Can I Use My Psychic Gifts to Honour God?

Some people who later in life decide to follow Jesus Christ were born with psychic gifts and have already had many supernatural experiences. To have clergy or well-meaning Christians explain those gifts away as being ‘of the devil’ is not only NOT helpful, it can be psychologically damaging. This post is intended as a safe haven for those of you who know that you are psychic and wish to follow the Lord. You understand that the gifts in and of themselves are neutral. And now you want to know how to use them to bring honour to God.

There are actually many already existing frameworks for using one’s psychic gifts as a Christian. In particular, if you belong to a Charismatic Church, your gifts will usually be acknowledged and encouraged. However, limits on how you use them may be imposed. Your gifts will be referred to as spiritual rather than psychic. You may be discouraged from using tools such as the Tarot. And if you have used these types of tools in the past, you may be met with suspicion.

Probably the easiest path to take as someone who decides to follow Jesus later in life is to join some kind of liberal/progressive church. They usually embrace an anything-goes kind of attitude that would let you just get on with it. However, your values may or may not be progressive. It is entirely possible that you have more conservative values. Or you could have a strong pull to, for instance, join the Catholic Church.

Trust

The most important thing to bear in mind is that you were born this way because God made you this way. This means that it was always going to be difficult for you to fit in. Difficult but not impossible. You can find a way of using your gifts in a way that honours the Eternal One that made you but you will have to be a pioneer in some ways. And being a pioneer takes courage.

Many mystics through the ages have already walked this path and we have the privilege of being able to learn from them.

Aquarian Christ?

Some in the New Age claim to be contacted by a new, upgraded Aquarian or Cosmic Christ. I believe Christ was always cosmic. I don’t think we get a groovier ‘version’ of the Son of God for the Age of Aquarius.

What I do believe is that humanity is at the point where we must work together and put the collective on par with the individual if we wish to survive. We simply must develop more of an us/we mentality and scrap the old us vs them paradigm.

Unfortunately, by and large, we failed to learn the lessons Christ came to teach us: compassion and forgiveness. Had we mastered these lessons during the Age of Pisces, we’d now be looking at that potential Golden Age that people in the New Age somewhat over-optimistically talk about.

Unfortunately, you can’t build a Golden Age on a foundation of greed, exploitation, egotism and a general disregard for all that is holy.

Your Psychic Gifts Before and After Christ

You may have come to realise that you wish to follow the Master in a traditional Christian context or through some Christian friends. They may have then put demands on you to renounce all your former spiritual practices as well as the psychic gifts you were born with.

But wait. Before you take your whole collection of cards and crystals to the skip, ask God. The tools themselves are neutral. Your crystals, contrary to what people like Doreen Virtue say, are not demon-possessed. The cards are just pieces of cardboard with images on them. Those images help you tune into your intuition. They can still serve that purpose but in a way that honours God.

Examine your heart and decide what is more important. Is it more important to fit in with the subculture of your Christian friends? Or is it more important to serve God in the way you were guided to since birth?

Christian Subcultures

Christian subcultures are funny things. They all claim a monopoly on the truth. Once you allow one to program your mind, you will become very quick to get into black-and-white us vs them thinking. Unfortunately, there is nothing Christlike about sending other Christians to hell because of wrong theology. Christ himself preached against this. Think of, for instance, the parable about the Good Samaritan. Or perhaps even more to the point:

John said to Jesus,
“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”
Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9:38-40)

So Which Christ do You Serve?

That’s not to say that you should not belong to a denomination or Christian subculture. It will be very difficult not to if you wish for fellowship or simply to worship together with others. However, you must make up your mind about which Christ you serve. Do you serve Him who made you uniquely you? Because that is the only real Christ.

It could be argued that I am going against what I said earlier in this article. Am I not just putting more emphasis on the individual and making working together as a collective more difficult? Not really. You see, you and I came here to begin the process of breaking up the subcultures. This is the only way to true unity between all believers. The church is not a building. You and I are the church.

