The servant of the king of Assyria claimed that God told him to go and destroy Jerusalem. We notice, however, that when the war got underway, he was defeated. So he acted in presumption. Now, nothing has made people more successful than “God told me”. Ironically, nothing has destroyed people faster than “God told me”. Many lives have been ruined through presumption. They claim God told them to do a thing, but the outcome showed otherwise. When they claim that God spoke to them, it was no more than hearing what they had always wished to hear. It takes some level of spiritual maturity to be able to separate the voice of our hopes and wishes from that of God. We can fall into the temptation of putting a prophetic halo on personal ambitions and desires. A thousand such moves cannot convert our fleshly desires to a word from the Lord.
“God will never lead you to do things that will not give Him glory.”
How can we be sure that our claim is truly God’s voice? As a general rule, what we claim to be the voice of the Lord must align with the scriptures. God will never tell us to do a thing that is inconsistent with the provisions of the written word. It also must agree with the traditions of the apostles. If you are having a leading that is not rooted in the writings and practices of the apostles, you will need to reconsider. Finally, what you hear must be God-glorifying. God will never lead you to do things that will not give Him
glory.