October 14
Jeremiah 23:21-25:38; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17; Psalm 84:1-12; Proverbs 25:15
God told me to...
I would guess most of us have interacted with someone who invoked God as a reason for what they did. They chose to move, get a new job, marry, or break up with someone because God told them to. Jeremiah and 2 Thessalonians tell us that those who claim to speak on behalf of God or are responding to something God told them are not always telling the truth.
Jeremiah is confronting a series of false prophets who told the people that comfort and peace would be theirs when the truth was that judgment, and the Babylonian exile awaited. They communicated what the people wanted to hear and stamped it with thus saith the Lord, to give it some force. In the same way, Paul confronts those who believe that the "day of the Lord" has already happened. This message has come through "prophecy...word of mouth...by letter" but Paul says that in all these cases they are lies. To say that God said something doesn’t provide any validation. Instead, we must compare it to Scripture and judge their claim based on what happens. Like the false prophets that Jeremiah encountered, I have known people who have been told they were divinely healed but later discovered it was not so. So let us test the claims, test the spirits, and learn as God’s sheep to hear the true voice of our good shepherd.
Father God, thank you that you are a God who has spoken. You have spoken through your own voice, through the prophets, apostles, and most clearly through Jesus. Thank you that we have your word in the Bible and that you continue to speak through your Spirit. Give me a discerning heart to know what is from you and what is not. Amen.
Question of the day: How can you test whether someone's claim to be speaking on behalf of God is valid?
God told me to...
I would guess most of us have interacted with someone who invoked God as a reason for what they did. They chose to move, get a new job, marry, or break up with someone because God told them to. Jeremiah and 2 Thessalonians tell us that those who claim to speak on behalf of God or are responding to something God told them are not always telling the truth.
Jeremiah is confronting a series of false prophets who told the people that comfort and peace would be theirs when the truth was that judgment, and the Babylonian exile awaited. They communicated what the people wanted to hear and stamped it with thus saith the Lord, to give it some force. In the same way, Paul confronts those who believe that the "day of the Lord" has already happened. This message has come through "prophecy...word of mouth...by letter" but Paul says that in all these cases they are lies. To say that God said something doesn’t provide any validation. Instead, we must compare it to Scripture and judge their claim based on what happens. Like the false prophets that Jeremiah encountered, I have known people who have been told they were divinely healed but later discovered it was not so. So let us test the claims, test the spirits, and learn as God’s sheep to hear the true voice of our good shepherd.
Father God, thank you that you are a God who has spoken. You have spoken through your own voice, through the prophets, apostles, and most clearly through Jesus. Thank you that we have your word in the Bible and that you continue to speak through your Spirit. Give me a discerning heart to know what is from you and what is not. Amen.
Question of the day: How can you test whether someone's claim to be speaking on behalf of God is valid?
Recent
Archive
2025
January
January 1January 2January 3January 4January 5January 6January 7January 8January 9January 10January 11January 12January 13January 14January 15January 16January 17January 18January 19January 20January 21January 22January 23January 24January 25January 26January 27January 28January 29January 30January 31
February
March
Categories
no categories
No Comments