Jezebel, Narcissism and Walking by the Spirit

It really saddens me, that nowadays it seems like every leaf that falls is quickly labeled a Jezebel or Narcissist.

A closer examination of the many relational conflicts that undoubtedly exist, might just point to the real culprit, which in my undertsanding is the fruit of the Spirit, or the lack thereof.  

I believe this is what takes place when we choose to not walk in the fruit of the spirit as we are instructed.

This is clearly defined for us in Galatians 5.

The word of God is air and watertight about this subject, and what we become prey to, when we do not adhere to this sound teaching.

It has taken me more time than I've truly desired to really understand how serious it is for myself , and believers at large to heed intently to this instruction.

I have learned the hard way, and I am not speaking as though I have arrived. I certainly have a greater understanding, wisdom and certainly enough bumps, scars, bruises and tee shirts under my belt that quickly provoke and motivate me to walk by the Spirit. Doing so, markedly reduces the number of  enemy arrows that will likely hit the bullseye, the next time he is on the prowl to take me out.

Amy and I have had many discussions surrounding the destruction that can and will occur when we flippantly disobey or not take seriously staying tucked in under the umbrella of the fruit of the Spirit.

Which one? All nine of them.

We believe that the minute that we step out from any of the nine, we almost immediately allow the demon in queue, to get a foothold and continue with their assignment to steal, kill and destroy from our lives.

You may not agree that the opposite “fruit” is evil in nature, but outside of the fruit of the spirit, everything is Antichrist.

"Oh here we go again with the ol antichrist, 666, devil behind every bush, voodoo, mojo, eight ball, they need to be delivered crap"

No, actually. Let's just keep it real simple. 

anti. To be anti is to be opposed to or against something, like an action, political party, or government. If you are anti love scenes, you might prefer an action flick. The word anti comes from the prefix anti-, which means “against” or “opposite,” and is still used in English words, such as antibodies and anti-hero.

I’ve often used the illustration of my own children disobeying me and labeling it “anti-parent. ”When we break things down, I believe that it is much easier to assimilate and digest, thus creating a greater propensity for us to understand, obey and adhere to.

When I give my children instruction, for their own good, I might add, and they deliberately choose to disobey me, they are being anti- parent,and along with their subsequent disobedience comes a wave of consequences that could have easily been avoided had they just obeyed.

I am confident that I am speaking to the choir here, and although I’m not a betting man, I’d put all my chips in, that you can now better relate to what I mean by anti-Christ as a result of you, being able to almost daily jot down an incident in your life where this occurs.

As we mature in our relationship with Christ, we become very aware of this and hopefully we quickly ask for forgiveness when we have been "anti". Jesus knows our weaknesses. Holy Spirit is gracious to convict us, affording us the opportunity to get back in right standing. By doing so, our hands and hearts remain clean before the Lord.

There is a wonderful serendipity that we are gifted with, and that is we get to ascend the hill of the Lord. In that high place our discernment is heightened and we get a much better perspective of the Kingdom at large.

In no way, am I making light of the spirit of Jezebel or Narcissism, which by the way, in case you haven’t noticed is alive and well! I want to say that I firmly believe that those two, and all other demonic manifestations in the lives of believers are the symptoms of a much greater problem.

As I coach and minister people almost daily that are being challenged by these two prominent spirits, I do my best to help them understand that before they choose to label and discard someone, to first do their best to identify which fruit of the spirit was lacking in their own lives and in the life of the person that has hurtthem.

The word clearly tells us in James 3:16  “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work” 

There are, in my opinion, very things that the enemy enjoys more than getting us to operate in envy and strife,which is clearly the opposite of the fruit of the spirit and allows room for every evil work. Are you getting the picture here?

We are instructed to do as Jesus did, and go about destroying the work of the devil, but this will not be accomplished with carnal weapons. It will always require the spirit of the Lord in us and we will be so much more effective if we walk by the spirit, resist the enemy, get wisdom, understanding and strategy to take out the real enemy, instead of giving him endless rounds of ammunition by just labeling someone a Jezebel, blocking them on social media and taking on the role of a victim instead of the Victor that God Himself established in the blueprint of our existence.

If you have struggled with or are currently dealing with someone that you have judged and labeled or allowed someone to “counsel” you into believing someone is a Jezebel, I want to encourage you to no longer feed “her “, by engaging.

Maybe it was you that was accused of being a Jezebel? Don’t wait any longer!  Pull the power plug completely and humbly re-examine what occurred. Ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you why this conflict took place.

I trust that as you do, you just may be surprised to discover the real enemy, and as a result, you will get the upper hand from God and perhaps have the opportunity to be the ambassador of reconciliation that you were created to be.

What I am sugggesting here is that even when you know, that it is a Jezebel spirit operating in the life of an individual that you are conflict with, recognize the missing fruit(s) from your life, and their life, so that through Holy Spirits aid, that area may be strengthened. 

You may not be the person to help the other party, but you are only responsible for you. You must be brutally honest with yourself and recognize where you allowed antichrist activity to work in your life so that you can close that door to the enemy.

There are many ways to overcome Jezebel. I believe that every believer must be trained and instructed by Holy Spirit on how to defeat her, based on their individual situation.

One piece of advice that I can offer is to make sure that you have clean hands and a clean heart. She despises humility, because it's too slippery. So stay wet with the oil of God and seek Him for the proper strategy.

¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin^[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:16-21