‪It shouldn’t be far fetched that the spirit of the anti christ could very much be in you or in me.

You’re most likely appalled by the above caption and won’t bother reading through but can I ask for some doubt’s benefit?

A scary question pops in my head. “What if I were the anti christ?” And I immediately cast and cancel it out by praying it away… because, God forbid!

It’s only just in this moment — through The Holy Spirit’s inspiration to write this blog — that for the first time, I now understand why God allowed that question. I hope you’ll stay long enough to share in this revelation.

People think the Anti-Christ is some devils’ spawn and that it never can be them. They have a certain image in their heads of the anti christ as someone, who obvious to the eyes, will be demonic looking, with the beast’s mark “666” written across his forehead, possibly having horns, claws and scary looking wings; like all that’s been visually portrayed about the anti christ over the years. And it very much could be. But this is also where the phrase “you’ve watched too many American movies” is most apt me thinks!

Anyways, let’s get into what 1 John helps us otherwise see:

“Children, time is just about up. You heard that Antichrist is coming. Well, they’re all over the place, antichrists everywhere you look. That’s how we know that we’re close to the end. They left us, but they were never really with us. If they had been, they would have stuck it out with us, loyal to the end. In leaving, they showed their true colors, showed they never did belong.” — 1 John 2:18-19 MSG

By us, I mean those who take the time to study and meditate on God’s Word, those who employ The Holy’s Spirit help in interpreting it rightly. Not discounting those who don’t study or aren’t able to rightly interpret. Just simply stating that God’s Word is truth and absolutely trumps any other depiction of it. Be it a movie, a novel, a picture…, there’d always be a lapse somewhere or worse still, something will always get miscommunicated and misinterpreted. This is to be expected because of the imperfect nature of human beings. So even if the depicter of any parts of God’s Word may come from the purest of places and revelation, most of its consumers are never completely and entirely equipped on the level that they ought to be in order to receive the depiction’s truth. Let me enabledly explain by posing a question:

If it’s possible for The Word itself — which is perfect, complete and missing nothing — to be misinterpreted due to a lack of the understanding that only The Holy Spirit can give, how much more a depiction of it by a human being to other human beings who possibly lack The Holy Spirit’s understanding?

To give a hopefully adequate answer, misinterpretations of The Word are bound to occur every time logic, bias based on where a person is at in their lives and carnal mindedness are involved in attempting to interpret it. Only God’s revelation of His Word is true because He has hidden its truth, so we can’t expect to understand it without Him revealing its mysteries to us.

“God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you. This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.” — Colossians 1:25-27 NLT. Vs. 27 is another topic for another day.

So back to who/what people are misled to think the anti christ is and what 1 John says about the anti christ… The anti christ will not be just one person but several multitudes of people. People, who:

• For one, are blinded thinking “he is a person who can ‘never be me’”;

• For two are so quick to fall away from the Body of Christ. These I call lukewarm straddlers, because they eventually choose adhering or heeding the pressures of world standards and order over heeding God’s counsel and precepts, His Word. Meaning (as 1 John puts, but in modern day tongue), they were never loyal;

• And for three, already took their stance, never straddled, but have always been on the left side of the fence.

The anti christ is a spirit, a spirit that will be and already is upon these people. If you think I’m reaching in this statement, before you log off, kindly consider these next verses and questions posed:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come. ” — Luke 4:18-19 NLT. MSG version ends it as “to announce ‘This is God’s year to act!’”

“ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” — Acts 2:17-18 NIV

Question

We know that the enemy exists to counterfeit and act against God. So if God says He will pour out His Spirit on all people, of which He already is, what makes us think the enemy isn’t working to pour his spirit on people? His spirit which is and has always tried to counterfeit God’s Spirit is the anti christ. Making “logical sense” — at least — yet? Yes? No?

Here’s another set of verses and questions that hopefully will shed some light on the anti christ being a spirit that is poured out on un perceiving or un discerning people:

“My dear friends, don’t believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world.” — 1 John 4:1 MSG

“Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.”

1 John 2:18 NIV

“I say this because many deceivers have gone out into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist.”

