The Bread of Life
Daily Devotionals - Prayers - Spiritual Growth - Words of Wisdom
 

Today' Devotional.

How To Discern False Teachers (Mathew 7:15-20)

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” (Mathew 7:15-20.)

The devil is a lier and the father of lies. 
He is full of pride and all his goal is to fight God’s children on earth and take them from their creator, Lord, and savior. 
He always deceives and comes in the form of an angel of light to deceive people into believing him. 
He tries to deceive people by imitating what is God’s, and those who are not united with God can be easily deceived. 
The Holy Spirit helps us to discern bad spirits. 
So if we are not in unity with our Lord in the Holy Spirit we can easily fall in the trap of fake spirits. 
Jesus, our Lord and Savior, is firmly warning us of false teachers and prophets. 
They can come in sheep’ clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 
They disguise themselves as true followers of Christ. 
Jesus said that He is the good shepherd. 
And the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 
But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 
The sheep knows the voice of their good shepherd and they never get deceived by the wolf imitating the voice of their shepherd. 
How can we discern the false teachers? Jesus gave us the answer, from their fruit we know them. 
Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 
The false teachers will lack the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that is evident in their character and discernment of the truth. 
Their lives do not exhibit the fruits of the Spirit.
They talk so good but their lives shows something different. 
The fruit of the Spirit is true love, kindness, gentleness, patience, humility, etc. 
False teachers seek to elevate their own name and position over that of their spiritual fathers and even over the Lord, Jesus Christ. 
They are always jealous of other priests or teachers and are always in competition with them. 
They try to imitate them instead of honoring them. 
They never say like St. John the Baptist, Jesus must increase and I decrease. 
Their priority is the increase of people following them, than people’s lives change and be true believers of Jesus. 
In St. Paul’s first epistle to his disciple Timothy, we have a list of qualification of a true minister of Christ, whether he is a teacher,  a priest or a bishop.
He must be blameless, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, etc. 
The most important attribute of a believer of Jesus, is love. 
We, the believers in Jesus Christ, not only teachers and priests, must love each other to show Jesus’ love to all the world. 
Amen.

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