and it was a Coldplay concert.

And he was like, "Humans are going to worship." And he said it just depends on what they're going to worship.

Yeah.

And so,

Mhm.

we were made to worship.

Yeah.

So, we we try to find something.

Right.

Explaining Halloween Boundaries to Children

Um I want to ask this question too. So, how should parents explain their families' Halloween boundaries without teaching their children to judge others? Have you had that conversation with your kids?

With my kids?

Yeah.

Yeah, we talk about it a lot, but something I've noticed in my kids is my kids are never judgmental because the the worst thing with my kids is that they feel left out that they don't get to do something things other people did get to do.

But, I've never seen my kids just gave you like, "Yeah, we don't do that." You know.

Well, what questions did they ask when they are feeling left out?

Uh they're like, "Why can't we go to this thing or whatever?" You know, even in Guatemala, you know, our entire neighborhood did this thing and they even did like the storytelling. They wore like the skull masks, you know, cuz it's the sugar skull thing.

It's like a huge thing there. You know, it's just like, "Oh, why can't we do that?" You know, but I think if we can't be comfortable now teaching our kids that others may, but you may not, then as adults they're not going to be able to make sound decisions on their own.

So, they've got to get used to that feeling of like, "It sucks to be left out sometimes, but that's what the the like that if you say that you're a Christian and that's what our family is." Like, get used to that feeling.

Yeah, we're different and called to be set apart. Yeah.

We're set apart. We're called to walk in the light while the world walks in darkness, and the world is going to keep getting darker, and we've got to keep getting brighter. We've got to get more and more set apart.

Mhm.

You know?

Believers in the Bible Lived Among Pagan Cultures

I I mean, I don't have children, so this is definitely the two of you, but um I I think about the Bible, and a lot of times we read the Bible and we only see the Bible characters within their role that they are in in the Bible.

We we just think about them as like, "Oh, well, they're Jesus and the disciples, and they walk around, and they're preaching the gospel, and they're doing the things." And I I know that for myself I've had to force myself to remember that they existed in communities that were not Christian communities.

They existed in places where the Romans were doing what the Romans want to do.

They like the Romans were Romans and they were all over the place and they were doing had debauchery and and and like so many crazy sexual things and and it was happening like in public and and it was the opposite of what the Jews did. You know, the Jews were very private.

They were very you know, covered and controlled and you know, and so they were existing while all of these things were happening.

You know, and they had children who were watching these things happen and and so it's so I feel like you know, I know that when I was when I was young like my parents they were they taught us to be very purposeful about our bodies.

You know, like we cuz my my parents had four daughters. You know, so they're like it's your body. You you say no when you don't want to. You can say yes if you want to. Like that's your you know, and they gave us control over our bodies and they said this isn't optional.

This is your body, nobody else's. And so I've always grown up with the understanding that this is my body and even as a Christian, you know, I'm like like I belong to the Lord. This is my you know, like whatever. And so it was instilled in me when I was young and I agree.

I think that if you're saying it to them, this is what it is. It's okay. It's okay that you guys aren't doing the same thing as people. It's okay that it looks like this. You're going to see crazy stuff. The Christians in in the Bible, they saw crazy stuff.

They were a part of crazy communities and areas and they lived in crazy parts of the world that had crazy traditions and things that that that there even they probably ended up being a part of sometimes because they couldn't avoid it because it was a part of their you know, their culture and and or the culture that's put upon them.

And so you know, so it's not a new thing. This isn't a new thing that kids are trying to figure out. It's just that we have gotten very comfortable with just like pretending it doesn't exist.

We've gotten very comfortable with letting social media kind of make you make your decisions. You know, and and we have to get back to you.

That is so true.

to get back to being able to look at you know, our children in the face and say, "Hey, you know why we don't do this?" Because this would never please Jesus. It would never please Jesus for you to dress as a demon.

I don't care if it's from this movie that that was really popular. Jesus he's God and and demons are the very thing that he he came to destroy and to get rid of. So, we don't do it that way. We just don't.

You know, cuz kids I think working with kids, cuz I was a children's pastor for a while, I think that people don't give kids enough credit. They are young, they are, you know, they're little, but their brains will soak it in and they will walk in it.

And they will they like that's the reason why the Lord said to be to like the innocent like a child to to love him the way that children love him because he's looking at them and he's like they love me without having to ask questions.

