Gauge Your Fire
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As you get into the deeper things with Christ, you start to pick up on the lack of devotion others have. You can almost sense the amount of time others spend with God in prayer and in His word. You realize how hurt God's heart is from our sin, and you feel his grievance when others live in it.
Our fire for God is growing and it's needed to start fires in others, but there is another side to this. We can burn others when we start to expect them to catch up to the level we're at in our walk. We look at the life of sin they are in and come against it with a heavy hand. We start to talk about the visions and signs God has shown us, not realizing the people we are speaking to are glazed over with confusion.
They are babies in Christ, and you've matured. You can't expect a baby to eat solid food. You're trying to sow spiritual things into a carnal person, but 1 Corinthians 3:1-2 shows us this won't work!
Corinthians 3:1-2
"And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."
The Scorching
If they aren't interested in what you're saying, they will either separate from you or become your enemy. You might pass it off as the persecution Jesus promised us in John 15. But there is a larger issue, but that only applies as you're lead by the Holy Spirit. When you pick a fight God isn't backing, or sharing your fire without God's guidance you're burning these people up with your fire.
These people end up getting a distaste for the deeper things of God, passing you off as a crazy. They get this mindset thinking everything else that comes out of your mouth will be nonsense and they draw farther away from God. This can push us to have a Moses moment as we let these people get us upset and get frustrated with them. This often opens the door to a self-righteous spirit, or a spirit of anger.
This clearly isn't what we want, so how to we prevent this?
Control Your Fire
First of all, you need to learn to control what comes out of your mouth. The mouth is the most dangerous member of the whole body!
James 3:8
"But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison."
We need to stop speaking when the Holy Spirit isn't prompting us to speak. Having discernment to know when God wants us to STOP speaking is just as important as knowing when he wants us to START speaking. All too often we get excited and want to share our latest revelation, word, or miracle from God. We can't hold it in and want to tell everyone we know! But we forget one very important thing, God shared it with you, not them.
I'm not referring to the times God has made it known for you to share a message, I mean when God reveals something to you and doesn't give you permission to share it. We have to have self control, God's word says in 1 Corinthians 14 that we shouldn't just blurt out our prophetic words, tongues, or revelations. It says in verse 30 for us to hold our peace, and be orderly in everything.
As you have your conversation with the person, ask yourself if God is prompting you to share. Then be ok with not saying anything and holding your peace. 1 Corinthians 14:38 tells us if anyone wants to be ignorant, let them be ignorant. Don't feel like people HAVE to believe it, because not all can receive the truth. The word of God tells us they look at is as foolishness, because God's wisdom is foolishness to the wise!
1 Corinthians 1:27 "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise..."
Share one peace at a time, and look for opportunities to teach them how God operates. Prioritize this rather than force feeding them your experiences. Remember, babies can't eat solid food so focus on giving them baby food, in hopes they would rise up to the solid food.
Conclusion
This is the path of discipleship in a nutshell, our desire should be to disciple everyone we encounter. They don't have the maturity in Christ to receive the deeper things, so feed them what babies need, the word of God! Carnal people can't receive the spiritual things! Use the discernment God has given you and give them the food that is adequate for their level.
Stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit and listen to him as he prompts you to stop sharing. Don't overwater the ground!
I pray this blesses you in your walk with God! If you're trying to deal with difficult people in your life but can't seem to get any solid ground this next blog is for you!
https://www.livinginhisglory.com/post/how-to-deal-with-difficult-people-as-a-christian