Disturbing Doctrinal Confusion Untangled by His Voice

Understanding the whole “being saved by grace through faith” message was so obscure to me while under legalism and suffering from scrupulosity. It was like a veil was over my understanding, and I just couldn’t seem to be able to get it,[1] nor was able to enter into the rest of God like the Bible promises to everyone who believes.[2] I would think, You are saved by grace but you better not sin! Well, but I do sin every day it seems, so what does that mean? Blah-blah-blah. . . . It almost drove me insane! While others seemed to just enjoy their righteousness in Christ, I was insecure and so afraid of losing my salvation. I didn’t understand how each piece of the puzzle was supposed to work together and even less how they could work in harmony with one another. As a result, I became extremely anxious, fearing hell every day; I felt like I couldn’t have peace until I could put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Some people believe we are saved by grace through faith while some believe in predestination. Others believe we need to work for our salvation. Others are mixing everything together, saying we are saved by grace through faith, but we better not sin! Still others say, once saved, always saved. This whole confusion caused me to become obsessed with doctrines. I was afraid if I chose the wrong doctrine, if my beliefs were erroneous, it would put me at risk of going to hell too; so, I’d better find the exact answer or I’d be in trouble. But the problem was everyone I asked had a slightly different nuance of the doctrine of salvation. If there was one truth and if it was supposed to be so easy and so simple to get, then why was everyone teaching something different on what one would think is the foundation of Christianity?

It cost me many sleepless nights as I frantically wrote Scripture upon Scripture on pieces of paper in hopes of finding the answers to my questions and the resulting peace of mind. While in that condition, I had a hard time coming to the revelation of the truth. I was endlessly going in circles, tormented and in fear, going from Scripture to Scripture trying to find what the truth really was. I had a hard time committing to any of the beliefs on this for fear that I would pick the wrong one and end up in hell in the end. This brought a lot of double-mindedness in my life during that period. Oh, what a pitiful mess I was!

Then one day, in His mercy, the Lord led me to a book sitting on our bookshelf that I had never picked up to read before. This wasn’t the kind of book I would normally be attracted to, and nothing on the cover or in the title appealed to me. However, that day, I felt the prompting of Holy Spirit to pick up that book. I did feel like I was on my way to recovery from legalism and its related fears and anxieties, which I was, but I wasn’t completely free. There was yet another aspect of legalism that was haunting me because it had not been exposed yet. I hadn’t recognized it as legalism. But I knew that whatever was still causing torment in my life was potentially legalism. I was praying to God to show me if I was indeed still dealing with legalism somehow, and I was asking Him to set me free from every trace, shape and form of it. Oh, and praise be to God, He revealed it to me that day, and the truth set me free.

As I opened the book and scanned the table of contents, one chapter caught my attention. I went right to it. There it was, the answer to my dilemma. “If we are saved by doctrine then, for heaven’s sake let’s study! We don’t need God; we need a lexicon. Weigh the issues. Explore the options. Decipher the truth. But be careful, student. For if you are saved by having exact doctrine, then one mistake would be fatal.”[3] There it was, as I call it, the legalism of doctrine. The Lord provided the way to remove all confusion in the next chapter. “How do you simplify your faith? How do you get rid of the clutter? How do you discover a joy worth waking up to? Simple. Get rid of the middleman.”[4]  This was to be my solution, to get rid of the middleman and to tune in with God Himself. When it’s all said and done, His voice is the only voice that will make a real difference in our lives.

If you experience confusion in regards to doctrinal matters, I encourage you to sincerely seek God to receive clarification. He will answer you and calm your troubled mind. This is a promise from His Word (see Proverbs 3:5-6; John 16:13; 1 John 2:27). Be encouraged, there is hope! There is a way out.

―Kathleen Kaczmarek (Most of the content of this blog was taken from The Law of Redemption)

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[1] See 2 Corinthians 3:14-16.

[2] See Hebrews 4:3.

[3] Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent: The Final Week of Jesus (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc, 1992), 106.

[4] Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent, 114.

Becoming Like a Little Child Again

Shortly after God revealed to me legalism was my problem, I fervently asked the Lord, “What must I do that if I keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it, I will get better and better and better?” That night, glory be to God, I was able to fall asleep. It was 5:30 in the morning when an audible voice woke me up saying, “What must one do to go to heaven?” The voice began as a man’s voice and quickly transformed into a child’s voice. The child’s voice sounded a lot like my son Aaron’s, so I scanned the bedroom to see if he had come in. No one was there. Aaron would have been about six years old, and he had already received Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. I remember all Aaron knew then was if he had Jesus, he was going to heaven. That’s all he knew. He had Jesus, so he was saved, period. That morning, God showed me a foundational truth. He showed me the faith and disposition of a healthy Christian is that of a child: innocent, trusting, carefree. From that day on, I entered a journey to learn how to become like a little child again.

