What If I Reject A Word
And It Is Really From God?
From time to time, each of us gets a word that troubles us and we don't feel right with it. We want to reject it, but for some reason, there is a part of us that is afraid to reject it.
Maybe we are afraid that the word might touch on a blind spot (a flaw in our life that we are not aware of). Or we might be afraid that we will make some terrible mistake in rejecting a real God-word to word to us, and He will get mad at us and stop prophesying to us. Or maybe we just don't want to hurt God's feelings. But, for whatever reason, we are hesitant to reject a word that we don't think is really from God on the off change that it turns out the word is really from Him.
I have some news for you that I hope will be a comfort to you. God is faithful to lead and guide us. The bible tells us that we will hear a voice behind us saying, "This is the way, walk in it." that means that when we sincerely seek God's will on something, He will be faithful to show it to us. James tells us "Whenever any of you lacks wisdom, ask God, who gives liberally to all men and does not hold back."
What does this mean to us in terms of judging prophecy? It means that if we make a mistake in our judgment, God will lovingly and patiently correct us. That correction is not to be confused with rebuke or punishment. It is setting us back on the right course if we take a wrong turn.
For instance, if we judge a word to be "from God" when it is not, and if we act on that word and being to move in the wrong direction, God is faithful to stop us, turn us around, and point us back in the correct direction. On the other hand, if we accidentally reject a word that is really from God, He is able to bring the word back around again.
Let me give you an example of this from a very recent experience in my own life. I am sitting in a hotel in a remote (and very hot) part of Brazil, where we are about to launch a crusade that will have an attendance of over 10,000 a night. God spoke to me and told me to go on this Global Awakening mission trip about seven weeks ago when I was on another missions trip in Singapore.
When I got back from Singapore, I asked the missions committee of my church if they could help me with any part of the expense for this trip. Another person from my church, Brenda, was going on this same trip, along with our senior pastor. Brenda, was staying on an extra week to visit Casa de David, a sort of 24 hour soaking and worship center, to encounter God's presence. One of the people on the missions committee told me, "You should got to Casa de David with Brenda."
I assumed they were speaking from their own heart, not giving a message from God, and I immediately rejected it. Logistically it was very unreasonable, as I would only have 17 days between when I returned from Brazil and when I would be leaving to take a team to India. (The India trip is a GodSpeak trip, so I am the main speaker and have a lot to prepare for this trip, and a short amount of time to do it in.) In addition, the idea of going to Casa de David to soak in God's presence for a week and pray and intercede just did not appeal to me-- I'd never heard of them before and did not know anything about them. If I was going to go soak, I'd rather go to Toronto, where God had originally touched me so deeply and revolutionized my walk with Him. So I immediately rejected the comment that this person made.
In all honestly, they did not say they were speaking for the Lord, they just made a suggestion to me. And since the suggestion did not fit in my plans or interests at all, so I never considered that it might be from the Lord, and I immediately rejected it.
But, as it turns out, it was God who spoke through the mission committee member. I got to Brazil to discover that six friends from a previous church were also on the Global team in Brazil. One of them, a friend named Sarah, decided to change her plans and go to Casa de David with Brenda. She happened to be flying the same airline as me, Continental airlines from San Francisco to Brazil and back again. But once we were in Brazil, we were flying Tam airlines within the country. The Global travel agent was able to change her return date on Continental for only $139, but the internal airfare within Brazil (on Tam) was going to be about $700 if arranged from the USA. The travel agent said that she might be able to get a cheaper flight at the airline counter in Brasilia (a four hour stopover when we flew from Rio de Janeiro to Imperatriz.
The rest of the team went to eat dinner during the layover, but Sarah and Brenda were going to the ticket counter to work on Sarah's ticket. I felt led to go with them to intercede for Sarah to get a good price. As we were walking up to the ticket counter, I suddenly felt this deep inner longing to go to Casa de David with them. My mind told me that I was crazy, but my heart suddenly longed to go. I mentioned this to Brenda and Sarah, but was not really considering going with them. Sarah said, "If God is telling you to go, I will pay your Tam airline extra airfare for you. I replied, "I think it is just the desire of my heart, and not God's leading."
