{"id":11172,"date":"2020-05-03T00:05:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T00:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=11172"},"modified":"2020-05-03T00:05:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T00:05:57","slug":"test-the-spirits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/11172\/test-the-spirits\/","title":{"rendered":"Test the Spirits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi John,<\/span><\/p>\n

This morning’s gathering on Skype, with the testimonies, and songs, and your teaching and preaching, was WONDERFUL! And very much needed. I loved your message on fellowship. And I feel like Jesus opened a deeper understanding in me of why fellowship, and honesty with ourselves, and openness with the body is so important.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, I heard about a sister in the Lord who would sometimes hear a voice, in her mind, telling her about certain situations with other <\/span>brothers or sisters, and she would believe this voice, thinking that it was God speaking to her. She would then make judgments of that <\/span>particular brother or sister in her heart based on what she believed God was saying – judgments that, it turns out, were not right because the <\/span>voice she was listening to was not God, but some other spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I heard about this, the Scripture that immediately came to mind was 1John 4:1, where John says “do not believe every spirit, but test the <\/span>spirits, whether they are of God”. I thought about this, but I really didn’t have a clear understanding as to what, exactly, it means to “test <\/span>the spirits”. Test them, how?<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, after watching the recording of our Livestream gathering again this afternoon, and talking about it with Amy, I found myself telling <\/span>Amy (because Jesus was showing me) what that Scripture means, at least in part: There is at least one way we can try the spirits, when we feel <\/span>like we’ve heard from God but are unsure if it is really God speaking. It is by testifying! If God has truly spoken to any one of us, and we <\/span>are open with our experiences from God, and tell about it, we are going to know, based on our fellowship with the body, and with our pastor, if <\/span>we are listening to the right voices!<\/span><\/p>\n

That was so good to me! You really can’t have fellowship with the Father and the Son all by yourself! God has set it up so that the only <\/span>way you can have fellowship with He and Jesus is with each other!<\/span><\/p>\n

Vince<\/span><\/p>\n

p.s. Ironically, now that I think of it, I am “testing the spirits” by sharing with you what I feel like Jesus showed me this afternoon. Ha!<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

Amen, Vince. Cathy B. and I were talking about this same subject this evening. It is very important to test the spirits by telling somebody else in the body, and preferably more than one person, about what you think and feel. There is safety in openness! That is why Paul cautioned Timothy not to receive any accusation against an elder without witnesses. He knew that faithful witnesses would protect Timothy from the evil influence of unjust accusations against an elder. And he also knew that the Slanderer always works in the dark.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for writing,<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi John, This morning’s gathering on Skype, with the testimonies, and songs, and your teaching and preaching, was WONDERFUL! And very much needed. I loved your message on fellowship. And I feel like Jesus opened a deeper understanding in me of why fellowship, and honesty with ourselves, and openness with the body is so important. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}