Someone who is innocent is free from condemnation, and someone who is trusting is free from care; he always expects to be accepted by his father regardless of his performance. Performance has to do with the outward execution of a task regardless of the heart’s motive. If the heart doesn’t matter, the deed becomes a mechanical act without real meaning. God isn’t interested in our religious perfection, He is interested in the authenticity of our love for Him and for others. That’s why all God asks of us is that we live at the level of conduct we have received and this, in turn, enables us to be genuine. Then, He is faithful to complete in us what He started, from glory to glory. God loves us so.

A child does not complicate things; a child does not reason things out. A child is very simple. A child is free to enjoy himself without having to first evaluate whether he deserves it or not. Because a child is innocent, he doesn’t spend his entire time focusing on himself, his failures and his shortcomings. His mistakes do not prevent him from approaching his parents. He forgets very quickly and happily moves on. The child’s responsibility is to trustingly obey his parents as they carefully and lovingly keep watch over him. If he doesn’t obey, he is chastised for his own good (not rejected); if he does well, he is praised (by parents who love him already apart from his works). But a child never fears to be rejected by his parents; it’s as simple as that. The Bible says in Matthew 18:2-4 we need to become like a little child.

He called a little child to him and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

—Matthew 18:2-4 NIV

Just like a child is totally dependent on his parents for everything that concerns him, so the Lord has intended for us to rest in Him and to depend on Him. I wish I could tell you I became like a little child the moment God showed me my way out of legalism (and consequently of scrupulosity) was to become like a little child again. But it took time and steps of faith to become like a little child again. I wanted to figure my way out. I was trying to stop being legalistic, but the more I tried, the more anxiety I felt. I couldn’t seem to stop the evil cycle. I remember one night amid this, the Lord gave me a dream. In the dream, I was drowning, but I was desperately trying to save myself from drowning. Then, I saw on the shore a strong man, and I hoped he could come and save me. God was showing me I was powerless to save myself. The Bible says in Romans 5:6, “While we were yet in weakness [powerless to help ourselves], at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly)” (emphasis mine). This means we can’t save ourselves and every attempt will fail. God won’t accept any fleshly effort on our part to save ourselves. All our efforts are in vain. God will only accept the shed blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, as the payment for our sins; and nothing else will be received in His sight. The Bible teaches us that the only righteousness the Lord will accept is the righteousness that is of faith; He will not receive any self-righteousness as the payment for our sins or as a means to make us right with God.[1] All of our righteousness is as filthy rag.[2] Out of saving faith, works will follow. But it cannot be the other way around; faith must precede works, or our works will not be accepted.

I remember sitting on my bed. I literally stopped trying to figure it all out, and I placed myself at His mercy. I began to fix my eyes on Him and actively wait on Him. As I learned to do what Isaiah 40:31, Isaiah 26:3, and Psalm 62:1 say, the Lord really began to work on my behalf. Therefore, one of the key essentials that helped bring peace to my tormented, confused, doubting and analytical mind, as well as to calm all the confusion and fears I experienced from legalism was to become like a little child again. There is hope! There is a way out.

―Kathleen Kaczmarek

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[1] See Philippians 3:7–9.

[2] See Isaiah 64:6.

Discovering the Root Cause—Part 2

We have learned in the previous blog that the root cause of religious OCD is legalism empowered by the illegitimate power of witchcraft. The good news is, the moment we confess our sins to God and ask Him to forgive us, He forgives us immediately. It is very important for us to grasp that. We must understand that even though we have repented from legalism and are forgiven, it does not necessarily mean all of our obsessive thoughts and fears will go away instantly. It simply means that we have entered into a journey toward recovery in which we cooperate with God to renew our belief system until all of the lies and deceptions of the Enemy have been exposed and replaced with the truth. The more the truth of the Word of God abides in our heart and mind, and the more we learn to live a life of dependency upon Christ, the more peace we will experience. As we ask Jesus to deliver us and to uproot the root and replace it with Himself; fear and anxiety will eventually dissipate and be replaced with the abiding fruit of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost (see Romans 14:17). And even though it is a process, we are forgiven and accepted by God through faith in Christ’s work on the cross. It is of utmost importance for us to realize that the righteousness that God prescribes is a righteousness that is of faith (see Romans 1:17). Otherwise, condemnation will keep us tied to legalism and we will not be able to completely walk away from it or make lasting progress. I am planning to teach in future blogs on the difference between the righteousness that is of faith versus the righteousness that is of works.

