Revelation about the Book of Revelation's 7 churches

I have been reading and studying the book of Revelation for some time. It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ to the churches. It was revealed to John the Apostle, you may know him from the Gospel of John. He refers to himself as "the disciple who Jesus loved." I love that he knew he was loved and called himself that. 

I have been studying it off and on since the Covid shutdown. Recently, Jen Wilkin published her bible study of the book of Revelation, and I studied it with a group of ladies in our church.  I recommend it highly for those looking for a great study to do. 

One thing that stood out as I studied was our tendency to DO things FOR Jesus instead of allowing him to do those things through us through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the letters to the seven churches, the message to the church in Ephesus from Jesus seems to say, “I don’t want you to do for me, I want you to be with me.” (Perhaps that is why we are called human beings instead of human doings) They were doing the work, but they had forgotten their first love. Interestingly, in doing this study, it occurred to me that Paul went to Ephesus in the early 50s AD. The letter to the Ephesians from Paul was written around 60 AD, and Revelation was written around 95 AD. I find it sadly intriguing that they lost their first love in a mere 35-45 years.

I believe the relationship we experience with Christ is through Him doing things through us by the Spirit which builds a communal connection between ourselves and Him. This is where I find the greatest joy and freedom. Rest comes as He works in me; His work equals my rest. The outcome of what we are doing is not my responsibility, rather I leave the results up to Him. Regardless of the outcome, I grow closer to Him. I end up knowing more of Him. It is worth it.

In the first week, Jen pointed out that the enemy uses three weapons against us. This was very insightful, so I wanted to share it with you. She quoted the theologian Iain Duguid when she noted that Satan only has 3 weapons to use against the believer. Those weapons are Seduction, Deception, and Persecution.

She says the following of each:

“Seduction is the temptation to live like unbelievers. Deception is believing a lie instead of the truth. Persecution is suffering for the sake of our Christian witness.”

Seduction:

Our enemy, Satan, has an easy job when using seduction as a weapon against us. Seduction automatically conjures up thoughts of sexual sin, but she makes the point that we can be seduced to do any type of sin. Sin is simply missing the mark of God’s standard. The enemy comes after God’s children simply to hurt the Lord. However, it is easy to sexually seduce us in our oversexualized culture. There is easy access to any temptation, but those sexual temptations are easy for him and prevalent for us.

We need to be on guard against this tactic and know that the enemy will try to seduce us to sin by the things of this world. These sorts of temptations will feed our flesh which is our desires and our nature.

Deception:

The world system values us by what we “do,” but our value as Christ's followers is in our covering and connectedness to Him by the Spirit. What interferes with this beautiful connection within the church is the lie that we are required “to do” to be accepted and approved.  This comes from our deceiving enemy. I have heard it said that if Satan cannot tempt you, he will just get you busy.

All sin interferes with our connection with the Lord. Sin quenches the Holy Spirit who is with us. That interference can be remedied as quickly as we repent.  That means we stop the sinful activity and turn back to the Lord.

Self-deceived is when we say, “I do not need anything.” It is when you convince yourself that you’re doing these great things for Jesus. The funny thing is, He never called us to do things for him. He called us to surrender to allow Him to do these things through us. He leads us and tells us what we need to do.

Isn’t it interesting that deception and lies simply take the truth and distort it instead of creating a new idea?

Persecution:

So, we learn to walk with Jesus so we will not be seduced by the things of this world or deceived by our efforts. However, when we get to the point where we are overcoming the temptations of the world and overcoming our efforts, we will face a different weapon. The enemy is smart and recognizes those two weapons no longer are working. He pulls out the weapon of persecution. It will come especially when the other two no longer work on us, but remember Jesus is with us during the battle.

Sin causes me to become prey to the enemy. The world mixed with my natural desires seduces me, my focus on myself and the effort that I bring to the table enables me to be deceived, and when I’m walking hand-in-hand with the Lord and surrendering to Him, the weapon used against me will be persecution.

Conclusion:

So, I suppose my takeaway from this is that we need to be on guard against the evil tactics that the enemy uses to attack us. Seek hard after the Lord. Walk closely with Him and confess your sin. Take note of your self-deception and lean into a healthy community of believers who love the Lord and submits their lives to the Word of God. Look for a praying community to do life with. Do not look for perfect people, look for loving and godly people to walk with. Look for companionship among believers who will encourage you to grow up into a strong follower of the Lord.

