A person with a religious spirit cannot humble themselves or be submission to those who are their elders in the Body of Christ. The Bible exalts Christians to have humility and meekness towards each other and be in submission to each other, especially and foremost to God. For God resists the proud, but gives grace and favour to the humble and those who are obedient.

A person who is deceived by a religious spirit can also be tied up with legalism and superstition and are not free in the freedom from the Law that Christ bought for all to share in The New Covenant. Christ opposed legalism and hyprocrisy. These people are usually strong willed, arrogant, always believe that they are right. They struggle to oppose God, whether they know it or not. They are rebellious, subtle, discriminating, selfish, proud, selfrighteous, insolent, overbearing, disdainful, presumptuous, boastful, frustrate others and bring division more than restoration, healing and reconciling.
They are a people who love themselves, love money, are boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to the Word of God, unholy, without love, not lovers of good, having a form of godliness but denying the power and are lovers of pleasure.

Compromising can be found amongst these people, according to their own standards, for a religious spirit is rebellious to God, authority, of elders, and sadly pride of youngsters gets in the way of learning. They corrupt the doctrine of God, undermining their loyalty to God by promoting tolerance toward pagan practises, including idols, lust and sexual immorality. The religious spirit leads people to pursue liberal doctrines for the wrong motives. It can be of human origin, and lacks faithfulness to Christ's teaching.

Standards of righteous conduct are principles that are kept in obedience to God's Word, in the case of a religious spirit, the person allows those to be a stronger influence than a godly influence, and become judgmental and hypercritical, thinking that they are virtuous when they are not, they defiantly lack honour because of ignorance.
The Religious Spirit follows and teaches doctrines that are valueless. There is prejudice due to an attitude of superiority, usually based on false assumptions about people's behaviour. Presumption is unacceptable in God's principles. God is not prejudiced.
God is not prejudiced. Those who are truly led by The Holy Spirit will always look for ways to help rather than standing aloof and criticising. The gentleness of The Holy Spirit encourages and does not condemn and crumple the inner persistence of a believer.

The religious spirit instructs on beliefs that are contrary to The Word of God, and encourage others to compromise God's standards.
Many people are unaware that they compromise the principles of God.
This spirit promotes pagan religions and spiritual adultery, unbiblical teaching, the tendency to be able to tolerate sin and unrighteousness.

People with a religious spirit persecute those who stay with The Word of God, searching the scriptures and studying the Truths of God's Word. They claim to 'speak for God' and have influence and a form of success both in the Body of Christ and to those who take pleasure in worldly matters.

The strategy of the religious spirit is to keep Christians focused on evil and away from the Glory of God, through Christ. This evil spirit has done much damage to The Body of Christ for it does not add life and power, but division and destruction.
Upon making spiritually immature Christians self-righteous and proud, the followers then assume that they already know God's opinion in almost every area. This is a big delusion. The Church needs to continually confront this powerful deception that can cancel the true power of the True Gospel because of these assumptions.

The religious spirit was the primary characteristic of the Pharisees of Jesus' day, as they focused on what was wrong with others being blind to their own faults. Even though this problem was operating then, it still continues to be in force today, conflicting with the true Work of The Holy Spirit.

The people have a zeal, but not in accordance with biblical knowledge, and are in reality in opposition to the teachings of Jesus. They glory in their own zeal for God, this is the snare of the enemy.
Cults and false religions are easily discernible, but the religious spirit still remains to do harm in the Body of Christ, it seeks after popularity and seeks out believers to serve The Lord for approval, rather than through the Work of Christ on the Cross. They become unteachable and will use anything in an attempt not to be confronted.

If pride is addressed, insecurity and fleshly excuses are there to attract sympathy in defence, this is self-righteousness acting as a deceptive faith, giving an appearance of wisdom, but it is a fleshly minded knowledge. Pride is a great evil. To be godly, pride has to be rejected. Pride leads to other forms of evil, spiritual blindness, a hardened heart, contempt for others, injustice, quarrelling and can become malicious.

The Gifts of The Spirit can only operate in love, so gifts that are used by a religious spirit is false spiritual perception. Also this spirit is much more focused on the earthly realm than the heavenly realm and the attitudes and motives are in opposition to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus called these people who were preoccupied with their own recognition, blind guides.

The true fruit of revelation will be humility, not pride. The motivation of The Holy Spirit is love for The Son of God.

With humbleness, meekness and repentance to God, The love of The Holy Spirit will take over the judgement, pride and self righteousness.