Is the New Age movement a pathway to God?

On January 1, 1983, Marci and I posted our New Year’s resolutions on the wall. We had set goals in several areas of our lives: business, personal growth, family, etc. At the very bottom of our list we added, “get to know God better.” At this time, we were involved in the New Age movement, so getting to know God better meant going to more New Age seminars, meditating more with clear and open minds, and reading more New Age books.

We loved to talk about Jesus, but the Jesus we talked about was not the Jesus of the Bible. We believed that Jesus was just a higher spiritual being like Buddha or Mohamed. We thought we were all God’s children, and that we were a part of God. I thought the Bible was just a good history reference book, and Marci was raised to believe it was only a book of fairy tales.

Lost in Darkness That Corrupts

During this time we attended various New Age seminars and read many New Age books, and we became very involved in the movement. A good friend from India stayed in our home and did psychic readings, charging $70.00 for a half-hour reading. She did psychic readings for notable people, including many people from Hollywood.

We opened our home to many others in our desire to promote and be involved in the New Age movement. During this time we were living on the “beautiful side of evil.” (See Hebrews 11:25.) We were deceived into thinking we had found the truth. We had no foundation or compass to set our beliefs by, yet we were absorbed with them.

We also had a strong desire to become rich, and because this thinking was so ingrained in our minds, we literally believed that we could come to the point of manifesting gold in our hands. Our lives became so focused on health and wealth that there was a time when it seemed as if everything we touched turned to gold! We seriously thought that if we could only visualize things clearly enough, we would create our own reality.

God’s Protection Amid Unknown Dangers

God, in His unmeasured grace, kept us from many of the dangers and pitfalls that are wrapped in the New Age movement. He held our marriage and family together. During this time, we had no idea of how much evil we were exposing ourselves to. Rather than trusting Jesus Christ for who He really is, we believed that there was no absolute truth. We thought we were seeking God with all of our hearts, but we were looking for Him in all the wrong places!

Deliverance From Darkness Into Light

Between January and April of 1983, we lived our typical New Age lives. We worked hard, had a nice family, and even looked like we could be Christians. We focused on spiritual things and used Scripture, but at the same time we were involved in many New Age practices.

On April 21, 1983, God intervened in His wonderful grace, and He began to rescue us from Satan’s deceptions. That night, the Lord woke up Marci and told her three things. First, He said that Jesus Christ was God, and man wasn’t. He said that the Bible is God’s complete, inspired, infallible Word, and nothing can be added or taken away from it. Finally, He said that everything Marci and I were involved in with the New Age movement was of Satan.

I witnessed my wife’s life change dramatically! She went from being someone immersed in New Age thinking, to a new person I’d never known. From that point on, the Lord began to work in her life. She threw away New Age books, tarot cards, cassette tapes, jewelry, clothing, and anything else the Holy Spirit led her to get rid of. She also had a new desire to grow in the Lord and to spend time with other Christians.

From that moment, the Lord delivered Marci from the power of darkness, leading her into His light. The power of the Holy Spirit in her life was so evident! From that point forward, she knew that Jesus Christ had saved her from the world, the devil, and sin.

After watching my wife’s dramatic transformation, God brought me through a set of unique circumstances that led to my own conversion to Biblical Christianity. I also surrendered myself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

From our outward appearances, we may have seemed to be the same, but we had become new people in Christ, and our lives took on a new focus. Marci began actively seeking the Lord, and I decided to attend Bible college and purposed to be a Godly husband and father.

A Shift in Thinking and Priorities

We soon realized that we had a lot to learn! We needed to change our perspective on life to one that was in line with God’s redemptive plan for the world. Although we readily accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the growth and outworking of our faith came in incremental steps. For many years we struggled as He helped us learn Biblical principles and to see life as He does.

None of our extended family members were Christians, and for a while we didn’t know any Christian friends. We wanted to learn how to live a Christian life—we wanted a new approach to life. In His own way, God began to bring Godly influences into our lives, and we grew little by little. God used the ministry of the Institute in Basic Life Principles to teach us much about how to love and serve Him.

As we searched for God’s way of life, He began to change every aspect of our lives—our finances, visions and goals, political views, entertainment, dress, education, the number of children we would have, and more!

Accepting God’s transforming work in each area brought blessings of joy to our lives, one of which is particularly evident in the area of planning our family size. Before we were Christians, my wife remembers thinking that having an abortion was understandable if you were old and didn’t want the child. This attitude about children had moved us to take steps to eliminate the possibility of having more children.

When God began to work in our hearts, He changed this area of our lives. We began to understand God’s love for children and that in His design, children are a gift and reward from Him. (See Psalm 127:3 and Mark 10:14.) As a result, I had a reversal surgery as an outward sign of inward obedience to God.

Two days after our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and only one year after I had the surgery, we learned that Marci was expecting our fifth child! We didn’t expect that God would give us more children, but through submitting our wills to His, He opened Marci’s womb and gave us another son, Cooper. We are so grateful to the Lord for His great blessing!

Replacing Deceptions With Truth

Since we have come into God’s marvelous light, we have learned that we live once, and die once, and then we will face judgment before God. (See Hebrews 9:27.) After discovering that there is a difference between the Creator and the creation, we realized that in the New Age movement we’d been worshiping and serving the creation instead of the Creator. We now have the indescribable joy of worshipping the Creator and His Son, Jesus Christ.

In this process, our priorities drastically changed. We moved from putting ourselves at the top of the list, to giving God first place. Instead of living for ourselves, we began living for God. We realize now true joy and contentment comes from being in God’s will!