They love me without me having to prove myself. They know my goodness right here. And and so, but that that innocence a lot of times we confuse it as somebody who's too dumb to get it. But kids get it. You can look at them and be like Jesus would hate that.

Not to make them feel bad about it. Not to make them feel like they're wrong, but like giving them the whole thing.

Jesus doesn't love that because he created us to be this and it's supposed to look like this and then it, you know, like giving them the encouragement of we were made to worship him, not made to glorify this thing.

Right.

And I think getting them to look at not just like what we don't get to do, but what we do get to do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know.

That's a good one.

Fear in Scripture

Yeah. Um I want to go into I know we're kind of jumping around all over the place, but I want to go into this part about fear that you have. Can you kind of hit on that a little bit cuz I think that's important.

By the way, I keep opening my phone. I'm looking at my notes on my phone. I feel like I should say that because it looks like I'm on my phone all the time. I just want to say

No, I just assume when somebody's doing that that they're like thinking of scripture and like looking at scripture real quick. That's my assumption. I don't think you're being rude. You're fine.

one's like, wow, she's just like texting.

So, as a you know, I was just thinking and praying about Halloween. You know, a lot of Halloween revolves around fear. And I you know, this could be correlated or not, but I feel like we grew up in the era of scary movies. Like like that's what we did. We loved to be scared.

And so, like even now if I'm outside and it's pitch black and I got to get in my car, I'm like

So, Freddy doesn't get you.

Yeah. You know. Um but scripture like I think that's one of the things that revolve around Halloween. But it's also one of the things that scripture speaks to the most. You know, I've read the quote that says that the Bible says fear not 365 times.

So, you know that every day like not to fear. I don't know. That's probably not accurate. But I even have a tattoo on my arm that says fear not because fear is not of the Lord.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We see the dead, we see demons, we see ghosts, we see all these four things of violence and everything, but scripture gives us a very different picture of fear. You know, we think of fear um as bad.

In 2nd Corinth- or 2nd Timothy 1:7 says, "For God gave us not a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control." This is actually something that I teach my son who suddenly like will get scared at night when he's by himself or whatever and I make him literally like recite that scripture over himself.

For God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of love and power and self-control. And he knows it by heart now. Um but it's so important because God did not give us this spirit of fear. So, if we feel fear, that's not a a spirit that we should be feeling.

That that spirit is not of the Lord. So, if you encounter a spirit of fear, then there's only two places that spirit can come from. Either from God or either from Satan himself.

And um of course it's a natural human emotion, but when we are overcome by fear, that's not of the Lord. And he also of course teaches us ways to get out of there.

For John 14:27 says, "Let not your hearts be troubled neither let them be afraid." And scripture calls us repeatedly though to fear something. And the only thing that scripture ever commands us to fear is fear of the Lord.

And Psalm 111 um verse 10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." And so when we are walking in true fear of the Lord and fear is not like, "Oh, I'm so scared if I mess up, he's going to strike me with a lightning bolt." It's that he is all powerful.

He is a consuming fire. He is almighty. He is all knowing. He is all present in as much as he wants to help me and he walks with me and he loves me. He's also I mean, look at all of the Old Testament. We don't have one God in the Old Testament and one God in the New Testament.

We have the same God who is unchanging. So, he does hate sin. He does hate divination. He does hate fortune telling. He does hate paganism. He hates any other God he's a jealous God and he commands himself to be glorified.

Like so we should have a fear but it should just be a fear of the Lord of like I want to follow him because he is if he was in this room like he couldn't even we can't we can't even see his face. If we did, we would literally die. Like it just like that. Oh my gosh, you know?

So, I think that it's important to know like we're not supposed to have a fear of man but like our fear should be a fear of the Lord. And I think it's important to know too though that evil does exist.

Evil Is Real

I think that we want to walk around a lot of times just like pretending that there aren't demonic forces. You know, I'm reading a book and it was talking about like how there are all these encounters.

Like there's so many encounters in the scripture of Jesus casting out demons that were just manifesting themselves and today we just walk around like when's the last time you saw a demon? You know what I mean or even thought that a demon could be in somebody.

I actually think that a lot these days.

We we we jump to the logical a lot of times when a lot of what we should do first is jump to the spiritual and then see if it's logical. If it's not spiritual then it could be a physical problem, you know?

Um and I think that's a really fine line that we should focus more on is a a lot more things are spiritual than we give them credit to be.

