A Word of Caution

Last year, before I had any sort of grasp on the spiritual realm or the fact that God speaks directly to people, God put a vision in my heart for our purpose as believers. That vision was to love Him, love everyone we come in contact with, and lead others to do the same. Since then, God has taught me about the spiritual realm where God equips His kids for ministry by empowering us with His Holy Spirit.

I now know that He speaks and yet He is still speaking that same simple purpose to me. Why is that? It’s all a difference in perception… Before I learned my true identity as a daughter of a loving Father, I had a head knowledge that sounded out loud like I knew what was up. In fact, it sounded in the physical realm exactly the same! Yet in my mind, how the Church was intended to go about achieving that purpose was completely different before I learned who God really was and who we really are.

I used to think that we were supposed to love God because loving Him was a way that we could “do something” to please Him. Come to find out, we are already pleasing to God! Yet, my purpose remains to love Him. If it isn’t about pleasing Him, then what is it about?

It’s about living life with God, being His friend, being His kid, receiving His love and loving Him back. All other causes are futile. Everything else is trivial and the means of going about this purpose are limitless.

The difference in my thinking before and after was not in what I was thinking but rather, how I was thinking about it. God doesn’t want us to just know all the answers. He wants us to know Him. He wants His Truth to so penetrate our souls that we are changed! The Bible in every Christian church is the same, but the difference is whether it is simply read as words on a page or as words from God Himself. It makes a difference. The same verses can take on different meanings with or without God’s interpretation. Without God’s interpretation we look at the words on the page and try to make sense of them… that is our physical nature kicking in.

Sometimes we do this by relating them to things we know. For example, we see the word, “church” in the Bible and in our minds we think of the local church down the street. We take what is tangible and interpret the Bible accordingly. However, with the Holy Spirit, God enables us to see impossibilities as realities and to accept things that we don’t understand at face value. Sometimes, He even gives us spiritual understanding of concepts that are not understandable in the physical realm. So, though I had many of the same thoughts in my mind before I understood the Holy Spirit’s role as I do now, my life looks completely different. I see things differently.

God’s Words never changed. It’s His revelation that He brings to them that makes the difference. It’s not that God is speaking different Truth to everybody. The Truth is always the same. It’s that He is enabling some people to receive it.

I say this as a word of caution to believers. Some things that you hear sound right or are even “based on scripture”, but test them to make sure they line up with who God is. Yes, it is true that our purpose is to love God and love people, but no, it is not true that we have to do this to please God. Ask God for discernment in knowing what is from Him and what is not from Him. He will give it to you.