God wants Christians to have spiritual clarity. God wants us to know his will (Eph. 5:17), understand his word, hear his voice, and have a close relationship with him. He wants us to be dialed in to the Holy Spirit so we can see God clearly. When we have clarity with God, we can be confident and do his will.
Lack of clarity about God leads to spiritual confusion. A spiritually confused person doesn’t know what God’s will is and doesn’t know what to do. He is unable to do God’s will and doesn’t understand God’s word. He feels unmotivated to pray and may feel disconnected from God.
There are many causes of spiritual confusion for Christians. When we recognize these causes and eliminate them from our lives, then we will increase in clarity about God. This will help us grow as individuals, and it will help us prepare for the end of the age, for God is training people who will be completely led by the Holy Spirit. To be led by the Holy Spirit, we must first know what he is saying.
1. Sin
Sin is probably the biggest cause of spiritual confusion. Sin damages our relationship with God and may even bring God’s chastening, which can be brought especially for fornication and adultery (Hebrews 13:4). When a person is being judged or chastened by God, he may be spiritually confused, wondering why bad things are happening. The solution is to change the things in our lives that are causing the problem, and then the confusion will go. In addition, entertaining ourselves with sin brings confusion, because sin killed Christ, and only confused people take pleasure in the things that killed Jesus. Let’s confess our sins, and then God will forgive us. Let’s turn away from sin, and then we will be blessed.
2. Disobedience
Disobedience to God causes spiritual confusion. God probably won’t give us more light or revelation until we obey current light, and if we are disobeying basic things in the Bible, God may not tell us more specifics for our own lives. In order to hear from God now, we need to obey what he’s already said.
3. Not Reaching Spiritual Milestones
After being born again, we need to be baptized in water, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and go to a Biblical church. These things are foundational to our walk with God (Hebrews 6:1-2; Acts 2:42-47), and if we don’t have these things in place, we will be unable to grow into maturity. We need the milk of the word before we can digest the meat of the word; otherwise, the deeper things of God will only confuse us.
4. Doubts about God and His Word
We need faith to interact with God, and without faith, we can’t please him. We must believe that God exists and that he is good (Hebrews 11:6). We must overcome all doubts about God’s existence, about whether Jesus rose from the dead, about whether God is always good, and about whether the Bible is inerrant (makes no mistakes). We must overcome all doubts about Genesis, whether God created the world in 6 days and whether there was a worldwide flood in the days of Noah. If we don’t believe these basics, we’ll be confused about God, about his word, and about the history of the world.
A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and won’t receive anything from God (James 1:6-8). We must rid our lives from all doubt about God and his word. Pray against doubt. Doubt is never a friend; it is an enemy. To avoid spiritual confusion, we must reject and renounce doubt.
5. Living for Self
A person who is living for himself will be spiritually confused. He thinks life is all about him and his feelings rather than about God and his glory. He is motivated by his own personal preferences or even his insecurities rather than by God. This kind of selfish attitude leads to spiritual confusion because it’s incompatible with how God wants us to live. Jesus said if we seek to save our souls, we will lose them (Matthew 16:25). He also said if we don’t take up our cross and allow our flesh to be crucified, we can’t be his disciples (Luke 14:27). God has not called us to live for ourselves and tend our feelings; he has called us to live for his kingdom and glory.
6 Wrong Priorities
God must be number one in our lives, and if we put anything else above God, we’ll be spiritually confused. Jesus commanded us to seek first God’s kingdom (Matthew 6:33). We aren’t to seek first money, fame, or even earthly love (contrary to what the board game Life teaches). Jesus said we can’t serve both God and mammon (the god of money). If we try to serve money as well as God, we will end up confused. We have to have our priorities straight if we want to avoid spiritual confusion.
7. Yielding to Wrong Authorities
The Bible often says that God’s sheep are lost on mountains and hills, and this means that God’s people are often misled by false authorities. If the Pope in Rome tells us to do something, we don’t need to do it because he is a false authority that is not based on God’s word. When our neighbors, peers, culture, and the media try to influence us to do or believe things, we don’t need to because they are not our rightful authorities. If we yield to these authorities rather than yielding to Christ and his word (or to the rightful authorities he has placed in our lives), we will become confused.
8. Not Maintaining Healthy Boundaries
If we don’t maintain healthy boundaries, we will become spiritually confused. We don’t have to be close to everyone. God does not want his people to be abused. If we get close to people physically that we should not, this can lead to confusion. If we allow our souls to be joined to people that we should not be connected with, we can become confused. We need healthy boundaries in order to have spiritual clarity.
9. Witchcraft
Witchcraft can make us feel confused. Witchcraft is the manipulation of people through rituals and demonic energy, and it is a real thing. Witchcraft affects almost everyone in some way in India and Africa, and it’s rising here in the USA. Many young people across America are being snared into practicing witchcraft. Some Christians think that they are somehow immune to witchcraft because of their faith. This is not exactly true. We need to actively fight against witchcraft and break it when it is done against us so it does not affect us. Praise God for the power in the name of Jesus to crush all demons. We must wield this power in order to be victorious against witchcraft and avoid spiritual confusion.