Feel-Good Christianity and Spiritual Depth

Well, it's um I just keep thinking feel good Christianity is what it is. Like people want to come in, they want to get their cup filled, they want to feel good, they want to feel like they checked all the boxes, and they want to leave, and then turn around and do it again.

They don't want to get into the nitty-gritty, or open the door and see what's really behind it, and what's really happening.

No, there's no depth, you know, in scripture. There's a time where it's talking about like you like I think it's um Paul coming back. I think it's Paul.

But he's coming back to these people, and he said, "I you should be on the spiritual meat now." But he said, "I you should be teaching, but now I'm having to teach you again.

Like you're not growing in the faith." Yes, it's in Hebrews, so we don't really know who wrote that really. But um he's like, "Listen, like you should already know this. You should already know this, but you don't." And I think that's where we get satisfied just on the milk.

We're like, "I'm going to heaven. I'm going to get my kids to their side, a novel story." You know, whatever, but we don't ever dig into the meat, and that's so so so sad.

And we're cutting the body of Christ short, we're cutting the Lord short, because he has so much for us to do, but we have to be deeply rooted in our faith.

And until we become deeply inner rooted in our faith, we're not going to have the spiritual eyes to see we're not going to have that discernment that you've been talking about.

We're not going to have any of that until we're eating the spiritual meat, until every single month you can say, "Man, I'm different than I was last month."

That's how cults start. You know, people just come in, and they consume, and they don't question it, and then they're in a mess.

But we're saying we have reduced our relationship with Jesus to here, just read this 5-minute devotional, or you just open up your eyes in the morning, and let me just scroll on my phone, and get on my Bible app, and read the verse of the day, or read a chapter of the Bible.

That's not studying the Bible. You're not going to remember what you read, because you're still half-asleep and like wiping the crust out of your

eyes. And it's not about being legalistic, but Jesus deserves more. He is the worthy of more than the first 5 minutes when we open our eyes.

Yeah.

And I get it. Like we can be moms, we can be workers. Like we have things to do and every day is not going to look perfect, but we could should be seeking opportunities throughout our day to bring it back to Jesus.

Because the world like if we live all of our time in the world and we're only giving him 5 minutes of our day, what are we going to look more like? The world are we going to look more like?

Absolutely.

Salvation Is Relationship

Well, and it's you know, salvation is not a prayer. Salvation is relationship. And you can't you're not having you're not going to have relationship. If you're married and you only talk to your husband for 5 minutes in the day, you won't stay married for long.

You know, or you do stay married for long you're living with a stranger. It's it's not it if our only goal is to get you know, something out of it that has nothing to do with knowing him, just just getting something. We'll just we'll miss all of it. We'll miss everything.

You know, the opportunities to fall in love with him, with his ways. And that fear becomes a comfort. That fear of the Lord becomes a comfort. The closer you get to him. I think about Job and how Job, you know, experienced horrible things. It was terrible time in his life.

And then the Lord, you know, gave it back to him, you know, whatever it was, fivefold or tenfold. And then even after all of that, he goes to God and he's like you know, why would you do this to me? And he then spent four chapters with his face on the ground.

And it said that he kept standing up and then he fell down like he was dead because God was showing him his majesty. And because that because regardless of, you know, that's we have we have cheapened the idea of God.

We have made him so much like us that it's almost boring to think of him sometimes. Like but he's not like us at all. He's nothing nothing like us. And but we wouldn't know that unless we spent time with him.

um 3, you know, it talks about the Laodicean church, which a lot of theologians believe kind of represents spiritually the the American church.

And it says, you know, you you got all this stuff, you know, you think you're you know, you're rich, that you're all these things, but you're poor, you're naked, and you're blind. You don't even know it. You just have no idea that you're in that position.

And then it says later on in uh Revelation 3, I think it's verse 20, it says that he stands at the door and knocks, and he said, "And anybody who opens and answers, I will come in and eat with them." But the thing is is that you won't open the door if you don't know his voice.

And you don't know his voice if you haven't fallen in love with him. And you haven't if you're not falling in love with him, then are you even with him?

And that comes back to that Matthew 7:21-23, where it says that they go before him, and he says, "Depart from me, I never knew you." And they're like, "But wait a second, I cast out demons in your name, healed the sick, prophesied in your name, did all of it for you." And he said, "Depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity." And um that that's just super important to understand that like like when we fall in love with him and we start to do those things like reading our Bible, you know, studying things, spending time like this where we're sitting and just talking about Jesus.