If you are looking to make some sense out of the days we live in, I encourage you to do this study. Revelation is a book that looks back in the Scripture to point us forward to our future.

As time permits, I will write more insights if this article has enough interest.

Hope you have a blessed day today.

Word/Spirit/Fire/Light

We need to be in the Word of God. In it, we see what God accomplished for us through Jesus. We will also see what it says about God's long-suffering and endurance with man. The word reveals the tendencies of humans and our forgetfulness. 

In the Word of God, we recognize the flawedness of humanity and our need for help, rescue, and resuscitation. This Word points us to an answer for what ails us. Many never accept this condition and spends their life trying to prove this reality wrong. However, it is a reality. We are incapable of being in a correct connection with the One who created us. We long for it, but we cannot make it happen. The Creator had a plan. He told us if we live our lives according to these instructions, it will go well with us. He longed for it to go well with us. He designed us to have full lives. Lives of hope, joy, and love. We fall short and need help to be right. He made a way for us to be right through Jesus. This is the answer to humanity's frailty. 

Be in the Word of God so that the Word of God can be in you. It will transform you. The Word is where you will find out about the answer which is the Best News Ever for us. 

As you read the Word of God, ask the Holy Spirit to lead you as you read. Allow Him to set the words ablaze in your soul so they truly come to life within you. This is where the Word of God transforms you from the inside out. You become a "living word" to those around you. The world begins to see the glory of the Lord demonstrated through you. This is how we bring light into the darkness of this world. What a magnificent privilege we have to be a vessel for the display of our Creator and Father.

So as we go about our day today, let's be the light!!!

New Testament is Refreshing

In reading through the bible in a year, jumping into the New Testament has been like going from the desert to a refreshing water pool. Jesus comes on the scene and breaks the 400-year silence from heaven. He came as a baby. He came as the Word made flesh. I wonder what it was like to hear that sweet baby making his first sound. Oh, how sweet it must have been. I wonder what was happening in the heavenlies as he did? I imagine all of heaven holding their breath in great expectation.

As I was reading the Gospels, each recounts the events of Jesus' life. Some cover a story not covered in the others, or multiple covers a story from different perspectives. I love that they tell the stories this way. It brings such a beautiful tapestry of richness to the stories. 

I was reading about Jesus feeding the 5000 men plus women and children. I have read this story many times in my life. But one thing stood out to me in my reading. It was the time of the Passover. As I am also studying Jen Wilkin's study on Exodus, "God of Deliverance," I am confident that is why I noticed it. We just finished studying Moses, explaining to the Israelites how to sacrifice an unblemished lamb and use the blood to avoid the last plague sent to free them from slavery. He also explained how they were to keep this as a celebration for the years to come to remember how He set them free from slavery. He explains the feast of unleavened bread that they were to observe, which we see observed in John 6.

As I read further in John's record of this story, he shares that Jesus tells them they must eat his flesh and drink his blood to follow him. I laughed so hard as I read this.  I was not being disrespectful but just entering into how the listener must have processed that. I was tickled at how the looks on their faces must have been. Can you imagine? 

Then a bit of sadness washed over me as it went on to say that many stopped following him at that time.

Bear in mind that he had just fed 5000 plus wives and children with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish the day before. All ate and were satisfied with those 5 loaves and 2 fish, and when they gathered up the leftovers, there were 12 baskets full. They met him there because they saw what he had done for the sick. He had been healing many. The following day, he said a hard thing they couldn't understand.

How often does the word of God confront and convict us with the hard stuff, and we walk away or withdraw from Him? What if we did more like the disciples when Jesus asked them, will you leave me now? And we answer him and say, where else will we go? "You have the words of eternal life; we believe and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God."

The words he was saying were true. He is the bread that was sent from heaven, raining down on us like the manna, which was the sustenance for the Israelites. Then with the Passover, it was the unleavened bread because they would be leaving Egypt swiftly and wouldn't have time for the dough to rise. This is so full of meaning. During the Passover observance annually, they would break the bread and eat it together. This all ties in with what Jesus was saying about His body being broken for us. Take and eat it. If we come to him, we will not hunger, for he is the living bread, and he says those who eat it will never die. And he says this bread is his flesh. This is how we abide by consuming his flesh, and John starts his story in John 1 by telling us that the word became "flesh" and dwelled among us.  He lived out the word for us to see. 