We inquired if there were any more seats on the plane when we changed Sarah's tickets and there were not. I was fatigued from traveling and not hearing God really clearly, so I took that as a "no, it is not God's will for me to go to Casa de David.
Sarah ended up getting a great fare, about half of the travel agent's price. As we were walking away from the counter to go eat, Sarah said, "I mean it--if God tells you to go to Casa de David, I will pay your Tam airfare." We knew we had to take care of it during our four hour layover before we left Brasilia, as I would need to exchange some of my existing Tam tickets and that could only be done at the airline counter. I said I'd pray about it, and we went to eat.
After we finished eating, Sarah and Brenda started filling out testimony forms. I'd filled mine out earlier. So I pulled out my PDA and keyboard, and started to write what I thought would be a corporate word for the prophetic word list. But the way the word came out, I soon realized that it was God speaking to me about going to Casa de David. Let me share it with you:
Trust Me in all things, and you will be amazed at what I will do for you. My desire is to give you good gifts beyond what you can think or imagine.Dear one, you have gotten this poverty mentality in your mind, and your limited expectations are hindering My ability to bless you. Stop trying to base how much blessing I want to pour out on what you think you can afford or what you believe you deserve. Allow Me to be generous to you, my dear child.
I got so excited as I read the word that I could not keep working on it. But I still did not see how I could work out the logistics. I could come home on Oct 3 instead of Sept 27, and I could afford the $139 fee to change my return date to the USA. But I could not afford the additional $200 for the hotel and the cost of an extra week's worth of food, plus the multiple taxi fees, etc.
But God's word to me had said, "Don't limit the good gifts I want to give you by what resources you have." So I asked God, how do I do that? Then God reminded me that one of the GodSpeak staff had donated $500 towards the Brazil trip. [I had not fund raised on GodSpeak for this trip because it was a Church missions trip, not a GodSpeak one. But this staff member felt led to donate towards the trip anyhow.]
God reminded me of that $500 donation, and I realized that I could use that for the additional expenses to go to Casa de David.
So Sarah and I went back to the ticket counter to see about changing my ticket. A spot on the plane had opened up for me -- another confirmation of God's will for me to go. Then I took a huge step of faith--I changed my tickets without knowing if there was a seat on the return flight (to the USA) on the date I needed to travel. I could not call the travel agent from Brasilia because she was taking that day off. I like to have all my ducks in a row when I travel and I hate to change itinerary without a certainty that I can get home. But the hand of God seemed to be all over this, so I stepped out in faith.
That was about 12 hours ago (as I write this) and it is still too early to call the travel agent and arrange my flight home. But I can't imagine God doing all this to make a way for me to go to Casa de David and then not taking care of me to get me home again.
Anyhow, the reason I shared this testimony with you is to show you how God lovingly corrects us and gets us on course when we accidentally reject a word that is from Him. If we are sincerely doing our best to judge a word and to seek His will and His guidance, He will be faithful to bring that word around again. He will bring you back to the center of His will any time you inadvertently miss it, just like He did with me and going to Casa de David.
What If I Act On A Word
And It Is Not Really From God?
(Part 1)
Last week I talked about how we might accidentally reject a God-word, only to have the Lord bring it around again. I gave a testimony about how God worked through multiple things to send me to a prayer retreat at Casa de David in Brazil at the end of a missions trip.
Almost from the instant that I got there, all sorts of things began to go wrong, and I began to wonder if maybe I'd heard wrong. What if I had changed by behavior in response to what I thought was a direction from God, only to discover it was not from God? I actually spent a lot of hours pondering that after God had managed to speak to me so clearly.
Let me start by telling you a bit of my story, and then I will explain the principles behind it. I was excited about arriving at Londrina since I expected the Lord to do great things there. There were four of us who went to Londrina to visit Casa de David. We arrived our hotel about 4:30 PM and made it to the worship center by 5:00.
