Don’t Let the Devil in, Even if He Has Cherry Cobbler!
Don’t Let the Devil in,
Even if He Has Cherry Cobbler!
(a Dream of Discernment)
“Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour,” 1 Peter 5:8 (GNT).
A God Dream About Discernment
I had a dream last night and in the dream, there were a lot of people from “the church” in this big house.
I believe that the house represented the church as a whole. Outside of the house I could hear some type of screaming and a type of warfare going on.
I knew that there was this one man who was going around killing and terrorizing people but they couldn’t stop him. All at once the door bell rang and then someone knocked and before I could say, “Don’t open that door,” someone had opened the door and it was the man who was killing and terrorizing everyone.
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When I looked at this man, he had a CHERRY COBBLER in His hand and another dish, as if he had cooked it up to give us so that he could get in the house.
I did not trust him but others in the house kept saying that He was alright and repentant and so forth and so I began to doubt my discernment and the next scene he was sitting at a table with us and was waiting for us to serve up the beautiful cobbler!
I finally gave in and looked over and someone in my family was eating a lot of it and I thought it must be okay then and ate it myself! Suddenly I looked across the table and saw an elder from my old church that always represented covering to me and I asked him if he was going to eat some and he said “Absolutely not!”
By that time we had all eaten it!
Discernment 101: a False Holy Spirit
About twenty six years ago, I was going through one of the worst Jezebel attacks I had ever gone through at that time.
When I went through it, I had a dream about what God said was, A FALSE HOLY SPIRIT!
This spirit masquerades as the Holy Spirit. It is so close to it that, it seems like truly God’s Spirit.
It comes in as encouragement but ends up flattering and depending on your low self esteem to get you to listen, then it can get a hold of you before you realize what it is!
A person’s vulnerable place is what it will use to open up the door to it. It comes flattering you and seems like encouragement but there is something going on inside you and it seems like there is a grieving in your Spirit at the same time as you are accepting of this spirit!
Paul the Apostle met up with a spirit in the book of Acts. I used King James Version, because it seemed to use the same word for grieved that the LORD spoke to me back then.
“And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: the same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, BEING GRIEVED, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour,” Acts 16:16-18 (KJV).
Flattery Seems to Be the Door!
Notice that this spirit was flattering him for days before the discernment came. It was saying all the right things, to the right people about him and his people.
But then, after many days, Paul BEING GRIEVED turned about and said COME OUT OF HER!
You see that many times, grieving is the discerning of spirits! So in this dream last night, the LORD showed me that I had this discernment about the man killing people outside. I didn’t want to let him in, but I let people play on my sympathy.
In the dream, the man had looked a bit mentally challenged and so they played on my sympathy and compassion and told me, “Well, he made it especially for us and he is a bit mentally challenged… he’s alright, let him in and we will eat that good cherry cobbler!”
Even though I had once learned that lesson about the grieving spirit, I still fell for it out of a false sense of compassion!
In the dream, the man who stood for covering asked me at one point, “Jo, if you could do anything you want to do for the rest of your days, what would it be?”
I said, “I would love to sit at a table like this and just fellowship and talk to people.” I love group discussion like this and I believe this indicated that this spirit was trying to kill me and others before I fulfilled my destiny!
I believe it used flattery and playing on my sympathy and also the need to look like I was not being judgmental, to get me to eat its poison!
You see, God is trying to get us all to listen to what we have learned about discernment and TRUST THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT IS IN US, AS WE SENSE THAT GRIEVING INSIDE OF US.
Many times, God will show us a spirit, but then many times we will feel this grieving as He is calling us to keep the door closed and DO NOT FEED THE CHURCH THE FRUIT OF THIS SPIRIT, EVEN THOUGH IT LOOKS DELICIOUS!!
Many Times, Religion Looks Good to Us!
Many times, man made religion looks good to us and we want to go for it, because it makes us look better to some.
But God is now saying that we must discern between the religious and the real, the profane and the Holy!
There is a spirit that comes and masquerades as the Holy Spirit and instead of encouragement, it flatters and makes you feel good but there is something inside saying, “Hmmmm… something is wrong here!”
Trust the real Holy Spirit inside of you! Take a step back like Paul and say “No more! come out!”
Giants in the Land!
After this scene, my dream changed and I became tiny with wings. I was in a jungle type of wilderness flying around and there were huge giants!
I REALIZED THAT THEY WANTED ME BECAUSE OF MY CALLING, BUT THEY ALSO WANTED TO SQUASH ME WHEN THEY WERE THROUGH WITH ME!
In the dream though, I was too fast and too small for them to catch! These were the giants in the land of Jezebel, religion, and witchcraft, I believe.
They may think of us as small, thinking, because they are so big that they can have us. But the very fact that we are small and can soar because of the Holy Spirit that is in us, leaves these giants at a disadvantage!
You see, I was very fast too! They were so big they couldn’t move fast! God is truly about to give us wings to fly and speed to maneuver in these battles ahead!
At the End of the Dream
In the last scene in this dream, I was putting on a flight suit. It didn’t fit, because I was a bit fatter than when I had gotten it sometime in my past.
My legs were swollen, as they sometimes actually are, and I had a hard time getting my shoes on. Sometimes in the natural I tend to let these concerns stop me from going forward in my calling and may make choices because of that.
But in the dream, I called my Dad in, and asked him if he was ready to fly. He said, “Not yet,” because it was cloudy and might storm!
Well, I was dressed, even if the suit was too tight and the shoes wouldn’t go on! We can’t let the storms of life stop us from flying either!
God is calling us to ascend in this season. In it, we must have discernment of spirits and obey!
We must have a covering that will speak into our life, that is truth.
We must be set free from these spirits, so that we can go forward!
In this, we who are prophetic, will be delivered from people pleasing and we are going to soar into our destinies!
~ by Jo Ellen Stevens
Arise Shine!
Jo Ellen Stevens of TCIC Ministries is a Prophetic speaker, author, worshiper and intercessor. She has ministered with her husband for 23 years and was a worship leader at the Assembly of God for many years. She is an ordained minister (Restoration Ministries) and works with Restoration Ministries in their Ministry Rooms doing prophetic worship with her husband. She has taught many bible studies and have led many intercessory prayer groups.
Thank you for sharing, I will not mention names, however we were at a church brought there by flattery from the pastors. Their church was full of people with different lifestyles from the Bible. I felt love for them. This didn’t last long because I felt so grieved watching what was going on with no correction at all.. my heart was broken. But I faced a true jezebel that was bent on the church being what she wanted it to be. There’s a lot involved here. But we left very quickly and realized we were seduced by predators. We learned from that experience. There’s so much more I can say but I will just stop now.