Discerning the Lord speaking into your life

How can a person discern if a spiritual experience or vision is truly from God or potentially deceptive?

Great Question.

I have had several vision/dreams from the Lord, over decades, and have learned a few things. I think you will find this is both biblical and practical:

A. Ask the Lord. He will confirm His message to you, if it is from Him. He will also reveal if you are being self deceived or if it is from a false spirit. If you discover that you have been given a false vision, pray and renounce that spirit immediately. Trust Christ alone. Serve Christ alone.

B. Search the Scriptures. God does not contradict Himself. He will be consistent with the truth He has given you in the Bible. One truth He has given is to test spirits and spiritual messages. All false prophets fail this test – they do not submit their vision or ‘angel’ to God’s word to discern it’s validity. Read the book of Galatians and 1st John for clarity on this.

C. Make reasonable, faithful, godly and biblical response to what you have seen. If it comes true, it was of God. If it does not come true, it is not of God. Learn from the result, either way.

An example from my own experience: my wife and I were praying diligently about whether to take an assignment for my job that would relocated us 1800 miles away to a community where I had never lived. It was well before the internet – you couldn’t just research things so easily in those days. We needed to know if this was an opportunity the Lord would bless, or not. The Lord gave me a dream/vision that answered two of my deepest concerns.

So, I took the role and we faithfully set ourselves up to go as best we could. It took great faith, because we had a kids, but did not have financial resources if it didn’t work out. The journey was perilous. There were several mishaps, including an ER trip for one of our kids as we got started. I began to doubt myself. Had i dreamed that to suit my own hopes? Our moving truck broke down before we got there. We were stranded for 3 days. But, it was that very thing that enabled us to get our money back and get settled in a home – during a boom time where housing was nearly impossible.

Then, the dream came true in two parts. I saw the exact things come true for our family, exactly as I had seen in the vision – by the time the second year there was completed.

It took faith. It also took obedience. God confirms and always rewards discernment.