CARBON LIGHTS | WEEK 9 REVIEW | Idolatry, Witchcraft, and Wholehearted Devotion to Christ

This Saturday, Carbon Lights will continue our BREAKTHROUGH 26 Review & Discipleship journey with Week 9: Idolatry and Witchcraft.

This is a weighty subject, but one the Body of Christ cannot afford to avoid. Many believers have never been taught how to recognize spiritual mixture or understand the authority they have been given in Christ. Scripture warns, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6 NIV). Therefore, exposing deception is not intended to produce fear—it is part of equipping the saints to walk in truth, freedom, and holiness.

Idolatry is not limited to carved images or formal religious rituals. At its foundation, idolatry occurs whenever worship, spiritual allegiance, dependence, or devotion is given to anyone or anything other than the one true God.

“For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.”
—Psalm 96:5 NIV

The Greek Septuagint renders the first portion of this verse more explicitly: “For all the gods of the nations are demons.” This provides important spiritual context for God’s repeated warnings against seeking supernatural power, knowledge, direction, or communion from any source outside of Him.

Witchcraft, occult practices, and New Age spirituality are expressions of idolatry and spiritual mixture. They cannot be incorporated into genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Whether something is presented as dark or light, harmful or healing, ancient or modern, its appearance does not determine its spiritual source.

Astrology, psychic readings, mediums, clairvoyance, divination, spirit guides, energy practices, and other forms of supernatural guidance direct people toward a spiritual source other than the Holy Spirit. Renaming or presenting these practices in language that sounds therapeutic or even Christian does not sanctify them.

God’s commands concerning idolatry, witchcraft, and the occult are neither vague nor optional. He has called His people out of spiritual darkness and mixture and into exclusive covenant devotion to Himself. We cannot seek spiritual knowledge or power from another source while professing allegiance to Jesus Christ.

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”
—John 4:23 NIV

The Lord is calling His people back to undivided worship—in Spirit and in truth.

Acts 19:14–20 gives us a powerful picture of what happened when previously hidden spiritual practices were exposed during Paul’s ministry in Ephesus. Many who had believed came forward, confessed their former practices, and removed the objects associated with them from their lives. Their response was not passive acknowledgment; it was a decisive separation from everything that conflicted with their new allegiance to Jesus Christ. As a result, the Word of the Lord continued to grow mightily and prevail.

This passage also reveals that people who had believed still needed to confront and relinquish practices connected to their former lives.

Receiving Christ as Lord and Savior does not mean a person immediately possesses complete knowledge of every area requiring surrender. Believers may still need truth, healing, deliverance, and renewed understanding in places previously shaped by deception, trauma, family patterns, cultural traditions, or former spiritual involvement.

Whether such participation occurred knowingly or unknowingly, freedom begins when truth is received and acted upon.

When the Holy Spirit exposes an ungodly belief, practice, object, or spiritual agreement, our response must be repentance, renunciation, and surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is not a call to fear or condemnation; it is a call to truth, freedom, and holiness. What Christ brings into the light, He intends to redeem—but we must be willing to acknowledge it, turn from it, and bring it beneath the authority of His cross.

Scripture also warns that rebellion is “like the sin of divination” (1 Samuel 15:23). Control, manipulation, domination, and rebellion are therefore matters we must take seriously before the Lord. This truth does not give us permission to label or accuse others carelessly. Instead, it calls each of us to invite the Holy Spirit to examine our own hearts, motives, agreements, and behavior.

From the beginning, God has called His people to worship Him alone. In His mercy, He brings hidden things into the light—not to condemn us, but to reveal and remove anything that compromises our wholehearted devotion to Him, leading us into greater truth, freedom, and holiness.

“But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.”
—1 Peter 1:15 NIV

We are grateful to Josh and Maria Davis Adkins of Sent Ones Ministries, the creators and facilitators of BREAKTHROUGH 26. This review draws upon their Week 9 course teaching and their faithful commitment to equipping the Body of Christ through biblically grounded instruction, prayer, inner healing, and deliverance.

This gathering will on location and provide room for careful scriptural teaching, thoughtful questions, Spirit-led discussion, prayer, and the personal ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Saturday at 10:30 AM
Tír Na nÓg Mugs & Metal
Palmerton, Pennsylvania

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Rooted in Truth. Formed in Community. Living the Kingdom.

Cynthia