Pretenders and False Prophets

You may have heard it said that what goes on in the church affects what goes on in the world, or our culture. This is true, because God has given His Spirit and power to the church. So how we use, or misuse, what He's given us is going to affect, not just the church, but the world around us. What we see going on in the world today has its spiritual roots in the church.

The church sows seed. This seed grows up to produce fruit, whether good or bad. The sin or false beliefs of the church result in a manifestation of sin and false beliefs in the world. What's going on in the culture reflects what is going on in the church. One area we are seeing this manifest is the idea that people can believe whatever they want and it will become truth for them.

We see this in the area of common core math, gender choice, sexual preference, or any thought or belief people have where they are under the false assumption that they can choose what they want to believe, live according to it, and it becomes truth. This is not truth, this is pretending.

Pretending, for example, is when a girl thinks she can be a boy just because she wants to be. She dresses up and plays the part of a boy, striving to be more and more masculine. She never really becomes a boy but will try to act like one and may think that she really is one, or will eventually become one, if she truly believes it. That's pretending, not truth.

Unfortunately, I think this pretending that is going on in the culture is a result of pretending that has gone on in the church. There may be times God's people have gone after things that they want to be true, but are not. We might even be "believing God" for a thing to happen, but if it's not in alignment with the heart of God it's not His truth for us.

"...“Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. Mark 11:22-24

The idea that we as Christians can have whatever we want by believing and speaking it, it may be "true" in the sense that we will get what we want when we apply this principle--sometimes. (God's grace keeps it from happening every time!) We spend a lot of time trying to get this to work for us on a consistent basis. We buy books, study, mediate on the Word, confess it, and are careful not to speak anything contrary to what we are "believing" God for. But the real question is, are we going to submit to God's plans for us? Will we accept His truth for us? Because truth is what He has planned for us--who He has made and called us to be.

"For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

God has plans. He has plans for us. Do we know what they are? Do we care what they are, or do we just seek after the things we want? Are His plans our desires? Are we pursuing His plans to become our desires? 

God has foreordained things for us--to be conformed to the image of Jesus for example (Romans 8:29). He wrote in our book the days ordained for us before we were born (Psalm 139:16). So if we don't seek His plans for us, it's like we're trying to create our own truth--pretending to be something we're not. We're living according to our desires, will and plan, building our own kingdom.

As a result of the church sowing the seeds of trying to create our own truth, we have a culture in the world where people think they can believe whatever they want and it will be true. The church has power. We have planted these seeds. We have people believing whatever they want to believe, because they've been told that they can believe whatever they want to and it will be true. In reality, truth is what God says it is. The church needs to repent of this attitude if we are gong to see change in the culture.

If we are willing to align ourselves with His truth, and use the principles of faith to bring about His will in the earth, then we are following Jesus' example of what it means to be a true child of God. Jesus said He only did what He saw the Father doing, He only said what the Father told Him to say, and He always pleased the Father (John 5:19, John 12:49, John 8:29). As followers of Jesus, we too are to align ourselves with the Father in all we do and say. In all of our pursuits.

This applies not only to what we say about our own lives, but it applies to what we are prophesying to others. Whether we are prophesying or "believing God" we need to seek His heart, His Word, His truth and His plans. Jesus said to pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10). This is how Jesus said we should pray--for the Father's will to be done, for His kingdom to come to the earth.

“I did not send these prophets,
But they ran.
I did not speak to them,
But they prophesied.
“But if they had stood in My council,
Then they would have announced My words to My people,
And would have turned them back from their evil way
And from the evil of their deeds. Jeremiah 23:21-22

If we don't get His heart and seek after it then we are just pretenders and false prophets, trying to make truth out of something that is contrary to what God is saying.

Our pursuit should be to bring about the Father's will in the earth. If we just want what we want--the desires of our own heart--we are not seeking truth. God is looking for those who will make His desires their desires. He's looking for those whose heart's desires match His. He might say, sure you can have what you say, but He is looking out for those who will use their faith to build His kingdom because they have aligned their heart to His. Are we going to prophesy out of His heart, or out of our heart? Will we use the tools He gives us to build His kingdom, or our own?

Just like people need to embrace their birth gender, there are innate gifts, qualities, aspects of our personality and placement in life that God has given to each one of us that we need to embrace. We need to accept who we are called to be--God's truth and plans for us--and live according to that. We might be believing God, using our faith, confessing the Word, trying to arrange our lives a certain way, but we won't fully flourish until we surrender to His truth for us.

Just because you can have what you say, doesn't mean you should say what you want. It means you should pursue God's heart--to want what He wants. Seek Him, find out what His desires are, what His heart is, and then speak out those things. Stay with Him until His desires become your desires. When our heart is out of alignment with God's, and we hear that we can have what we say, we will try to use the principles of faith to get stuff  or positions we want. This takes us out of truth.

We will be tested so our heart's desires will be revealed. When we are faced with this power--the power of faith and this ability to have what we say if we believe in our heart--the true motives and intents of our heart will be exposed. What are we going to pursue? What are our desires? What are we going to go after? Will it be God's will, plans, and purposes or something contrary?

This doesn't mean we don't ever have fun, enjoy ourselves, or ask God for things for the family. It means that we submit to His will within the boundaries He defines. We have freedom within boundaries. Are we going to submit to His will within those boundaries or try and move past them?

Go after His heart. Pursue His desires. Find out what they are and make it your goal. Become His bondservant. We get the heart of God, His plans, and His wisdom by becoming a bondservant. We need to do that before we can become His friend. As a friend, we have the freedom and maturity to make more choices for ourselves. But first, we need to have His heart. When we submit to His way of doing things, like a bondservant does, we see how He does things and we have the right kind of attitude so we can see the wisdom of it.

Father God, I repent of trying to make my own truth. I repent of not seeking Your will, of not finding out what is on Your heart and what Your desires are for me. I want to know Your plans for me. I want to pursue those plans and make them my heart's desire. I don't want to be a pretender or a false prophet. I want to speak what is on Your heart. I want to align my faith with Your heart and speak truth. I repent on behalf of Your church, my family, myself, and my community. I'm asking for a turnaround in our society. That the hearts of the people begin to turn towards You and seek Your truth. Once again realizing there is a standard of truth outside of themselves. Raise up a people who will seek Your truth, and pay the price for it.