Day 148

“Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. ⁴ And the smoke of the incense ascended from the angel’s hand with the prayers of the saints before God.” Rev 8:3-4 NASB.

Does God still answer prayers the way he used to, like he did to Abraham? Early one morning Abraham was awakened by a voice that said, “Take your only son up to that hilltop north of you, …” What would you have done?

How did Abraham know that this strange request had come directly from God? I suspect that Abraham, in his long life, had done a lot of walking and talking with God. He had come to know the difference between his own inner feelings and God’s influence. Abraham had experimented by testing his impressions, and he had figured out when it was God speaking and when it was not.

Does God still speak to people today? I have experimented with the following process: Space does not allow me to put the whole story here, but once God impressed me to do something. I got too busy and never followed the impression. The person that I was impressed to follow up on committed suicide. The sense of my failure was over whelming. Since that time I have always followed impressions. If I am impressed to do something, call someone, visit someone, or write something, I will do it.  Sometimes it has been from my own mind other times it has been a divine appointment. I always pass any impressions I have through the filter of scripture, as far as I understand it, because the Holy Spirit will never work contrary to the word of God. These SMS Revelation Reflections are because I was impressed to follow a request from someone to do this. If the impression was from God, then He intended someone to be blessed – I know I have been in doing this. If you have been blessed (so far) then thank God, He set me to work on this.

Whether or not an impression is from God can be discerned by the results of trying out the impressions that come to us. My best “impressions” often come in prayer as I awake in the morning. Try it!