Test The Prophecy (Daily Devotional)

Hello and thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to come to you today and spend this time with you in God’s word and in prayer. Over the last several weeks, we’ve been talking about prophecy, about how God speaks to us and this week, we want to continue on that same theme and talk a little bit on what should we do when we receive a prophecy or when we receive a prophetic word that is given to us. So, we’re talking about personal prophecy, when somebody comes and gives you a word and they may come and speak it to you or they may say they had a dream about you or some way that they deliver the prophecy word/ word of prophecy to you, what are we supposed to do with that? So, we want to spend sometime each day, during the course of this week, to try and understand form the word of God what we are supposed to do. The first thing we must do whenever we have received a word of prophecy regardless of who speaks that to us, it is our responsibility as people who have been given a word of prophecy/ prophetic word, to test that word. The bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 21, ‘do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fats to what is good.’ So, we do not despise prophecies, that means we are very open, knowing that this is one of the ways in which God would speak to us, get our attention on something that He wants to speak to us about. So, we are not rejecting prophecies, we are open, we are attentive. It says, don’t despise prophecies but there is some responsibility there. The bible tells us here, test all things. So, when a word of prophecy is given and as much as it is going to be very exciting, there may be wonderful things that are being spoken, words of encouragement, exhortation, comfort and strength, maybe sometimes direction, revelations, unveiling of the potential God has placed in you or a promise of the future and so on and so forth. As much as the prophecy itself is very exciting, we must test it. In other words, you don’t just blindly receive it just because somebody gave it to you, you are supposed to test it before you receive it and then the instruction here the apostle Paul gives us is, he says, fold fast to what is good. The implication is we put aside things that are not good, that means it has gone through the test, there is obviously parts of the prophecy that would be good and parts that would be not good. So, you are going to lay aside things that are not good and hold onto very firmly things that are good, that means you are going to do something with that prophecy. The first step, whenever a prophecy is given is to pay attention to it, you do not despise it, you make the effort to write it down, think about it and then you test it. We are going to learn how to test it. You test the prophecy and then lay aside things that maybe questionable, you feel is not really what the Spirit of God says because sometimes, a genuine word is coming through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but the vessel through which it is coming is not perfect. The Holy Spirit is perfect, His gift is perfect but all of us are imperfect vessels. So, what happens is we tends to mix things. There is a genuine portion but we put in things what God never intended, that’s why we need to test prophecy because it is coming through imperfect vessels. The Giver of the gift is perfect but the delivery comes through imperfect vessels and so we test the prophecy. We sift out whatever is not good and then we hold on to what is good. As we journey through this week, we are going to learn what to do with the prophecy that we have received. The first step of course is to test it. We will continue on this tomorrow. Let’s pray together, Father, we thank you for the many ways in which you speak to us. We thank you for the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We thank you that the Spirit of God speaks, He speaks through human vessels and give us ears that can hear when the Spirt of God is speaking and will pay attention to what the Spirit is saying, that we will be able to discern and receive what you want us to receive, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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