If we are ever going to succeed in our spiritual journey to make it to the kingdom of God in the end, then we need to take possession of one of the greatest needs of the hour.
One of the greatest needs of the hour can be seen in the Apostle Paul’s prayer to the Ephesians church. That can be seen in Ephesians 1:18. That verse said, “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
According to that verse, it is when our eyes of understanding are enlightened; that we may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
You see, the majority of the vices we have today are because our eyes of understanding are not enlightened. For that reason, many people, even the so-called men/women of God, are worshiping Mammon rather than the Almighty God.
As for other Christians, they are following sheepishly many sorcerers that camouflaged as pastors because their eyes of understanding are not enlightened. One of the reasons is the result of what 2 Corinthians 4:4 said, “whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them”.
That is to say, even some so-called Christians, ignorantly allowed the god of this world – the devil to blindfold them into believing the lies of the devil or false doctrine/false gospel. As a result of being blindfolded into believing lies, the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, could not shine on them.
Those who knew me or who understand my relationship with other men/women of God will testify that I strongly advocate or accepted what Jehoshaphat said in 2 Chronicles 20:20 which said. Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.”
In other words, we need to Believe in the Lord our God, and we shall be established and believe His prophets, and we shall prosper. Please, Jehoshaphat did not specify whether we prosper spiritually or physically.
We should realize that it is when we prosper spiritually (when our soul prospers). The book of 2 Chronicles 26:3-5 confirmed it. It says, Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem.
And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.
However, while it is necessary that we believe in God and the prophet, the tragedy is that we fail to recognize the true prophets of God and the fake prophets of God. It is for that reason that we should join Paul to pray that our eyes of understanding be enlightened. To have our eyes of understanding to be enlightened is similar to having a discerning of spirits.
When our eyes of understanding get enlightened, and we equally possess a discerning of spirits, we will be able to recognize true and false prophets. Mind you, both the true and false prophets all prophecy in the name of the Lord.
They all claim that God says, while most of the so-called prophets are not from God nor know God. No wonder Paul warned us in the book of 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 which says, For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
And no wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. We shall take a lesson from what happened in 1 Kings 22:1-35 which talked about the prophets of Ahab and the prophet of God, prophet Micaiah. Please take note of particularly verses 20-25.
It says, And the Lord said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’
The Lord said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said,’ You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’
Therefore, look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you.”
Now Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and struck Micaiah on the cheek, and said,”Which way, did the spirit from the Lord go from me to speak to you?” And Micaiah said, “Indeed, you shall see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide!”
1 Kings 22:33-35 says, And it happened, when the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, that they turned back from pursuing him. Now a certain man drew a bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the joints of his armor.
So he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around and take me out of the battle, for I am wounded.” The battle increased that day; and the king was propped up in his chariot, facing the Syrians, and died at evening. The blood ran out from the wound onto the floor of the chariot.
What I am trying to bring out is that we need to have our eyes of understanding enlightened and also a discerning of spirits. This is to recognize the true prophets of God and the false prophets, especially when they tell us, thus says the Lord.
Any man or woman of God, whose so-called messages or prophecies contradict the Bible, is nothing but a false prophet. Moreover, some Christians do greatly err because they did not know what is written in the scripture.
Also, some equally greatly err because they are magnifying prophecies of men/women above the word of God. For instance, a so-called pastor claimed that “God” directed him to shave ladies’ private parts and to bathe ladies.
It is not that I am saying that he did not hear words from the spirit, but the question is that that voice can never be from God because God cannot contradict what is written in the Bible.
If our eyes of understanding are not enlightened and we fail to take hold of discerning spirits, we may end up falling victims and casualties at the hands of these sorcerers camouflaging as pastors. Shalom!.
