Spiritual Plagiarism...

 Spiritual Plagiarism…

Mary Ann Wray

Jesus said “Freely you have received; freely you shall give.” But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give credit or honor to whom honor is due. All the authors of the Bible quoted and named the vessel which God was speaking to or through all the way back to Adam and Eve.

It is spiritual plagiarism to take inspired and or researched messages from other people and act like the messages came through you by not including their name with a quote or narrative. That is not honoring your brother or sister. That is not honoring to the Lord.

To Honor your brother or sister and the Lord would be to include their name if they’ve authored a thought, an utterance, a book, a sermon, a song, or a brief message from the Father. It is called respect. It is called honor. It is called integrity and maturity.

Then there are some of you who act like it doesn’t matter to you if someone takes your hard work or prophetic utterances and present it as if they received it directly from the Lord. Did not the prophet Jeremiah chide the people of Israel for the same thing?

"Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another." Jeremiah 23: 30

You are not respecting yourself when think it's okay for people to take what God gave YOU and act like God gave it to THEM. You have an orphaned spirit. Your Heavenly Father doesn’t shortchange you. Your Father doesn’t demean you. Your Father doesn’t treat you as though you are invisible. Everything you have you have received from Him.

It is false humility to act like your messages, songs, words should remain nameless. What you are saying about yourself is you don’t matter - as if you’re worthless. Your songs, messages, books, articles and other utterances have come out of a place(s) of great pain many times. You've given your work much study, effort and deep introspection.

Other times God speaks to you out of a place of deep intimacy and prayer where the Holy Spirit has shown you things. Some of them He wants you to share and bless others with, only as He leads you to do it. How dare someone take those precious pearls and trample them under foot as if they received it from God without spending a moment in prayer themselves.

You deserve to be honored through what you’ve walked through. You paid a price to get those nuggets of wisdom and prophecies. God honors you for your faith and persistence, so you need to respect yourself, not in a haughty prideful way, but in true humility. If you don’t respect yourself, how can you truly respect anyone else or expect anyone else to respect you as a Child of God?

Even in secular writing, music and publications, there are copyright laws to protect what they deem is “intellectual property.” Some Christians act like it’s a free-for-all in the kingdom of God because they take the aforementioned scripture and use it as a justification to steal intellectual property from someone else and use it as their own.

Worse still is giving away your precious nuggets and pearls of wisdom as if you and they are worthless. Spiritual bandits will take other's messages to seed and use it for their own advantage without regarding their brothers or sisters. That my friends is a copyright infringement of the worst kind. It has been recorded in heaven, and unless they repent they will be judged for it.

You are a son or daughter of the most high God. Respect yourself. Love yourself and treat others the way you want to be treated.