Finding our authentic and unique self-expression is taking the first steps into the Age of Aquarius. This phase of human evolution requires an enormous amount of courage. Because, as you can easily see for yourself, so much (not just traditional religion) is in the process of breaking apart right now.

Why Authenticity Is EVERYTHING

If you lose yourself, you have nothing to offer up to God and nothing to serve humanity with. There are two main ways that I found I lost myself as someone born with psychic gifts who chose to follow Christ. Firstly, as a confused young seeker, I lost myself to various Christian subcultures. By trying to fit in, I bent myself completely out of the shape God created me to be. Secondly, I lost myself trying to fit in with other psychics who were on a Pagan or New Age Path.

The human need to fit in cannot be overestimated. The harshest punishment in my native Scandinavia didn’t use to be execution–It was to become an outcast. Well, I have lived most of my life as an outcast. And now I am writing this to gather the rabble–the rest of you out there, struggling on your own. Please know that you are NOT on your own and it is okay to be you. You can walk with Christ and use your gifts in ways that are not approved by whatever Christian subculture is dominant where you live. And you can read Tarot cards while living a life of devotion to Jesus.

So how can you begin serving on this unique path in a way that feels effective and empowered? Well, it always begins with…

Gratitude and Prayer

By giving thanks for who you are and the gifts you were born with, you acknowledge your readiness to serve. The next step is to pray for guidance. Again, pray giving thanks for the next steps revealing themselves with great clarity and in a divinely ordained way. Give any timing issues over to God. His time is not our time. Always, always give thanks.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
~ Meister Eckhart

Hone Your Skills

No matter how you use your psychic gifts and whatever tools you feel drawn to work with, develop your craft to the highest possible standards. This is especially important with regard to the ethics surrounding your practice.

Make a habit of praying for your clients throughout the day and certainly before each reading. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.

If you have been using your gifts without much discernment or care about honouring the Lord with your work in the past, it is possible that your boundaries with clients are flimsy at best. You may have been so eager to please and oblige that you would do whatever clients ask of you, including things like psychic spying and third-party readings which are regarded as problematic even by many non-believers

Firm Up Your Boundaries

If that is the case, you will need to pray for forgiveness as well as give your ethical boundaries an overhaul.

Firming up your boundaries can also mean a dive into the Word to discern which type of divinatory practices you are okay with. But the point of studying Scripture is not really to limit yourself; it is to empower yourself so that you can begin to use your gifts to shine the light of the divine into the world.

For instance, when I decided to study to become a professional astrologer, I wanted to know what the Bible had to say about the topic. Lo and behold, I found it extremely empowering:

Studying the history of the church during medieval times, I learned that many priests used astrology back in the day. And of course, the church has always known about royalty using court astrologers. Basically, when they started banning the use of divinatory practices, it was only us plebs they banned.

A Royal Priesthood

Looking back at the Old Testament, divination was used mainly by the priesthood (though you see many instances of other characters asking for and reading signs/omens). I find this fascinating since, as of the descent of the Holy Spirit, you and I are now a ‘Royal Priesthood.’ In other words, we are simply performing our priestly duties by offering divinatory services.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
1 Peter 2:9-10

To Charge or Not to Charge

When money is involved in the exchange of services, we also need to look at ethical boundaries more closely. There is a case for working gratis, “Freely you have received, freely give.” However, there is also a case for “The labourer is worthy of his wages.” This is between you and God.

The Holy Spirit will inform you what you should count as a professional service and what you do gratis. Some of you may be guided to offer donation-based services. You do not judge others on this, nor do you allow others to judge you. Simple.

You will find that prophets in the Old Testament used to charge people who came to them with mundane questions. Yes, funnily enough, even prophets had to pay for food and clothing. Little has changed!

Community and Service

Finally, find some way to be of service to your local community. This can often be the most difficult step for those of us who have lived most of our lives on the fringes of society. But God is sharing with me that now is the time to pray for this to happen. So will you pray with me?