Christian, Be on Your Guard — There is No Neutral

Where do you get your information?

Where do you get your information about spiritual things? Have you noticed? Who is telling you what it means to do right, or how to get closer to God, or how to deal with life?

There are a lot of voices out there. Church leaders, authors with a Christian label, all kinds of self-help and better-life and here’s-how advisors. Many of them sound great. Many of their suggestions seem to help. And many of them are not actually pointing us to Jesus or to truth, even though they claim to be.

Here’s something I recently understood, that seems like something I should have always recognized: 

Any spiritual knowledge we have and any spiritual practice we do should come from Scripture, and Scripture alone.

Any spiritual help or tool, any improvement of your self, any movement toward God, any understanding of God, any type of prayer, any definition of what’s good and what’s bad, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s true and what’s false in any moral or spiritual sense – every bit of it needs to come only from God’s Word. Everything we think we know, everything we’re taught needs to be compared to God’s Word, to see if it’s right. Even things we’re taught in church. Even things we’re taught by other Christians – leaders, authors, speakers, songs, friends, etc. Even the things I’m saying here.

God has given us His Word to teach us how to live. He says Scripture is sufficient for us: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
(2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV) This tells us that He has provided all we need to learn truth, to see where we’re wrong, to understand what’s right, and to practice righteousness in our daily lives. He has provided all we need to be complete, to be equipped for every good work. And it’s all found in Scripture. 

Here’s more: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence…” (2 Peter 1:3 ESV) All things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him. And how do we have knowledge of Him? We get some general information from nature, of course, but He’s also given us all the specific information about Him we could need through His written Word, which He has lovingly provided and preserved for us.

Why would we look anywhere else?

So then, why would we look to other sources for spiritual truth or for help? Is there a chance God left something out of His Word? Do we think He forgot to tell us about self-improvement, or self-understanding, or clearing our minds, or certain types of prayers, or other ‘tools’ that can ‘help us to become more like Christ’? Did He leave us to our own devices, to make our own maps of the road home, or ‘back to ourselves’? Does He intend for us to get spiritual help from ‘other religious traditions,’ or from ‘the universe,’ or from our own imaginings? Has He left us to flounder, ‘following Him’ in whatever way seems best to us?

NO. Of course not. Let’s look again at His own words: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence…”

If God says we may be completed and equipped by all Scripture, if He says we have everything pertaining to life and godliness through knowledge of Him (which we get through Scripture), then we can be sure we don’t need anything else. In fact, anything that doesn’t come from God? Yikes. If it doesn’t come from God, it *can’t* be good.

There is no spiritual neutral.

God is the only Source of truth, and the only Source of goodness. Why would His children look elsewhere for spiritual information or help? Any other spiritual source is, by definition, ungodly. There is no neutral spirituality; anything that is not from God Himself is necessarily pulling us away from Him. There are no neutral spiritual beings, and there are no good spiritual beings that aren’t God’s direct servants. If they’re not God’s, they’re evil. And here’s where we must beware: the evil ones are really good at looking good. Our enemy masquerades as an angel of light, and his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness, as we see in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15a ESV: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.” 

And let’s be honest with ourselves: we tend to be easily deceived. While we’re in 2 Corinthians 11, let’s look at verses 3-5: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” 

Even our own hearts are “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV). So even what comes from our own hearts cannot be trusted. We must look to God alone for goodness and truth. What a wondrous blessing, then, that He’s given us His Word!

God warns us that we can be taken captive by wrong beliefs: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” (Colossians 2:8 NIV). We must remind ourselves that these “hollow and deceptive philosophies” can come from our own hearts and minds, and they can come from others, and they can come from the enemy — and we have a responsibility to avoid being taken captive by them. In Scripture, we have the means to do that. In Scripture, God has provided for us and preserved for us everything we need to know about Himself — who He is, what He’s like, how He loves — and everything we need to know about ourselves — who we are, what we’re like, how we’re supposed to live and think and believe. We MUST check all advice for life, all spiritual understanding, all claims of truth against the written Word of our good God.

“Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard that you do not get led astray by the error of these unprincipled men and fall from your firm grasp on the truth.” (2 Peter 3:17 NET).

Friends, according to God’s Word, we must be on our guard. Anything spiritual that is not Scriptural is not from God (we can know this because *He* tells us Scripture is sufficient), and therefore it is a tool of the enemy. And we should not be mixing anything from the enemy with godly things. It’s deception to say we can. 

We have to be careful, we have to guard our hearts, we have to look to God alone. We have to take *everything* back to Scripture to see what’s true and right and godly. We have to spend time in and study God’s Word, so we can know and follow Him in truth.

Our beliefs, our understanding, our lives as Christians should be based on Scripture alone, and nothing else.