Craving What Is Righteous

We start to do those things automatically because we're in love, not because it's our soul starts to crave those things. Um if uh you know, I'm losing weight, it's a great thing. Uh I had to rid myself of the things that I craved and start craving new things.

And the only way I can do that is by stopping eating the things that I was eating before and started eating the things that my body needed. And now my body, when I eat sugar, I feel like I'm going to vomit cuz I've just I've gotten it rid of it out of it.

It's it's not something my heart craves anymore. You know, I'm still working on ice cream, but I use a sugar-free ice cream, so it kind of works.

But anyway, so it you're when you get rid of the things that you were craving and you turn your cravings towards him, something happens, right?

Uh Matthew 5, it says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake, for they shall be filled." Right, that word blessed, makarios, happiest. Happiest are those who um who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

You know, the whole Beatitudes is such a wild thing to understand because the happiest that we can be are things that when we look at it, we we feel like would not make us happy, being poor in spirit, mourning, being meek, you know, you know, being pure in heart.

Innocence can look like like it's pathetic, not like it's a beautiful thing, you know, being persecuted for his name's sake. We look at those things, we're like, well, that all sounds terrible. And he's like, these are actually the keys to happiness.

You will feel the happiest, blessed, makarios. Happiest are those who experience all of this stuff because there's a part of us that are fulfilled that's different. And that only comes when you begin to fall in love with him. And so you crave the the Bible. You crave the prayer.

You crave the talking about Jesus. Like you crave it. And but the craving's only only change if you get rid of the others.

Yeah, you can be so satisfied with the things of the world that you won't crave the things of God because you're already so satisfied with things that aren't of God. So we have to make room for those cravings. And they're not going to come.

Do Not Let Our Choices Divide Us

Yeah. That's good. So, let's get into the main purpose of this whole conversation. Do not let our choices divide us. You want to talk a little more about that?

Yeah, and that's just exactly what happens in Romans 14. You know, you have the the people that were Jews, you have the people that were Gentiles who worship the pagan gods, you know.

And so everybody comes in with a bunch of these different cultures and now they're Christians, but they're true Christians because they are evaluating, should I do this, should I not do this?

So their hearts are in the right place, but as they're doing that, they start to cause quarrels among themselves because some people like, oh, we should eat these things. And some people are like, oh, we should celebrate these days. And people like, no, we shouldn't do that.

No, we shouldn't do that. And Paul first says, he's just like, hold up. He was like, why are there divisions among you? Like, why are you allowing this to divide you? He said, whatever a man is convinced in his heart, then do it.

So like, whatever the Holy Spirit tells you to do, then do it with your whole chest. But the Holy Spirit told you to do that, not someone else.

Yes.

And so, we have to learn to respect the Holy Spirit to do his job and to make sure we're not trying to do the Holy Spirit's job because that's part of the discernment cuz God can speak something to me about Melissa and I can either tell her, but he might speak something about me to pray for her and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work inside of that person.

But then it's also your job, which I've failed at this before, is to not gossip about like, "Oh, Melissa really shouldn't be doing this to somebody else." Like, no, your job is to be an intercessory warrior for that person and allow the Holy Spirit to do that work.

So, it's not taking our eyes like, "Oh, I'm not celebrating Halloween, so if you do, then you're a bad person and we're going to talk about you at my All Saints' Day celebration." You know? It's not about that. It's about saying, "I'm doing this.

I'm convinced in my heart that this is what the Lord wants me to do, but you know what? I love the body of Christ and I don't care what everybody else does cuz I'm so focused on following Jesus in my own life. I ain't got time. I've got enough stuff in my life to worry about.

I don't have time to worry about what the Holy Spirit is telling someone else to do." Unless, you know, he convicts me or it's blatant sin. You know, we talked about fear, things that are a fear. If anything that's not fear of the Lord is not of God, you know?

Anything that's we're over glorifying death or over glorifying darkness. Like, that's not for us.

There's things the scripture says explicitly we're not supposed to do, but there are things that the Bible there's gray areas and that's that's perfect though because that's what the Lord wants. He wants us to have freedom.

He wants us to be creative because he might tell me to put a scripture in Halloween candy cuz I live in this huge subdivision and hand it out to kids or, you know, and that scripture might speak to a parent, you know?

But you might live in a different community and he has a different plan for you.