The worship center was not at all what I expected. It was a large auditorium with a thin velour tile over a cement floor. There were no chairs or benches to sit on, only the floor. There was one person playing guitar and singing some very simple melody in Portuguese. There were maybe five or six other people in the room when we arrived.
I could not understand the words to the worship songs, as they were not in English. Occasionally some lady would come up to a microphone and read a chapter of the Bible in Portuguese, but it was not possible for me to guess what passage she was reading. The guitar sounded very twangy and loud in the portion of the room where I was, and the floor was extremely uncomfortable. I tried all positions--sitting, standing, laying on the floor, but every one of them made my body ache because the floor was so hard. I did my best to enter into worship, but I just could not seem to connect with the Lord in that environment. The sound system was very loud and noisy, and I could not concentrate to hear the Lord speak personally to me. I could not worship along with the leader, because I did not recognize the melody or words to any of the songs. To make matters worse, I had somehow managed to situate myself in one of the few portions of the room that had really bad sound, so the worship music actually sounded like unpleasant noise for my first two hours there. Time seemed to pass very slow, and I was starting to feel miserable.
Sarah (my roommate) and I left for a quick dinner--a disaster since we could not read the menu to order. We came back and I situated in a different part of the room for the last hour. That part went much better, and I was able to enter into worship for a bit. The center closed at 8:00 and we went immediately back to our hotel. Sarah had caught a cold and wanted to go right to sleep--it was only 8:30. I unpacked for a bit and tried to read a tad of scripture, but hurried to turn off the light as soon as possible. My ipod had broken, so I was unable to listen to any of the worship music that worked for me, which would have helped center me in the Lord.
We did not turn the air conditioner on because Sarah was feeling very sick. I ended up waking up several times gasping for breath and feeling like someone was choking me. I felt rather miserable and uncomfortable, but could not get up or turn on the light because I did not want to disturb Sarah. I was awake and miserable most of the night.
I came to a decision in the wee hours of the morning. This had been a mistake; it wasn't working for me. I decided to cut my losses and fly home ASAP, reimbursing Sarah for the TAM airfare. Because of the time difference, I would not be able to call the travel agent until about 1:00 PM my time, so I went to the worship center that morning with the others. When got to there, the chocking sick feeling left me and I felt God's peace. I brought my PDA with me, so I reread the prophecy that the Lord has used to send me there--and it really sounded like God was sending me there. But when I left the facility, it seemed like that place was not for me.
In addition to all that, I felt upset with myself because I loved God and wanted to encounter Him, but I just could not enter into the worship there. The other three with me were entering in, so I figured that there must be something wrong with me, personally. I spent a good 24 hours agonizing over whether or not I'd misread God about coming to Londrina instead of returning home. I called the travel agent, and she said that there were no seats home until a Sunday Night flight (it was Thursday). So I was trapped. But I could not figure out whether it was the hand of God that brought me there, of if the enemy had misled me and was now trapping me there.
To make matters worse, I called my husband only to discover that there were several emergencies that had transpired there. Among other things, my dog required a second emergency surgery and was recovering from it, and Ed was being unexpectedly called away to Korea for a an emergency business trip. Our very sick dog had to be pt in a kennel, as Ed had to leave Friday evening and the earliest I could get home was Monday morning. At Ed's request, I rearranged my flight plan to come home Monday instead of Wednesday to get our very sick dog out of the kennel ASAP, and hopefully still alive. Making arrangements in a country where you don't speak the language is difficult and it took me all day Friday to arrange my TAM flight from Londrina to Sao Paulo, where I would connect with the flight my travel agent had arranged.
I spent most of Friday making those arrangements, and had very little time at the worship center. (This was actually a kindness of the Lord, since I did not have the temperament for that type of worship center, but I did not realize it at the time. I can press in successfully for about 1.5 to 2 hours, but not much longer than that.) When I finally got there, I was incredibly stressed. My flight changes cost an extra $500, and the dogs were in some danger at being kenneled when unhealthy. I still could not figure out if God had sent me to Casa de David and the enemy was hitting me with all sorts of warfare, or if I'd heard wrong and totally blown it. I tried to press into the Lord for clarity on that at the worship center, but the Lord had other plans. Instead He coated me in His peace for the 2 hours that I was there.
