How Christians Repeat These Sins Today: Part Three

4. Spiritual Harlotry through Ungodly Alliances Today

Scripture uses marital faithfulness as a picture of God’s covenant relationship with His people. Israel committed spiritual harlotry when it turned from trusting God and sought power, protection, or provision from other gods and nations.

The harlotry was not merely believing something incorrect. It was combining covenant trust in God with dependence upon another spiritual system (Jeremiah 2:20; Ezekiel 16:26–29; Hosea 2:5; James 4:4).

The law of attraction is the belief that a person’s thoughts, emotions, and expectations attract corresponding experiences into their life. It often teaches people to visualize what they want, speak affirmations, maintain the emotional “frequency” of the desired outcome, and expect the universe to respond to their thoughts or energy.

Christians participate in an ungodly spiritual alliance when they combine this philosophy with biblical faith. Although both may speak about belief, expectation, words, and outcomes, they do not have the same source of power or authority. Biblical faith trusts the person, character, Word, and power of God. The law of attraction places power in human thoughts, speech, energy, or the universe.

The same principle applies to crystals and sage. Crystals are created stones, and sage is a plant. The objects themselves are not the issue. The spiritual alliance occurs when someone depends upon crystals for healing, protection, energy, guidance, or spiritual power, or burns sage believing its smoke will cleanse a person or place of negative energy or spiritual forces.

This becomes spiritual harlotry when a Christian seeks power, protection, cleansing, healing, or provision through the universe, personal energy, vibrations, crystals, sage, or human thought instead of God. The believer is taking language that resembles faith and joining it to a spiritual philosophy with a different source of authority.

Biblical faith does not use thoughts or created objects to control spiritual reality. It brings the believer’s thoughts into agreement with God’s revealed truth and relies upon Him. We cannot replace dependence upon God with trust in the universe, energy, crystals, or sage and then call it faith.

Reflect
What is the source of the spiritual beliefs and practices I have accepted?
Do they direct my trust toward God or toward the universe, energy, created objects, or human power?
Have I mixed biblical language with a spiritual philosophy that has a different source of authority?

5. Rejecting God’s Rest, Release, and Covenant Order Today

God’s covenant order included rest and release. The land was to rest, servants were to be released after six years, and the people were to cease from their ordinary labor on the Sabbath. These commands taught Israel that neither their prosperity nor their survival depended entirely upon human labor. They had to stop working and trust God.

Christians can violate this principle by living in continual self-effort and refusing to make themselves available to hear God. Work, business, ministry, and daily responsibilities can consume so much of our attention that we leave no room for His Word, prayer, worship, or fellowship. Rejecting rest can reveal that we trust our own labor more than God’s provision.

Christians sometimes say, “I do so much for people, but they do nothing for me,” or, “I love people, but they do not love me back.” When we serve or love someone while secretly expecting repayment, we create an unspoken debt. If that person fails to repay us with the attention, gratitude, service, or love we expected, resentment and unforgiveness can enter the heart.

Doing good while expecting nothing in return reflects the nature of God. Jesus taught us to love, do good, and lend while hoping for nothing in return because God is kind even to the unthankful and evil. Agape love does not keep an account of what another person owes; it “does not seek its own” (Luke 6:35; 1 Corinthians 13:5).

A people whom God has released from bondage should not hold others in emotional, relational, financial, or spiritual bondage.

Reflect
Does my schedule demonstrate trust in God, or does it reveal continual dependence upon my own labor?
Have I created an unspoken debt by expecting someone to repay my love, service, or generosity?
Whom do I need to release from an expectation I have been holding against them?

Practice Righteousness

First John tells us that if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1). John also calls us to practice righteousness (1 John 3:7). Loving God means aligning our hearts with what is good and rejecting what is evil. We refuse to make peace with it (Psalm 97:10).

Our minds, souls, and hearts are continually being moved either closer to God or further away from Him by how we receive spoken words, images, and thoughts. In a simple sense, the spirit responds inwardly by believing the meaning carried through these influences and being moved by it. Every influence we receive carries spiritual weight. It is never neutral: its source is either God or Satan, and it shapes us in one of those two directions.

There is a difference between committing a sin and practicing sin. A practice is formed through repetition. It may begin with something unrighteous that we saw and chose to imitate or something unrighteous that we heard and began to repeat. As we continue in it, it becomes a pattern that governs us. When unrighteousness becomes our practice, it reveals what we have allowed to shape our hearts through repeated agreement with what we received.

Before accepting Christ’s gift of salvation, we often sinned without fully recognizing our behavior as sin. But as God brings light through His Word and conviction through His Spirit, what was once done in ignorance is exposed. We are then called to turn away from those influences, reject what does not come from God, and practice righteousness as He renews our hearts.

Reflect
What repeated words, images, thoughts, or actions are becoming a practice in my life?
Is the Holy Spirit exposing something that I previously did in ignorance?
What do I need to reject so that righteousness can become my practice?

A Warning about Continuing in Sin

Paul warns that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). This is not a minor consequence. To be excluded from God’s eternal kingdom is to face judgment and hell.

We cannot claim to have repented while continually returning to sin, making peace with it, and allowing it to remain our practice. Repentance is not merely admitting that something is wrong and then deliberately continuing in it. Repentance requires us to turn from sin and bring that area of our lives under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

This warning is not about condemning a believer who commits a sin, recognizes it, and turns to our Advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1). It concerns allowing unrighteousness to become an accepted and continuing practice.

Paul immediately reminds the Corinthians, “And such were some of you.” They had been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 6:11). Grace does not give us permission to remain governed by sin. Grace delivers us from sin so that we can practice righteousness.

Choose What Edifies

Develop spiritual practices that deepen your reliance upon God. Meditate on Scripture so that His Word is hidden in your heart (Psalm 119:11). Fast to quiet the demands of the body and become more attentive to God.

Be careful about what you watch and hear. Replace ungodly influences with worship music, audio recordings of the Bible, and Christ-centered education, including documentaries, streaming programs, and Bible studies on YouTube. Do not merely remove what draws you away from God; replace it with what strengthens your knowledge of Him.

For example, I enjoy mysteries, but many of them are murder mysteries. Although the story is fictional, I am still repeatedly watching images and receiving words centered on murder and violence. Those influences can still affect my inner life.

Paul says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies” (1 Corinthians 8:1). I choose edification. Instead of watching a murder mystery, I will watch The Chosen or listen to my audio Bible. I still like mysteries, but I must choose something else because I choose what builds me up in God.

Reflect
What influence do I need to remove from my life?
What can I put in its place that will strengthen my knowledge of God and build me up spiritually?
What choice can I make today that says, “I choose God”?