We can go be so fixed on what God's calling Jay to do, what God's calling Courtney to do, what's calling Melissa to do that we can miss out on what God wants us to do, what the Holy Spirit wants us to do.

So, I think if we spent less time pointing fingers and worrying about what God needs to do in everybody else's life and what everyone else is doing wrong and we focused on our lives, our lives would probably look a lot more like Christ.

First Thought, Second Thought

And again, I know we say this all the time, but that's where taking your thoughts captive comes into play, because I even feel myself the minute somebody's like, "Well, we don't celebrate Christmas or whatever." And it's just kind of Oh, well, you know, who do they think they are?

I mean, that's kind of like your instant humanly response, and it's just grabbing a hold of that and being like, "No, like, it shouldn't matter to me. Like, they're doing what they feel like they're supposed to be doing." But I heard somebody

fleshly one time that your first thought is what you're programmed to think, your second thought is what you really think.

Mhm.

So, when you So, as Christians, when we catch those thoughts, that's that's okay.

Wait, I want you to say that again. Say that again. Listen to this.

So, your first thought is what you're programmed to think, your second thought is what you really think.

That's good.

So, those reactive thoughts, that's they're reactive thoughts, you know, like people react, it is what it is. But when you're able to stop yourself and go, "Hey, whatever. The dress she's wearing is fine.

Shut up." You know, like, that's because you've because there's something that's been corrected in your head. Listen, our spirit man is big and bold and always moving forward, and our flesh is we're running on like a like a type one processor.

We just have nothing going on up here sometimes. And so, so it doesn't catch up as fast as our spirit man does. You know, that's why it's important for the spirit man to lead, and then the the mind and the flesh follow that, not the other way around.

Yes.

So, always like like to keep yourself also to not feel so guilty about having those thoughts. If your thought is followed up with, "Nope, nope, nope, nope. Nope, that's dumb.

I actually this is what it is." Remember, that's what you really think, because because you're because we're just we're going to say stuff. You You were raised a certain way.

There's There's things that I think about things that I'm like, "I don't think that way at all." But it will be the first thing I think, and I'm like, "Dumb." And but that's just, you know, brain there really dumb.

And especially for women, we do we we just have these immediate thoughts, and then we're like,

Like, what was that?

So, just remember, like, your your first thought is always what you're programmed to think, but when you when you catch that up and you go, "Nah, I I think this." That's where you're That's really what you think about it.

Yeah.

And so and so when you meet somebody and they have different thoughts, you know, they they have opinions about Halloween or you know, I'm sure somebody is going to say something to me about the fact that I've gone to Halloween Horror Nights, you know, that's okay.

Um you know, my first thought is going to be why are you judging? And so my second thought will be, you know what? Who knows what they've been through

Yeah.

that they've experienced that that that them that much, you know, like how if they feel that strongly about it, obviously something terrible happened. Obviously there's, you know, trauma or whatever the different things are. And so

Or maybe they deal with the spirit of anxiety and fear and that's not good for them because it's a trigger.

Right. Yeah. So there's all kinds of there's all kinds of things. And so it's always, you know, first thought is second thought is what?

Trusting the Holy Spirit in Other People

I think we get in dangerous territory, too, when we try to negate what someone's told the Holy Spirit. They think the Holy Spirit's told them something and we're like, uh you probably are wrong, you know, I never want to be caught I never want to be held accountable.

I don't want to stand before God one day and him have to tell me like, Lindsay, you criticized what I said to somebody because you thought you were right. You were trying to put yourself as the God of their life.

Like you were exalting your opinion and your knowledge above my wisdom and my spirit. That's a dangerous place to be. So I think we just leave something up to others and the Holy Spirit and other people cuz I trust you have the Holy Spirit. I trust you have the Holy Spirit.

And when someone has the Holy Spirit, then we don't have to fight.

Just like my husband, like I can want him to wake up and read his Bible every day and I can nag him about it and then maybe he'll do it if I just trust the Holy Spirit and pray for him, then you're going to naturally see things like that happen.

We have the We really just cut the Holy Spirit short sometimes and what he can do in people's lives. We think that our mouths can do more than his spirit can do.

And control issues again.

Yeah.

Remembering the Miracle of Salvation

And we're not aware of the miracle that we are.

Like cuz if you cuz if we were really aware of what we are, what he saved us from, what how he changed us, how he like if we really took a personal look, we would look at everybody else and be like, "Bro, I know the Lord can because I was disgusting.

