Is New Age Theology Creeping into the Church?, with Marcia Montenegro

Astrology, the Enneagram, manifestation, crystals . . . Is New Age theology creeping into the Church? Guest Marcia Montenegro thinks so. Marcia was deep into New Age practices when she had a radical encounter with Jesus. In this episode, Marcia and the Grounded hosts discuss the dangers of New Age beliefs and share why you should run to God’s Word for the kind of wisdom that will endure for all ages. 

Connect with Marcia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FormerNewAger

Website: http://www.christiananswersforthenewage.org/

Episode Notes

• “Discouraged? Rather Talk to a Plastic Bear… Or Be Introduced to God?” article: https://www.klove.com/news/positive-people/discouraged-rather-talk-to-a-plastic-bear-or-be-introduced-to-god-podcast-41520  
• Christian Answers for the New Age website: http://www.christiananswersforthenewage.org/
• Women of the Bible podcast: https://www.reviveourhearts.com/podcast/women-of-the-bible/
• “When it Comes to ‘Manifesting’ Try This, Not That” blog post by Erin Davis: https://www.reviveourhearts.com/blog/when-it-comes-to-manifesting-try-this-not-that\

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Erin Davis: “Dozens of Columbian Girls Hospitalized with Anxiety after Playing with a Ouija Board.” How's that for a headline? 

I'm Erin Davis, and you're watching or listening to Grounded. We're here to give you a weekly infusion, and give ourselves one too, of hope and perspective, from the ministry of Revive Our Hearts.

I remember when I stumbled across that I immediately printed out the story and read it. And it's easy to read that or see that in the news and think that doesn't apply to me. 

Maybe like me, you're not a young girl anymore. Maybe you don't live in South America. Maybe you've never even seen a Ouija board. Well, let me assure you that even if all of that is true, this episode is for you. It's for each of us in the Church, those of us who claim Christ, and here's why: New Age practices are creeping into the Church, and it can be very subtle. I think we can think that we would see it coming, and maybe we can't, and it can be very dangerous. 

Our guest today was deep into New Age practices when she had a radical encounter with Jesus. And as Jesus tends to do, He changed her life dramatically. She now helps Christians better understand the dangers of New Age and Eastern beliefs and how they're making inroads in the Church and Christian community. 

So, Dannah is going to have that conversation with her soon. We think this is an important and a timely conversation. We hope it's one that you're going to want to share. 

However you spread the word about Grounded, let me encourage you to do that. Now it's as simple as hitting the Share button or sending out a text. Maybe it’s letting your pastor's wife know that Grounded is talking about this tough topic this week. As always, we want to ground every conversation in God's Word. That's part of why we're called Grounded. And so, after that conversation between Dannah and Marcia, I'm going to be back to teach us from 1 Corinthians 2:6–7. You could go ahead and head there in your Bible. I've got a warning and an assignment. But first, we need some good news. Portia, come on. Be our ray of sunshine this morning.

7:26 - Good News (with Portia)

Portia Collins: You know it? I'm glad to do it. I'm glad to do it. Well, today's good news comes all the way from Ghent, Belgium them. Don't even ask me to find it on the map. I'm not your girl for that. But that is where Don and Pam Lynch, are serving as missionaries. And because Belgians highly value privacy, the Lynch's were struggling to find ways to start conversations with people that they wanted to reach for Jesus. They struggled until they started speaking a universal language: coffee. Right? Coffee. They raised up an electric bike to become a coffee cart. 

We've got a couple of photos that we're going to show you. Check it out. They put the sign on it for free cappuccino. And so, when coffee drinkers ask, “Why are you giving away free coffee?” The couple seizes that opportunity to share Jesus with them. 

Don says that the conversation usually goes a little bit like this, check this out. We're believers in God. And we believe that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart in mind and soul and also love our neighbors as ourselves. And so, the missionaries shared that most of the people that they encounter have zero knowledge about Jesus or the Bible. And of course, it's not surprising to them that many of the people who stopped by their coffee cart simply have no hope.

