The Religious Spirit: Identifying and Destroying Its Influence in Your Life

By Nate Cashdan

We often speak harshly of the Pharisees when we read about all the ridiculous things they said and did during the time of Jesus.  Have you ever noticed though, that they were acting the way they were out of a deep love for Yahweh?  Yes, even sending Jesus to to the Cross was out of zeal for the same God that we serve today.  So how could they have been so blind?  They were influenced by a religious spirit.

The religious spirit is a demonic entity tasked with masquerading as the Holy Spirit. It operates in the Church by influencing Christians to engage in behaviors and thought that seem righteous and holy, but actually bring division and destruction.  In The Religious Spirit, Nate examines the work of this spirit, from the seeds in which it is allowed to take root, to the tactics it employs, to the harmful fruit it produces, to the method for gaining freedom from its nasty influence.  This fascinating book will equip everyday believers to identify and destroy the influence of the religious spirit in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781639038305

Book preview

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The Religious Spirit

Identifying and Destroying Its Influence in Your Life

Nate Cashdan

Copyright © 2021 by Nate Cashdan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Religious Roots

It Can Happen to Anyone

The Seeds of the Religious Spirit

Lack of Mercy

The Traditions of the Elders

Finding Fault

Fear of Man

Resistance to Correction

Outward Versus Inward

Jealousy and Envy

Pride

Endorsements

The Religious Spirit by Nate Cashdan helps the reader have a better understanding of how the religious spirit works. Nate explains and clarifies how the religious spirit tries to attack the thoughts of people, no matter the age; how to recognize the fruit of the religious spirit; and how to combat it. The book is full of helpful ways to discern the religious spirit.

—Dr. Randy Clark

Global Awakening

Nate is a dear friend with deep spiritual character, and it’s from this place that the contents of this book have been written. It will prove to be enlightening and transformative for any reader.

—Pastor Fred Moore

Kingdom of God Christian Center

Round Rock, Texas

Fascinating. That is the first word that came to mind as I started reading Nate Cashdan’s The Religious Spirit. Nate combines a wonderful sense of storytelling, personal testimony, biblical teaching, and perhaps most importantly, humility as he explains some of the dynamics at play in the murky and mysterious nature of the spiritual realm. With every page turned, I learned new and vital lessons for my life and my Christian community. As a pastor, I can’t wait to get this book into the hands of my leaders. Thank you, Nate. Well done.

—Pastor Will Davis Jr.

Austin Christian Fellowship

Austin, Texas

The Religious Spirit is a book about the power of God and the call to accept no counterfeits. It’s about forging godly character and seeing Christ’s followers walk in true freedom. I love Nate. He is a man with great wisdom, character, and maturity in the Lord. Read this book! Share this book! Live this book! Your family and friends will thank you for generations to come!

—Pastor Trey Kent

Northwest Fellowship

Austin, Texas

In his book, The Religious Spirit, Pastor Nate Cashdan very insightfully describes how the religious spirit lures us as Christians back into a mindset that compromises our freedom in Christ. In Galatians 5:1, the author declares to his readers that it is for freedom that Christ set us free. Having said that, this passage of scripture strongly charges its readers to not allow themselves to be lured back into a mindset and lifestyle that compromises their freedom in Christ.

Pastor Nate very vulnerably weaves his own personal journey with the Lord into the various and sometimes subtle ways that the religious spirit influences the way we think and live; and more importantly, how the Holy Spirit lovingly confronts us until we are able to come back to a place of freedom.

Finally, Pastor Nate describes how our freedom from the religious spirit frees us to partner with the Holy Spirit to help set others free as well.

I highly recommend this book to any reader who wants to truly become a fully devoted and powerful follower of Jesus.

—Charles Patterson

Charles Patterson Ministries

Austin, Texas

Through this book, Nate cuts through the clutter of traditions of men allowing a sincere believer to grow in love and genuine encounter with Jesus on a personal level. This book will help those who are stuck in their Christian walk to move forward into all God has in His heart for them.

—Pastor Glenn Hubbart

River in the Hills Church

Lakeway, Texas

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my beautiful wife, Kalie. Your humility and great faith are what have made it possible for me to experience freedom from the religious spirit. Thank you for your unconditional love and support. I love you more than you’ll ever know, but I will keep trying to show you for the rest of our lives. You are my hero.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents, Danny and Becky Cashdan, for the years they spent stewarding my life as a child. You are both amazing parents and I am blessed to have been born into your home.

I would like to thank my in-laws, Kent and Menta Cookingham, for saying yes when I asked to marry Kalie… I still don’t know what you were thinking. I can’t imagine having a better mother and father in-law.

