1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
As followers of Jesus, we have a responsibility to not follow every new spiritual trend that comes down the pike. And there is a simple test of truth. The truth hinges on what a person believes and lives with respect to Jesus. If they fully embrace the reality of Jesus life as fully God and fully man, then they are on the right path. We see the subtleties only when we know the truth. Oprah is a good example. She started close to the truth and has drifted into open waters, far from anything solid. She now embraces Jello-spirituality, shifting and morphing to fit whatever the individual needs or wants, no connection at all to Jesus or objective truth. Joel Osteen’s public preaching is another example of Jello-spirituality. He leaves out anything that would hold firm against the gentlest breezes. No mention of sin and its consequences, because sin is such an unpleasant topic and people want to feel good about themselves. But there is more to life than self-esteem. If you want to feel good about yourself, do the right thing, serve someone else’s need. As I look back over my life I can see many trends that have swept across the church, none of them permanently changing the church in a heavenward direction. They have all watered down the message and the messengers. Many thought the movie The Passion of the Christ would cause a revival in our nation. I am not even sure it caused a revival in the church, let alone in a godless society. We as believers need to be willing to stand on the truth that there is Truth, capital “T”. The most important is the person of Jesus. As Christmas season approaches, The Case for Christmas, by Lee Strobel, might be a good resource to learn some of the essentials of who Jesus was and is. We need to make sure we are grounded in Truth, so that the coming storms don’t overwhelm us.
The Arnold Journey 