Addicted to Personal Revelations

How can we keep Christians from becoming addicted to the idea that God is directly talking to them? And I mean that as in, God is saying in their ear, "Buy that blue dress!", or, "You will take a boat trip to Guatemala next fall."

First is to recognize that the gripping appeal of this addiction is pride. In the book of Colossians, Paul tells the Christians to ignore "prophets" whose sensuous minds were puffed up by visions they claim to have seen (Colossians 2:18).  An immature Christian becomes addicted to the sensuous pride attached to imagining that she is a prophetess. Or sometimes they become addicted to the pride that comes from following someone they think is a prophet. For instance, a Christian can become proud because she thinks her pastor "hears from God" better than any other pastor, and some of that glory rubs off on her by being his disciple.

The Bible is boring to the proud, sensuous heart. It's boring, because it is for everyone. Anyone can flip open a Bible and study it.  Anyone can open to a verse and study it. You don't become special by doing that! But if God talks to me individually and directly, ahhhh, then that makes me better. That places me apart from everybody else. It stokes the fires of monstrous pride.

I am not talking about divine guidance, or even true dreams and visions. I believe God still gives dreams and visions, but only if He sees it is needed -- not because of some special mentality we adopt or some unusual kind of prayer we pray. I am talking about an immature Christian's imagining that every flitting thought in his head is a direct message from God. 

A true message from God, in the sense of a dream, vision, or prophesy, always obeys the written word of God. It is always supported by reality: when the angel told Cornelius he would find Peter in Joppa, Cornelius found Peter in Joppa (Acts 10). True visions promote faith, worship, and moral obedience to God in the life of the person who received it. They were never about frivolous things, and certainly aren't given to turn someone into a celebrity. Usually rue prophets were persecuted, not publicized.

God's guidance never encourages pride, sensuality, or an insouciant attitude toward the Bible. So, if you know a Christian who is constantly twittering about a little divine bird in his or her head, pray for them to grow out of their pride. Teach them about Biblical authority, and the Scripture standards of true discernment, so they can see the difference between the Spirit of God and their own imagination.