My own personal interest in Casa de David was not so much the worship as it was learning from them in the area of 'living by faith.' There are all sorts of amazing testimonies coming from that group about not having money for food, but at meal time, someone knocks at their door and gives they the very type of food they'd been praying for. I had hoped to talk to someone about their concept of faith, and of how to get started in it. But that had simply not worked out. So imagine my delight when Sarah nudged me near the end of the evening session to tell me that she had arranged a dinner for us with the one American couple who had become a part of Casa de David. They were a couple, Paul and Christy, who had all sorts of amazing testimonies about living by faith and how God repeatedly came through for them.
I was sort of like a child in a candy store at that dinner. While my other three friends were talking to Paul, Christy spent a lit of time talking to me about what she'd learned about living in faith. I had been praying and asking the Lord about it, and He'd already told me a couple of things. Christy confirmed the things the Lord had told me directly, and she gave me the key to getting started: mustard seed faith. In other words, she said to start small with things that aren't too difficult to believe God for and as you see Him come through in those areas, your ability to trust Him grows until you are finally able to trust Him for all things.
She also told me that living by faith doesn't mean never stressing or worrying, it means basing your behavior on God's faithfulness instead of on your own resources or feelings. Another key component is that you have to absolutely know God's will--not just in general but in the details of your day to day activities. That means that we needs to spend a bit of time with God each day to get His specific will for that day before we take stands of faith based on His will.
Then, when the others started talking to Christy, Paul spent some time with me explicitly discussing the things I was interested in. He lead a worship session at Casa de David Saturday morning (from 10:00 to noon). He was kind enough to throw in a little English in most songs, so that I could get the idea of what he was signing about and worship along with him. I was able to connect with the Lord better in that session because I had some understanding of what was going on in the worship. After his session was over, Paul and Christy invited us to join them for lunch. The other three wanted to stay at the worship center and worship, but I accepted their invitation. We had another great four hours of talking, much of which was on the topic of growing in faith, which is what I was most interested in.
What the Lord had for me at Casa de David was not the worship center part of it; it was connecting with Paul an Christy who were willing to have extended discussions with me about faith. That was the good gift that the Lord had for me. It will, of course, take a while for me to learn to walk out the principles that I gleaned from these discussions, but I feel that I have enough to get started. But that all came on the last third of my time there, and I spent the first two thirds of that time wondering if I'd somehow missed God's leading and made a big mistake in my hearing.
Now back to the main topic---how do we discern whether the resistance we face is warfare from the enemy or God trying to redirect us because we have accidentally taken a wrong turn? I'd like to share a few principles with you. I will list them now and develop them a bit in next week's lesson.
- Seek God for confirmation before acting on big things, then trust that confirmation after you get it.
- When you are having problems hearing God, Go with the last thing you have heard clearly until you can hear Him clearly again
- Remember that God is faithful to lovingly correct us when we wander into error.
- Remember that the enemy will try to encourage us when we are moving far from God and discourage us when we are moving towards God. The Holy Spirit will do the opposite, encouraging us in God's will and discouraging us when we rebel against God.
What If I Act On A Word
And It Is Not Really From God?
(Part 2)
Last week I shared a testimony of how I thought I heard God's direction, so I took some steps of faith to obey it. But once I was in the middle of "obeying," things did not work out the way I expected them to, and I began to wonder if I had somehow missed God's will. The big question for me became, "Did I miss God's will here? And if so, what should I do to try and fix it?"
I struggled with this for a few days, even though I usually hear God's voice relatively well. I wasn't sure if I'd heard Him correctly, so I cried out to Him for wisdom about this. Things seemed to go wrong for me left and right, and I was becoming convinced that I'd somehow missed God's leading and acted on something that was not Him. I even tried to take actions to correct it (trying to fly home right away), but I was cut off at the pass (e.g., no airline seats were available).
