A Year of Prayer: Season One Weekday DevotionalsSample

Have you ever received a message, text, email, or letter that wasn’t for you? Often, it’s something harmless if it was a real person - a single digit of your phone number, and they accidentally sent you an update about the lawn mowing service. No worries, just spam.

If it’s snail mail, it’s often either advertising for an old address of a previous tenant or maybe a local business with an outdated database. No worries.

Digital messages are less harmless. Texts are the worst—spam accounts mimicking services you use and postage outstanding or fines. We’re all pretty suspicious now of any communication that comes in our inboxes claiming to just ‘click this link to sort it out.’ No thanks! It’s a scam!

So, how do we feel about receiving messages from God? Maybe you’ve received a word or a vision from someone who is earnestly praying and seeking God in the prophetic—the space where our supernatural Holy Spirit speaks with knowledge beyond what humans have the capacity to know. God does speak and send messages through other people to us, but we may have been burned by ‘spam or scams’ before, someone saying something they believe to be true, but it’s proved untrue, pointed, or false.

Do we delete our supernatural inbox? Do we suddenly give up any form of communication with God or through others from God from here on out?

Hopefully, your answer is - of course not!

'For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.' (Hebrews 4:12 NIV)

We also read, 'To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.' (1 Corinthians 12:8-11 NIV)

Let us live and love out these words of God in community, testing what we hear through prayer, fasting, discernment, discipleship, seeking wisdom and interpretation from other believers, and continued fellowship with other believers. That was always how we were to have the word of the Lord come to us, and we should make sure we address our words of the Lord to others in due and proper reverence in turn.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for continuing to speak. You have never given up on conversation with me. Help me to be better at it. Please give me opportunities to test the word of God given through others, to see and seek the truth of the gospel in you for my life today and every day.

Action: If possible, ask a child this: "What is the Lord saying to you?" Write it down!

Ask God to speak to you through their words.