James wrote by THE SPIRIT in chapter 4:
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
We are called to be active on a daily basis. Each and every day, the world tries to impart its “socially acceptable” perverse values into our hearts and steer us away from the purity of FATHER’S Word. Perversion has infiltrated the various forms of media and tries to affect our minds by constant exposure to their agenda. We must protect our hearts and minds from such impurity by studying, dwelling, and meditating on The Word daily. I know that it can be challenging at times when the demands seem to overwhelm us.
What is one way we can draw nearer to FATHER while performing our daily tasks? By praying in THE SPIRIT when opportunities arise throughout the day, we will draw nearer to FATHER. Paul wrote by THE SPIRIT in 1 Corinthians chapter 14:
1 Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
2 For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.
Within this instruction, Paul clearly illustrates the importance of speaking in tongues: we are speaking to FATHER in the spirit. Paul also writes:
18 I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all
Paul understood the value of speaking in tongues as he wrote by THE SPIRIT most of the epistles in the New Testament. Didn’t FATHER reveal many mysteries to us through Paul’s writings?
We are urged to desire “to prophesy” in verse one in the above passage. To prophesy means to utter forth, declare, a thing which can only be known by Divine revelation. As I spend more time praying in THE SPIRIT, I am preparing myself to speak forth Divine revelation spoken to me by FATHER. When I pray in THE SPIRIT, I only speak pure Words which are effectively cleansing my heart while speaking to FATHER.
There are those who seek to prophesy with the wrong intent. They seek to inflate their status among the brethren and ultimately are revealed as false prophets. We must be careful when listening or reading “prophecies” by such individuals. We must be sensitive to The Holy Spirit when we hear such “prophecies”. I have heard countless prophecies concerning the Book of Revelations which have not come to pass yet people forget those false prophecies and continue to support the false prophets and their latest prophecies.
If a prophecy turns out to be false, it must have its origins in “self” and the devil promotes men walking in “selfish” ways. We are to resist the devil and give no time or resource to anything sourced from the devil.
A prediction is a forecast, a statement about the future. It’s a guess, sometimes based on facts or evidence, but not always. I suggest that many who claim to prophesy are actually predicting the future based on their conclusions of the evidence at hand. They often look at past timelines to predict future events. However, they are operating with imperfect knowledge.
Where does perfect knowledge come from? Only Our Heavenly Father has perfect knowledge in all aspects thus HE is the Author of Divine revelation and prophecy. This is why we should draw near to FATHER rather than place our complete confidence in those who claim to precisely prophesy yet their past record of success is dismal at best. FATHER needs no excuses when HE reveals future events to us.
False prophecies tend to cause us to become double-minded because they draw us away from the pure Word and redirect our focus to world events and time frames mentioned in the false prophecy. We become fascinated with world news hoping that the prophecy comes to pass. Why not be focused on what FATHER is speaking to us today and let HIM decide our focus? This daily relationship promotes peace in our hearts and we don’t need to worry about what the world is predicting with their imperfect knowledge.