And so, this summer, the missionaries will set up their coffee cart at a 10-day music festival happening in Ghent. There's potential for them to reach many hearts for Jesus through something as simple as a free cup of coffee. And we think that's good news. I think Emmi thinks that’s good news too. We will drop a link to this story in case you want to learn more. We'll drop that in the chat and in the show notes. 

Dannah Gresh: Well, Portia, you know, it's the true sign of a working mom in summer when there are children in the background. So, we always love hearing Emmi pipe up like that. And that was some really good news. 

10:01 - Grounded with God's People (Marcia Montenegro)

Well, it's time to get grounded with God's people. Each week we like to sit down with someone who knows more about a topic than we do. And this week we're considering how New Age theology is creeping into the church. Our guest is surely an expert. Marcia Montenegro practiced as a professional astrologer for eight years. 

Before becoming an astrologer, Marcia was involved with various New Age, occult, and Eastern beliefs and practices, including things like inner light consciousness, Zen Buddhism, Hindu teachings and meditation, and psychic development classes. 

But then, she met Jesus. Today she invests her expertise into warning the Church about how to avoid being deceived by New Age thinking, Marcia, welcome to Grounded. We're so glad to have you today.

Marcia Montenegro: Thank you so much for having me on your program, Dannah. Really, really happy to be here with you,

Dannah: Marcia, during your years of practicing your New Age faith, what types of things did you participate in?

Marcia: Oh, my goodness. Well, I took a lot of classes like palm reading, numerology, past-life regression. I also did a lot of Eastern meditation—Tibetan Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, Hindu meditation. I ended up in Zen Buddhism longer. I learned how to supposedly heal remotely. 

I participated in guided visualizations, which are very popular today and are used for relaxation, but they're dangerous. Of course, astrology was my focus, so I had clients. I was active in the astrological society. I taught astrology. I was president of the astrological society. I also was chairperson of the board of astrology examiner's which gave a test for people who wanted to buy a business license and practice astrology. They had to take an exam in the city of Atlanta, a seven-hour exam. I was on the board that formulated and graded that exam. So, I was very, very busy, and I was very active in these areas.

Dannah: So, for those of us that never practiced astrology or even maybe read astrological readings because they're in like mainstream newspapers. What is it in layman's terms tin an elevator speech

Marcia: Astrology is not astronomy, so let me say that astronomy is a science. Astrology is the belief that the position of the planets, the sun and moon have a meaning in your life. 

So, there's a meaning at your time of birth, which is your birth chart. And that's supposed to show your life, your whole life pattern, and even from past lives. It also is a way to gauge what's going on now by looking at the position of the planets in comparison to your birth chart. 

So, the astrologer believes that they are really looking at a map of you, who you are, what your goals are, and what energies are working for or against you.

Dannah: Yeah, okay. Did I say astronomy a second ago?

Marcia: No, you said astrology. 

Dannah: Okay. 

Marcia: I just wanted to make that distinction. 

Dannah: Yeah, I think a lot of people do. Well, you know, what I'm most excited to hear is how you came to know Jesus.

Marcia: That is quite a story, which I will sum up. I was very, very deep into all of these practices. I had tarot cards as well, although I didn't use them on other people. 

But I was really doing my astrology and had my clients and astrological society. I was not interested in Christianity. I had been exposed to it when I was younger and had rejected it. So, I started getting this compulsion to go to a church. It just came out of the blue. I mean, really, literally, out of the blue it was there. 

Dannah: Wow. 

Marcia: I couldn't understand it. I was like, “Why do I have to? Why do I want to go to a church?” because I didn't want to go. But I felt like I was supposed to go. 

Well, I, fought this for several months. I mean, I resisted this. Then finally after a trip to an astrological conference in Oregon, I came back because I thought it would be gone. And it was still there. And I thought, Okay, this is probably from a past life. And I probably need to resolve something from one of my Christian past lives. 

So, that's how I talked myself into going into a church. And at the beginning of the service, I was going to leave early, by the way. The beginning of the service, everyone was standing, they were playing music, there was a procession down the aisle, led by a young boy carrying a cross.It was an Episcopal Church. 

And as he walked by me, I felt this incredible what I call a waterfall of love falling on me. I knew it was from a personal God telling me He loved me. 