I would like to thank my wife, Kalie, and my kids, Zeb, Zoe, and Zeke. Thanks for playing quietly while I was writing. Thanks for forgiving me when I mess up. Thanks for encouraging me when I’m down. Thanks for being such a source of joy in my life. I love each of you immensely.

I would like to thank my brother, Sam Cashdan, for all the hours you put into editing my manuscript. Your intelligence and giftedness still amaze me and I couldn’t have written this book without your help.

I would like to thank my other siblings, Melanie, Callie, and DJ for your continued support through the years. You (usually) make it easy to be a big brother.

I would like to thank the countless men and women who have taken time to disciple me, pray for me, correct me, teach me, and pour into me through the years. While there are too many names to list here, I know who you are, and more importantly, God knows who you are.

I would like to thank Jesus for saving my soul, and my life. Thank you for being patient with me. Thank you for rescuing me from a path of destruction. Thank you for always being good. Thank you for miracles, signs, and wonders. Thank you for setting the perfect example of what it looks like to live as a man full of the Holy Spirit, in perfect relationship with the Father.

Part 1

The Situation

I once had a friend tell me of a religion practiced by a certain demographic group in India in which rats are worshipped. This group believes that rats are reincarnated tribesmen of a goddess, whom they also worship. There is a temple devoted to housing around twenty thousand of these rodents where people go daily to visit in hopes of receiving the blessing of a rat running over their bare foot (shoes are not permitted in the temple). To eat or drink food or milk previously sampled by the rats is considered a very special experience. If one comes across an extremely rare white rat in the temple, they consider it particularly fortunate as a white rat is believed to be the manifest goddess herself (or at least a close relative of hers). This temple has been operational for over a century and not one case of rat-borne illness, disease, or plague has ever been reported.

Let it be understood, it takes much more than cultural traditions or even religious practices to worship a rat, not to mention that it requires far more than luck for a colony of twenty thousand rats to never contract or spread a single disease in over a hundred years. It also takes more than natural hunger to crave a plate full of a rat’s leftovers…or a plate full of their excrement. These things can only be explained as supernatural.

We know that the term supernatural—more often than not—applies to our Christian understanding of how God moves in and through our lives. We use the term to describe when Jesus touches someone with healing or deliverance. Our very salvation is, by definition, supernatural. However, the term by itself is only a descriptor of a manifestation or event that happens outside the laws of nature or the understanding of science. And while miraculous healing from Jesus is supernatural, so is the desire to eat after rats. The difference is in the spirit that is at work.

It can be tempting to look at a religion like this one, where rats are worshiped, and be very quick to judge them. We could use terms like gross, disgusting, unthinkable, unsanitary, mentally unstable, brainwashed, and so on. I am not for a second excusing what they are doing as acceptable, I am only saying that we need to acknowledge why they are doing what they are doing. If we can accept that what these men and women are doing can only be supernatural (i.e., outside the laws of nature and the understanding provided by science), then we will be able to answer that very question: What makes these people do such an unimaginable thing?

The answer—a religious spirit.

The assignment of a religious spirit, or a demon of religion, is to use religion to counterfeit the true work of the Holy Spirit. We might benefit from stopping here to define religion, especially in the context in which we are using it. Simply speaking, religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or god. There are countless religions in the world, but what they all have in common is the worship of a higher power. As followers of Jesus Christ, our own religion is defined by our belief in his virgin birth, sinless life, atoning death, supernatural resurrection, and ascension to heaven. Furthermore, we believe that there is only one true religion and only one true god, our Lord Jesus Christ, and that every other god is an idol. We worship Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, because he is God Almighty.

Now, it is easy to identify the work of a religious spirit in a false religion. Hopefully, every follower of Jesus can recognize counterfeits simply because they are not Jesus. I do not struggle with the issue of whether or not Mormonism, Satanism, Atheism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam portrays the truth. I am also not tempted to worship rats, eat after them, or let them run over my bare feet. When I look at a religion void of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I can automatically know that it is a false religion. However, there are other religious spirits at work that are much more difficult to detect. While some religious spirits are assigned to groups or cultures for the purpose of getting people to perform blatant acts of darkness like worshipping animals or piercing their faces with swords or eating deceased human flesh or sacrificing children, there is another class of highly deceptive, hardworking religious spirits that operate in a place that most of us are very familiar with. That place is the church.

That statement, most likely, either made you excited with anticipation or extremely confused and possibly offended. I encourage you to hang on till the end for there is much more to say on this