“ I feel the Holy Spirit is telling us that there is something wrong with the worship.”
“God seems to be leading me to find a different church.”
“Brother, I don’t mean to sound confrontational, but I want you to know that the Lord specifically told me to share these things with you.”
If you have been a Christian for very long, those phrases probably sound far too familiar. Look, I believe that God can talk to us and I believe God wants to talk to us. (See link to article below.) But I must also be honest: I am of the opinion that the high majority of the time when Christians talk about God’s leading, God did not say a word to them, not one single peep. Christians are notorious for putting words in poor God’s mouth and human beings, as a species, tend to have difficulty taking responsibility for their own actions. When they become Christians, they think there is now a license to shroud their decisions in spirituality.
The Bible encourages us to consider people who claim to have a word from God, but we are also commanded to test the spirits (1 John 4:1, 1 Cor 14).
Although certainly Scripture provides examples of God speaking in a variety of ways, generally, when a man in the Bible claimed God talked to him, he meant it literally. He actually heard an audible voice coming out of the sky. That is not what my fellow Christians tend to mean today when they joyfully proclaim that “God led them to do something.” Usually they mean they have a very strong feeling about something. Since they know that the promised Holy Spirit lives inside of them, they automatically assume that any feeling they get comes from Him, especially if it is a powerful emotion. Yes, such emotions can come from the Spirit, but again, we are to bring them before the church for testing rather than being immediately presumptuous.
Years ago when I was doing campus ministry at UCSB, one of my students insisted that God had told him to marry his girlfriend. The problem is, somehow Lamby Pie didn’t get the same message.
“When you say that God spoke to you, ” I asked, “Do you mean you heard an audible voice?”
He laughed. “No, not an audible voice!”
“Well what then? ” I thought it was a fair question.
“I just knew.”
“But she doesn’t know.”
As humans, we are capable of having many different kinds of overwhelming feelings. What this guy was trying to say was that he was in love and he just couldn’t imagine such a thing happening to his heart if God were not a part of it.
Likewise, the person protesting worship probably just doesn’t like the kind of music playing or the style of singers or the assortment of instruments in the band. Music is extremely emotional. Music is also a matter of taste. Or maybe he means that the congregation is not lifting up their hands or exhibiting other posture that he deems as the true litmus test of genuine worship.
As for your friends who feel led to confront you; Let’s be honest. As people, we tend to be very opinionated and in our conceit it is difficult to imagine that our own opinion is not God’s.
I think many will be surprised on judgment day to discover that God did not say a lot of the things they thought He did. They may also discover that He tried to say one or two things they were not paying any attention to.
This is Bob Siegel, making the obvious, obvious.
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