Now, I didn't hear anything. I knew that's what this was, but I didn't believe in a personal God. I didn't believe in this God that I knew was telling me He loved me. So, I had this very contradictory thing going on in my mind, but it made me stay for the service. 

I actually was crying. I ended up going back to that church. The church was very open minded, which was probably good for me, because I probably would have left if someone tried to tell me astrology was wrong. And so, I stayed there. And while I was there, I guess, the Lord was working on me. I started getting this impression that God didn't like astrology. And then I got the impression He wanted me to give it up. Those were a few weeks apart.

This was all within the first two months of going that Sunday on Labor Day. And Labor Day weekend. It was so powerful. And here again, I tried to resist. I actually gave astrology up the night before Thanksgiving. I didn't know what I was going to do, because there was an astrologer. And I was in the astrological society and I was still on the board because I was the president from the last year the previous year. But I had to give it up. And so, I didn't take my clients anymore. After I saw three more clients who had paid for their charts. I went ahead and did them. And then I thought, I'm going to church and I'm not doing astrology. I guess I'll read the Bible. 

And I started reading Matthew. And I started chapter one, verse one, and I just read a little bit every night. I didn't really understand what I was reading, but the thing that struck me is the purity of God's Word. I mean, I think God's Word, but there was something about the words that were pure to me. And I thought I'd never read anything like it, the words are so pure. That's the word. That's the word that kept coming. 

And finally, when I was reading a portion of Matthew about four days before Christmas, God just opened my eyes, I saw who Jesus really was, not the New Age Jesus. I realized that I had been going against God my whole life, and that in order to be with God, or to be connected to God, this is how I thought, I didn't think in Christian terms, I had to give my life to Jesus.

I mean, I don't think I thought I have to give my life to Jesus. I just knew I had to turn myself over to Christ, and for what He wants and who He is. And I did. At that moment, I knew that I was a new person. I mean, I didn't think I was born again, because I wasn't using that language. But I knew I was a new person inside. My life changed radically. 

I did find out a few months later that a young Christian man at the place where I was working part time and secretly doing astrology advice for the man who hired me; this young Christian man had been praying for me with the young adult fellowship group at his church all during that year when I had all those things going on. 

So God can reach anyone. 

Dannah: The power of prayer. 

Marcia: It is really important to pray when the Lord leads you to pray for someone and don't give up. It doesn't matter if they look like nothing's happening. I'm sure he didn't think anything was going on. But all this was going on.

Dannah: Wow, I'm so happy. Praise the Lord, so thankful for that young man that was praying for you. Well, you know, it's not just people who don't know Jesus, who are dabbling with New Age thought, New Age theology, and New Age practices. But it is creeping into the church, according to you. That's why you've devoted your life to warning the Church. How is it creeping into the Church?

Marcia: Yes, I have. I was very surprised, even as a new believer, to see little bits and pieces of it. And it really comes in different waves. One of the biggest waves right now is the Enneagram. This is disguised as a personality test. But it's not a personality test. And it was never a personality test. It was designed as a map of the cosmos. Okay, that's what it was supposed to be, which is a very esoteric occult thing. The idea was, you can see all of the laws of the universe. 

And if you looked at the mathematical configurations of the Enneagram, and you played around with it, the man who founded it, George Gurdjieff in 1916 . . . Then it later became a tool to find the true self. 

And so, what you did was you found out which of the nine points matched your persona, but that was your false self. And you had to dismantle that to uncover what's called the true self, the true self is pure and untainted by anything. 

So, the first person who taught it called it the essence, your true essence, and the next person who taught it called it just the true self. That's more or less how it's become mainly in the New Age. When it got into the New Age, the true self is the divine self, because your real self is divine and part of God. That is the purpose of it is to uncover the false self and find this true self. 

But it got into the Church through various ways that I won't go into because it takes kind of a long time to explain how that it got into the Church. Then it got into the progressive church. 

Dannah: Yeah. Let me ask you this first before you explain that. I want to ask a question. And that's because I think there are a lot of Christians who use the Enneagram. I'm surrounded by friends who love Jesus, and they're using the Enneagram. There are authors and speakers who mention it frequently. 

