Before we jump right into this list, I want to give a brief introduction to it here. Religion is man made, it's ritualistic, it's a set of rules. A relationship with Jesus is not religion, and it's not religious, it is a relationship with Jesus. Legalism, on the other hand, is striving for the love of God, or the acceptance of God through works. This could also mean striving to please God. If you are a born-again follower of Jesus, you are a son or daughter of the Most High God and nothing you could ever do could ever make Him love you any more than He already does. And nothing you could ever do could ever make Him love you any less than He already does!
I've cast out many demons that would thrive on people for their striving, their religious pride, and their self-righteousness. I call these particular kinds of demons "religious spirits." Now I'm not trying to say that if any of these things on this list apply to you, then that means you have religious demons. I'm not trying to say that at all. But I am telling you that people can need deliverance from things like this. I've seen so many people get delivered from these "religious spirits." All of them have to do with pride in some way or another.
The following list is not an exhaustive list by any means. I'm sure there are plenty more examples. I did not come up with this list, so I do not take credit for this. This list is a compilation of points made by Mark DeJesus, and Rick Joyner. I have added my own input as well. This information is just too good to not share. I've given links to both of those guys at the bottom.
Religious spirits cause a person to to be emotionally stiff and rigid
Structure is helpful but a religious spirit brings harsh rigidity even down to someone's personality.
If you get a lot of feedback that you need to loosen up, you might have strands of this. If there's not a lot of happiness and peace that comes off of you and you're so focused on the rules and regulations that you forget to simply enjoy God and those around you, that could be a big sign.
Also, when it comes to spiritual things, you don't feel like you can just relax, or you may have strong convictions about certain theological issues. But the question is, do you have a healthy perspective and approach towards others?
2. The fact that someone is really argumentative.
Religious pharisees are way more focused with being right than engaging in loving relationships.
Their emphasis is on everyone agreeing to rules and regulations than anything else,
and on top of it all, they avoid dealing with their brokenness by arguing about theology and telling others why they are wrong.
Another example of this would be if you're a terrible listener and you often shut people down before before having a chance to even hear them out. OR spending a lot of time arguing issues that are not that important to the life of other believers, or that aren't even salvation issues.
**These religious spirits will even cause ministries to not have anything to do with any other ministry or person who does not view things the same way they do, or do things the same way they do. OR they won't associate with anyone who has a slightly different theology in certain areas.
3. Making judgments based on outward appearances. Instead of getting to know people or understanding their heart, you quickly make assessments and judgments based on outward appearance and this is because perspective is based on people conforming to certain standards with little regard for the life of a person's heart.
A person like this will work hard on their image rather than emphasizing the health of their own heart.
4. Religious spirits cause someone to be fine with religious activity but without heart connection. A religious spirit thrives in a performance based environment. People keep going and doing with little time for heart connection.
Like the rat race continues, but religious pharisees are not concerned about the emotional and spiritual health of the people because the show must go on. A religious spirit fosters gatherings that don't produce much life changing, and is content with programs that don't work as long as there's activity, and people just get used to doing endless religious stuff.
So in turn you end up praying because you have to, not because you love to.
You read your bible because you're supposed to, not because you've been captured by the truth and power of God's Word.
5. Religious spirits are condemning and very judgmental, especially judgmental in the wrong ways.
A religious person's first response is often to assess people by their issues, failures, and shortcomings. They often overreact to sin in people's lives, throwing stones is fairly easy for religious people. They don't really see potential in somebody, they see somebody according to their sinful issues.
This causes people you influence to become obsessed with all their own sin issues and struggles which we shouldn't be obsessing over. We should just go about that as God brings the attention to us about a subject, not by obsessing about "how am i sinning," or "what am i doing wrong" constantly all day long.
6. Being stuck in the past.
If the only testimony that you share is something that happened 30 years ago, then something definitely needs to change. What may have been a miraculous and vibrant work of God's power has now turned to old statues you keep staring at. Religious spirits glorify the good old days of the past rather than looking for ways to manifest God's goodness today.
There may even be a reluctancy to see how God can continue to work in you and change your life even more. Some religious people think they have "arrived." We can allow God to make us more like Jesus all our lives, and we should allow Him to do this for us, to take us from Glory to Glory. But we will never "arrive" while we are living on this earth. There will always be more ways the Lord can work in our lives.
This is often the result of religious people not wanting to look at themselves or their issues.
7. Closed off to change.
We're not talking about changing core values of morality, but about taking risks and new territory to usher in fresh ways God is touching and changing lives. A religious spirit keeps people from taking risks or stepping into new territory. It keeps people wanting to remain in their comfort zone and in the familiar, and meanwhile the spirit of God is always on the move.
Religious spirits see the way that they do things is the only way to do things.
They view people who don't do things their way as being wrong or the way they do things being wrong way. They're suspicious and critical of any new thing, which we should be to an extent, to discern what's going on, but religious spirits will have you overly analyzing every little thing.
