08/11/2026
There is a sentence in Galatians that has been echoing in my mind: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Paul is not mildly correcting a theological technicality. Something has happened among these believers that is serious enough for him to ask how people who had so clearly received the message of Messiah could become so disoriented.
He continues, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” That question reaches far beyond first-century Galatia because having begun by the Spirit, we also have to ask whether we are now attempting to perfect ourselves through something else.
That “something else” can take many forms. It can be religious performance. It can be Torah observance turned into spiritual status. It can be charismatic experience, titles, mantles, impartations, conferences, fasting, mystical experiences, or the prophetic. It can even hide behind words such as activation, alignment, breakthrough, upgrading, accessing, ascending, decreeing, manifesting, hosting, positioning, increasing, or “going to another level.” None of those words, taken individually, necessarily proves anything. Many describe ideas that can be expressed biblically. The problem occurs when the storyline underneath the vocabulary changes and Messiah remains in our vocabulary while we quietly become the center of the story.
That is where I believe tremendous discernment is needed regarding portions of what has developed within what is broadly called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR. I am not suggesting that every charismatic believer, every ministry associated with revival language, or everyone who believes in the gifts of the Holy Spirit believes the same thing. They clearly do not. Nor am I suggesting that praying for healing, believing God still works supernaturally, seeking God passionately, or expecting the Holy Spirit to move is somehow wrong.
I believe in the active work of the Holy Spirit. I believe God heals. I believe spiritual gifts remain gifts to the Body of Messiah. I believe we should passionately seek God. But there is an enormous difference between seeking God and seeking spiritual power as a means of becoming something. There is a difference between crying, “Yeshua, I want more of You,” and saying, “I need to reach the next spiritual level.” One is centered upon the object of our worship, while the other can very subtly become centered upon our own ascent.
And Scripture has shown us the danger of ascent before.
In Isaiah 14, in the passage traditionally associated within Christian interpretation with the pride of Lucifer behind the king of Babylon, we hear the language: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” Notice the direction of the language. I will ascend. I will exalt. I will rise. I will become. The entire movement is upward and self-directed.
Then we arrive at Babel. Humanity says, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves.” Again, the movement is upward. Let us build. Let us rise. Let us make a name. Humanity wants to ascend.
Then the Gospel gives us the exact opposite movement. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God came down. Yeshua came down. The eternal Word did not stand at the top of a spiritual ladder and tell humanity to climb harder. Messiah descended into our condition. Paul says in Philippians 2 that He humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross, and then God exalted Him.
There is an enormous difference between self-exaltation and God-given exaltation. Lucifer says, “I will ascend.” Babel says, “Let us make a name.” Yeshua says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me.” That is the contrast. The kingdom of darkness says ascend; the Kingdom of God says follow. One builds a tower, while the other carries a cross.
This is why some of the vocabulary circulating through modern charismatic movements deserves closer examination. Words matter, but not because every use of a particular word automatically indicates false teaching. Glory, anointing, kingdom, presence, prophetic, miracles, revival, and power are thoroughly biblical concepts. The issue is not simply the vocabulary. The issue is the story those words begin telling.
Who is becoming greater? Who is becoming more powerful? Who is climbing? Who is receiving the mantle? Who has reached another spiritual level? Who has unlocked something? Who is carrying more? Who has greater access? Who is becoming the spiritual elite? If the answer continually becomes me, something has gone wrong. We can talk about Jesus all day long while slowly repositioning ourselves into the center of the narrative.
This is why a recent statement from Bill Johnson caught my attention. Johnson has taught that the Holy Spirit lives within every believer, while also speaking of the Holy Spirit “resting upon” certain believers in relation to cultivating God's presence. Now, Scripture certainly speaks of believers being filled with the Holy Spirit. Scripture speaks of empowerment. Acts repeatedly describes people being filled by the Spirit, and there are differences in gifting, calling and function within the Body.
So that is not the issue. The concern comes when language like this begins creating perceived levels of believers, with ordinary Christians who possess the Holy Spirit on one level and those who have supposedly cultivated themselves into carrying another level of divine presence. This can easily become fertile soil for spiritual hierarchy. These people carry more. Those people have greater access. This person hosts the Presence. Another releases an atmosphere. Someone carries a mantle. Someone else has reached another spiritual dimension.
Before long, believers can begin measuring spirituality according to how much supernatural activity seems to surround a person rather than according to the things Yeshua repeatedly emphasized: love, humility, faithfulness, servanthood, purity, mercy, obedience, endurance, taking up the cross, and the fruit of the Spirit. Spiritual maturity is not measured by how impressive the atmosphere becomes when you enter a room; it is measured by how much your life resembles Yeshua when nobody is applauding.
But there is another side of this conversation that must be addressed, because Galatians is often mishandled in the opposite direction.
Some read Galatians 3 and immediately conclude that Paul is warning Christians to stay away from Torah, Jewish practices, Passover, the biblical festivals, or anything that appears particularly Hebrew. In that interpretation, Paul is essentially saying, “We have Jesus now. Leave all of that behind.” I do not believe Paul's argument requires that conclusion.