Marcia: Yes.

Dannah: Is it possible to use the Enneagram without some of that intention? Because I hear people a lot of times say, “Oh, I do yoga, but I don't do the worship positions, the Sanskrit worship positions that it was originally designed to worship. But I do holy yoga.” Like, is it possible to use these things and divorce them from those foundations and integrate them into our faith or not, according to your opinion?

Marcia: No, you can't do it. Yoga is another big wave, another big wave of kind of New Age stuff that's gotten in the church, even though it's originally Hindu. The reason is, for example, with yoga, the positions are designed to honor Hindu gods. If somebody says they're not doing the positions, the yoga positions, then they're not doing yoga. You see, maybe you're doing exercises, but yoga isn't an exercise. It's not for exercise. 

So, you can't do what's called Yoga, and not be in positions that honor Hindu gods. 

Now, with the Enneagram, the reason that people shouldn't use it is because it's invalid. There's absolutely zero validity to it. It can't tell you anything about yourself, you don't already know. You might as well just use magic eight ball or something, just one of those silly things because it can't give you any information. 

But the problem is because it came in the church from a spirituality opposed to Christ, and it and people accepted it. It's taking the place of God's Word and the Holy Spirit. It's trying to take the place of God's Word and the Holy Spirit, because people are using it for sanctification, discipleship, relationships, etc.

Dannah: Now, that really resonates with me—anything that we use to advise us and guide us, that's not the Holy Spirit. That's not the Word of God. I think there's a red flag there, right? 

Marcia: Yes. 

Dannah: Okay, so there's a woman in my area that my friend prayed with. She was experiencing a lot of anger. She was particularly angry at her young children. At times, she was so fearful, she would lock herself in another room because she thought she might hurt those children. And when my friend prayed with her, they started to try to figure out where or when the anger started? 

Well, the only thing she could really trace it to was she started to do yoga and use crystals in her home. That seemed to be the starting point of the anger. And whenever they tried to pray for her, they both kept thinking about snakes. 

Long story short, my friend prayed, she put away her yoga, she put away her crystals, and her very balanced, non-angry personality came back. Can you shed some light on that?

Marcia: Well, I will try to based, on what you've told me, and not knowing this person or anything. We can't know for sure that it was the yoga. But the way that you told that, it sounds like it could be because she accepted yoga as an okay thing to do. Yoga is not just physical. It's a spiritual practice. You have basically opened yourself up to a spirituality opposed to Christ. You basically open the door. 

I don't know what she was exposed to when she was doing yoga. But usually, if you're involved in yoga, you are exposed to New Age ideas, even when Christians teach it. For example, Holy Yoga has New Age ideas in it. 

So, you're exposed to these ideas probably without realizing it. But these ideas, these New Age ideas are in opposition to God. And because you're accepting, I think this is my own thinking. It starts breaking down your love for the Lord. It starts making you feel either open to things that are against God, or it makes you actually rebellious. 

I don't think it's very hard for you to see that happening in yourself because the New Age is the New Age. The whole New Age is all based on experience. One of the effects I'm seeing of the New Age in the Church is that Christians are starting to rely on experience for truth. And they say things like, “The Enneagram helped me. So, I'm going to use it because it helped me.”

Well, right away. You're doing it because of your experience, instead of looking at the facts and objective truth. I think Christians have as a whole, one of the problems is losing that idea that we need to base things on objective truth. God is objectively true. 

I think this has been lost. I think what's crept in is just a default position of relying on experience as truth. If something helps you, then it has to be good. Now, this is how you think in the New Age. Well, if it helped me, it's good, and it's true. 

I'm seeing a lot of people defend things like yoga, the Enneagram, because of their experience, and other New Age things. So what's in the Church is not so much New Age things are in the Church as New Age thinking in the church. 

Dannah: Yeah. 

Marcia: That's what I try to warn about.

Dannah: Okay, you're stepping on some holy grails in many ways today, because there really are mainstream Christians, Christian universities that have yoga classes. I've heard of Christian authors that are working on books to help integrate the Enneagram into the Christian faith. 

