Do not to trust
every spirit, but test the spirits
One of the most important points in the
Christian life is to distinguish what comes from God and what comes from the
false prophets, or followers of antichrist.
According
to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis explained this in a simple way in Vatican recently. Explaining the
words “Remain in the Lord,” from the first Reading from the Apostle John, Pope said the
Apostle shows “one of the attitudes of the Christian who wants to remain in the
Lord is to understand what’s happening in one’s own heart.” Or in simple words,
to understand what’s coming from God and what’s coming from devil.
For this reason he warns us, “Do not to trust
every spirit, but test the spirits.” It is necessary to know “the discernment
of spirits” to discern whether something helps us “remain in the Lord or takes
us away from Him.” Beware of thoughts, ideas and suggestions coming from the
devil.
What, then, is the criterion to determine if
something comes from Christ or from the antichrist? St. John has a clear “simple” idea: “Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ
come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge
Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.”
“Our heart always has desires, has cravings,
has thoughts.” But are these from the Lord or do some of these things take us
away from the Lord?” That’s why the Apostle John exhorts us to “test” what we
think and desire.
“If
this goes along the line of the Lord, it will go well, but if not… Test the
spirits to see if they really come from God, because many false prophets have
come into the world. Prophets or prophecies or suggestions: ‘I want to do
this!’ But this does not bring you to the Lord, it leads you away from Him.
That’s why vigilance is necessary.
The
Christian is a man or a woman who knows to keep watch over his or her heart.
And many times our heart, and with so many things that come and go, seems a
local market: everything, you can find everything there. No, we need to test things -- this is from the
Lord, and this is not – in order to remain in the Lord.
Pope said, “So many times, our heart is a
road, everything passes there… Put it to the test! And do I always choose the
things that come from God? Do I know which are the things that come from God?
Do I know the true criterion by which to discern my thoughts, my desires?”
If a thought or a desire takes you along the
road of humility and abasement, of service to others, it’s is from Jesus. But
if it brings you to the road of sufficiency, of vanity, of pride, along the
path of an abstract thought, it is not from Jesus.
(The writer is a mechanical engineer based in Doha)
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