He also told us we were to drink his blood. Yes, that is what he said. The blood he speaks of is alive. It brings life to the flesh. When our heart stops beating, our flesh dies. He was the perfect unblemished lamb that was sacrificed for us. John the Baptist said of Jesus, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Just as the Israelites had to apply the blood to the doorframe of their house to avoid death, we, too, must have the blood applied to our flesh so we would not die eternally. Jesus says that those who don't eat his flesh and drink his blood have no life in them. Those who do will have eternal life and be raised with him on the last day.

He says his flesh is true food, and his blood is true drink. He notes that consuming both is how we abide in him and him in us. 

In verse 43, we must note that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. So, let's pray for the drawing of ourselves, our loved ones, our community, and the world. 

From the Old to the New Testament! YAY

From the Mount of Olives

I have spent this year reading my way through the Bible. By the end of the year, I will have read the entire thing.  The women in our church were challenged to do it in Discipleship Groups. I joined with seven other women, and we are doing it together.

I am so glad that I did this. It is officially the first time I have done it somewhat successfully. I have studied the bible in-depth and probably read much of it through studies. This effort is from Genesis to Revelation. Today was a huge marker for me. I read the last book in the Old Testament. I made it to and read Malachi. I cannot lie. A huge sigh of relief came over me. My takeaway from reading the Old Testament is how faithful, good, and super slow to anger God is. Following that takeaway is how flawed humanity is and prone to mess up and wander. As I read it, I reminded myself that these people didn't have the Spirit of God dwelling within them as I do. So, I had to offer them such grace and mercy. They were fully captured by their human condition. Even the best of them were steeped in sin.

As I ended the book of Malachi, I was washed over with a sense of excitement, and then a thought occurred to me. For the Israelites, it will be four hundred years before they will hear anything from God again. The silence made my heart hurt, but then Jesus broke through that silence and came onto the scene with good news for us all. Hallelujah!

After reading about man's effort to reach God, finally, there is a way.  We will never be good enough, proven repeatedly in the Old Testament books. My right position with God gives me access to God. It gives me access to be in an intimate relationship with my Creator. Before I accepted Jesus' payment for my sinful condition, I was doomed to miss the mark of God's expectations. That means I was lost in my sin. I am doomed to repeat it over and over. However, I am no longer defined by that sin and am now being referred to as a saint by authors like Paul, who authored a good deal of the New Testament. That means I am defined by what Jesus did, not by what I have done.  That is not just good news. It is the best news ever.

I am so excited to start the New Testament tomorrow.

I am doing "The Bible Recap" with Tara Leigh Cobble. I use the You Version App, and it is one of the plans you can choose.  Day 274 is where the New Testament starts. The author also does a podcast to help navigate each day's reading. Each time you start a new book of the bible, there is a video by "The Bible Project" that summarizes the book.

This is well done and highly doable. It has been challenging but rewarding.

After you read this, I hope you will go and check it out. Come along on the journey.

If you read this and sense the Holy Spirit prick your conscience, do not ignore it. Respond to it in an honest conversation with Him. You see, I cannot convict you of sin, nor can I convince you of your right relationship and standing before God. What I can do is pray for you. I pray that the God of the Universe will open the eyes of your heart so that you can comprehend how much He longs to spend time with you and do life with you. I pray that you will comprehend that apart from Him, you can do nothing to be right with Him. If a still, small voice is speaking to you right now, do not ignore it. Instead, say YES to it today. I have never regretted saying yes to God's answer to my sin problem. Not once. It changed the trajectory of my life. I will thankfully never be the same again. I pray that you comprehend that you can be a saint by responding to His answer too.

If you already are in Christ, I pray that you will be immersed in God's word so that His word will live richly in you. Once we welcome Jesus as our sin solution, we can spend time continuing to conform to the norms of this world, or we can cooperate with God by His Spirit, who gladly will guide us through all of life's temptations, trials, and responses. It seems that mentioning obedience in today's culture brings a negative connotation, but I think it is a place of growth for us. 

