Whenever someone tells me they heard a message from The Lord, I can’t help wondering how they know God was speaking. I’m never confident enough in my convictions to claim they come directly from the creator of time, space, and matter.
“John, you jerk! God speaks to us through the Bible! Align your opinions with the scripture and you can be confident like me!”
Right…*sigh*
Whenever you tell me your interpretation of the Bible is 100% accurate, I can’t help wondering how you know. And since most of the time your ‘messages from God’ are not direct quotes from the Bible, I can’t help wondering how you know God is speaking.
My daughter posed a great question. It’s a question that you’ll struggle to answer despite your claim that God himself talks to you.
“How would God let you know when you’re wrong?”
No offense intended, but It’s possible that God isn’t telling you to do whatever you’re planning to do. It’s possible that you are hearing something other than the voice of truth. Perhaps (and again, I don’t mean to offend you) the advice you’re giving me is not good. It would be good for you to come up with a way to test your beliefs before passing them along to me as trustworthy.
“Okay, John, you jerk!! Since you’re so smart, you tell me how you know when God is speaking!!!”
I’ve got several methods for testing the spirits and the first is asking how you know you’re speaking for God. That’s usually the only method I need. When you dodge that question (or flip it back to me), I know you can’t be trusted. When you can’t tell me how God reveals your errors, I stop listening to your advice.
(2 Corinthians 13:5) Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test.
One Response
Testing the spirit is definitely the way to know if it is from God, ourselves, or the enemy. Thank you for all your work. My family and I learned of you via Dry Bar and your Shakespearean 3 Little Pigs is still out favorite bit.