Discern The Person (Daily Devotional)

Greetings and thank you so much for the opportunity to come to you today and spend a few moments in God’s word and in prayer with you. This week, we are talking about what to do when you receive a word of prophecy/ a prophetic word is given. We mentioned yesterday that it is important for us to test the word of prophecy. We’ve addressed some of this in earlier weeks, but one of the important tests we just want to highlight today is that we need to discern the vessel through whom that word has been given to us. This is very interesting because this is highlighted for us both in the Old and the New Testament and this test is given by God as the most important test concerning the prophetic word. In Deuteronomy chapter 13, verses 1 through 3, the Lord speaks in the Old Testament, He says, ‘If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.’ He is telling them that if there is a prophet who gives them a word and even if that word comes to pass, the real test is, is that prophet drawing them to the true and living God or is he pointing them away from God to follow other gods? There is something that supersedes the fulfilment of the prophetic word and it is who the prophet is and where is he pointing to. If the prophet is pointing to the living God, then yes, you receive that word, believe that word and believe the prophet. But if that prophet, even if his word comes to pass and he is pointing in the wrong direction, away from the living God to follow after other gods and other things, then God says don’t pay attention to the prophet or anything he says. The same thing is highlighted for us by the Lord Jesus in Mathew chapter 7, verses 15 -20, where Jesus is talking about false prophets. He says, ‘beware of false prophets, they come to you in sheep’s clothing, but they are actually ravenous wolves.’ He says, ‘you will know them by their fruit.’ He says, there would be false prophets obviously delivering false prophecies, but the real test or the way you discern somebody to be false or true is by the fruit that they bring forth in the lives. What is the fruit that is coming out of their lives? What is the effect of their ministry? Whom are they pointing to? Remember, the Holy Spirit always glorifies Jesus, He always points us to Jesus, He always draws us closer to Jesus and His work in us always conforms us to the image of Jesus Christ. In part of testing prophecy, discern the person, discern the vessel through whom that word comes. Make sure that the vessel is glorifying and exalting Jesus Christ and is drawing people to a closer walk with Jesus, that is an important test of the prophetic word itself. Let’s pray together, Father, we ask that in times such as these, you will enable us to be discerning, help our eyes to see, to go beyond the words that are spoken to us and to discern those who are truly of you, those who are truly speaking by the Spirit, those who are truly glorifying and exalting Jesus and to receive and drink through such vessels, thank you Father, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week’s theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week’s devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.