If I am going to drive from point A to point B, the best person to ask is the one that travels it. There may be a multitude of ways you can go. Some may take you off-road, through detours, in dangerous places, but one takes you there quickly and safely. He gave us a wonderful roadmap called the Bible. It is not demanding; it is the best way to navigate this life. It doesn't promise you that there will not be trials on the journey or even storms. Jesus tells us there will be, but it is the BEST way!

The Bible Recap

Studying the Word of God in the Presence of God

I have been studying the Bible for years now.  It has become a pursuit, a passion, and a desire of mine.  It has been transformational.  I have grown in my love for The Lord as I learn more about Him from the scriptures.  There have been times when I have encountered some hard truths that I wish weren't there, but the full counsel of the Word of God has been true nourishment that has sustained me, matured me and grown my relationship with God through His Holy Spirit by the grace gift of Jesus Christ.

However, I approach the Word of God typically through the use of external tools alongside the scripture known as bible studies.  I am beginning to notice these external tools are often times far too emotions and feelings based for me.  I strongly believe that the Word of God is not subject to our interpretation nor our emotions and feelings. Honestly I am so thankful for that fact.  I cannot imagine being tossed about at the whelms of my emotions and feelings.  While I can interact and enjoy life and even God by those very emotions and feelings, I cannot stand on them as truth.  At the end I plan to elaborate on an example in my own life to expound on this idea.

I find that women's studies are constantly asking me "How I feel about this or that" and all I can say at the top of my lungs is "I don't care how I feel, it doesn't matter how I feel, I want to study the Word of God to see what God says about this or that".  Perhaps this is the way it has been for some time, and perhaps I am just noticing it.  However, I do think being overly concerned about the way we feel may lead us into a very unwise walk if it supersedes truth.

In general, there seems to be two extremes in the body.  There are those deeply immersed into God's Word or those immersed in His Spirit.  It seems rather uncommon to find the Christian with a combination of the two which is what it takes to be well rounded.  Those who are studying the Word without the help and assistance of the Spirit, find their pursuit dry and legalistic; a type of bootstrap obedience. This leaves them empty, lifeless and joyless maybe even judgmental and harsh. Those who seek the Spirit without the Word typically are overzealous, hyper-spiritualized, experiential in feelings and emotions without being grounded in truth. These are the ones who are typically unable to discern between the leading of the Holy Spirit and their own thoughts.  They are easily led astray. they are on fire and full of the spirit and unfortunately without proper grounding and truth may burn out without the substance of the Word.

I believe we are to search the scriptures, study them and allow God to speak to us through them.  However if we only study the scripture as we do with any other book, it will be a dry, lifeless book.  If we are studying it in hopes of discovering all the ways to behave in order to please and appease God, our efforts will not only be futile, but  this approach will leave us feeling defeated.  We will be overwhelmed at the sheer magnitude and the daunting task of obeying all that is in the Bible. Due to the fact that we are linear beings, we typically can intentionally obey the latest rules we have studied because they are on our minds.  Conversely, if we have developed good habits or are easily obedient to the Bible, we see ourselves as succeeding, this may lead us to become prideful and arrogant.  Either way, we will be displeasing to God.

I believe we are to seek the Holy Spirit.  It will be the enabling power for us to live this life.  The Holy Spirit will teach us through the scripture, and remind us of all we have learned.  The Holy Spirit is what Jesus said He was sending to us when He left this earth.  Jesus died to not only rescue us from our sin of which we couldn't do for ourselves, He also sent us heavenly assistance to give us the power to live in a manner that pleases God.   The reason He did this is to restore us into a real vibrant relationship with God.  He created us to know Him, to be loved by Him and so we would be able to love Him back and put Him on display to the world for others to see (bring Him glory).  Why?  So the world then could know Him, be in relationship with Him.  Honestly to know Him and be in relationship with Him is to love Him.  He is love and when the enabling power of the Holy Spirit is experienced in us, we can experience that love.  That discovery of Him and love of Him will be the motivator and the enablement to obey Him.