8. Religious spirits will cause a person to have a misdirected zeal that tears down others. Passion and zeal is a good thing, but it can also be used as a weapon that condemns and tears down rather than building up the the work of God in people's lives.
It seems that masses of leaders are wasting a great deal of time and energy pointing out what is wrong with everyone else, and they focus on everything they're against without giving a clear sense of what they are focusing on. Quite often leaders are criticized by pharisees because of jealousy that gets covered up with religious zeal,
and those who have religious spirits may be able to point out problems with great accuracy, but they seldom have any solutions except to tear down what has already been built.
9. Religious spirits are stubborn and prideful.
there is a quote from a book by Rick Joyner, from his book called "Overcoming The Religious Spirit." The quote says "Satan also knows that once leaven gets into the bread it is extremely difficult to remove. Pride by its very nature is the most difficult stronghold to remove or correct. The religious spirit keeps us from hearing the voice of God by encouraging us to assume that we already know God's opinion or what He's saying, or what pleases Him. This delusion is the result of believing that God is just like us. It could even cause us to rationalize our need to obey scripture, having us believe that rebukes, exhortations, and words of correction are for other people but not for us."
10. Religious spirits push perfectionistic religion on people.
When people get around a religious person's version of Christianity, they feel pressure and added heavy burden. The journey to growth is filled with perfectionistic pressure. They see everything in black and white extremes.
Religious spirits produce Christians who can develop a religious O.C.D.
Never-ending barges of condemning thoughts. They might see everything as either 100% right, or 100% wrong without seeing things in a healthy perspective.
Religious spirits will have somebody pushing perfectionism on people, almost making walking in holiness look more like self-hatred than a fruitful growth.
Religious pharisees can often flip-flop, and they beat themselves up, they never come to peace inside. They appear superior in how they deal with others though, so you know they'll portray that, but the reality is that they're not comfortable dealing with their own brokenness, their own issues, or their own troublesome areas.
People with these kinds of of spirits feel justified in how they come across even though it's damaging to people's hearts. They feel like they're just doing God's work as they're condemning others, being unloving, treating others with unloving contempt. It really is a tragic thing.
11. A person with a religious spirit believes that he has a mission to tear down error or what he believes is wrong. They'll treat it like that's their mission, or like they're appointed to do so.
12. A religious spirit will cause somebody to have a really difficult time receiving correction, especially if they see that the person giving the correction is "less spiritual than they are."
13. A religious person may notice that they don't really listen to people because they say that they want to hear it from God Himself, but all the while God could be using somebody to really speak something to them, but they're gonna ignore it because they have this mindset where they just wanna hear everything from God and they're not gonna trust what anybody else says. "If I haven't heard it from God then I don't want to hear it" kind of mentality.
14. A religious person will notice what is wrong with everyone else. They'll focus on what's wrong with everyone else and they'll completely overlook anything good or going right with a person.
15. A religious spirit will cause somebody to keep score or keep tabs on their personal spiritual life and cause them to carry guilt whenever something doesn't add up to what they believe is the Lord's standards. This is where the religious spirits will bring self-condemnation. They'll cause you to feel guilty, shameful, and blame yourself. You'll start to have self-condemning feelings.
16. Religious spirits will have somebody feeling like they're appointed to fix everybody else but they won't look at any of their own issues. they won't want to get into their own troublesome areas.
17. A religious spirit will cause somebody to feel as though they are closer to God than others, or that their ministry is more pleasing to God in comparison to other ministries.
18. A religious spirit will cause somebody to take pride in in their own spiritual discipline or their own spiritual maturity. They'll be really prideful about their own spiritual maturity and they'll rank themselves against others.
19. A religious person will only do things in order to be noticed or affirmed by people.
20. Religious spirits will cause somebody to use use hype or emotionalism to manipulate, and a lot of times it's not even real, it's fake.
21. Religious spirits will cause somebody to resist the supernatural, or they'll reject spiritual things that take place because they can't understand them.
I understand we need to use discernment and test the spirits, but if every spiritual thing is rejected because it's not understood, that's a problem for sure. Oftentimes the religious will be so caught up in structure and traditions of men that they leave absolutely no room for the Holy Spirit to do what He wants to do, or the shut Him down if He is moving how He wants to.
In summary,
I pray this article was a blessing in some way. You may ask, "what do I do if one, or even many of these apply to me?" My answer is this, take it straight to the Lord in prayer. Ask the Lord to reveal to you something about the things listed above that are relating to you. Repent for whatever needs to be repented of. Release to the Lord whatever needs to be released. Then command pride and whatever other religious spirits who may be there to leave and go to the pit in Jesus' Name.
God bless you!
~Mason Ledbetter
Credits:
I do not take credit for these lists, as I did not write them. I have just listed them and given my own input. The first 10 on this list came from an article by Mark DeJesus, who has posted on this topic before - https://markdejesus.com/10-signs-religious-spirit/
The other last half of this list was inspired by Rick Joyner, who has also posted on this topic before, although I can no longer find the post - https://www.morningstarministries.org/
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