God finally worked in my circumstances near the end of the trip, and He showed me that I really had heard His voice, that I was doing what God wanted me to do. Even thought I'd heard God correctly and was actively obeying Him, the enemy sent a lot of frustration, hardship and spiritual warfare against me. Why did he do that? It was to try and throw me off course--and in my case, he almost succeeded. Fortunately, God is greater that all the power of the enemy, and He managed to keep me on course long enough to accomplish what He had set out to do in the first place.
I am guessing that I am not the only person who has ever stepped out in faith, then ended up wondering if they had made a big mistake in doing so because things did not seem to be working out very well.
The problem is that not every step of faith is really in response to God's direction, because there are times when we hear Him wrong. There are times when the desires of our heart imitate God's voice to us, and get us to do thing that God is not leading us to do. There are times that the enemy jumps in and imitates God's voice to us, trying to lead us away from God's perfect will. There have been times in my life where I realty did "miss the boat," and God had to reel me back in. But there have been other times when I really was in the center of God's will--yet I still wondered whether or not I had heard him correctly.
So the question becomes: how do you sort it out when you are in the middle of acting on something you originally thought the Lord told you? When doubts become to come up, how do you sort out whether or not it was really God? How do you determine when to stand in faith and when it is time to "cut your losses" and regroup?
There are four principles that I'd like to share, because they may help you in this situation:
- Seek God for confirmation before acting on big things, then trust that confirmation after you get it.
- When you are having problems hearing God, Go with the last thing you have heard clearly until you can hear Him clearly again.
- Remember that God is faithful to lovingly correct us when we wander into error.
- Remember that the enemy will try to encourage us when we are moving far from God and discourage us when we are moving towards God. The Holy Spirit will do the opposite, encouraging us in God's will and discouraging us when we rebel against God.
There is so much I could say about these four principles--in fact I could write a whole book about them. But we don't have time for a whole book worth of information in this lesson, so I will only "skim the surface" on these topics. But let's take a brief look at each one.
Seek Confirmation Before Acting
If what you hear has trivial consequences, then I recommend that you practice instant obedience. If you heard wrong, then your mistake won't cost you much. But when the "price tag" of obedience is large, you need to spend some time and effort making sure that you are not walking in presumption. The first and most obvious way to do that is to bounce what you heard against the Bible. Jesus did that when Satan tempted Him to jump off the temple roof--Jesus knew from Scripture that God did not want Him to needlessly endanger Himself. That is why He countered the enemy's suggestion by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. Let's look briefly at the passage:
Matthew 4:5-7
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over You,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear You up, lest You dash your foot against a stone.'"7 Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'"
Jesus did not even seek the Father's will on this because the Bible made God's will clear; He simply went with what God had already said in His written word.
We are to do the same. For instance, the Bible says that we are not to be unevenly yoked, so we should not pray over whether it is God's will to date (or marry) an unbeliever. The Bible says that we are not to steal, so we should never seek God for whether or not it is God's will for you to embezzle money from your company to pay for your daughter's surgery. If what we hear is not biblical, then we don't need to seek God for His will regarding it, we simply reject it.
However, many of the things we think we hear God speak to us cannot be found directly in the Bible. In those cases, we take what we have heard back to God and ask Him about it.
It doesn't matter if you hear God speak to you directly, or if you get a prophetic word from a "reliable source'--if there is a big price tag to obeying what you heard, go back and seek God for confirmation before you act on it. Seeking confirmation form God is not presumptuous, even Jesus spent hours and hours in prayer to make sure He knew God's will before He made big decisions.
For instance, in Luke 6:12-13, it says, "12 Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles." In other words, Jesus stayed up all night praying and getting to know the Father's will before He chose the 12 disciples who would become His apostles and church leaders after He rose from the dead. He did not make a big choice lightly, because He knew there would be big consequences if He heard wrong. That is why He spent all night praying about it.
I am not suggesting that you fleece the Lord with a specific set of "hoops" that you want Him to jump through. But I am suggesting that you take what you heard back to God and ask Him about it. Invite Him to confirm it to you in some way that you know is really Him, but don't specify to Him what that way must be. Then wait until He confirms it to you. Don't act on big things prematurely, but seek God to give you direction and confirmation, just like Jesus did.