So, I guess I need you to go to the Word of God. If we're not gonna base it on our experience, let's base it on objective truth from the Word of God. What passages of Scripture do you turn people to when they're questioning whether they can do these things or not, and integrate it into their faith?

Marcia: Well, there's one and Timothy either 1 or 2, Timothy, that bodily discipline is good, but spiritual discipline is so much more. So many people, for example, do yoga, because they say it's a physical, they get physical benefits from it. And so, they rationalize doing it. 

Well, the Bible tells us that we need to be spiritually disciplined. Also, the other thing is our bodies are the temple, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit indwells us. And so, if your body is to honor and glorify the Lord, how do you do that? If you're doing yoga, because the yoga is really several things. Hatha Yoga is the physical yoga that we're talking about that most people are familiar with. 

The whole purpose of Hatha Yoga is to discipline your body as a tool so you can do the more advanced yogas, meditation, and the more advanced yoga. Yoga is always progressing. 

So, you're basically disciplining your body for a Hindu purpose or a New Age purpose. If your body is the Holy Spirit, how can you use it in yoga to discipline it to do yoga. So, there's a contradiction there. So that that would be a passage I would use in yoga. 

The Enneagram is more complicated, but this is what I say about that. We are being conformed as believers to the image of Christ. We're being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And so, as we're being shaped by the Holy Spirit to the image of Christ, Christ is our model. He is what we're being conformed to, as the image of Christ, we're supposed to become more Christ-like. Everything in God's Word is set up to help us grow there. And that's what you know discipleship is and growing in Christ is. 

But what the Enneagram does is it replaces that with either, maybe you can be a better seven, or you can be a healthy four. Or you as a two could actually work with your husband who's a one. So, let's look at you as a two. Let's look at you as your husband as a one, and let's work on that. 

That's taking away from what God tells us to look at. What you look at is, how am I living according to God's Word? Am I allowing the Holy Spirit to shape me? Am I growing in Christ? 

Dannah: Yeah. 

Marcia: If you focus on the Enneagram, it takes you away from that. It cannot help you with sanctification because it's opposed to it. So, it becomes a substitute. I always tell people you're not supposed to be a better seven or a good six or whatever. You're supposed to be being conformed to the image of Christ. Your eyes need to be fixed on Christ, not your Enneagram number.

Dannah: Yeah, wow. You've given us a lot to think about on some topics that are going to be controversial. I thank you. It's brave. It's courageous. I love that it's coming from you understanding this culture deeply, having lived in it and understanding God's Word. I imagine there's more that many of us could glean from you. If people want to learn more from you. Where can they follow you?

Marcia: Yes, thank you. ChristianAnswersForTheNewAge.org is my website. I have a lot of articles. Go to the Articles page. I have six articles on yoga, for example, and nine articles on the Enneagram. I have a Facebook ministry page called Christian Answers for the New Age, and two books: Spell Bound, which you'll probably have to buy from sellers. You can't get it from the publisher anymore. That's about the occult and how it's in the culture and affects children and young people. And then the other one is on the Enneagram, Richard Rohr and the Enneagram Secret. That gives all the history and answers a lot of defenses that people give for the Enneagram. I wrote that with two other people, John Dawn and Joy Vino. So those are some resources.

Dannah: Well, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your opinions with us and for rooting them in God's Word. God bless you, my friend.

Marcia: Thank you so much for having me, Dannah.

Dannah: Hey, if you want to have an informed conversation with a friend about this, maybe when he disagrees with you on one of these topics, I encourage you to share this episode because there's a lot to discuss, so that we can understand it and arrive at good decisions. There are a lot of opinions to consider. 

So, make sure your decisions are rooted in the Bible. I think that's what matters the most. When you think about it, anything that seeks to replace the role of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, as Marcia said, in advising us and guiding us, that might be something to approach with caution. 

And speaking of the Word of God, it's time to go grounded in it with Erin Davis. Erin.

