Know who is talking to you.

Sometimes we think people are speaking to us, and they are, but it's really God using them to deliver His mail. Sometimes we think God is speaking to us, but it's just people running their mouths, OR Satan using THEM to deliver HIS mail.

How can you tell the difference? How can you settle these things in your heart and mind?

#1 KNOW where you stand with God (check out 1 Corinthians 13:5-6). IF you know you're in the faith, and you know you're standing and hidden in Christ, you answer the accuser (Satan) and the fool (folks).

#2 KNOW God's voice. What He IS saying to you personally will be of the nature and content of what He has said through His word, the Bible. Get in that book! Find out what God says about this, that and the other. When you know what He talks about, and what He says to whom about what, you'll start to recognize when it's God talking, someone flapping their lips or the devil being a punk.

Now, let's keep it real; many times we don't want to believe God IS saying some of the things He regularly says. For example, someone might say "Gossip is wrong" and your heart will say "They are judging me!" Well, that person could be a bad mailman, but if you were gossipping, even bad mailmen still carry good mail; gossip IS a sin. Or, someone might say, "Do what makes you happy" and you receive that as a word from God; news flash, God has never said "Do what makes you happy." Get what I mean? OR, someone could say, "you are worthless" and that might FEEL like it came from God, but, if God made you -- and HE DID -- you have worth! IF God sent His Son to die for you -- and HE DID -- you have worth!

We gotta know who is speaking, no matter what speaker is being used.

We gotta know the message, no matter how rough the mail deliverer is.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17 ESV) 

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12 ESV) 

[Jesus said] “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28 ESV) 

“For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it.” (Job 33:14 ESV)