I was a horrible, wretched person, and now I'm this beautiful, whatever he wants to call me thing." And so, like, if we really understood that about ourselves, it would be way easier to not judge people so harshly.

And I think that that lack of self-awareness when it comes to the things of the Holy Spirit, because it happened to us, it happened slowly.

So, you guys see me as this, like, you know, like, holy well, I don't know if you do, but you know, like, like, this woman that has a lot to say and it and and has understanding the Bible.

If you knew me before I knew the Lord, you would have never thought I'd ever be anything like this, and you'd be like, "Ooh, she's probably just going to die of a heart attack when she's 30 cuz she's huge and she's insecure and she's a liar and she's all these things." And then, the but the the the beautiful walk that the Lord's put me through has been has transformed me.

Like, when I tell people what I was like, they just look at me, they're like, "No." And I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Like, hardcore." And but it's the same for all of us. I'm aware of that because I was saved for much.

If you grew up in church, sometimes you don't even realize how much you were saved from. Sometimes, your awareness doesn't even wake up until you're 30, and you're like, "I've been doing this wrong.

I need I need Jesus way more and way different than I've had him." And that but that's a big That's a miracle, you know? We forget that salvation, just in general, is a freaking miracle. I don't know if I can say freaking, sorry. But,

it's like salvation's a miracle. It's a Well, it is a miracle that your nature chooses to no longer be its nature and chooses a super nature that has nothing to do with you and is the opposite of everything that you are. That is a miracle when a person chooses that.

And we we have belittled it. We've made it Raise your hand if you want it. Okay, awesome. We love you guys. Praying for you.

We nobody like like I I purposefully go and find people who have raised their hand, and I let them know, like, I saw you raise your hand, and I just wanted you to know, if you need somebody to talk to, this is a big deal what you just did.

Like, you just decided your eternity right now has transformed. And we make it so small. So, I feel like if we had self-awareness, it would be harder for us to judge other people because we would look at it and be like, "I've been forgiven much.

Surely, the Lord can turn that drug addict around. Are you kidding me? Like, come on.

And two is I find like the the more in tuned you are with the Lord, the more you start to see people for who they are now instead of where they came from.

Like, the beauty of it really starts to come to light because it was not that way for me in the past and it has changed so much and we all need to get to that place where we see who people have become and not who they were.

Locking Eyes on What God Called You to Do

Um something that came to mind though is something that the Lord has truly like been speaking to my heart is that the closer you get to Jesus, the less you can take with you.

And so I feel like there's so many times we can just when we want more of Jesus, there's literally less that we can have with us and it can be such good things, you know, we talked about the civilian pursuits, you know, and um 2 Timothy 2, he's talking about like he was like, you have to pay attention like you're a soldier, you are enlisted for a role and civilian pursuits are good things.

They're such good things. There's so many good things in our life that we can be busy doing and I'm telling you when God calls you to do something or not do something, every opposite opportunity is going to come your way. Everything's going to come your way.

So when the Holy Spirit speaks something to us, it's so important to just lock our eyes on Jesus and say, I know what you enlisted me for and I'm going to do what you're calling me to do in this moment instead of what someone else thinks I should do, you know, what I think people are going to think about me.

It's just so important to lock our eyes with him and really do what he's calling us to do.

Whether it's celebrating Halloween, whether it's trick-or-treating or going to that fall festival or letting our kid dress up as this character or that character or be friends with these people, whatever it is, like be convinced in your own heart, be locking eyes with the Lord and convinced like this is what he's calling us to do because we are called to glorify him in everything that we do.

Mhm.

So, I think that's the important thing when you're making decisions is to submit it to the Lord, seek wise counsel, read your scriptures, and discern for yourself. Don't just hop on chat GBT and ask what we should do.

Like, we need to truly like invite the spirit into it and allow the Lord to guide us in everything that we do without causing division among other people.

Yeah. That's good.

Mhm.

Closing Thoughts for Halloween

All right, guys. Uh hope you have a happy Halloween cuz this episode will be airing close to Halloween. And just make sure before you go trick or treating with your kids, do your research, make sure you know what you're doing.

You don't have to go trick or treating, you can spend time with family, you can have dinner with family, you can have a bonfire, whatever. All that's safe, but just make sure you are aware of what you're celebrating and why you are celebrating it. So, we will see you next time.

Bye, guys.

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