Love when God gives us a layup! Friday, August 08, 2014

So much of the Bible takes study which is why God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us discern Scripture when we accept Christ.  But every now and then God gives us a layup.  He makes it easy for us.  Here is an example.

1 John 4:1-3(NKJV)

1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

2By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 

3and every spirit that does not confess £that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

We run across people all the time who try to convince us of different things, especially spiritually.  The spirits and the false prophets that the Scripture speaks of, I believe, are the people that we encounter in our daily lives.  You will encounter this a lot on Facebook in religious discussions as an example.

So how do you know who to listen to?  They seem sincere.  They seem to know what they are talking about.  It seems to make sense but at the same time there are questions and doubts in your mind as to whether you should listen to them or not.  How do you know?

The highlighted part of Scripture above tells you where to start.  Do they believe and confess that Jesus Christ has come to earth in the flesh?  If so, according to this verse you can proceed with the belief that they are of God. 

So does that mean that once you do that analysis you can believe everything they say?  I wouldn't.  People can try to lie and deceive you.  They can say they believe when they don't so I would continue to compare what they say to Scripture.  But at least God gives us a clear cut place to start!