34:16 - Grounded in God's Word (with Erin)

Erin: What an interview, a lot to think about. Grounded sisters, I imagine that some of you are feeling offended. Some of you might be feeling convicted. Some of you might not be sure. Before I open God's Word, I just want to plead with you in a really personal way. I have a family member who dabbled in New Age practices through many of the things that Marcia was just mentioning. I gotta tell you, it opened a door to darkness and wickedness in our family that we have been unable to shut. 

It all seemed rather innocuous at the time. But I gotta tell you, it was not. It is not. It was really the driving force between wanting to do this episode. And part of that is this personal experience, that these things really do matter. They really can do a tremendous amount of damage in families, in church families, and in an individual’s life. 

So, it's in that spirit, with that heart, that we wanted to talk about these things. And it's in that spirit and with that heart that I hope you will ask the Lord if any of this has crept into your own life into your own family into your own church.

If you’ve got your Bible handy, and I hope you do, go ahead and turn to 1 Corinthians 2, we're going to read verses 6–7. I often say that every text is part of a context. And the context here is that the apostle Paul was writing to the church in Corinth. And if you know the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, then you already know that this body of believers was into some pretty bizarre stuff. Stuff that from where we sit is really easy for us to say that's not in line with God's Word.

But we always want to approach Scripture and our own lives with humility. And humility shows us that because every single one of us has been warped by sin, every single one of us is susceptible to deception. 

It's pride that makes us rise up and say I never fall for anything New Age, or even I could do these things and not be affected by them. That pride. Humility says I'm as susceptible to deception as Marcia was when she was deep into astrology, or anybody else that you look at and go, “Oh man, they're into something that has nothing to do with God. They should run.” But we're all capable of being deceived. And deception is usually very subtle. We can’t always see it coming. That's why we want to talk about hard topics here on Grounded. 

So, it was into a body of Christians whose minds and hearts had been taken captive by some ideas that are contrary to God's Word that Paul wrote these words 1 Corinthians 2:6–7. “Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.” If you're writing in your Bibles, I am underlying who are doomed to pass away. “But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.”

If you noticed, everything Marcia was sharing about New Age practices was about trying to find a secret and hidden wisdom about ourselves. Trying to understand ourselves better, trying to understand how we relate to others better, trying to see our astrological chart and so that we can better understand the way that our lives are going to go. And Paul says, no, no, no, no, no, for those of us who are mature in the faith, which is, I hope each of you, there is a wisdom that we're supposed to be looking for. It's not temporary wisdom that's gonna pass away. It's not me-focused wisdom. That's no wisdom at all. It's the hidden wisdom of God. 

Contrast that verse with what we find in Isaiah chapter 40, verse 8, it says, “The grass withers the flower fades,” but Yoga will stand forever, right? No, that's not what it says. “The grass withers, the flower fades,” but manifesting will stand forever. No, that's not what it says. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” 

Here's another really practical reason to run away from these things. They're super temporary. You got 15 extra minutes in your day, you could spend it doing something very temporary, or you could spend it in the eternal, unshakable, immovable, forever Word of God. 

Here's the diagnostic question. I can't answer it for you. You probably can't even answer it for yourself, honestly. We need the Holy Spirit to show us the truth of our hearts. So, ask Him to help you. 

But here's the question: are you looking to anything old or new, an idea, an assessment, a practice? Maybe it's something that has been around for a long time. Some of the things we've talked about in this episode are certainly not new. Or maybe it's something that seems to be having a moment. But anything other than the Word of God? Are you looking to anything other than the Word of God to show you who you are and how you should live? 

The Word of God is a mirror. It shows us who God is. It shows us who we are to be because we're to bear His image. And if you have to honestly answer that I've been looking to fill-in-the-blank to show me who I am, and how to find meaning in my life, you are in danger. 

Now, Paul said it, navigating all of this takes maturity in the faith. Even as Dannah was interviewing Marcia, I thought, Well, I feel a little bit out of my depth to try and discern all of this. 

So, it takes maturity. And we need to rely on other mature believers and ask the Lord for help. But God has given us everything we need to discern between the wisdom of this age, and the wisdom that will endure for all ages. He even said that God's wisdom requires searching. God doesn't just give us a USB drive when we come to Christ and downloads everything. We can know about the world He's made. But He has given us this. He has invited us to dig in it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, to understand who He is. When we rightly understand who He is, we can rightly understand who He's made us to be. I don't really want to play spiritual whack a mole here. I don't want to go after this is bad. This is bad. This is bad. Do this, don't do that. This is okay, this isn't. Because we're called the walk by the Spirit. 

