“You can be like God.” Satan’s oldest lie, and yet one of the most effective still to this day.
I recently had a conversation in town with a young man who shared that Puerto Viejo is the best place to “find yourself,” and his girlfriend was quick to add that she enjoys coming to this area because the “energies” here are so “spiritually freeing.”
And friends, while most of you probably read that and cringed a little bit, I want you to know that those phrases are reality in this town. People travel from all over the world, to come to Puerto Viejo, to experience the “holistic spirituality,” when in reality the “freedom” that people come here to seek, is the most binding, most restricting, and easiest for the enemy to manipulate.
In another conversation this week, a girl was sharing with me that while she has recently come to faith in Christ, the hardest part about it is surrendering control, admitting God is God, and she isn’t. she shared with me that after all, the reason she was so involved with new age spirituality is because it gave her the power to be her own god, or so she believed. Only after she came to know the Creator, rather than worshiping His creation, did she understand that the facade of glory and goodness that surrounds self healing is simply the enemy’s striving attempt to lure us into believing that we can be our own king, our own redeemer, our own savior. And it will not prosper.
Just yesterday, I had the opportunity to talk with an older man on the beach for almost an hour, who shared with me that he moved from the States to Puerto Viejo about ten years ago, because this is the place where he gets to experience his wholeness. He continued to tell me that he watches church online every Sunday, but he would never go to a church here in town, that he prefers reflective meditation on the beautiful scenery.
Once again, I can picture some of you physically reacting to that story, maybe laughing, maybe gasping, or maybe you didn’t vocalize it, but the thoughts of idiocracy came to the forefront of your mind. and I want you to know that I have been there too. I have bit my lip to avoid evidently cringing in front of someone, and I have left conversations dumbfounded at the fact that people work their entire lives around hypothetical energies. However, I want to be clear that while I have fallen into judgement of my New Age friends, Jesus didn’t. and in saying this, I don’t mean that Jesus didn’t care, or that He advocated for coexistence and non action. but I do mean that instead of viewing His lost image bearers as any less than, He looked on them with compassion.
“And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her” Luke 7:13
“And Jesus, in pity, touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed Him.” Matthew 20:34
“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Mark 6:34
“Then Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, ‘I have compassion on the crowd,’” Matthew 15:32
Again, compassion does not equal tolerance. Compassion is not avoidance. But wouldn’t the compassionate thing to do for a lost person, be to show them the way?
After all, Jesus commanded the rich man to surrender his materialism (Matthew 19:16-24), He destroyed the efforts of those using the temple as a market (John 2:13-17), and He rebuked the people who thought going to heaven was earned by knowledge and outward appearance (Matthew 23:1-36). And He did so out of compassion. Because He knew that life only came through Himself (John 14:6).
And if that’s the case, friends, let’s abandon our “holier than thou” mindset. Let’s leave behind our reluctancy to share the gospel. Let’s throw aside our worship of reputation and fear of rejection, and start to press into both the urgency and the kindness of the great commission. Because God is God, and nothing else.
Now circling back to the reason I’m writing this blog, I want to ask you, as my supporters, to pray those things for my squad. If there is only one way, and the one way is Jesus, then self healing, good vibes, and inner energies are not the way.
The spirituality of Puerto Viejo is satan’s oldest lie.
So pray for the gospel to be made known here. Pray for the Father to move within my squad. Pray that our discipleship would be known by the way we love one another. Pray that every effort of the locals and tourists to seek wholeness within themselves would result in a deeper recognition of emptiness, and a deeper desire to seek the only One who can fill it. and pray that whether we are still here to see it or not, that Puerto Viejo will become a town, not known for it’s holistic healing methods, but known for knowing the one true Healer.
Nothing is impossible for our God, so I invite you, join me in prayer for this city, as we spend our final few weeks here, sharing and showing the only One who can give true freedom.
