If it lifts you up, then it's probably the spirit of God. If it puts you down, it's probably demonic in origin. That's quite simple isn't it? God does not condemn; He lifts us up. Now sometimes the things He speaks to us are a little bit painful. I remember when I was having some time downloading to God, because I was in a very painful situation; and then there was a silence, and I know that silence, He's about to talk to me; and He said this. He said: I'm not committed to your comfort, I'm committed to your character. Then He began to nail me on something. He said: what you did was wrong; and I knew that was God. I didn't feel condemned. It was specific. It was exactly about something I knew what I'd done, and it gave me hope that if I changed, I would see something happen. I remember being in a meeting one time, I walked in there, there was this guy in a wheelchair. I looked and I thought: oh no, a guy in a wheelchair, oh no, no, I don't like wheelchairs. I felt my heart sink with unbelief. As I walked to my seat, the Lord said: you've got a bad attitude. He just said it: you've got a bad attitude.
Now that's not putting me down, that's just saying: you have an attitude, it's a bad one, and I needed to repent. I just said: Lord, I just repent straight away. He said: now this is what I want you to do. I want you to meditate in healing, and I want you to picture and see that man healed. I want you to believe for Him to get up tonight, and come out of that wheelchair; so I spent some time through the service while worshipping, meditating, then faith suddenly came into my heart. How did it happen? I suddenly - now I was doing this, meditating on him being healed by Jesus, Jesus coming over, touching him and being healed and stepping up. I was imagining it in my imagination, and then suddenly, the picture of God just suddenly flashed into my mind, and I saw him stand up. Whoa! Heal and walk. I got very excited, because I'd never seen that happen before; and we got praying for some people, then eventually I prayed for him, and sure enough, he got up, he not only walked, he ran! [Laughter]
Now, notice the things in there: the correction from the Lord was quite straight, and quite specific, but it was for good. It never gave condemnation. It gave a clear directive how to get out of it. Not only that, it produced a good fruit, so I know it came from God. Okay, number one, the word of God; number two, it edifies, exhorts and comforts. It does you good, lifts you and blesses you; third, here's a good one - it's open to the counsel of others. Now this is where a lot of people go off the rails, this is where they become just spiritually stupid, and do crazy stuff. If I've got something from God - in James 3 it says: the wisdom of love is teachable, and approachable, and open to reason, it's open to being talked about it; so if you've got guidance from God, it should be able to stand in the light with spiritually mature people. So if God says He's told you to do something, and you put it out before some spiritually mature people, and ask for their counsel; if it's God, it'll stand the test. If it isn't God, they'll say: no, we don't think that's God. Now that doesn't mean they're against you, or they're not hearing God. It means you counsel is getting the light of day, it's getting scrutiny.
One of the most common ways I've seen people go off the rails, is this; they just have no one to run their counsel by, because they don't build relationships with people that could give them advice. This is crazy nonsense. In the counsel of many, plans are established; do in getting direction that's another area. A fourth one: it brings a fruit of peace in our life, and it exalts Jesus and lifts Him up. So there's just some simple things. Now I want you just to close your eyes for a moment. I want you just to stop for a minute now, just stop, now we're just going to finish the service up and I'm going to pray for a few people; but here's the first thing I'd like to ask: What impressions, or wha impressed you tonight? As you think about tonight's service, was there some point where something impressed your heart? You felt something stir, because of what was said or done or happened? What was that thing that impressed you? Try and identify it right now.