Thought of the Day !!

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
                                                            1 John 4:1 (NRSV)

John goes on to say that any spirit that confesses Jesus is from God, and that any spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  There are evil spirits in this world that try to manipulate people by deception.  These are from the devil.  There are also good spirits, often referred to as angels, that help people.  If one were to hear a spirit, one could know the truth by whether or not the spirit acknowledged Jesus.

But what about people?  False prophets have been around since Old Testament times.  Kings would often times surround themselves with prophets that would tell them what they wanted to hear.  These were false prophets.  There were also the prophets of Baal, a pagan God.  These were false prophets.  But the scariest ones to me are the ones who claim to be from God, but are working out of deception.

Jesus told us to beware of false prophets (Matthew 7:15-20) and that they would claim to come in his name (Matthew 24:5).  These are with us today.  So how do we test whether or not they are from God.  Test them, not by what they say, but by the fruit that they produce and how their lives are lived.  Don't believe anything that goes against what they Bible teaches.  Confirm your theories about them by sharing your concerns with other good bible based believers.  And by all means, pray about it. 

I wonder how many false prophets are out there today leading people along the wrong path with teachings that are what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.  I wonder how many lead people into even more selfishness instead of closer to God. 

Test those who try to persuade you one way or another.  Test me.  But when you find those Godly leaders that can help you come closer and closer to God.  Listen and learn from them because they are the ones that have been given a gift from God.  Don't worship them.  And remember that they're not perfect and won't ever know everything.  But ask God to bring you to those who will lead you to Him and not those who will lead you astray.

In the love of Christ,
greg