Prophetic Messages- Neil Anderson-Daily in Christ

 

Jeremiah 23:29 

"Is not My word like fire?" declares the LORD, and like a hammer which shatters a rock?"

 

If you attend a Christian fellowship where prophecies are part of public worship, I wonder if we should expect from God generic messages like, "I love you, My children" or "I'm coming soon." These statements are certainly true, but why would they need to be prophesied, since the Bible already clearly asserts God's love and Christ's imminent return? I have heard "prophecies" like these given in churches where many people were living in sin, lulling them into an unrighteous complacency.

 

The voice of a prophet is a consuming fire and a shattering hammer. A prophetic message should motivate people to righteousness, not placate them in their sin (1 Peter 4:17). God is more concerned about church purity than about church growth. Comfort only comes to those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake by allowing God's Word to purge their sin and shatter their self-centeredness.

 

Jeremiah relates two other evidences of false prophets: "'Behold, I am against the prophets,' declares the LORD, 'who steal My words from each other'" (23:30). That's plagiarism: taking what God gave someone else and using it as if it were your own. "'I am against the prophets,' declares the LORD, 'who use their tongues and declare, "the Lord declares"'" (verse 31).

 

Declaring that what you are saying is directly from the Lord when it isn't is an incredible offense to God. If God wants me to know something He will tell me directly. I believe in the priesthood of believers; however, God can and will encourage us and confirm His Word to us through others. "There is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). If someone says to you "God told me to tell you . . ." that person may be functioning as a medium. The gift of prophecy should reveal the secrets of the heart so people will fall on their faces and worship God (1 Corinthians 14:25). Then God will guide them by His Holy Spirit.

 

Prayer: Lord, teach me not to quench Your Spirit nor to despise prophetic utterances but to examine everything and hold fast to what is good.

 Courtesy of:  http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/dailyinchrist/

 

I have to admit there are two things that God does not go into details with me and He gave me very limited knowledge of them. One is the gift of prophecy and the other one is about claiming a title like “apostle.” The reason these two came about, is because for a few months I was inundated with titles coming from other Christians. They either felt I was a prophet or an apostle. I have to confess, for a brief period of time, I wanted God to confirm what I was exactly in His sight. He did not want me to take a title, however He confirmed to me that I was His servant, and this was enough for me. The more I grow in the Lord, the more my focus is on being a servant and knowing that in heaven the angels along with the triune God would rejoice because I can be referred to as someone who walk with God. THIS IS MY SOLE AMBITION.

One Church that I like attending for the past few years, is a Pentecostal Church nearby. The only reason I like it is that the Pastor is truly a man of God and for the past few years, I am watching him grow in the Lord continually.  Oftentimes, when there is some sort of prophetic utterance, message, the Holy Spirit of God would show me how this person is not talking through Him at all. I do believe the reason the Spirit witness to me has a lot to do with the fact that I live and walk in the Spirit, so, He is doing His job. I am totally indifferent about the rest and truly feel that each of us who has appropriated a title or a gift, would have to answer to God, if indeed it was not His doing.  One thing that He went over with me is that He does not take lightly the appropriation of titles and the showing of Spiritual gifts that have not even been  assigned by Him, especially when the life of the person doing the appropriation, is not even up to par with His requirements of the Christian life.

My point here, is that I did not post this devotion from Neil Anderson to hurt anyone of my followers in any shape or form. If you feel somewhat offended by the devotion, then, it is one more reason to deal with God directly.  I certainly felt led by the Spirit to post this devotion and tell about my limitations.

Test Everything (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21)

August 18

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 NIVDo not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good
Alvin was discouraged and defeated. For several years he believed he had a special gift of prophecy from God. But over a period of months his personal life began to fall apart. By the time he came to see me he had been unemployed for two years, he was being cared for by his father, and he was a slave to prescription drugs.

Alvin and I read 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21. I said, "Alvin, Satan can counterfeit spiritual gifts. That's why the Scriptures instruct us to put everything to the test."

Alvin admitted, "I think my problems began when I failed to test the 'gifts' of tongues and prophecy conferred on me by false teachers."

"Would you be willing to put your gift of tongues to the test?" I asked. Alvin really wanted to be free. "Yes," he answered.

I instructed Alvin to begin praying aloud in his "spiritual language." As he began to chant an unintelligible prayer, I said, "In the name of Christ and in obedience to God's Word, I command you, spirit, to identify yourself."

Alvin stopped in the middle of his chanting and said, "I am he."

"Are you the 'He' who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, raised on the third day, and who now sits at the right hand of the Father?" I asked.

Alvin almost shouted the response: "No! Not He!" I led Alvin through a prayer renouncing Satan's activity in his life, and he was free from that deception.

