Three years ago, I completed the magazine edition “Discipleship & Deliverance” (cover photo attached). At the time, God was waking me up in the early morning hours every day to focus on the work. While I love to be completely immersed in God’s efforts to help this generation, He was pushing me very hard to get it exactly right and on a quick timeline. My thought at the time was that there was someone who needed a “NOW” word from God on the subject. Only 10 copies were printed, though, and I never received any feedback from those who received the copies. I did, however, post pages online regularly but would have no way of knowing for sure who or how many saw the pages through social media sites.

Now, please understand, deliverance is a topic that requires great confidentiality. The devil would love to destroy the credibility of anyone who undergoes the process of turning from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Deliverance is about restoring a broken covenant relationship.

This morning, God and I talked while I ate breakfast in my van down by the river, again. He had me take notes on my phone so that I would remember specifics about the conversation. Here is what I recorded:

(For context: I asked the Lord what was His favorite thing about me. He answered that my “faithfulness” was beautiful. There was a quick discussion about how faith and faithfulness were not the same thing. While I have great faith, it was loyalty that He was addressing.)

Faithfulness means that you don’t need to second guess everything because you have an immediate attitude of obedience. But that doubtless loyalty only comes when you are sure that you are hearing God’s voice. Once you know God’s voice (from the voice of the enemy), it is much easier to move forward without doubt. This is why learning to discern God’s voice with precision is so important and why relationship is not the same as religion. It’s why false teachers need to learn to recognize the voice of God clearly so that they can change their teaching to true doctrine.

God doesn’t have a problem with as many questions as necessary for you to have confidence in following His direction. He constantly knows your heart so you might as well reveal your doubts when you have them. But that conversation does not let you off the hook for obedience. You cannot be loyal without obedience.