I totally agree. I would only add that it's so important to check "OUR OWN" lives and do our best to only offer encouragement to anyone we think is truthfully seeking, no matter how wrong they get it. Everybody is at different places in their walk with God. Something you may become convicted over may go unnoticed by someone else. God may have them under conviction about something he considers more important to them at this time.
I think it is so much more important for we as preachers to teach people how to hear from God for themselves, rather than telling them what God said.
I will have to respectfully disagree with that last statement. If someone doesn't know what God said, and believe it, then they will "hear" things they think are from God that aren't. Without the written word as a check or baseline, “feelings” can masquerade as the Holy Spirit. If what you think or feel is the Holy Spirit conflicts with scripture, then it isn’t the Holy Spirit speaking to you. I think it’s sort of like the Constitution: if a law conflicts with the Constitution, then it’s not a law that should be allowed to stand. If you substitute the words "in addition to" in place of "rather" in your statement, I would be more inclined to agree with you.
A lot of problems in churches and in society in general could be solved if feelings were replaced with facts.
Let me then add that a good part of teaching anyone to hear from God would also include reading scripture. I thought that would be a given. I'm not talking about going and sitting a cave and trying to hear from God.
You cannot however place an unhealthy emphasis on scripture, as in an attitude of, "I have to learn scripture to know what God wants me to do." If you take that approach, you will always be living your life based on what God told someone else. You will end up like the Pharisees, who placed the written word of their time, "the law" above the man for whom the law was intended to help.
I mean honestly, if you see someone in need that you could truly help, without being an un dew burden to yourself, do you need to know the scripture concerning that to act? Don't you know in your heart what to do? isn't this the end goal?
Hebrews 8:10-11
New International Version
10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