I am not against spiritual gifts, even prophecy and tongues. I am committed to obeying Scripture, and 1 Corinthians 14:39 says, "Desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues." But Scripture also requires that all spiritual phenomena be tested. I believe that false prophets and teachers flourish today simply because Christians accept their ministry without testing the spirits behind it.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to stay alert to spiritual seduction and reject all phenomena that do not come from God.

FROM LIGHTSOURCE WEBSITE: 

http://www.lightsource.com/devotionals/neil-andersons-daily-in-christ/daily-in-christ-818-544734.html

Christ our Teacher

By Octavious Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with His people — as a Teacher. There exists no office of Christ that is not openly impugned and denied in the present day — and not one more so than His prophetic office. False teaching everywhere and alarmingly abounds. 

The teaching of men is exalted above the teaching of Christ, and, as a consequence, Infidelity and Popery are rife, and the people are following after the false prophet and the beast. This is a day in which the Lord's true people must exhibit their loyalty to Christ in His prophetic office — as the sole, divine, authorized Teacher of the Church. To Him, as our Teacher — must we only look; and His teaching — must we only follow. There is no safety but at Christ's feet! We must accept no doctrine, and observe no practice — but what comports with the teaching, example, and simplicity of His Word. If true and faithful disciples — to Christ, we must closely and exclusively adhere. We have but one master, Christ; to Him we stand or fall.

Beware, in religious sentiments, of the fascination and influence of ecclesiastical authority, cultivated intellect, and polished teachers: all this is of man, and partakes of the errors and sinfulness of man. Untaught by the Holy Spirit, and unsanctified by God's grace — we have seen the most brilliant and eminent gifts prove, but as decoy lights — glimmering along the bleak, fatal shores of Infidelity and Romanism — alluring, and then wrecking, upon the rocks, quicksands, and shoals — the too confiding, unsuspecting mind, "handling the word of God deceitfully."

Oh, be Christ's true disciple — loyal to His person, and faithful to His truth! It is the Word of Christ which quickens you, sanctifies you, comforts you. Nor can you part with one doctrine of Christ, without inflicting the most serious injury upon your soul, and shading His glory. "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." 

The more experimentally you know of Christ's truth, and the more simply you walk in Christ's truth — the holier and the happier will you be. Oh, how increasingly glorious to your eye and precious to your heart, will Christ become! You will more and more clearly see, that all truth centers in Christ, and that Christ is the substance of all truth; that to know Christ — is to know the truth; and to know the truth — is to be freed from the blinding influence, erroneous teaching, and boasted authority of man. Blessed Jesus! O Divine Prophet of Your Church! "Happy are Your men, happy are these Your servants, who stand continually before You, and that hear Your wisdom."

Christ must be our wisdom in the midst of ignorance. He must be our Teacher, for He can teach without any man at all. "Who is a teacher like Him!" Job 36:22

Warning against Pastor Paul Washer and John Piper

Late last night I read two warnings against Pastor Paul Washer and one against Pastor John Piper. I truly was not looking for that. Instead, I was looking for a rare puritan book and because both pastors’ names are associated with the puritan I stumbled on those reviews about them.

My heart was breaking as I read these reviewers words. One of them is so eloquent that if you do not know God personally and intimately, you would be inclined to believe everything he says because he phrased things so beautifully and so eloquently. I have to confess, for a moment I envied this man’s vocabulary and his writing style. Oh the beauty! The other reviewer is a man who has a popular site dedicated to reviewing everyone else except himself. He hides himself well and no one on earth can get in touch with him. (I wonder why?) If your ministry is truly from and for God, about God, with God, through God and in God, and if you are not led solely by Satan, why on earth wouldn’t you avail yourself, just in case there was someone out there, reading your blog and that God could use you to actually lead this person to Him?

His website is dedicated to tearing down every pastor who writes a book or preach a sermon that teach people to grow in the Lord, to make every effort or to examine oneself. It is so strange to see that most pastors that are truly called by the Lord, those pastors who are truly men after God’s heart are so hated by him and he is warning everyone who wants to read him, to stay away from these pastors. My heart was breaking, not for the pastors because I know they are truly “work in progress” and in good hands with the savior. My heart was breaking for those reviewer’s ignorance, arrogance, and spiritual blindness. In fact, I know Pastor Paul Washer's boldness has not only been gifted by God with the gift of boldness, the Holy Spirit witnessed it to my soul when He gave me the gift of boldness. All of you who are used to reading me know that this gift comes only after a long painful training process with Him.

If you take the time to read about Pastor John Piper, you will notice how he does not hide his flaws. This man still has a lot of work to be done. I love reading about how he humbles himself and shares with his congregation, very openly what God is doing in his life. He confessed his 3 years of counselling to improve his marriage. He confessed the fact that he was once a white supremacist all the while being a Christian at the same time. (Click here) Not long ago I read how God is dealing with him because he needs more humility in his ministry. The bottom line is, this pastor truly what we Christians call “works in progress” and God is at work in his life.