Once you are sure that God has given you that confirmation, hold on to it with both hands. The enemy might resist you and get you to think that you have made a mistake in your hearing. So believe the confirmation and hold on to it when the going gets tough.
Stick With The Last Thing You Heard Clearly Until You Can Hear Again
We all go through times when we can't seem to hear God clearly. When that happens, that is not a good time to change directions or to change course. You need to hold on to (and follow) the last thing that you clearly heard God tell you to do. You have to trust that if He wants you to change directions, He will find a way to communicate that to you clearly. Until He dose, stick firmly to the last thing that you know for sure He told you to do. Never quite obeying because things "are a mess."
On the other hand, if God speaks to you and shows you that you are indeed going the wrong direction, you need to heed Him immediately. Be quick to stop what you were doing (even if it means that you loose face or look bad). Obeying God is much more important that saving face.
Trust God To Lovingly Correct Us When We Fall Into Error
Remember that God is faithful, and He is a living father. It is His nature to lovingly correct us when we wander into any sort of error.
Please don't confuse the word "correct" with the word "punish." God is not going to punish you if you make a mistake as you sincerely try to obey Him. He isn't like that--He is pleased that you are trying your best to obey Him, even if you make a mistake in implementing it. He won't punish you when you take a wrong turn, but He will redirect you and point you back in the correct direction.
James 1:5 tells us, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." In short, God wants us to know His will and He has made it plain in His word that He wants to show us His will. He wants to lead and direct us.
In fact, He has even committed to let us know when we get off course. Isaiah 30:21 tells us, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'"
We often get caught up worrying about the accuracy of our hearing and fretting about our part. We forget that God is faithful to do His part, and His part is to lead us step by step, providing we remain teachable and submissive to His leading.
Spiritual Encouragement And Discouragement
Remember that there are two spiritual forces working in our lives: the Holy Spirit and the demonic. Both will try to influence us. The Holy Spirit tries to lead us into the center of God's will and the devil tries to lead us away from God's will.
None of us are exempt from the devil's attempts at misdirection. It doesn't matter how holy you are or how close you walk to God, the devil is still going to try to mislead you. He even tried that with Jesus--like when he tried to tempt Him in the wilderness. (If you don't believe me, you can read about it in Luke 4.)
Note that Jesus wasn't taken in by the devils' attempts to misdirect Him. That was because He knew His Heavenly Father, and He knew Scripture. The same is true in our lives--the more mature we are in the Lord and the better we know God and His word, the harder it becomes for the enemy to deceive us or misdirect us. But that doesn't stop him from trying.
There is a general principle called "reinforcement," and both sides apply this to our lives. The principle goes like this: they reward or encourage us when we move the direction they want us to go (positive reinforcement), and they discourage us when we move a direction they don't want us to go (negative reinforcement).
Of course, God's will for us and the enemy's will for us are directly opposed to each other. The Lord wants us to move into the center of His perfect will, and the enemy wants us to move away from God's will--almost any other direction will do. The devil wants to encourage you when you are moving away from God, (which is when the Holy Spirit wants to convict your or correct you.) That is when the devil will do what he can to make you feel good about your rebellion against God, because he doesn't want you to listen to the Holy Spirit and repent.
but when you are actively obeying God and in the center of His will, then the devil wants to discourage you from doing that. He will do what he can to make you feel bad about obeying God, and he will actively resist or oppose you. He will do things like sending emotional attacks and false condemnation. He will also uses strategies that produce financial attacks or hardships. He may try to make you sick, or he may cause things to go wrong for you, etc. He wants you to be miserable and he wants to make you feel bad about obeying God.
You need to be aware that the enemy uses these tactics against you. Many of us have been taught to believe when if we are in the center of God's will, then everything will go smoothly and well for us. That can make us assume that hardship or opposition are indications that we are outside of God's perfect will. We forget that we have an enemy who is trying to make things to go wrong for us simply to discourage us from doing what God is doing.
All this is to say, don't let circumstances be your primary guide in determining whether or not you heard right. God might be asking you to push through enemy resistance to gain your victory in Him.
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