This is one area where I appreciate the corrective offered by Messianic scholar Tim Hegg. Hegg's approach to Galatians recognizes that Paul is not attacking Torah as though God's instruction somehow became evil. Paul is attacking confidence in Torah observance, circumcision, or Jewish status as the grounds of justification and covenant standing before God.
That distinction is enormous. Paul's message is not “Torah is bad.” His message is that Torah cannot justify you. Those are two very different statements.
Paul immediately reaches backward to Abraham: “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” That is emunah, faith, trust, faithfulness, dependence upon God. Abraham's relationship with God did not begin because Abraham climbed high enough. God called Abraham. God made the promise. God initiated the covenant. God supplied what Abraham could never manufacture for himself. That same pattern remains in the Gospel: God initiates, we respond; grace comes down, faith receives, and obedience follows.
This is why I believe we need a much healthier way of discussing the biblical festivals.
Could someone turn Passover into legalism? Absolutely. Could someone use Sabbath observance as a badge of spiritual superiority? Certainly. Could someone celebrate the biblical festivals and begin believing that doing so makes them more enlightened, more spiritual, more biblical, or somehow more acceptable to God than another believer? Of course.
But the misuse of something does not automatically eliminate its value. The biblical festivals can become windows without becoming ladders. A ladder is something I climb in order to get somewhere, while a window is something through which I see something more clearly.
Passover can become a magnificent window through which we see Yeshua. Paul himself writes, “Messiah, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” Sit at a Passover table and look at redemption. Look at the blood of the lamb. Look at deliverance from bo***ge. Look at the unleavened bread. Look at the fact that redemption began with something God did, not something Israel accomplished. Then follow that story forward until you arrive at Messiah Yeshua, and Passover becomes extraordinarily beautiful.
Do I celebrate it because failing to do so jeopardizes my standing before God? No. Do I celebrate it because participating makes me more spiritual than the Christian family down the street that has never attended a Seder? Absolutely not. I celebrate because I get to. There is an enormous difference between a have to and a get to. The “have to” says, “I must do this to maintain my spiritual standing.” The “get to” says, “I have discovered something that helps me see and worship God more clearly.” That is freedom.
The same can be true of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. What a magnificent picture it gives us of God dwelling among His people, of Yeshua tabernacling among us, and of the future Kingdom when Revelation declares, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them.” I can celebrate Tabernacles and rejoice in the coming Kingdom of Messiah Yeshua without believing for one second that erecting a sukkah earns me spiritual status.
It is a get to, not a get there. That may be one of the most important distinctions in this entire conversation. The festivals do not get me to God; Yeshua did that. They may, however, help me see Him more clearly. They can teach me, remind me, deepen my appreciation for the Jewish context of Scripture, and illuminate parts of the Gospel that cultural distance has caused many Christians to overlook. But they cannot add one ounce to the righteousness Messiah has already provided. Passover is a window, not a ladder. Tabernacles is a window, not a ladder. Torah is instruction, not an elevator, and Yeshua remains the center.
This is also where Galatians becomes uncomfortable for all of us, because religious ascent can wear very different clothing.
One person can attempt to ascend through Torah observance. Another can attempt to ascend through anointing. One person boasts because he keeps the biblical calendar. Another boasts because a famous apostle laid hands upon him. One believes his obedience makes him spiritually advanced. Another believes his supernatural experiences make him spiritually advanced. The vocabulary may be different, but the temptation is the same: my advancement, my revelation, my anointing, my authority, my destiny, my breakthrough, my spiritual level, my manifestation.
Somewhere along the way, Yeshua can become the One who exists to help me become extraordinary. That is not discipleship. Yeshua never stood before the crowds and said, “Discover your greatness.” He said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” There is no spiritual celebrity in that sentence. There is no secret level or elite class, just the call to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Him.
There is something extraordinarily beautiful about Messiah Yeshua that also gets lost in this conversation. He creates agency for us.
He invites participation. He sends His disciples into the world. He gives gifts. He commissions witnesses. He tells us to pray, serve, give, teach, disciple, comfort, heal, feed, visit, love, and proclaim. We genuinely participate in the expansion of His Kingdom. But notice the order: Yeshua does not need our agency in order to become victorious.
He did not need us to accomplish the cross. We were not His co-redeemers. We did not help carry the sin of humanity. We did not accompany Him into the grave. We did not raise Him from the dead. We did not defeat the kingdom of darkness. Messiah accomplished the decisive work. Then the victorious King turned toward His followers and essentially said, “Now come with Me.”
That is biblical agency. He does not invite us because Messiah lacks power. He invites us because Messiah gives purpose. He allows ordinary men and women to participate in something He could accomplish without us. That is very different from a theology in which God somehow needs increasingly powerful spiritual people to ascend into higher realms so they can bring heaven down.
We are partners in His mission, but we are never the source of His power. We are ambassadors, but we are not the King. We are witnesses, but we are not the object of worship. We are agents of His Kingdom, but we are not its architects.
This also brings us to the biblical truth that believers are temples of the Holy Spirit. What an astonishing reality. But a temple exists because of the One who inhabits it.
