Pretending to know what the Holy Spirit is doing in someone else’s life is simply that, pretending!
And if you do it long enough and loud enough you can get a following! And with a following, a reputation, that the person finds their “significance,” as the person to turn to when trying to “interpret,” find out what the Holy Spirit is doing in someone else’s life. Think of Job’s friends, who had no idea nor did Job of the conversation between God and satan in chapter one. Deuteronomy 29;29{NLT} says, “the secret things belong to the LORD and the things revealed belong to us and out children.” We are not content with what He has revealed in His Word but want to get behind the “curtain” as it were, to know the “secret things” He does not want us to know!
Let’s consider some of the “mindset” of the Pretenders…
The “Pretenders” when they don’t know what God is doing in another person’s life, and not wanting to be in that position, often speculate and pass it off as though it is “fact,” and others, gullible, believe it! Do they believe out of fear, not wanting to seem “un-spiritual.” A little like the Hans Christian Anderson story of the “Emperor’s Clothes.” He loved fine, expensive clothing and two swindlers said they could make him the finest clothes that only the incompetent or stupid could not see it.He paid them an enormous amount and not wanting to appear stupid he fawned over the invisible clothing! A procession to show off the fine clothing was arranged and the people had heard that only incompetent or stupid people would not be able to see it,they did not want to be considered such. At the parade the people “ooh” and “aaw’d” at the fine clothing the emperor was wearing until a young boy shouted out,” But the Emperor has no clothes on.” And so people don’t want to feel stupid when the “Pretender” speaks and so they “hmm” and “ooh” and “aww” and looking for the secret, hidin meaning in what the pretender says, and we need someone like the little boy to call out the pretenders, pretense, and speculation which is derogatory to the LORD and potentially damaging and harmful to the naive believer.
While people pretended they saw some magical outfit, it took a kid at the parade to shout he had no clothes on. It was a fact! We are to base our lives on the facts of the revealed Word of God.
The”Pretenders,” like the attention when people seek them out or when they can speak out at what “God” is doing in someone else’s life even when they do not know. That is to take His Name is vain, to use in a dishonoring, disrespectful way, attributing to Him what is not . -{Read Jer 14:13-18}. The purpose of the prophet in the Old Testament was to speak to the people on behalf of God. To pass on what He says. The false prophet says what He has not said as though he has, as the passage in Jeremiah 14 shows. It is to misrepresent Him. The “Pretenders” would never see themselves as a “false prophet,” but that is what they are. I am not speaking of “lost” people, but some of His people, who believe they are speaking for God and representing Him!!
The “Pretenders,” do not like not to be in “control,” but want to know or at least satisfy their own understanding that they know what God is doing in someone else’s life. They falsely “believe” that they ALWAYS “know,” or can find out, what “God”is doing in someone else’s life, less they feel out of control, and they cannot handle that!
The “Pretenders” when they don’t know, and not wanting to be in that position, speculate and pass it off as though it is “fact,” and others, gullible, believe it!
The “Pretenders” also love being acknowledged by others, as the “person” who knows and can reveal what is ‘really happening’ with someone else and with this acknowledgement is “good” for their sinful ego. It turns them into a “celebrity” in their particular circle of people who know them!
The “Pretenders,” find their importance, significance, not in the LORD Jesus, but in how people highly view them and in the view of their “spiritual” ability to tell others what “God” is doing in someone else’s life and also what is “from the LORD!” It elevates them as a ‘somebody.’It gives them “standing.” They feel they have the “inside track” with God, that falsely appears that only His “favored” and “spiritual elite” have! Smacks of mysticism! The tending to focus on the “mysterious,” the “experiential” as solid, equating it with the “final word,” rather than His revealed Word as authentic and authoritative as having the final say on life! Christianity does include experientially knowing God, through His Word as the primary source in knowing His character and Who He is and how He desires for us to live. Mysticism tends to focus on the subjective. What a person “thinks,” “feels,” is “king,” and not His Word! Jesus said “MAN SHALL not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!”-{Read Matt 4:4}. “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”-{Matt 7:24-27}. His Word is “king” in regards what we are to build, in order to govern, guide our life upon. The BEREAN’S upon hearing Paul searched the Scriptures to see if what he was saying was true. “…they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” -{Acts 17:11}. Unfortunately many of us do not search the Scriptures diligently, and so “Pretenders” arise among us, many well meaning but not Scriptural, therefore building their lives on foundations that are faulty for themselves and those who receive their teaching, for indeed it is a teaching. What are you building your life on to shape your thinking and actions? Be a Berean to see if these things are so what you hear.
