Open Hearts and Minds

May 6

The beloved apostle tells us in I John 4:1, “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.” If that was true in John’s day, it is certainly true in ours.

Indeed, the Roman Empire had a pantheon of gods that were worshiped, and they carried these false deities into the lands they conquered. For the most part, the people under their rule incorporated the worship of the Roman gods into their own religious practices. The people of Israel would not. They clung resolutely to the One true and living God, Jehovah.

When Jesus died on the cross to set men free from sin and from false religious beliefs, the truth He established was embraced by His Jewish followers first and rapidly spread through the empire. Indeed, the Pax Romana is credited with having been used by the Lord to allow His apostles great latitude in traveling throughout the known world to spread Christianity.

Just as those who heard the message at that time found its veracity able to withstand the scrutiny of the microscope of truth, so will we as we ‘test the spirits’ today. We do not want to be deceived in an age of rampant deception. Now as then, the Holy Spirit will “…teach all truth,” John 14:26, if we will allow Him to do so by opening our hearts and our minds to the revelation of everything Jesus came to accomplish in us.