Day 18 | 40-Day Lenten Fast & Devotional

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 1 John 4:1-3

Good morning, good morning, grace and peace be unto all of you, my father's children. Its in fact day number 18 of our 40-day Lenten Fast and it's terrific Tuesday. This week we've been focused in  on the word discernment and what does that really challenge us to do and what is our responsibility to it as Christians. So our scripture for this morning will come from the book, first John, first John,  he fourth chapter. I'm only going to read the first verse, but it's awesome how it opens.

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit,  but test the spirit to see whether they are from God.  Because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have already heard, the spirit is coming even now is already in the world.”

Okay. So here's what happens. This letter was to give some balance to a group of  somewhere around  probably close to church in Ephesus at the time. John realized were heavily, heavily, heavily  influenced. And ultimately inside of their new conversion,  there had to be a standard. They were also living in a time, and I do say also, intentionally, living in a time of major disinformation, where there were many things that almost disguised themselves as looking like  God-like activity or God-like entities. And what John is saying is you got to learn how to test the spirits. Here's the thing, if you're with us on Sunday, you recognize the importance of knowing the word, because one of the key components to testing the spirit is knowing the word of God.

Part of it is there were many things that sounded pleasing to your ear, but when you line them up with the word and the knowledge of God, you're like, that just doesn't align right with him. That doesn't align right with what echoes inside my spirit. In other words, the more that you know somebody, the more you can tell if it actually came from their voice. Imagine this, the longer that you're in a relationship, the more familiar someone's voice becomes. So much so that even things that they say align with consistencies of things that you've heard before. But oftentimes, if we have not spent enough alone time, if we have not spent time studying his word, if we have not spent time  in communion with the Father, it's hard to distinguish his voice from others. Ultimately, we live in a society where there's so many things attempting to grab our attention, attempting to draw us in that we have to have a discriminatory ear as it relates  to what God is saying. And even sometimes it sounds good, things that we want or things that we desire, but we realize in our heart of hearts that it's not within the will that God has already expressed by nature of what we've already heard from God.

So testing God's word, testing the spirits with the word is important. It's pertinent, but then secondarily, testing God's spirit will never happen in an incubator. When God brings a word, he always brings confirmation. And the confirmation is not just, feels good. The confirmation comes from a secondary source, which is also trusted. So he says, what I need you to do  is test the spirits. Test the spirits because  you know what you won't believe?  You won't believe something that just genuinely is not something inside of you that you desire or you're in your own. And so we have to watch our feelings. We have to watch our emotions because they too can deceive us from time to time. But when we test the spirit, when we are cognizant in our discerning nature, when we've spent time with the Father, you will be able to recognize his voice. So I want to ask you, on this morning, how well do you know God's voice? The scripture also says, you know, my sheep. They know the sound of my voice. They recognize my voice and they'll come running to me. The only way that we can recognize and discern his voice, we got to stay in his word.

So on today, I want you to be encouraged, but I also want you to be watchful and prayerful. Test the spirits, because if they acknowledge the incarnation of Christ, they follow within this guiding context, and that's from him. But if it just sound good, you must be cautious.

Have an incredible day. Be blessed, enjoy. I love each and every one of you. We'll talk on tomorrow. God bless you.