All “experiences” must be checked out and in submission to His Word as the governing and guiding influence and focus of living that honors the LORD Jesus. “Experiences” can be good, bad, demonic or God imparted. The “Referee,” as it were, in determining the matter of “discerning” is,… His Word. ” For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. “-{Hebrews 5:13-14}. The “solid food” of His Word is what gives us the ability to recognize what is right and wrong from God’s perspective. We may think we “know” what is “right” and “wrong,” but we are not who decides He does and so we must continually have our minds renewed so we may prove what the good, acceptable will of God is.- {Read Romans 12:2-3}. Recognizing truth as He defines in His Word and replacing our thoughts with His Word and as we do we will be able to love God with all of our mind as we practice His Word.-{Read Luke 10;27; John 14:21}. To love God we have to think right, in order to know what we are to do to live right by His standards, and this we can through His Word. So when it comes to “pretenders” we need to be careful in what we listen to and also we need to be careful we are not “pretenders,” in speaking out of turn, in the name of the LORD, but not speaking on His behalf! “God…in these last days has spoken to us in His Son...”-{Heb 1:1-2}.
The “Pretenders,” will stiff arm anyone who seeks to challenge with “The LORD told me,” therefore it is so, they cannot be challenged, what they say cannot be queried about. It is “absolute, final,” not up for discussion or challenge. The Scriptures are secondary when it comes to what they believe they have heard and stating. Sounds a little like the pope’s doctrine of infallibility, when he declares the “teaching authority of the church.” -{ex cathedra,}.
A Pretender
- Speculates
- Attention Seekers
- Arrogant
- Authoritarian -Over Bearing- Dominant-Controlling
- Egotistical
- Obstinate
- Self- Exalting
- Displaces God
Don’t be a pretender! Don’t stroke the ego of a pretender.
Be aware of those who put themselves in the place of the Holy Spirit.
Where the Scriptures are quiet… be quiet…
We don’t have to know, we don’t have to project, we don’t have to be “in control,” we just have to love God and others and trust Him and continually do good, and what we do know “in times of affliction there should be KINDNESS from his friends.”-{Job 6:14}. We do know He wants us to be kind to those afflicted… We need to be taken up with “HOW” you can show kindness…Pretenders find it easier to say ‘why’ than to ask “HOW” with the intention of helping.
Pretenders bypass the Scriptures
Pretenders tend to base their view of life based on what “they feel” and what “they think,” as the ultimate authority on any issue, including what “they believe” ‘God’ is doing in someone else’s life and are not slow in telling others what and why it is “really” happening!
Here lies the problem, it is A “Feeling” problem, a “Thinking” problem and a “Doing” problem, that is self focused and not Scripturally controlled!!
Pretender’s EXALT Self in the Savior’s Name,
displacing Him to put them Self on Display to receive glory, honor that is due Him.
Pretenders promote themselves
Pretenders in essence like to ‘play God.’
Pretenders can cause a lot of hurt and damage
Pretenders need to be gently helped to become people of His Word and allow God to be silent where He is silent and not “feel the need” to always have “the answer” on what is going on in someone else’s life. But, instead, seek to lovingly serve others, “…ourselves your servants for Jesus sake.”-{2 Cor 4;5}.