So my challenge is to get into the Word of God in the presence of the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.  When you are tempted to read scripture and say "I don't FEEL like that is true" or to say "That doesn't line up with what I have been through"; how about turning those statements around.  Read the Word in the awareness that God is with you by His Spirit.  Tell Him openly what it is in your experience that is causing you to struggle to believe the Word.  Ask Him to help you with your unbelief and help you with your understanding.  One thing I see is where we allow our circumstances and feelings to interpret scripture.  For example, when the scripture talks about answered prayers, if you haven't received a positive answer to your prayer; you begin to believe that God doesn't really answer prayers.  As a matter of fact, He does answer prayers.  It is possible He is saying no which is still an answer, not yet or perhaps He is saying yes as an answer but differently than you could have imagined.

We need to avoid interpreting the Word of God without the assistance of the Holy Spirit.  Allow your time in the Word to be an extension of your prayer time.  Let it be a conversation between you and God. (that is all prayer really is)  This can be the most profound experience you have ever had with Him, if you will do it.

Here is a second part of the challenge: take time to read the Word of God and journal what you learn and discover.  Read a verse, a chapter or an entire book, but whatever you choose to read, do it prayerfully.  Ask God to open your eyes and enlighten your heart to hear from Him in His word. (see Ephesians 1:17-19).   Allow Him to talk to you and when He begins to open your eyes to see truth, begin to write it down in a journal or notebook.  Resist the temptation of bringing your feelings into your interpretation.  Sometimes our feelings come on board long after our minds have lined up with the Word of God.  Feelings can mislead us, and instinct can be wrong.  If we are created by God, then His instruction manual on how to live and navigate life is what we need to depend on in order to live according to His design.  He provided us a large portion of the Word, the Old Testament, before the rescue was sent in the person of Jesus, so we are able to see that man cannot please God independent of God.  So the last part of God's Word, the New Testament, demonstrates His answer for us. The answer being, His power was made available to us in order that we may be restored into a relationship with Him.  Also that we are enabled to follow and obey His commands because of this wonderful gift of His power made manifest in us.

• As promised earlier, in reference to the matter of not standing on emotions and feelings as truth; in the midst of menopause I would be so hot at times I would have sworn the thermostat was set much  higher than it actually was.  When  I would take a look to see, I would see the same temperature which would have been giving me a chill in years passed.  During these episodes, I began to truly see how my hormones were playing tricks on me.  They were not a reflection of a change in my environment, rather they were in essence lying to me about it.  So my internal gauge was no longer reliable, and I needed to seek the truth by checking the thermostat.  Did I cool off by checking the external gauge?  No! But I could see the truth and refuse to freeze everyone else because of my internal reality.

Allow God's Word to be the road map for you and allow Him to be your guide by His Holy Spirit.  May your day be blessed today and may you be a blessing to others as you go.

Cloud of Witnesses

Hebrews 12:1 & 2 Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus,[a]the source and perfecter[b] of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him[c]endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.


When I read this verse, although in context, it indicates the cloud of witnesses are the previously mentioned Hall of Faith members, allow me a small liberty with this thought:

What if we as believers lay aside sin because there is a large cloud of current witnesses that are watching us. They are watching to see how we run the race that lies before us. What if they are watching to see if we will keep our eyes on Jesus who is the reason for our belief/faith. 

I pray this is just a simple reminder today that as we live our life, there is a world of unbelieving watchers. I believe as Jesus told the disciples to not keep the children from him, he is telling us that too. Let's live our lives in such a way that we do not keep the "children" - the world from Jesus.  We do not want our freedom and liberty to become a stumbling block for our unbelieving family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. 

Some will say, "they are just using that as an excuse".  My thought is maybe so, but why do we want to give them one? But what if many are just watching in HOPE that it is real, and they may be waiting to see it first in us.  

Our living testimony is the only bible that many unbelievers will read. Many will never pick up the word, but they can watch us. Let us let the word of God be alive and active in us!  

How Valuable is the Bible to Me?

I was completing a day of study in 2 Thessalonians, and I came across a story about William Tyndale. I began to imagine the cost and price he paid in order to make an English translation available to all of us who speak the English language. It cost him his reputation, livelihood, his homeland, and eventually his life.  His desire and passion for us to have the ability to read the words of God in our native language cost him everything. My thoughts ran to gratitude and thankfulness and then thoughts of how treasured this particular book ought to be to each of us. Have we really counted the cost and valued it?  Have I?????

Do we really treasure it, read it, meditate on it, seek it for its wisdom, and recognize the number of times in history it was not available. Would it matter to each of us if it no longer were available in our language.  If only an elect few could read it and tell us what they thought it was saying, or even tell us falsely what they wanted it to say.

