Before the session

Read this through. Bring one word or impression you have received in the last few weeks — from your own listening times, from another believer, or from something that came up in last week's practice. We will test it together.

The most common question

Once people start listening, the question arrives quickly: how do I know if that was God, or if it was me?

This is a good question. It is asked in Scripture, and it has a sensible answer.

The Bible never asks believers to hear without testing. It assumes both. Test everything; hold fast what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God (1 John 4:1). The spirits of prophets are subject to prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32).

The expectation is not that every believer becomes infallible. It is that every believer learns to test.

Three possible sources

When you have a thought or impression, there are really only three places it can be coming from.

1. You. Your own feelings, convictions, anxieties, desires, ambitions. This is normal and not always wrong. Sometimes you know something true about yourself or someone else. Sometimes you are rehearsing a fear. Your own voice is not the enemy — but it is not automatically God either.

2. The enemy or an unclean influence. Scripture is clear that there are voices in the spiritual realm that are not God's. The Accuser accuses. A lying spirit lies. These voices almost always sound either condemning or inflating — tearing you down or puffing you up. They rarely sound like a Father.

3. God. A voice that is kinder, cleaner, and truer than anything you would have come up with on your own. A voice that consistently lines up with the character of Jesus and the testimony of Scripture.

Testing is how we learn to tell which one is which.

The four tests

Over centuries, the church has consolidated the testing of impressions into a small number of practical questions. They are not complicated.

Test one — Scripture

Does what you heard agree with the Bible? Not one verse yanked out of context. The whole of Scripture.

God does not contradict Himself. If you think He told you to leave your spouse, that is not Him. If you think He told you to hate your enemy, that is not Him. If you think He told you that you are worthless, that is not Him. If you think He told you that your sin disqualifies you forever, that is not Him.

The Bible is the plumb line. Any word from God will be straight against it.

Test two — Character

Does what you heard sound like Jesus?

Jesus is the clearest revelation of who God is. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (John 14:9). So when an impression arrives, ask: does this sound like the Jesus of the gospels?

Jesus is kind without being weak. He is honest without being cruel. He is direct without being condemning. He tells hard truths in gentle ways and gentle truths with weight. If a word feels harsh, sneering, shaming, or panicked, that is not His voice. If it feels loving and truthful — that is a good sign.

Test three — Fruit

Will this word, acted on, produce fruit that looks like the Holy Spirit's?

Paul lists that fruit in Galatians 5:22-23 — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Words from God, even hard ones, tend to produce fruit. They lead to courage, to repentance, to hope, to action, to peace. They don't lead to fear, anxiety, pride, division, or paralysis.

If acting on this impression would produce life in you or someone else, that is a strong signal it is from God.

Test four — Community

Is there any witness from other believers?

This is the test we most often skip, and the one we most need. The spirits of prophets are subject to prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32). God does not expect you to navigate alone.

When you receive something significant, bring it to one or two trusted believers. Not for their approval. For their discernment. Sometimes they will confirm what you are sensing. Sometimes they will gently add something you missed. Sometimes they will flag that this might not be God at all.

Pride says, I don't need anyone else to test this. Humility says, I would rather be slowed down by the body than be wrong alone.

What testing is not

Testing is not doubt. Testing is not a lack of faith. Testing is not you being too scared to act.

Testing is the work of a mature believer who has learned that hearing God is not the same as never being wrong. It is a practice, not a performance.

And — crucially — testing happens before you speak the word, not after. If you think God gave you a word for someone else, test it privately before you say it publicly. It is far easier to hold a word back than to un-say it.

Some honest notes

A few things worth naming before the session.

Not every impression needs to be tested at a council meeting. If God says to you while you're on the bus, "text your sister today," you can just text her. Testing scales to consequence. The bigger the claim, the more testing it needs.
Some words take years to clarify. You may hear something at twenty-two that does not come fully true until you're forty. That does not mean it wasn't God. It means it was a long word. Course two is built around this.
You will sometimes get it wrong. Every honest prophetic person has. The shame-spiral that follows is almost always worse than the actual error. Apologise if necessary, learn, keep going. God is not scared of a growing learner. He is more interested in a growing learner than in a cautious one who never listens again.

The practice for this week

Bring one word you have received recently. It could be:

Something you heard in your own listening time.
Something another believer spoke over you.
An impression that keeps coming back.
Something from last week's identity exercise.

In the session, we will run it through the four tests together. This is not to humiliate anyone. It is to practice, as a group, what mature hearing actually looks like.

Before you come to the session

Write down the word or impression you will bring. One sentence if possible.
Try running it through the four tests on your own first. Which one feels hardest to apply?

Recognising vs Imagining