Imagine walking into Solomon's Temple and becoming so fascinated with the stones that you forget why the Temple exists. That same danger exists today. We can become so fascinated with being God's temple that eventually the temple itself becomes the focus. What do I carry? What can I release? What atmosphere follows me? What level of presence rests upon me? What authority do I possess? What can I manifest?
Suddenly the language has moved from “Behold the Lamb of God” to “Look what I carry.” That shift may seem subtle, but spiritually it is enormous. The Spirit of God was never given so that the temple could admire itself. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “He will glorify Me.” That gives us a remarkably simple test: if our spirituality continually makes us more fascinated with ourselves, something has become inverted.
Perhaps you have spent years inside a movement built around some of these ideas. Maybe you attended the conferences. You chased breakthrough. You received impartations. You tried to activate gifts. You pursued another level. You learned the language. You desperately wanted more of God. And perhaps now you are looking at all of it and wondering what is real.
I believe the answer is not to destroy your faith. It may simply be time to renovate it.
Think of an old building. For decades, people have added rooms. One owner built something here. Another added something there. Someone enclosed a porch. Someone ran wiring incorrectly. Another owner covered structural problems with beautiful drywall. Eventually there are so many additions that you can hardly recognize the original house.
Renovation may require demolition, but not demolition of the foundation. It means demolition of everything that has been added that does not belong there. Remove spiritual elitism. Remove celebrity dependency. Remove the endless need for another impartation. Remove the fear that somebody else carries something you do not. Remove the obsession with levels. Remove the addiction to spiritual experience. Remove the belief that you must somehow climb high enough for God to notice you.
Keep tearing away until the foundation is exposed again. When the dust clears, underneath all of it should not be an apostle, a prophet, a movement, a conference, a mantle, a mystical experience, Torah observance, your destiny, your spiritual résumé, or the personality standing on the stage. It should be Yeshua.
“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Messiah.” And perhaps you will discover that He was there all along.
This is where emunah becomes so important. The life of emunah is not passive, but neither is it self-exalting. Faith obeys because it trusts the One who has spoken. Obedience produced by faith is entirely different from obedience designed to manufacture status.
I can celebrate Passover through emunah. I can study Torah through emunah. I can fast through emunah. I can pray through emunah. I can pursue spiritual gifts through emunah. I can pray for healing through emunah. I can worship passionately through emunah. But the moment any one of those things becomes the mechanism by which I imagine myself ascending into a superior spiritual position, the gift has become a ladder, and ladders have a tendency to become towers.
Scripture ultimately places two directions before us. Babel says, “Let us ascend,” while the Gospel says, “God came down.” Lucifer says, “I will ascend,” while Yeshua says, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” Human religion says, “Become more so you can reach God,” while the Gospel says, “God came to rescue you.” Spiritual ambition says, “Make a name,” while discipleship says, “Hallowed be Your name.” The flesh says, “Look what I carry,” while the Spirit says, “Behold the Lamb.”
And this is why I do not believe the answer to spiritual excess is spiritual emptiness.
We do not have to run away from Passover. We do not have to fear the Jewish foundations of our faith. We do not have to reject the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. We do not have to become suspicious of every emotional moment in worship. We do not have to stop expecting God to heal. We do not have to abandon the gifts of the Spirit. We simply have to put everything back into its proper orbit.
Yeshua is the center. Torah points us toward Him. The festivals illuminate Him. The prophets anticipated Him. The apostles proclaimed Him. The Holy Spirit glorifies Him. The Kingdom belongs to Him. The power belongs to Him. The glory belongs to Him. And we get to follow, serve, participate, proclaim, pray, give, celebrate, study, remember, anticipate His return, and partner with Messiah Yeshua in the work of His Kingdom throughout the earth.
But we never become the Messiah.
Passover is a get to, not a have to. The festivals are windows, not ladders. Spiritual gifts are gifts, not rankings. The Holy Spirit is God, not a spiritual substance we accumulate. The Kingdom is His, not our personal platform. Discipleship is not an ascent toward our own greatness; it is the daily decision to take up our cross and follow Messiah Yeshua.
If you have spent years trying to climb, perhaps the invitation of the Holy Spirit is much simpler than another conference, another impartation, another level, another mantle, or another spiritual formula. Come down from the ladder. Put down the spiritual résumé. Stop measuring yourself against somebody else's anointing. Stop wondering who carries more. Stop chasing the next level. Stop trying to make a name. Turn your eyes again toward Jesus, toward Yeshua, toward the Messiah who came down when we could never climb high enough.
Turn toward the Lamb who accomplished what we could never accomplish, toward the King who defeated what we could never defeat, and toward the Savior who, having accomplished what only He could accomplish, now extends His hand and gives us the extraordinary privilege of participating in what He is doing throughout the earth. Not because He needs us, but because He chooses to include us. Not so that we can ascend, but so that we can follow.
The cry of Babel is, “Let us ascend.” The cry of Lucifer is, “I will ascend.” The call of Yeshua is, “Take up your cross daily and follow Me.” Church, Body... perhaps that is the question we need to ask again: which direction are we going?
