Great Sunday

This past Sunday at church the sermon was about watching out for false prophets. Now at first this sounds like a sermon about preparing for the end times and finding the guy who has the right date about the last day but in fact it was much better than that and gave me a rejuvenated spirit about the word of God and his call on our lives. It was focused on the scripture was from Matthew (7:15 through 23) at the end of the sermon on the mount. It says will can recognize false prophets by their fruit.The fruit they bear will be fruit of life or on other words the things of God or it will be fruit of destruction aka the things of the world. The pastor gave examples of false prophets like this recent guy who predicted the end of the world. His message brought fear and destruction and lies because obviously it wasn't true and he tried to get rich off of it. None of those things are of God. He is truth and hope and love. The pastor also pointed out that it isn't always so easy to see who is true and who is false. He gave 7 things that he has found point to God . These are his guidelines for knowing how to recognize when God is speaking, his word will do this.
1. It always gives glory to God. Everything always points back to him.
2.It is always full of mercy, justice, compassion, and truth. These are characteristics of God.
3. It is always abounding in love. God is love so his word is also
4.His word always restores, rebuilds and reinstates. The Bible is full of God doing this work and the overarching story int he Bible is how God through love brings creation back to himself buy rebuilding the bring through Christ.
5. God's words are always the same. Check the Bible. Every idea should be coherent through scripture. His word doesn't change.
6.God's word is always life giving. He didn't give his son for the world so that we could have just this life on earth but that we could life and life to the full which we find in him.
7. God's word is always FULL of hope. It is what he is about and being a Christian or believing in him and on him means there is always, Always hope.

So I know that is a ton to digest but it truly warmed my heart. When the media or society or anything in this life tries to lie to us and tell us to try a different way or to do what we want or that we aren't good enough we can have these things in the back of our mind. Does the word we are hearing bring life? Is it spoken in love? Do you feel hope? We don't have to face the challenges of the world alone because God gave his word and his Son, Jesus who is the word in flesh. He speaks truth and we can know the truth by its fruits. Just some food for thought :)