Spirit Checker - Batteries Not Included

Whatever we ask God,

we shall receive,

because we keep his commandments

and live the kind of life that he wants.

His commandments are these:

that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ

and that we love one another

as he told us to.

Whoever keeps his commandments

lives in God and God lives in him.

We know that he lives in us

by the Spirit that he has given us.

It is not every spirit, my dear people, that you can trust;

test them, to see if they come from God,

there are many false prophets, now, in the world.

You can tell the spirits that come from God by this:

every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh

is from God;

but any spirit which will not say this of Jesus

is not from God,

but is the spirit of Antichrist,

whose coming you were warned about.

Well, now he is here, in the world.

Children,

you have already overcome these false prophets,

because you are from God and you have in you

one who is greater than anyone in this world;

as for them, they are of the world,

and so they speak the language of the world

and the world listens to them.

But we are children of God,

and those who know God listen to us;

those who are not of God refuse to listen to us.

This is how we can tell

the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.

Do we really need a fancy Electronic Spirit Checker to test the spirits that come into our life?  What spirits?  Well, if you think that your soul is not being fought over even as you sit there and watch the Chicago Bears bring out their secret weapon and use a field goal attempt to throw away their chance at postseason glory then you, my friend, are mistaken.  

Your soul is a very valuable commodity and the powers of the dark realms want it very bad.  They want to spoil everything that is good and decent that is in you and want you to give full vent to the part of your nature that only knows how to satisfy self.  On the other hand, the angel that God has given you is fighting hard each second of each day to suggest good things, helpful things for you to do and to think and to say that will allow the bright light of Christ to shine from you. 

Both sides are relentless and tireless in their quest for you.  What will determine the outcome is something that neither of them has any control over and that is you and your will.  You have the ability to align yourself with either of the sides fighting for your soul as which pleases you. 

Some of us go through life completely unaware of the spiritual battle going on around us.  We make our choices in life, some for good, hopefully, most of them and sometimes we choose evil.  When we choose evil, the devil's representative holds sway over our fate and that is when our Guardian Angel fights harder to get us back.  He will try to swing us back on to the right path by pinging our conscience.  The devil will turn up the noise so we have a harder time hearing our conscience.  He will plant thoughts such as. "It won't hurt to do it once...God certainly has better things to do than to watch me...I want it and deserve it..."  Our conscience will remain broadcasting through all of the static generated by the devil but if we are in tune with God, the conscience will win us over and we will repent and turn away from evil and turn towards the good.  Our Guardian Angel will breathe a sigh of relief but will continue fighting for us.  Isn't it just like God to give us our very own angel? 

Well, Michael the Lesser, have you slipped your moorings?  What is next?  Perhaps you will tell us a story about the Easter Bunny?  How can you believe that you have your own personal angel?  Isn't that a bit conceded on your part?  Conceded, no.  I know I have a Guardian Angel, I have given him a nickname, I call him Miguelito or in English, Little Mike.  I keep him busy twenty-four by seven.  I fail constantly at my vocation of being a good Christian and it is he that keeps me in place as a poor sinner.  By that, I mean that I am not good at sinning.  Oh, I sin, but I don't feel good about it and it weighs heavily on my conscience until I take advantage of the Sacrament of Confession.  It is in Confession where my Angel gets a moment of rest because when I am speaking to Jesus through the priest, I am safe, the devil can neither see nor hear me when I am in the confessional room.  When I come out, my soul is clean, my mind is turned more firmly to God and the battle is joined anew and Miguelito is once again a battlefield but because of my confession, the adversary is just a bit weaker, I am just a bit stronger, and my Angel continues the battle stronger than ever. 

So, yes I believe in Guardian Angels, and no, we do not need some fancy electronic gizmo to help us test the spirits that come to us.  We just need faith in God, a good conscience and a willingness to be humble enough to say "Shimmata" which I am told is Japanese for "I have made a mistake."  (Actually, when I verified this online, I found that this is what it means but that it could be translated as, "Oh no, it has happened." or if we are going to get coarse about it can be translated as "damn" but I like the first definition better. 

Today, think about the battle going on for your soul.  Were you aware that you were so valuable of a commodity that there was a constant war being fought over you?  If you haven't done so already, give your Guardian Angel a nickname and join with him and cooperate with him in the everyday battle for your soul.  When you get to heaven, he will be waiting to see you.  Of course, you'll be speaking to Jesus first!  God Bless.