But for now, let us go back to the witchcraft part. How did Derek Prince draw his conclusion that witchcraft was the illegitimate power behind legalism? He drew it from Galatians 3:1:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

—Galatians 3:1 NKJV

We see in Galatians 3:1 that the apostle Paul used the word bewitched to describe the state of the Galatians. Derek Prince pointed out in Lucifer Exposed that wherever we encounter legalism, somewhere behind it is witchcraft. As I studied his book along with the Scriptures and my own experience, I learned that the supreme objective of witchcraft in the church is to hide the reality of the work of the cross, Jesus Christ crucified.[1] We know from the Word of God that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (see 1 Samuel 15:23). Prince stated in his book that “the illegitimate power that supports rebellion is the power of witchcraft.”[2] In addition to 1 Samuel 15:23, Galatians 3:1 also makes the connection between witchcraft and rebellion, “Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth”. And the last part of the same verse completes the puzzle, “before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified” We see here that the apostle Paul describes not believing the truth about Christ crucified as disobedience. Therefore, if we believe the message, we are regarded as obedient; but if we won’t believe, we are regarded as rebellious. I am planning to elaborate in future blogs on the righteousness that is of faith since understanding this foundational truth is key to our victory.

I began to comprehend what Derek Prince meant when he highlighted that what makes witchcraft so dangerous is the fact that it is within the church and is working against the people who are unaware of its presence.[3] God had also shown me this sort of witchcraft could easily be dismissed as innocent and inoffensive. Thus, witchcraft was the main problem in the Galatians church; they had returned to fleshly endeavors to please God; “they had reverted to keeping all sorts of rules as a way of achieving righteousness with God.”[4] Witchcraft is not only an evil supernatural power, but it is also a work of the flesh (see Galatians 5:20). Wouldn’t you agree that trying hard to please God seems harmless and even righteous? The question is, are we trying hard in our own might or in God’s might? Are we serving God to get saved or because we are already saved through faith in Christ?

I believe it was a year before God showed me legalism was my problem, but I can’t be certain on the timing. Paul had decided to fast for me three days due to the seriousness of my situation. As a result of his fast, God revealed to him three things. One of them came through a dream. In the dream, we were in church. I was sitting in a pew in the row in front of him, which allowed him to see better what was happening to me. There were some suspicious church people who were administering a questionable medicine to me, and I was visibly in a daze as though under a spell. Even at that time, God had been revealing the evil power of witchcraft that was at work in my life. But during the time I was under the spell of legalism, I was not able to grasp the revelation of what it really meant to us that Christ was crucified to pay the price for our sins. I was constantly studying the Word, but I had a hard time coming to the true knowledge of it (see 2 Timothy 3:7). The extreme torment of it became unbearable. Legalism is a cruel master.

Although legalism empowered by witchcraft was a new idea to me, years before I fell deep into legalism the Lord had spoken to me very clearly about the satanic powers behind witchcraft. It was during the time my mother was involved in the occult and was a tarot cards apprentice (she later gave her heart to the Lord and repented from her involvement with the occult and witchcraft). In a dream, the Lord had shown me my mom’s dog. The dog was crazy, running aimlessly across the street. He looked like he was in a daze; he looked like a zombie. His eyes wide open, he was running without clear direction—on the street, off the street, on the street, off the street. As I watched this disturbing scene, the Lord spoke to me and said, “They torment you, and they give you no rest.”

Now that I understand witchcraft as the illegitimate power behind legalism, this dream from years ago holds even more meaning for me. Certainly, after having suffered under the hard taskmaster that legalism is, I can testify the spirits of witchcraft torment you and they give you no rest for your soul. As far as what we are talking about in this page, you become obsessed with your spiritual performance and with your need to meet “God’s expectations”. You find yourself constantly under a death sentence because every day your failures make you worthy of hell. You keep thinking about how you need to change, how you don’t measure up; and it seems like the more you try, the worse you become. . . .

The Lord willing, in the next blog, I will share with you a tremendous revelation God gave me when I asked Him what I needed to do in order to get better.

Until then, take heart. I am sure you are now beginning to see for yourself that there is hope, and that there is a way out.

―Kathleen Kaczmarek

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[1] See Prince, Lucifer Exposed, 80, 113-114.

[2] Prince, Lucifer Exposed, 91.

[3] Prince, Lucifer Exposed, 79, 98.

[4] Prince, Lucifer Exposed, 81.