10. Demonic Attack
Demons can attack our minds, circumstances, or bodies. These attacks may come at key moments in our lives, and we must not be ignorant of the devil’s tricks so we don’t get confused by these attacks. Praise God for the power of the name of Jesus which has crushed all evil spirits on the cross. We can command evil spirits to get out in the name of Jesus, and they will have to go.
11. False Prophecies
If we think God is telling us something that he is not, we can become confused. Demons lie to people and give false revelations to confuse them. We need to test the spirits in the church and test all prophecies. We can’t just believe everything people say about God. Every false prophecy is a lie about the future and it ultimately comes from Satan in order to bring people into bondage. When false prophecies spread, they can create confusion among a group of people. Thousands of people followed William Miller to the top of a mountain in 1844 who said Jesus was coming back. Christ didn’t come back in 1844, but then Ellen G. White came along and had some more false prophecies and gathered up many of Miller’s followers to create the Seventh Day Adventist church. People are still confused today by false prophecies like these.
12. Vain Imaginations
When we have vain imaginations about others, we become confused. We may think that a person is thinking something that he’s not: “That person looked at me funny, which means he must hate me.” Misunderstandings lead to confusion because we think people mean things they don’t mean, and then we react to lies rather than to the truth. Satan loves being a misinterpreter between people in order to damage relationships and create disunity. He particularly enjoys sowing confusion between spouses, causing divorce, or within the body of Christ, destroying important relationships for the kingdom of God. When Satan misinterprets something to us, we view someone through a false lens, and then we may end up punching someone (figuratively) for something they never did. This creates problems where there is no real problem. This can also happen in our relationship with God, and it leads to wrong beliefs and actions that are not according to reality.
13. Isolation
The Bible says that when a person isolates himself, he seeks his own destruction (Proverbs 18:1). We need the body of Christ in order to see clearly. We all have different spiritual gifts, and others may see things that we don’t. Without the eye, the hand is blind. In the Bible, the bare minimum for interaction with the body of Christ is the Sunday church meeting, and if a person is not meeting with a Biblical church, he may become spiritually confused. The more we meet together with strong believers, the more spiritual clarity we will have.
14. Following Religious Traditions Not Based on the Bible
Pagan rituals bring people into demonic bondage and cause problems. For example, Halloween is a Satanic holiday that celebrates death, gore, demons, witchcraft, darkness, murder, and mayhem. There’s nothing fun about these things (at least there shouldn’t be). This is very ungodly, and children should not be rewarded with candy for dressing up as demons or being exposed to evil. When people engage in these things, they will become spiritually confused. Other man-made traditions lead to spiritual confusion, such as rosaries, incense, candles, statues, and icons. When we try to worship God in ways he has not commanded, we will end up confused, for then our religious activity is devoid of God, just like the Pharisees’ religion. People often jump through man-made religious hoops and then wonder, “Why is God not answering my prayers?” “Why doesn’t God speak to me more clearly?” They are confused because of false religion. People often think that the good feelings they get when engaging in vain religion is the Holy Spirit, but it is not, for the true Spirit of God will lead people away from false religion. We must throw out vain religious practices, and then we’ll have more clarity with God.
15. Fear
Fear is often based on lies. Fear gets us to do irrational things and gives the enemy power over us that he would not normally have. We need to cast out fear in order to avoid spiritual confusion. Praise God for the perfect love of Christ, which casts out fear.
16. False Teachings
False teachings confuse people about God and his will. For example, baby baptism can be very confusing. Those who believe in baby baptism may think they don’t need to be baptized after being born again because they were already baptized as babies. Furthermore, the false doctrine of baby baptism may convince people that the way to be saved is to be sprinkled in water as a baby. There are many false teachings today about many different Christian topics, and these false teachings can be very confusing.
17. Rejecting True Ministry
In spite of all the deception, there are true servants of God today. When we reject true ministry, we will end up confused, because God has given true ministers to help us know him and his will more clearly. True ministry will help us understand the word of God correctly. If we receive a prophet, we will receive the reward of a prophet (Matthew 10:41). That is, if we receive the prophetic word that God spoke to a prophet and we obey that word, we will be blessed.
18. Drugs
Drugs and alcohol create spiritual confusion. In particular, hallucinogenic mushrooms or LSD can cause spiritual experiences that have nothing to do with God. Demons may deceive people who engage in these practices into thinking they’re interacting with God, and this can be spiritually confusing. We must completely avoid these things in order to stay spiritually safe.
God wants us to see clearly. As we approach the end times, some people will see God with increasing clarity. The wise will understand (Daniel 12:10), but the foolish will not understand.
God is raising up people who will discern rightly, see clearly, and hear from God. They will do God’s works in the earth. Let’s eliminate the things from our lives that cause spiritual confusion and fill our lives with that which promotes spiritual clarity, as we prepare for the massive changes of the future.
by Peter