2 John 1:7 NLT

“This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

1 John 4:2-3 NIV

Questions:

Are there people we consider preachers — note: one doesn’t need a badge, a pulpit with pews of a large congregation or a building to be a preacher. A preacher could be anyone. You, Me, Anyone — who clearly talk about God but exhibit otherwise? I should say in answering this question for me, that there are definitely times The Holy Spirit helps me catch myself exhibiting otherwise, lovingly calls me out and brings me into repentance. So again, lying preachers could be anyone.

Are there people who don’t acknowledge Jesus as The Son of God? Are there people who deny that Jesus Christ came in the flesh? Because they’re too caught up in their thinking — the common Greek idea that “the flesh is evil” — so God being Spirit was certainly incapable of tainting Himself by coming to us as a man. Do any such people exist?

📌 Let me just pin it here that:

God did come to us in form of a Man. His name is Jesus Christ. He is The Word of God. He humbled Himself of His status and didn’t consider Himself equal to God even though He was. He was conceived by The Power of God — The Holy Spirit —, born of an earthly mother, had earthly parents, lived on earth, felt like we feel, was tempted like we are tempted but never sinned, preached, performed miracles, shone His light to the world, gave us His living water, was crucified on a cross, died, was buried, conquered the devil, defeated death as he rose up from the dead after 3 days by The Power of God, walked among and revealed Himself to His disciples for another 40 days before He ascended into Heaven and is now seated at God’s right hand, mediating on our behalf, continually redeeming us and the world of sin by virtue of his ultimate sacrifice. He died once and for all. And He didn’t forget to send us His Holy Spirit in place of Him, to help us. So tell me why at the mention of His name, every knee shouldn’t bow and tongue confess that “Jesus is Lord!”?

“He existed in the form of God, yet he gave no thought to seizing equality with God as his supreme prize. Instead he emptied himself of his outward glory by reducing himself to the form of a lowly servant. He became human! He humbled himself and became vulnerable, choosing to be revealed as a man and was obedient. He was a perfect example, even in his death—a criminal’s death by crucifixion! Because of that obedience, God exalted him and multiplied his greatness! He has now been given the greatest of all names! The authority of the name of Jesus causes every knee to bow in reverence! Everything and everyone will one day submit to this name—in the heavenly realm, in the earthly realm, and in the demonic realm. And every tongue will proclaim in every language: “Jesus Christ is Lord Yahweh,” bringing glory and honor to God, his Father!” — Philippians 2:6-11 TPT

Phew! That pin stretched out long and I’m not even sorry about it because Jesus can’t be boxed up or shabbily summarised just so I don’t come off as time consumingly lengthy to readers of this post. 😅

I wanna begin to round up — with something that could potentially piss you off, but hopefully open your eyes at the same time — by urging:

“Instead of thinking ‘the anti christ is far fetched, still distant, eons of years away from manifesting and could never be me’, take an exercise. Do a test. Check to see if you align completely with God’s Word. You’ll obviously have to read it for yourself to see and stop solely depending on others’ experience and interpretation of it. Guess what, it’s never too late to start — by God’s grace, I currently am at 1 John, hence The Spirit prompting me to write this blog; and I can’t wait to be done, only to start it over again with fresh new eyes, a mind that’s constantly renewing, and to read it word for word again, and again, and again…

I urge you to take this exercise, because it’ll help you discern if you’ve fallen victim of the anti christ’s spirit. It’ll help you as The Holy Spirit convicts you to stop looking outwards, pointing fingers at others, and start looking inwards rummaging through your heart to see what really needs to be cast and cancelled out through prayers. It’ll bring you to repentance. It’ll help you ask for The Spirit of The Lord to be upon you if you never have, or for Him to fall afresh upon you if you have before and somehow lost sight of Him.

I love this Conclusion that I randomly was prompted to post yesterday which I now have more understanding of:

There are spirits that be. They work in our lives if we allow them. Then there’s The Spirit of God — The Holy Spirit —, who I’ve asked for and given permission to do His thing; that is and will always be at work in my life. By His grace.

I pray you receive Him too.

Shalom!