Remain Faithful: Obedience, Discernment, and Victory in Christ

I wrote this as I was studying through this, and I just give this to you. It says, the spiritual battle never ends. There will always be false voices seeking to divide and to deceive God's people. And if given opportunity by way of a heart that is not grounded in truth, listen to this, Satan will seek to multiply, to nullify his call in us to abide, love, obey, serve, and multiply the gospel. I'm telling you right now, if we don't let God set up residence in our life, if we're not abiding in him, if we're not training our children to do the same, we're setting our self up for deception and failure. [01:17:51] (49 seconds)  #GroundedInTruth

To some people, it'd be a bigoted to say that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. How can you say that? And we're because that's what he said. That's what the world that's what the Bible teaches. We need to stand upon that truth. It may sound to be sound like it's kinder and nicer for us to soften that, but guys ultimately, sin brings about death. What we're trying to do is rescue people from death, eternal separation from God. That is reality. So what we need to do is step in the middle of this, love people, care for them, but we need to know the truth to be the truth, to speak the truth. We need to pour this into our lives. This is who we're supposed to be. That's what John's saying. [01:20:00] (49 seconds)  #SpeakTruthWithLove

And see, and it the phrase in here he says, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to determine if they are from God. You test the spirits based on truth. The same way agents now I did some study on this and y'all have heard this before, but I just wanna make sure it's exactly right. But the way that agents learn how to recognize counterfeit money is not by studying counterfeit money, but you know this, what do they do? They study the truth so much that when the counterfeit money comes in front of them, they can recognize it because they know what's missing. Because that's how we are supposed to live our life. [01:01:29] (37 seconds)  #DiscernByTruth

When he says false prophets have gone out into the world, it's written in a perfect tense. It literally means this, there's always gonna be false prophets going out in the world. It's always gonna be around. It's always been there. It always will be. Until Jesus comes, there will always be false prophets saying, I've got something new. Let me let me read this. Why don't you check this out? No. Why don't you go back here to the word? Know this so well that when they are speaking, you know, oh, they're trying to tickle my ears. As a side note, the church must never compromise biblical truth. As parents, it is our responsibility to make sure that we do not send our children into the world unable to recognize truth. [01:05:39] (46 seconds)  #NeverCompromiseTruth

if we look at the first part of verse four, first first of it, it says, and this is number three, the devil is always active. He says, dear friends, that is beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to determine if they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. I love that when he says, dear friends or beloved, it's a tender address from a pastor's heart. It is a loving and gentle. John is not just addressing the people as an accommodation may do his class. He is empathetic, he is compassionate, he is caring. Reminds me of Paul in first Thessalonians verse eight when he says, I gave you not only the gospel, I gave you my life. And he goes on, he says, because you were dear to us, because we cared for you. As a mother would nursing her own child, Paul's given this great picture of how much he loved them. That's what it is. The devil is always active though. [01:00:27] (61 seconds)  #WatchfulAndTender

finally, we need to embrace spiritual wisdom. We need to embrace spiritual wisdom. This is what he says in the passage. He says, from this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deception. We know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deception. He says, again, the spirit of truth would never contradict the word. We need to know the spirit of truth. How do we know that? We know about preparing our hearts, by pouring the word into our lives. We know the spirit of truth by letting the holy spirit set up rain in our life and help us discern what truth is. We know the spirit of truth. [01:15:40] (41 seconds)  #EmbraceSpiritualWisdom

Because guys, there's a lot of things in life that that that it's not gauged on feelings, is it? It's not. Come on. How many of y'all been married more than ten years? Then you know feelings are interesting, aren't they? How many times have I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand, but how many of y'all have ever woken up in the morning and you're mad at your spouse and you don't really feel very strong in that moment. You know what I'm talking about? Just say amen or old me. Okay? Which one? Is it true? Yes or no? So can your feelings lie to you? Yes. Yes. Does that mean you don't love your spouse? It just means no. I'm maybe just ticked off right now where I'm in a bad mood. I'm just not acting like a human being should. I'm not acting very mature. Come on. How many of you, when you were dating in high school, you were in love, And you were in love every other week to somebody else. Right? You weren't in love. Not really. See, feelings can lie. [01:03:31] (68 seconds)  #TruthNotFeelings

The bible even tells us, you know, that we will be a reflection of those people we put around us. A lot of people say, I don't need to go to church. Yes, we do. Why? Because we need the accountability to be with other people, other believers. We need the accountability. In fact, I would hope that all of us this year would set forth as a goal for every one of us to be a part of a life group this year. Why? Because we need to be in a smaller group of people who we can learn because, guys, it's proven that we learn better when we're in a smaller group of people. It's truth. [01:16:21] (34 seconds)  #CommunityAccountability