You’ve got a problem when you swear you don’t have a religious spirit, but everyone around you can see it clear as day..
You think you’re walking in truth, but your heart’s been hardened by pride. You think you’re standing on holiness, but your mouth drips with judgment. You quote Scripture like a sword, but you forgot that love was supposed to be the point of it all.
The scariest part is that you don’t even see it. That’s the thing about deception, it’s convincing. It’ll have you shouting “amen” while your spirit is rotting inside. It’ll have you throwing stones in the name of righteousness when Jesus already told you to drop them. It’ll make you feel good about yourself because you’re not “like them.” But you’re exactly the kind He called out.
Let me say this real plain: If your version of faith has made you arrogant instead of broken, you need to repent.
If your “discernment” has turned into gossip, if your “holiness” has made you hateful, if you can list the sins of others faster than you can remember the ones God delivered you from, you might not be as close to Him as you think.
And if you feel secure in your salvation to the point where you stop examining your heart, stop humbling yourself, stop repenting; friend, you’re in dangerous territory.
Paul said to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Not confidence and arrogance.
Jesus didn’t die so you could build a pedestal for yourself and throw rocks from it. He died so you could be wrecked by His grace, humbled by His love, and walk with others in mercy and truth, not religion and rules.
Stop measuring your faith by how much Scripture you post or how loud you worship. Start checking how you treat people. How you respond to correction. How much you really look like Jesus when nobody’s watching.
Because the religious spirit knows how to put on a show. It knows how to hide behind a verse. It knows how to disguise bitterness as “righteous anger.” But God sees straight through all of it.
And if you’re reading this and it stings a little, good. Maybe that sting is the start of something real. Conviction isn’t hate, it’s love in its rawest form. I say it because I care enough not to stay silent.
