Devo Week 10 - Discerning the Unseen Realm
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Matt.10:16
A Gentile Dream - Spiritual Guidance
With so many ways of communicating today, filtering through all the noise can be challenging. And exhausting. We can easily miss God’s signals to us. The ruler of the kingdom of the air, Satan, seeks to block, confuse and scramble communication in order to hinder us from hearing and following God well. (Eph. 2:2) So, we must tune in and sharpen our listening and discerning skills.
WHO IS FOR US
Today, God still speaks in many different ways, through people, dreams, visions, riddles, proverbs, circumstances, parables and prophecies etc... (Heb. 1:1-2) The Bible does not replace these various means of communications, but rather helps us discern the accuracy of His communication.
Joseph and Mary had angels and dreams to guide their lives, not the Bible. It didn’t exist. Yet, their obedience in following God helped protect the baby Jesus. This was also true in the life of Nebuchadnezzar, a Gentile and not a follower of God at the time. However, God may speak to whomever He desires — He is God, after all.
Dreams are one such means of spiritual communication and a prevalent way that God speaks to oral peoples. We witnessed this among the Akha and Akeu. The spiritual revelation of the shaman in the Akeu village is one such example. He gave an accurate revelation of the life of Jesus as holy, even confirming His death and resurrection. All we did was affirm the accuracy of the divine message he’d received. God’s messages are always consistent with Scripture and the life of Jesus.
WHO IS AGAINST US
The enemy (Satan and his demons) seeks to deceive and bring fear through communication. Deception and fear are two ways we can discern that we are being led astray. Deception will lead us away from the life of Jesus and His sacrifice for us. This can happen through a misrepresentation of Jesus in teachings and prophecies, as well as in a person’s actions. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. (John 14:6) Revelation from any source must affirm this. Fear works to dominate our thinking and choices in life and opposes a ‘life of faith.’ Knowing this helps to discern spiritual communication and its source.
PRAYER FOR SPIRITUAL BREAKTHROUGH
Lord, release upon us a ‘spirit of wisdom and revelation’ that we might know you better. (Eph. 1:17) Give us discernment to know whether you are communicating to others, or to us, through dreams, visions, circumstances and other means. Lord, help us discern accurately that we might obey and follow you well. We trust you and want to be conformed to your image and see your Kingdom established. In Jesus’ name, Amen.