But as we talk about these challenging topics, I have a really simple and really important assignment for you. I simply want to encourage you to run, don't walk, run, and keep running to God's Word. It's the real deal. And when you have your Bible open, and you're living in it, and you're reading it, and you're asking God to show Himself through it, those other things, they just stopped being appealing because you have the real stuff. Marcia told it to us in her story, her testimony. God began to woo her with His love, which is what He does. But as she began to open the Bible, suddenly she could see Jesus for who He really was, and a lifetime of study into a counterfeit fell at the wayside. He'll do it for you too. So, open your Bible and keep opening it. 

Dannah: Amen, that was so good. This is a tough episode. Let's admit that there's going to be some opinions about this. I found that it's so important for us to know what God's Word says about these things. So, today we want to give you some tools to stay grounded, we are just simply going to direct you to God's Word. The surest way to spot a counterfeit is always to know the original, so get in the Word.

If you have time for Enneagram, yoga, manifesting, or astrology but not God's Word, you have a problem. 

So, here are the tools we want to recommend for you to help you know what God's Word says. The Bible study series Women of the Bible, it is a video series. It's a fantastic series, each one has a companion podcast series to go with the video. You can find it on the Revive Our Hearts YouTube channel, you can find the podcast on the Revive Our Hearts channel, it's hosted by our very own Erin Davis. Each episode, she has guests that help her explore a specific topic or woman of the Bible. You just are going to study the Word, you're going to understand the Word of God. So, we really recommend that to you. We'll drop a link in the show notes so that they're easy to find.

Portia: Yeah, and we have an incredible blog post written by Erin as well. It's titled, “When it Comes to Manifesting, Try This Not That.” We will drop a link to check out that blog post in the chat and in the show notes.

Erin: Yeah, I mean, I'm the last person that would call myself an expert in the things that we've been talking about. But I have had a fire in my belly and I just had a conversation with coworkers. We were talking about this idea of visualizing the life that you want. Make your dream board, and that'll move you toward it. And as I started to dig in Scripture, I realized that's something that we need to be very wary of. So, I wrote that blog post. 

Dannah: You know, along those same lines, I just say that I've always had a caution in my heart about yoga. Some of my girlfriends and people I love and trust really jumped onto that bandwagon and felt like they could do it. But I thought, I'm just going to err on the side of caution. As I've grown older, I have found that my body really does need stretching and that it really can make you feel so much phenomenally better and stronger. 

So, I've opted for Pilates, which was a guy that was stuck in a concentration camp or a prisoner of war camp and said, “I'm not going to get sick, I'm going to stay strong.” He developed stretching exercises in his cell to make his body stronger. And then the Spanish Flu came through, and all the men who were doing his exercises with him stayed healthy. It was just about their bodies being stronger. There was no meditation, there was no worship positions, nothing like that. And I thought, Yeah, that's what I'm gonna choose. 

So if you look around, there probably are alternatives to what you need that enable you to just err on the side of caution and stay rooted in the Word of God when it comes to advising you and guiding your life.

Erin: Yeah, Marcia mentioned this is the caution when something becomes very tied to your identity. And I think you know people who are big in yoga. They call themselves Yogi's. It becomes an identifier. Or the Enneagram, I gotta say, I hear women talk about it as if it defines who they are and explains all of their relationship. So, when it becomes tied to your identity—danger, danger, danger.

Dannah: Yep. Our identity must be rooted in Jesus, period. End of story. 

Well, friends, this was a lot to talk about a lot to tangle with. Maybe share this episode with a friend and then sit down over coffee and dig into God's Word together. We hope you'll still want to join us next week for what will probably be a less controversial topic.

Erin: We’ll see. 

Dannah: We'll keep that as a surprise. Let's wake up with hope together next week on Grounded.

Erin: Grounded audio is powered by Skype. Grounded is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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