What I like the most about him is that I can see he is truly walking in the light. When you walk in the light with God, He does something to you. Even though you can see how disgusting you are on the inside, yet, there is an authenticity and integrity that the light calls for, it causes you not to hide behind even the worst thing about you. It is all in the open for anyone to see. Another reason that you feel this way is that you do not dread the Day of Judgment and there is nothing that God can put out there that would embarrass you, because He has already dealt with you in His mercy.

This morning as I was reading 2 Chronicles, I was reminded of those reviewers. I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that they do not see through the eyes of God. I know they are spiritually ignorant, they do not understand God’s word and I know they have stubborn hearts toward God. In fact, they reminded me of the Pharisees who killed the same savior whose mistake was to care for their souls.

When I read about God’s covenant with Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:12-22, and when you consider how wise Solomon was, you are inclined to ask yourself why didn’t he listen to God in order to reap the blessings of honoring the covenant God made with him? What would make him ignore the dreadful consequences of disobedience? No one in the right mind would choose voluntarily to go toward a life of disaster. But, this is exactly the choice Solomon made.  The problem is that sin is so deceptively attractive, so Solomon turned away from God.

But God never changed. His covenant with David, Solomon and Israel was “honor God and live” choose the destructive path which is sin, and die. God’s standard is perfect righteousness, and when we reject it, we chose unrighteousness, once we choose unrighteousness, we not only deserve death, and we are also enslaved by another master. In the case of Solomon, he lived long enough to repent and found his way back to God. Nevertheless the consequence of his turning away from God was drastic, caused a lot of suffering and changed millions of people’s lives.

These reviewers who seem to be allergic to anyone who elevate Christ to His right place are blinded by their spiritual ignorance and stubbornness. They are naturally hostile to Him and they are also holding to some form of religion, but never truly experienced a life changing reality of true Salvation. The sign that true Salvation has entered the heart is that the Holy Spirit is at work in us and instead of sitting still, with one verse of the Bible, we go forward like the apostle Paul in the book of Philippians, to claim the prize. The need to pursue Him and persevere through the journey is one of our proof that Salvation has reached us and we have accepted the good news exactly like Christ meant it for us. Grace does not mean God has taken away the need for us to make every effort. On the contrary, if indeed you have been saved by His grace and His gift of salvation has entered your heart, then this same grace brings with it the power of the Holy Spirit to enable you to strive, to pursue, to make every effort as He continue to work out His Salvation in you and me.

When you claim to have been saved by grace through faith and you have received the gift of God, yet you are like a dog with a bone holding onto one or two verses of the Bible and you have no inclination to go forward with Him spiritually, then ask yourself why is it the transformational work of the Holy Spirit seems to be absent in your spiritual life. The lesson here, be very careful when someone is trying to shove down your throat what they know about God, when in reality they have not even been chosen by Him….., yet. When you stand before God, you cannot tell Him that you read one of those ignorant people and you were duped. Adam and Eve tried that approach and it did not work in their favour and they died spiritually. No one in the right mind should make a decision to go forward with Christ or stay behind because you read something that you feel was right with you. The only person who should have this much power over your life is God and He is waiting with open arms for you to ask Him. You know why it is important to go directly to Him? Eternity is way too long for you to live without and away from Him. Choose carefully. Let him have the last word.

The Holy Spirit is more than willing to show you who is right and wrong. Which pastor is after His own heart and which is not. Which pastors have been ordained by Him or not and which pastor is failing miserably or not. Because it is about how and where you spend eternal life, do not use your feelings to decide whether you are right or not. Neither use one or two verses of the Bible to fight or bad mouth everyone who tells you to go forward with God.

Ephesians 1:18

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,

I am leaving you with two important verses of the Bible. Several people on the internet have put a different spin on those verses without truly knowing God intimately and without understanding what walking and living in the Spirit even means in their own lives.  They are like Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness, by telling Him what God meant to say in Psalm 91:11-12. It is interesting to see that Satan tried to keep something from Christ when He told Him in Matthew 4:5-6 

 “Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: 

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,

    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’

Satan can be tricky that way. He could have continued and told Christ about verse 13 which is: 

“You will tread on the lion and the cobra;

You will trample the great lion and the serpent.” 

If he had said verse 13 to Christ, it would have been like shooting himself in the foot because this verse refers to him.

Here are those two verses in question: 

Hebrews 6:4-6

 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit,  who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age,  if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

 Matthew 23:15 

"What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are!

If you in fact received the gift of Salvation, do not let anyone dupe you into putting God to test or putting words in His mouth. The word of God tells us 

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test”

DEEPEN YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIBLE. DIG DEEPER INTO THE WORD OF GOD

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