One More Time, Yeshua...
How do you know, test, to discern IF it was from the Holy Spirit or another spirit?
First let me say I noticed that you're from metro-Detroit. I was born and raised in Detroit before moving to California whe I was 10 years old. I have many fond memories of Detroit. Everything from White Castle Burgers to Hudson Christmas Parade to Boblo Island, to fishing fith my dad's father on Lake Huron. And I loved the Tigers and Lions! Still follow both teams and root for them when the opportunity comes about.
My mothers father was CEO of Champion spark Plugs, and the rest of the family worked in the auto indutry there.
To answer your question, let me say that I have NO problem discerning the difference between the Spirit of God and something or someone else.
Secondly, my testimony is lengthy, and cumbersome, and while I certainly don't want to seel books on the forum, the only way you could fully appreciate my words would be to "buy yhe book."
Unfortunately, because the publisher I was has recently been found out to be behind the cult church Sound Doctrine, and their VP was arrested and stands accused of sexually molesting a girl in his care, I decided to remove both of my books from them, and I am going to have to revise the book and put it with Create Space Publishing [Amazon] as soon as I have time to do the work needed to put out a second edition.
I do have a few copies of the book at my home, and if you'd like to read it, maybe we can work out something, with you paying for shipping and handling.
To be honest, the book is my testimony, and it clearly details what God took me through, and what I took Him through, and through it all, I've more than proved to myself that what He put me through was of Him, not emotions, or demonic. Only God could have accomplished the many things in my life that I've been through since the night of my supernatural event and calling.
However, I will tell you, I have tested God. I didn't believe any of the things I experienced and went through. I was like Jonah. I was reluctant, and rebellious, but when all the questions and lack of trust gave way to believing, I saw that it was of Him [not me, or something or someone else].
To begin with, I was one of the several pastors which moved to have a spirit-filled pastor removed from our conference when he began speaking of the gifts. I was that hard headed and boxed in by my theology. As I look back now, I was like a Paul. I went after those spirit-filled fakes with all the gumption I had in me. I also went after people who were divorced and remarried.
Let's just say, God has a funny sense of humor. Ten years after my marriage, my wife left me for the adventure of being "wild." Something she says she never got to do before she married me. That cost me my ministry in the Church of God-Anderson, Indiana. This led me to a local Baptist church, where I became the youth pastor.
I always believed in the "Once saved, always saved" teachings [something the COG-Anderson didn't hold to]. After that youth pastor job, I hooked as music minister and associate pastor at another Baptist church, and two years later I was ordained.
I still hadn't come in contact with the Holy Ghost, and the gifts until I had a life-changing event. The event involved me being in the wrong place at the right time. I ran into a prophet, and let's just say that God revealed Himself in a mighty way. I could no longer deny that God still gave out gifts to His people. And even though I argued with God for a while longer, God began to show me that if I insisted on preaching in my own intellect, I was on my own.
The sermons, I gave, which were once considered some of the best, were flat, and lacked any form of energy or connection with both God and His people.
Once I tossed the prepared sermon's notes, and went with prayerful study and leaned on God to take me in the direction of the way He wanted me to preach when taking the pulpit, I found a new strength and boldness to preach from and out of the Holy Ghost. It was a wonderful freedom, and people were being touched in ways I could only have dreamed and hoped to see have happened.
I tinkered with returning to prepared notes, but each time I did; I felt lost and alone behind the pulpit. God didn't want me to preach what I thought I heard Him tell me to preach. He only wanted my heart prepared to preach, and most of the days; the sermons came as I stepped up to the pulpit, surveyed the crowd, and allowed my spirit to come in touch with His. It was like God was using me to be a vessel through which He did the speaking.
I could no longer take credit for the contents of the messages. Oh, sure, people would tell me what a great message I had, but I could only respond that it was God, not me! And it was Him, not me.
I learned to operate under the here and now of His Spirit, which has taught me to be relevant and not necessarily studied and merely repeating intellectual hype. People were actually hearing a word from God, and I was merely the empty vessel that He filled right before it was time to pour out the blessing in order to water and feed His flock.
If this is hard to understand, so be it. Because it is still hard for me to fully comprehend, but I'd never go back to spew well thought out messages, studied and put together after much book time and prayer.
I don't expect other preachers to move this way; however, because I am sure, Iconoclast for one, can preach up a storm from his intellectual preparations, and be able to touch people as well as me.
What I have discovered is that God works in many ways. Not, one way or another. However, in MANY ways. And my way is but one of those ways. It is not better than another, but it is also not less than anothers, either.
I told you this was going to be long, and this doesn't cover all I should share. But there's a lot to share after 46 years of living for Him!
Shalom!