Be careful when asking the Holy Spirit for confirmation

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

- 1 John 4:1

Be careful when you ask the Holy Spirit for confirmation.

It’s important you actually have a relationship with God when you do this, and that you don’t take just any voice in your head as confirmation. Because some people say they asked the Holy Spirit for confirmation, and then feel certain about a situation. But someone else says they asked the Holy Spirit and they got a different confirmation.

So who’s right? Because both can’t be receiving answers from the same Holy Spirit. 

There are some people who say they asked the Holy Spirit and got confirmation, but they don’t read their bibles, they only pray when it’s convenient for them, and they don’t know their scriptures—and I don’t say this to condemn anyone, what I’m saying is that the closer you are to God, the clearer you can hear his voice and stronger your discernment is.

Going to church or serving on the worship team doesn’t mean you have a relationship with God, even witches can do that, under the guise of being a Christian. As Isaiah 29:13 tells us, “The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.’”

When you aren’t doing the things necessary to have a relationship with him, or if you’re not as close to him as you should be, it becomes harder to discern his voice from other voices around you, including those of the enemy. 

With the social media and technology we have, anyone can get on a platform and start preaching and prophesying whatever they want. These platforms are breeding grounds for false prophets. If you’re plugged into the current digital Christian landscape, especially on TikTok or YouTube, you’ve probably seen the abundance of doom-and-gloom prophecies, along with videos of every preacher under the sun getting called out for some deep, dark secret sin—regardless of whether they are actually guilty or not.

It’s all very overwhelming, but if you look through the comments of these videos, you can see so many believers eating up the chaos, the condemnation, and the confusion. Unnecessarily taking sides, boasting about how they knew someone was no good all along, or even wishing misfortune on others they deem less righteous instead of blessing them and praying for their repentance as the Bible calls us to do. I’ve been guilty of this in the past, and I’ve learned to distance myself from some of these spaces as a result.

Jesus warns us of this behavior in Matthew 24:10-12 - “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”

There is a similar word of caution in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

I am not saying that we shouldn’t ask the Holy Spirit for confirmation about things in our lives; I am saying we should build our discernment so that we can recognize his answer when we ask. So, in addition to asking for confirmation, also make sure you’re asking God to teach you how to hear him more clearly, to teach you how to read the scriptures, and to strengthen your discernment overall. Don’t ignore God for most of the week except Sundays but then when you need something, when you have a request, now you want God’s help. This doesn’t mean that God isn’t going to help you, but hearing the voice of God is like training a muscle. It requires consistency, it requires dedication to knowing and understanding the things of God, and it requires humility. 

God is a gentleman, he’s not going to force his will on you, but when you make the consistent effort to study his Word and listen to Him, you’ll hear him more clearly. And remember, whatever confirmation you get will never contradict the Word of God.