People like Tyndale who took the original language and translated into English, Martin Luther, who translated the original into the German language, and John Wycliffe who translate the Latin Vulgate into English prior to Tyndale; who despite the establishment, hungered to offer up the authentic word of God to us so that we could remove all "go betweens" and have direct access to our Creator's words. He could become personal to each of us. It removed the layer of corruption and abuse of power over the masses. It also helped to thwart the use of "so called religion" in order to dictate behavior and make the masses of people behave.

• Have you ever wondered how long those in power throughout history have used God for their own power grabs and gain?

Only when we have authentic desire for Jesus, when we are fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit, when we are completely obedient to God's word, motivated and spurred on by His sacrifice; will we truly have personal biblical reform. Too often we seek the morals of Christianity for the sake of behavioral modification both in ourselves and even in others like our children, neighbors, or those in our authority or sphere.However, it is so much more than that. We stop so far short if we only seek to modify or control behavior. It is about relationship and connection to Almighty God. In seeking God in prayer, in daily life, reading the word etc., we learn about who He is and what He can do. We also learn about who we are, why we are here and what we are able to do both apart from Him and through Him. We are able to determine what we are measured against, by and to. If by the measures of the word, we come up short, we are not condemned if we are already in Christ, but it shows us how much we need to remain in Him and Him in us. The measurement of coming up short shows us that we are still not fully surrendered to Him. It is an indicator of where we are in proximity to God.

As we walk daily in obedience to the word, we are made right not by the act of obedience in the law but rather by faith - trusting and believing God's word by obeying it. Following the word as the actual voice of God, obeying it and using that voice of the word to live in us. When God uses us as His instrument, we are made right, holy and sanctified (set apart to good works and special use) by His use.  According to Philippians 3:9 we are found in Him not having a righteousness of our own from obeying the law but one that is through faith in Christ - the righteousness from God based on faith.

The word of God is the light of God. It is the revealer of truth. It is a depth I personally still cannot fathom as each passage reflects new insight and meaning from one year to the next. It is truly alive and active. It brings life as it is read and meditated upon.

Pursue it and it will never turn out to be a useless task. It brings life into our very soul. It is the breath of God breathing life into our dry bones. It is living water to our thirsty mouths and bread of life that nourishes our stomachs with truth. It provides the sustenance we need for true life.

Receive Jesus' gift of eternal life, pursue God by the Holy Spirit, read His word as if it could be ripped from your availability tomorrow, love His word, obey His word by faith.

• The word is Jesus. 
• In Genesis, God spoke all things into existence by using the Word. 
• In John, the Word was in the beginning, the Word was with God and was God, and the Word became flesh and lived among us. 
• Jesus said that He was the way, TRUTH and life. 
• The Word is TRUTH. 
• Therefore Jesus is the Word made flesh.  
• In Psalms, God sent the word to heal us. 
• In Revelation, part of the way we overcome our enemy is by the WORD of our testimony. The word of our testimony is the word being alive and active in our lives.

Would you think on the price that was paid for you to have the word of God so easily available to you and determine today to pursue it as the treasure that it is? Consider the VALUE!

Searching the Scriptures

I have been busy studying the word in a bible study by Beth Moore.  I started it over the summer in an online group and joined with my church family to study it along with the videos this fall.  The study is on 1 and 2 Thessalonians.  

As I lean into the study of God's word, I want to keep in the forefront of my mind that "Too much Word and not enough Spirit you puff up. Too much Spirit and not enough Word you blow up. With the Word and the Spirit together, you grow up. - Anonymous"  So thankful for our leader sharing this quote with us on Monday night.

I believe I need to search the scripture to determine God's direction for me, so I will be able to discern lies from truth, and so I will know God's ways and will.  If something comes to me outside of the scripture, I need to be able to measure it against what I know about God's character, His word and Him. If it lines up with scripture, I can receive it, but God will not speak counter to His word.

I pray we all search the scriptures and burn with hunger for the word in the presence and fullness of the Holy Spirit.

I also pray that we search the word of God in an effort to become better aquainted with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  I pray that we will grow in our love for Him, grow in our knowledge of Him and grow in our desire for Him.

Amen